The kitchen playbook

and a recipe for Jacques and Julia's Mediterranean seafood soup with rouille

To everyone new here, welcome. I’m Elizabeth, the writer of The Delicious Bits Dispatch, a weekly missive for the curious, blending discovery, reflection, and musings, always wrapped up with a seasonal recipe worth lingering over.

In cooking, as with any science, there are rules of nature that bear following.

The rules usually based on chemistry. Eggs will curdle in a sauce if you cook them over high heat. Brown sugar becomes hard if not kept in an airtight container. Kneading dough forms gluten, essential for an excellent loaf of bread. You can freeze eggs but not milk. And salting your water while cooking pasta really is a good idea.

But unless you’ve gone to culinary school or spent time in a professional kitchen, the things we learn in the kitchen come over time, slowly and with trial and error. Most often, they come from our childhood kitchens. The “right” way to do something may be nothing more than a preference or a habit that our cooking parents taught us, and that we’ve made our own.

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.

―Pablo Picasso

Things become particularly heated when it comes to cult favourites. Don’t ask two Romans for the “right” way to make bucatini all’amatriciana. The debate could go on for hours about whether or not pancetta is an acceptable substitute for guanciale, if onions should be used, whether to cook the sugo with white wine. You’ll never get consensus. Substitute paella, chicken adobo, shepherd’s pie for the pasta, throw the gauntlet down between two aficionados and watch the dishes fly.

Yet, the luxury of rules comes from having all the right ingredients on hand…and isn’t that counterintuitive to how the best of these dishes were created in the first place? From la cucina povera in Italy, cocina de aprovechamiento in Spain, prosta kuchnia in Poland, and mottainai in Japan, cultural cuisines and signature dishes were often born in improvised moments.

That’s because cooking—and food itself—is a most generous teacher. With an open mind and a curious palate, even the most seasoned cook can learn something new, no matter if you are an amateur in your home kitchen or a professional. With curiosity comes flexibility.

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.

—Charles E. Schaefer, American psychologist

Cooking, at its best, is a form of play: an experiment, a conversation, a willingness to try something just to see what happens. It invites improvisation and rewards curiosity, asking us to engage with our senses and with one another. The kitchen becomes a place where rules are tested, ideas are shared, and discovery is constant.

Enter Jacques Pepin and Julia Child.

Separately Jacques and Julia are culinary icons. Together, they had a beautiful friendship of mutual love, respect, shared passions, and yes, heated debates. Watch any episode of Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, the well-loved and iconic PBS series that first ran in 1999, and you see the intense curiosity and interest in what each has to teach the other.

After a lifetime of cooking and creating, they demonstrated in their uniquely warm and approachable way that cooking is a journey, never a final destination. At the heart of each interaction, there is a spirit of play, each knowing there’s a rulebook to follow, and that the real fun comes when the experimenting starts.

The companion cookbook is one of my favourite gifts from my husband, and my signed first edition holds special pride of place on my shelf. Reading it is like eavesdropping on a conversation between two best friends, who invite you to pull up a seat to the table. Always instructive, interesting and with variations to try for every dish, it’s a book that holds infinitely more than a collection of recipes. The reader is invited to come along for the fun, and play in the kitchen.

The cover of my beloved cookbook. I love the photos of these experienced hands at work creating magic.

More than that, it’s a reminder that an original recipe is like a pebble. Dropping it into a pond creates ripples worth exploring. And while every variation may not be to your liking, it may be a welcome reminder that there are many ways to be right in the kitchen.

If you’re enjoying these Dispatches, clicking the❤️, sharing the post, or letting me know what you think helps more readers find their way here.

Mediterranean seafood soup with rouille

from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home

serves 6

This recipe may look a little daunting at first, with its long list of ingredients and many steps. But just take 10 minutes to watch this video of Jacques and Julia making the soup, and you’ll see that at its heart, this is an easy, infinitely flexible recipe. More of this, less of that, potatoes instead of fish: Jacques and Julia always remind us that there is no one right way, but the way that works best for you.

For the soup

1½ pounds fish fillets, a mixture of two or three different types of fish (you may skin them if you wish)

1½ pounds small clams (little necks or cherry stones)

½ pound scallops

3 tablespoons olive oil

1½ cups chopped onions

1 cup thinly sliced scallions, white and green parts

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

2 cups fresh or canned tomatoes, chopped into chunks (reserve any juices and no need to seed)

1 cup white wine

4 cups fish stock

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

1 teaspoon saffron threads

1½ tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon

For the rouille

1 slice firm homestyle white bread

2 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced

1 small potato, peeled, cooked and cut into quarters

¼ cup chopped roasted red peppers from a jar

¼ cup broth from the soup base

Salt and pepper to taste

Pinch of cayenne

1 cup olive oil

For serving

1 baguette, sliced and toasted

Make the soup base

1. Cut the fish into even chunks about an inch thick. Scrub the clams and rinse both the clams and the scallops to remove any sand.

2. In a large stock pot or sauce pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions, scallions and garlic and cook until soft, about five minutes.

3. Add the tomatoes and their juices, wine and fish stock, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then simmer briskly for 10 to 15 minutes, with the pot partially covered.

Make the rouille

While the soup is simmering, make the rouille.

1. Tear the bread slice into pieces and put the pieces in a food processor with the minced garlic and potato. Process until very finally chopped.

2. Add the red peppers, ¼ cup of broth from the soup base, and season lightly with salt, pepper and a pinch of cayenne. Process until completely smooth.

3. With the machine running, pour in the olive oil in a slow steady stream, taking about half a minute or more so that an emulsion forms. Process until completely smooth; taste and adjust seasoning. Place the rouille in a small bowl and set aside.

Continue with the soup

Bring the soup base to a boil and add the clams and the saffron. Cook for about two minutes. Add the fish and scallops, return to a gentle boil and cook for 2 to 3 minutes just until the fish pieces are cooked through and opaque and all the clams have opened. Stir in the tarragon, taste and adjust the seasonings for the final time.

To serve

Spoon some rouille on half the toasted baguette slices. Ladle the soup into large soup bowls and serve the croutons beside or on top of the soup, with the extra croutons and rouille alongside.

If you’re drawn to discovery, reflection and the shared experience of food, subscribe to The Delicious Bits Dispatch. You’ll feel right at home with this weekly newsletter that finds magic in the beautiful details of everyday life.

Sources

Charles E. Schaefer, When Children Play: The Story of Right-Brain Development, New York: Play Therapy Press, 1993