All That Jazz

Improvisational chefs are enviable for the same reasons as jazz musicians — both can improvise effortlessly and simply wait for the applause that follows. When faced with the luscious bounty of a farmer’s market, or the blank canvas of an organic chicken, they bebop their way to a meal that makes the most of their ingredients, often in wildly creative, unexpected ways..For most home cooks, though, that kind of improvisation can often seem as unattainable as pulling off a Miles Davis solo. When faced with the task of cooking dinner, most people will reach for a cookbook, or rely on a handful of go-to recipes that they know by heart and can cook with their eyes closed. Cookbook author and Food & Wine columnist Sally Schneider aims to change that. In her new book, “The Improvisational Cook” (Morrow, $34.95), she skillfully shows how anyone can learn to improvise a dish, given the right tools and inspiration.But how can a cookbook teach you how, well, not to need a cookbook? Simple.You get to watch Ms. Schneider in action, spinning a basic recipe like celery root, parsnip, and yellow beet slaw into dishes like warm smoky cabbage slaw with cracklings and croutons, or dandelion, pea shoot, and herb slaw.But Ms. Schneider does more than just show off her enviable culinary instincts.As in the best master classes, she explains the logic behind her creative leaps. What types of vegetables make the best slaw. How to slice them. The possibilities for embellishment: nuts, apples, even citrus zest. And the dressing: Shall it be a creamy American-style slaw with mayo, sour cream, or buttermilk? Or a more European dressing of olive or nut oil and fine aged vinegar? By outlining the possibilities, Ms. Schneider illuminates dozens of paths of improvisation — and it’s a pleasure, not a burden, to pick a fresh road to travel.Simply put, “The Improvisational Cook” is one of the best cookbooks of the year. Ms. Schneider is a remarkably articulate and sensual food writer, and a fat book of her crystal-clear explanations and creative insights is a true treat. (Her last book, “A New Way to Cook,” was equally formidable in size and scope).Ironically enough, it might just be our current culinary sophistication that makes a book like “The Improvisational Cook” so necessary. Once upon a time, home cooks mastered just one cuisine — the cuisine of their parents and grandparents — and cooked every day. Deep familiarity with a limited palette of ingredients and techniques naturally led to improvisation, and new recipes were born. But nowadays, when our pantries are crowded with garam masala and green curry paste, when we bounce from a Japanese one night to Spanish the next, it’s easy to lose sight of all the basic strategies to bring out the best in our ingredients. The result: We often improvise without a roadmap, and do silly things to our food. I once watched a friend add curry powder to matzo ball soup.Ms. Schneider understands that we need to master the basics before we can begin to play with them. She begins each chapter by exploring a simple recipe that would fit in any home cook’s repertoire — recipes like caramelized onions, poached chicken, bean stew, cheese crisps, brownie batter, boozy prunes. “Once you understand how a basic ingredient or technique works, you can start to improvise on it,” Ms. Schneider rightly points out.There’s no single roadmap to improvisation. The first section of the book offers savvy strategies for accessing culinary creativity. This section also includes the only photography in the book, unfortunately — stunning shots from Maria Robledo.Some of the chapters that follow demonstrate how to spin a basic recipe into different guises.Roasted red peppers can be blended into Romesco sauce or chopped up for bruschette, while rhubarb that’s been cooked in a syrup can become a rhubarb tart or rhubarb lemonade. Other times, Ms. Schneider points out how to adapt a technique, moving from brick-fried chicken to brickfried guinea hen and quail, or exploring the possibilities of homemade herb- and spice-infused salts. Her recipes are so simple and her logic so crystal-clear that improvising becomes seductive rather than scary.And once you master the art of improvising, you might come up with ideas to rival Ms. Schneider’s, like making slippery, oniony noodles from sliced braised leeks and dressing them with crème fraîche and hazelnut oil, or sprinkling unsweetened French toast with sea salt and dipping it into maple syrup to evoke the taste of sea-salt caramels. In the meantime, though, “The Improvisational Cook” is a brilliant invitation to to play with your food.

All That Jazz

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