Adventures in Reading
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Five Kitchen Secrets Guaranteed to Improve Your Favorite Recipe Do you want to impress dinner guests or give your meal a gourmet touch? Don’t look any further than your own recipe box. Whether you are planning to entertain or simply want to improve on an old favorite, there’s no need to learn new recipes, just a new trick or two. These five essential cooking maxims are simple enough for the novice, and guaranteed to take any recipe already in your repertoire from good to great. Number 1 – Get Fresh Let’s face it. When it comes to food, quality matters. If it didn’t, no one would be spending $50 a pound on beef tenderloin, $125 on a bottle of olive oil or $500 on vintage wine. Not that you need to drop that kind of cash on every (or any) meal, but spending a little extra where it counts can pay off big if you know when to splurge. It may be okay to buy sale-priced canned tomatoes, bulk baking potatoes or generic dried linguine, but be prepared to pony up for fresh produce, quality cheese and dairy, and good cuts of meat and fresh fish. Rubbery mozzarella, stale oregano and flavorless tomatoes can ruin a perfectly prepared pasta dish, as can shoe leather cuts of beef or a salmon fillet past its prime. As a general rule, go fresh—fresh fish, fresh produce, fresh herbs. If you try fresh rosemary on your potatoes, fresh basil in your tomato soup and fresh cilantro with your fajitas, you may never go back! Use garlic cloves instead of powder if possible, and grind up whole spices yourself instead of buying ground. (And remember the words “bulk” and “spices” don’t belong together unless you are running a school cafeteria). If you typically buy prepackaged meat, try purchasing straight from the meat counter or fishmonger. A good butcher can sometimes be the difference between an average meal and an extraordinary one. Don’t underestimate the deli counter either, especially when you are looking for a good aged gruyere or the best fresh mozzarella. Never be afraid to ask an expert. Number 2 – Prepare for Success The prep chef. A person could probably make a good career out of offering door-to-door slicing and dicing for every John or Jane cooking dinner in their neighborhood. Because without the labor-intensive knife skills of the prep chef, there is no magic in the kitchen. Every time Emeril reaches under the counter and pulls out a bowl of minced onions or seasoned bread crumbs, a prep chef had a hand in it. Although not a glamorous job, prep work is essential to a successful meal. Unfortunately, your kitchen may have come with a stovetop, refrigerator and possibly a microwave, but no line cook to do your washing and chopping. (Of course, having a knife-wielding stranger in your kitchen may not be such a good idea anyway.) Nevertheless, prep work must be done before every meal, and nothing is worse than realizing you need to drain and chop the sun-dried tomatoes sitting in the unopened bottle on the counter or uncork a bottle of Pinot Grigio for a pan sauce while you are supposed to be stirring constantly. To avoid possible culinary disaster, be sure all meat or fish is washed, trimmed and ready to go (and at room temperature), and that all other ingredients are measured and ready. Enlist the help of family members or guests if necessary, but don’t skip the prep. You may shave a few minutes off your cooking time by cutting corners, but you can’t be sure of what you will end up with. In the kitchen, timing is everything. Number 3 – Use the Right Equipment If you have ever welded a fried egg to a high-priced stainless steel skillet or burned a fruit sauce in a cheap saucepan, then you know the importance of choosing the right equipment for the job at hand. An inexperienced cook may feel hopeless after producing several poorly seared steaks or one burned chocolate sauce after another, when the problem may be as simple as choosing the right pan, or the right-sized pan, for the job. A properly seared beef steak or chicken breast requires a preheated heavy fry pan (such as clad stainless steel or cast iron). Pan overcrowding can also lower the pan’s surface heat and negatively affect the sear. Nonstick surfaces may be preferred for low-fat sautéed fish, but the browned bits stuck to the bottom of a stainless steel pan make for better sauces when deglazing. Cast iron makes a great burger but can negatively affect the flavor of tomato sauce. Pan sauces and gravies do better with heavy saucepans, while eggs cook just fine in light-weight Teflon skillets, and chocolate melts best in a steel or glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Whatever