This will most likely be my last column for The Eagle. I’ve given you all plenty of recipes over the past few months — everything from pasta to stir fry — and a few tips on how to mix it up and create your own dishes. But I wanted to use this last bit of column space to review some the techniques I’ve covered and compile some of my most important tips.
Master your knife
Proficiency with a knife can make the difference between throwing together a quick, healthful weeknight meal or saying the hell with it and ordering a pizza. Get a good knife and keep it sharp. If you don’t have an eight-inch chef’s knife already, GET ONE!
Use a claw grip: Hold whatever you’re cutting in place with the tips of your fingers and keep your knuckles perpendicular to the cutting board. Use your knuckles as a guide for your knife and then walk your fingers back as you chop. Don’t forget to tuck in your thumb.
Square off: It’s a lot easier to cut round food if it has a flat edge. Either cut it in half or cut one side off so it doesn’t roll around on the cutting board.
Keep the tip of the knife on the board — Imagine your knife as a giant paper cutter. Rather than chop up and down, what you really want to do is rock back and forth.
Set your burner on “high”
The one mistake that all beginner cooks make is not waiting for the pan to get hot. Make sure you use plenty of heat when you sauté, sear or roast. Listen for the sizzle: That’s the sound of water evaporating and sugars caramelizing. If your food is not sizzling, then it’s probably just soaking up oil and turning wet and mushy.
Also, when you’re sautéing, try not to over stir. For most beginners (and some more seasoned cooks), the instinct is to stir constantly, but every time you stir something you’re moving the food away from the heat. Imagine what would happen if you were trying to roast something, but you opened the oven door every five minutes. So stir it once to distribute the oil and then let it sit for at least two minutes before stirring it again. Walk away from it if you’re easily tempted — I usually try to wash a few dishes in between stirs.
Season, taste, adjust
Salt and pepper should go in pretty much everything you cook. Properly seasoned food shouldn’t taste salty, but it shouldn’t taste flat either. Taste constantly and be prepared to add a little more if necessary.
By the same token, start to train your taste buds for other flavors. Learn to recognize when a dish needs a little wine or lemon juice for bright acidity or maybe some garlic for an earthy punch. Remember, you eat food. You know what it tastes like. Harness your taste memory to bring nuance to your cooking.
Timing is everything
This is probably one of the hardest parts of cooking to master. Making a simple meal with a starch, meat and vegetable and getting all three of them to the table hot at the same time is much harder than it sounds.
Having a plan of attack helps though: If you’re doing a steak with mashed potatoes and sautéed green beans, you probably want to start with the potatoes, sear the steak when the water for the potatoes starts boiling, and then do the green beans while the steak rests.
Just remember that nothing ever takes the time that it’s supposed to, and it will take some practice to properly multitask, but you’ll get it in time. In one restaurant I worked in, the cooks would ring a bell when food was ready. After a while, my sense of timing became so fine-tuned that most times I would appear in the kitchen just as the cook was getting ready to ring the bell.
The more you cook, the more your subconscious will start to pick up cues about what needs to happen and when — whether it’s the pot of pasta that needs to be drained or a boiling stew that needs to be reduced to a simmer. Learning to listen to your instincts will be the key to your success.
Food for Thought
Don’t be afraid to try new things. The one thing that I’ve most enjoyed about this column is that it forces me to expand my own culinary horizons. I know how easy it is to get stuck in a rut of cooking a few good dishes and rotating through them week after week.
I would advise everyone who likes to cook to find a new ingredient that they haven’t used before. Read recipes and find something that looks interesting. Read a few recipes for the same dish and use them as a starting point for your own experimentation.
Cooking is a process of trial and error, so don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Most of them will result in lessons learned and things to remember for next time, like a little less garlic or a little more salt. Every dish has room for improvement. Try to learn from your successes and failures alike. Best of luck to all of you, and thanks for reading. Bon appétit.
You can reach this columnist at thescene@theeagleonline.com.
