A Chef's Guide to Cooking at Home

There's nothing quite like a home-cooked meal. Childhood memories of mom's chicken noodle soup or nana's chocolate sheet cake - certain foods, their taste and smell evoke memories and take us back in time. There is something so satisfying about cooking and baking for the people I love, passing on good vibes and creating a treasure chest of food memories to have forever.

The benefits of home cooking are clear - a recent study suggests that people who cook at home frequently eat healthier and consume fewer calories than those who cook less and eat out regularly. For families, cooking at home can translate into time to both prepare and create meals together; an enjoyable experience to be shared with loved ones.

For busy parents, cooking can be a daily ritual that allows for quality bonding time, while also carrying out a task that needs to be completed - two birds, one stone. Furthermore, according to a Cornell article in their Parenting in Context series, children who participate in family mealtime are 12% less likely to be overweight and more likely to eat healthy foods, succeed academically, and have improved mental health. Despite the numerous health benefits of home cooking, many Americans struggle to take on the task.

Key Ingredient, a free online cookbook system with more than 1 million subscribers, was created to simplify and streamline the experience of preparing homemade meals. In 2014, a random sample of Key Ingredient users (2,287 responses), found that only 22% of participants actually cooked these recipes after saving them to their Key Ingredient Cookbooks. Why aren't more people cooking at home?

Safety First

Richard Ingraham, private chef for the Miami Heat's Dwyane Wade, had some tips for cooks to keep all of their fingers as he taught a hands-on, jazzed up shrimp and grits class with his infectious positive energy. Our Common Threads kiddos swarm him every time he walks into the kitchen with total devotion and pay complete attention to him in class.


1. Keep your knives sharpened, because dull knives can be dangerous. To those of you new to this classic kitchen caveat--this may seem like a contradiction, but, because dull knives can often resist our chopping and slicing efforts, their use can lead to knife slippage that could potentially catch some skin.

2. When using a cutting board, keep a wet towel underneath. This will keep the board in place and protect your beautifully chopped fruits, veggies, and lean meats from ornamenting the floor.

3. If a knife should fall, let it drop. Do not try to catch it. As the old saying wisely warns, "A falling knife has no handle."

4. Keep your knives separate from other pans and dishes in the sink. This easy tip can protect you from the misfortune of grabbing (a now perfectly sharpened) knife hidden beneath the dirty dishes.

5. When done washing do not dry your pots and pans manually. Letting them air dry prevents cross-contamination.

Gooseberry trifle with cassis and elderflower recipes

Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin

I use cassis, the blackcurrant liqueur, to soak the sponge biscuit base of this trifle, but you could use something more traditional if that is what you have. A medium dry sherry perhaps, or sweet white wine or marsala.

Serves 4
amaretti or sponge fingers 100g
creme de cassis 125ml
dessert gooseberries 300g
water 75ml
double cream 230ml
elderflower cordial 1 tbsp

To finish
dessert gooseberries 150g
elderflower cordial 2 tbsp

Unwrap and crumble the amaretti into large, rough pieces, pushing them into the base of a deep 20cm dish. Spoon over the creme de cassis, pressing the amaretti down so they soak up as much as possible. If you are using sponge fingers then break them into short lengths and trickle the creme de cassis over.

Place a large mixing bowl in the fridge to chill. You will need it for whipping the cream later.

Top and tail the 300g of gooseberries and put them in a stainless steel saucepan with the water. You need no sugar. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and let them cook down to an opaque, pink-green slush.

Tip the gooseberries over the amaretti base and smooth over the surface with a spoon. Cool, then refrigerate.

Pour the cream into the chilled bowl and whisk until thick, stopping well before it can stand in peaks; the cream should barely hold its shape. Fold in the elderflower cordial and refrigerate.

To decorate, top and tail the remaining gooseberries and slice them in half. Put them in a small pan, add the elderflower cordial and warm over a moderate heat. As soon as the berries become opaque, and before they collapse, take them off the heat and allow to cool.

Spoon the elderflower cream over the gooseberry layer in the trifle bowl, smooth it flat then arrange the cooked gooseberries on top. Spoon over the elderflower cooking syrup from the gooseberries, and leave for a good hour in the fridge before serving.

The secret to cooking with onions

 Some of our most common vegetables are persistently underestimated. If you ever find yourself longing to cook a “good” vegetable, but there isn’t much in sight, get a deep pot and dig 8 to 10 plain, big, boring, dusty onions from your pantry, or the cold, dark onion bin at your nearest store. Then caramelise them.
                 