the meal, be sure to assemble the right equipment before you begin—include this as part of your prep work. And don’t forget to read manufacturer instructions since not all pans are created equal, whether we’re talking about preheating time, preferred cooking temperature or what utensils can (or can’t) be used with a particular piece of equipment. Having the right equipment is nothing if you don’t know how to use it. Number 4 – Stay Cool When the Heat Is On Moist chicken breast. Tender-crisp asparagus. Al dente pasta with properly browned butter. The holy grail of the perfect meal sometimes all comes down to the nanosecond between over- and underdone. Many a dry hunk of steak or plate of soggy vegetables have been served by a chef who fell victim to poor kitchen timing—the pasta that boils too long because you were busy fussing over the sauce, the steak forgotten during a longer-than-expected phone call. But perhaps most frustrating is the overcooked dish you thought was exactly right. You pull a perfectly rosy-centered Porterhouse off the grill only to bite into a well-done disappointment a few minutes later. What happened? Many cooks, new and old alike, make the mistake of pulling food off the heat at the exact moment when it reaches desired doneness. They forget that the food will continue to cook even after it is removed from the heat (and even more if it is kept in the hot pan). How much or how long the food will continue to cook depends on the size and type of the food, but a pork roast or a roasted chicken, for instance, may rise 10 degrees more once it is moved from the oven to the counter. So what can be done to increase the likelihood of a perfectly cooked meal? Timers and instant-read thermometers can help, as can proper meal planning to avoid having too many items coming off the stove or needing to be finished at once. Marinades and/or brining can help keep meat moist even if it is a bit overdone, but keep in mind that old cookbook temperatures for pork and chicken are usually too high and internal temperature will increase before serving. (Also, be sure to schedule time for meats to “rest” uncarved under an aluminum foil tent before serving to allow juices to be reabsorbed. This does wonders for over- and properly cooked meat dishes.) Most of all, keep your cool and don’t panic. Sauces cover a multitude of sins, and overcooked meats cut thinly across the grain can conceal toughness or dryness, especially with the help of gravy, au jus or pan sauce. With time, you will start to see the subtle signs of doneness if you are calm and pay attention. Number 5 – Finish with Flair When it comes to food, most diners really do judge the book by its cover, which is why it is strange that most home cooks do not concern themselves with presentation, especially when they are cooking only for themselves. But garnishes aren’t just for restaurants or dinner parties. We eat first with our eyes. Even a simple garnish can highlight the meal, give it a gourmet touch and make it more enjoyable without a lot of time or fuss. Sometimes a few minutes spent on presentation can make the difference between a good meal and a memorable one. Some simple ideas include garnishing with an ingredient used in the dish, such as a slice of lemon or sprig of rosemary. A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil or pat of basil compound butter also makes a great gourmet finish, as well as a sprinkling of minced herbs or red seasoning pepper. Desserts can be finished with a swirl of chocolate or fruit sauce on the plate, sifted powered sugar or cocoa powder, whipped cream and a mint sprig. Garnish-less meals can also be elegant when you are mindful of color and texture variety as well as plate arrangement. Chicken slices fanned out over garlic mashed potatoes and drizzled with mushroom gravy, served with roasted cherry tomatoes and a few bright green spears of asparagus, is a simple and lovely dish without much fuss. If all else fails, do as the restaurants do—warm each plate over a pot of simmering water before serving. A nice touch that pays off big since warm food always tastes better. Whether your meal of choice is meatloaf and mashed potatoes, sautéed fish fillets and pasta primavera, or chicken and dumplings, refresh and revive it instantly by following these culinary truisms. You may feel like you’re tasting Monday night spaghetti and meatballs for the first time. Jessica Jones is a
senior editor for Southwest Art magazine, and has written for
Salt Lake Magazine and Utah Bride and Groom. Her
background includes several years in book publishing and advertising.
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