Faith Middleton's Food Schmooze: Seared To Perfection

That deep golden brown, slightly crisp surface and succulent, tender interior are the qualities of a perfectly cooked steak, chop, chicken breast, or fish fillet at a fine restaurant. You try to duplicate the recipe at home, but the flavors just aren’t as rich, the textures just not quite as appealing. What do professional chefs know that you don’t?

The answer is searing, and it’s shockingly easy to do it at home. Learn to sear, and you can create restaurant-quality dishes in your own kitchen. It’s a must-have skill for all meat and seafood lovers, since it will enable you to coax the maximum flavor from each morsel of food.

Searing requires very little prep or cooking time, very few ingredients and tools, and very little effort to turn out unbelievably impressive dishes. In 15 to 20 minutes, you can put together a fantastic meal. And that’s what Seared to Perfection is all about.

Cooking instructor Lucy Vaserfirer covers all the basics of this cooking technique in her introduction, including how to select ingredients and cookware. And then come the approximately 100 recipes, whose titles speak for themselves: Steak au Poivre with Red Wine Sauce. Flatiron Steaks with Sautéed Mushrooms. Brined Pork Chops. Duck Breasts with Blackberry-Port Sauce. Salmon Fillets with Green Peppercorn Sauce. And much, much more.

(Harvard Common Press)