                 
 Cut off their tops, then cut them in half through their roots, then lengthwise into slices about a 5mm thick. Warm 3 tbsp butter and 3 tbsp olive oil in a big pot. When the butter is melted, add the mountain of onions, a small pinch of sugar, a big pinch of salt and a branch of fresh thyme, and stir it well. Cook the onions over a medium-low heat, stirring them occasionally.

 Add occasional sprinkles of water if the onions begin to stick. If they start to sizzle, lower the heat and cover the pot, then uncover it when the cooking has slowed.

 The cooking process will take around 45-60 minutes, and the whole mass will look soggy and unconvincing until right before the onions are done, at which point they melt completely into a golden jam and all of their sugars come out to toast.

 Now you have a perfect vegetable base for a series of dishes. If it’s cold out, make soup. Our expectations of onion soup are as dingy as our expectations of onions themselves, but there is no better varnishing of either than the fine and heady humbleness of a good recipe.

 In Nice, and all around the Ligurian sea, the same onions are spread on very flat pizzas, then sprinkled with fresh thyme, criss-crossed with anchovies, and dotted with tiny niçoise olives. The onions and anchovies get gloriously sweet and golden when the pies are baked. Or make omelettes and fill their centres with a spoonful of sour cream, caramelised onions and some toasted caraway seeds.

Yotam Ottolenghi's polenta recipes

Yotam Ottolenghi's grilled green polenta: One of the great quick store-cupboard standbys gets a tasty makeover. Photograph: Colin Campbell for the Guardia

Of all the dry store cupboard ingredients, quick-cook polenta makes the fastest meal. But remember that polenta needs plenty of enhancements – butter, cheese, olive oil – to turn on its soft and soothing charm.

Grilled green polenta (V)

This rich dish needs a simple, sharp salad. Later in the year, try diced tomatoes very lightly dressed with olive oil and red-wine vinegar instead of this rocket salad. Serves six.

40g basil
20g parsley
20g rocket
10g tarragon
1 clove garlic, crushed
70ml olive oil, plus extra for greasing
600ml water
150g quick-cook polenta
70g parmesan (or other mature hard cheese), grated
70g unsalted butter
Salt and black pepper
100g ricotta
For the salad
100g rocket
250g cherry tomatoes, halved
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice 

Put all the herbs, the crushed garlic and the olive oil in a food processor, blitz to a paste and set aside.

In a large pan, bring the water to a boil, pour in the polenta and stir continuously until cooked, three to four minutes. (You may need a touch more water to make it more spreadable.) Fold in the parmesan, butter, a teaspoon of salt, some black pepper and the herb paste. Now fold in the ricotta – swirl this through, rather than mixing in uniformly. Adjust the seasoning to taste.

With a palette knife, spread the polenta in a 22cm by 22cm baking tray lightly greased with olive oil. (Wet the knife with cold water to stop the polenta sticking.) Leave for 30 minutes to cool and set.

Heat the grill. Cut the polenta into six and space on a baking tray. Grill for eight minutes, until it takes on some colour. Mix the salad and season lightly. Serve a piece of polenta with some salad alongside.

Asparagus with polenta (V)

The two cheeses add complexity, but you could use just one, albeit doubling the quantity. Serves four.

16 asparagus spears
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and black pepper
30g walnuts, roughly chopped
½ garlic clove, crushed
100g quick-cook polenta
20g unsalted butter
20g parmesan (or other mature hard cheese), grated
20g stilton (or other blue cheese), crumbled
Grated zest of 1 lemon plus 2 tsp lemon juice
40g soured cream
1 tbsp chopped parsley

Bring a large pan of water to a boil, blanch the asparagus for two minutes, drain and refresh in cold water. Pat dry, gently toss in olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat a heavy frying pan and chargrill the asparagus spears for two minutes, turning once, so they colour all over. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Mix the walnuts with the garlic and set aside.

Pour half a litre of water into a medium saucepan, bring to a boil, then pour in the polenta. Stir constantly on very low heat until cooked, about three minutes. Add the butter, parmesan, stilton and half the lemon zest, and stir until the cheese and butter melt in. (You may need to add a little water to bring the polenta to pouring consistency.) Stir in half a teaspoon of salt, or to taste, and some black pepper.
To serve, spoon a dollop of polenta on to each plate, followed by two teaspoons of soured cream. Lean four spears of asparagus on the polenta. Sprinkle over the garlic walnuts, followed by the remaining zest, a drizzle of lemon juice and the parsley. Serve straight away.

• Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi in London.