Sara Moulton: A passion for teaching

There she is, America’s sweetheart chef-instructor, fixing a tidy pizza in her kitchen. Black flip-flops and no makeup, the signature blond ponytail working for her at age 64. Explaining and doing and smiling all at once, just as she has done on the small screen for decades.

You’ve been missed, Sara Moulton.

The statement baffles her. It was prompted by a reporter’s casual survey of millennials who cook and call themselves fans. Sample comment: “Is she still around?”

It seems unlikely that Moulton could fly below anybody’s culinary radar in America. A star protegee of Julia Child, she appeared on Food Network for almost a decade starting in the 1990s, was a regular on ABC’s “Good Morning America” from 1997 through 2012 and has starred in five seasons of the American Public Television series “Sara’s Weeknight Meals,” which airs across 93 percent of the country, plus Guam. She was, of course, during some of those years also running the executive dining room at Gourmet magazine.

That PBS audience skews older; she’s not crushing it on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

But Moulton’s reach extends via print: a weekly syndicated newspaper column she has written since 2012 and four cookbooks, the most recent of which is “Sara Moulton’s Home Cooking 101: How to Make Everything Taste Better” (Oxmoor House, 2016). It is her most personal one, she says, and was so tough to finish that she may never do another.

“I could so use six months off from cooking right now,” she says.

Who in the food world admits that? Is that really you, Sara?

“She’s exactly the same person on television that she is in person,” says Moulton’s friend Elizabeth Karmel, a chef and food writer who left Hill Country Barbecue Market in New York a year ago to pursue her own projects. “Sara does her own research; she’s not regurgitating. She’s going to tell you the easiest way to do something. She hasn’t gone away.”

Know her from TV

Moulton says: “A lot of young people who were 8 or 9 when I was on ‘Cooking Live’ have continued to cook, I know,” referring to her Food Network show, which ran until 2005. “They tell me they remember watching.”

In early March, one of them invited her to dine at his restaurant. “I saw that she’d be in town for the housewares show,” says Lee Wolen, executive chef and partner of Boka in Chicago. “She came back in the kitchen afterward, and we talked for quite a while. She was cool.”

Moulton has been kitchen-trained just about every way a person can be. She grew up in New York with a mother who was an adventurous home cook and threw lots of dinner parties. Young Sara became her sous-chef, rising to unofficial head cook on Sunday nights, when family members fended for themselves. Mother noted how daughter repurposed party leftovers.

It wasn’t until Moulton found herself “happily slinging burgers in a bar” part time while she studied at the University of Michigan that her mother began steering her toward proper chefdom, via letters seeking advice from Craig Claiborne and Julia Child. The New York Times food editor wrote back and recommended enrolling Sara in the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. She graduated from there in 1977.

Moulton says her work has “been heaven ever since,” which is fairly gracious considering her yearlong apprenticeship with a tyrannical chef — at the urging of mentor Child. Her work has also included seven years in restaurant kitchens and getting dumped by Food Network, which took three years to build her a set of her own (“the boys got theirs faster”) and barely acknowledged the challenges of “Cooking Live Primetime” (1999) four nights a week.

Those 1,200 hourlong “Live” shows ran for a total of six years and were themed, often along the lines of ingredients. That helped her to research and prepare each day. Dinner came together on the set while Moulton chopped and dropped and broiled things, sometimes till burnt. Always smiling. Viewers called in with questions as they cooked along.

“Once, early on, someone asked me what the difference was between golden and black raisins — it has to do with how they are dehydrated — and I gave an answer that was incorrect. I went back on the air next time and corrected myself. From then on, if I didn’t know about something, I’d say, ‘I’ll get back to you’ … I never once sauteed like I was taught in chef school,” tossing the ingredients high with a flick of the wrist. “I didn’t want what I was doing to look intimidating.”

Lessons learned

She takes credit for helping to introduce panko, chipotles in adobo and fish spatulas to the cooking public. What she liked best, she recalls, was when a viewer would call in and teach her something new.

In 1984, in multiple-job mode, Moulton signed on as an instructor at the Peter Kump Cooking School, now the Institute of Culinary Education. “Peter Kump was an unsung hero,” she says. “I found out I was truly good at teaching there. When I was young I used to tutor second- and third-graders. You know what? Teaching adults is absolutely the same thing as teaching kids.”

Moulton had witnessed a mission to teach during the filming of the public television series “Julia Child and More Company” in 1979.

Lessons learned at Child’s elbow have become Moulton’s mantra for chefs on TV: Smile, always. Don’t forget to make the food look delicious.

Salmon Baked in a Bag With Citrus, Olives and Chilies

4 servings.

Here are two reasons why fish “en papillote,” aka fish in a bag, works so well: The juices of the fish mingle with the other components enclosed to create a light, flavorful sauce; and cooking odors are much reduced and/or eliminated because the bag is sealed. The technique typically is used to cook individual portions, but it offers the flexibility to go big.

Adapted from “Sara Moulton’s Home Cooking 101.”

1 small orange, sliced very thin, plus 2 tablespoons fresh juice

1 small lemon, sliced very thin, plus 2 tablespoons fresh juice

Four 4-to-5-ounce skinless center-cut salmon fillet pieces

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup fresh rosemary, chopped

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup olives, preferably oil-cured, pitted and chopped

1 small serrano pepper, sliced thin crosswise, seeded if desired

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a large piece of parchment paper, 24 inches long and 13 inches wide, on a baking sheet. Bring the two long ends together and make a crease in the middle. Open the paper; put the right half of the parchment on top of the baking sheet (letting the left half hang off). Arrange half of the citrus slices on the parchment.

Season the salmon lightly on both sides with salt and pepper. Sprinkle half of the rosemary on top of the citrus, then arrange the 4 pieces of salmon on top. Drizzle the citrus juices and oil over the fish, then evenly distribute the chopped olives and sliced serrano pepper. Top each fillet with the remaining rosemary and orange and lemon slices.

Bring the left half of the parchment up and over the salmon to completely cover it. Starting at the top left of the parchment package, make ¼-inch folds all around the perimeter, pressing to crimp and seal, until you have completely encased the salmon.

Bake the enclosed salmon on the baking sheet (middle rack) for 12 to 14 minutes, until it is just cooked through. (You can stick a knife through the parchment into the salmon. If it goes in easily, the fish is done.)

Cut open the parchment, knock off the citrus slices and transfer the salmon pieces to each of the 4 plates. Spoon some of the olives, serrano pepper slices, rosemary and juices from the parchment over each piece. Serve right away.

Nutrition Per serving: 250 calories, 23 g protein, 5 g carbohydrates, 16 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 60 mg cholesterol, 190 mg sodium, 1 g dietary fiber, 1 g sugar

Creamsicle Pudding Cake

6 servings

Sara Moulton, this dish’s creator, called it: This is a moist cake with big, booming flavors of orange and vanilla, combining two of her favorite desserts.

Adapted from “Sara Moulton’s Home Cooking 101: How To Make Everything Taste Better,” by Sara Moulton (Oxmoor House, 2016).

4 tablespoons
(½ stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for greasing the baking dish

1 cup fresh orange juice plus 2 tablespoons finely grated orange zest

¼ cup water

½ cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Scraped seeds from 1½ vanilla beans, or 1½ tablespoons vanilla bean paste

About 1 cup (120 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour

½ cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

Vanilla ice cream, for serving

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-inch-square baking dish with a little melted butter.

Combine the orange juice and water in a saucepan; bring it to a boil over medium-high heat.

Meanwhile, whisk together the orange zest, cream, melted butter, lemon juice and vanilla bean seeds or paste in a small bowl.

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Add the orange zest mixture and stir just until incorporated to form a stiff batter. Transfer it to the prepared baking dish, smoothing the top with a spatula. Set the baking dish on the middle oven rack, then carefully pour the boiling liquid over the surface of the batter. Bake for 27 to 35 minutes, until the cake has a crisp, golden surface and the pudding sauce on the bottom is bubbling.

Spoon the warm pudding cake into each plate. Top each portion with a small scoop of ice cream. Serve right away.

Per serving (pudding cake only): 300 calories, 3 g protein, 37 g carbohydrates, 16 g fat, 10 g saturated fat, 50 mg cholesterol, 110 mg sodium, 0 g dietary fiber, 21 g sugar