One of the first lessons I received as a cook happened on my first day on the job. The chef asked me to dice tomatoes for a Milanese garnish; he demonstrated one tomato for me and then had me do one under his supervision. He found it acceptable and left the kitchen.
Then the sous chef quickly came over to me to show me a better way to complete the task. I learned right away, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat” would be a saying that I would use many times in my cooking career because even though traditional techniques have given us consistent results for years, there’s always a better way.
Learning technique is the best way to learn to cook without a recipe but many long-held beliefs are being challenged by modern-day chefs. Home cooks should take note!
Different Can Be Better
For example, many recipes or techniques require cooking a pound of pasta in four to six quarts of salted boiling water, which translates to a gallon and a half of water. The professional kitchen I work in has pots that can accommodate cooking pasta for hundreds of people, but at home, my largest pot is a gallon and a half. I’ve had to cut the water ratio out of necessity and it’s giving me better results in many ways: it uses less energy to boil the water, uses less water, and the water that is used for the pasta becomes even starchier. The starchy pasta water is the oldest trick in the book for restaurant-style cooking that home cooks should try to adapt to adjust the consistency of tomato sauce. Pasta water also improves the taste of jarred sauce.
Another classic culinary technique says to use a large pot of salted water (without a lid) for boiling green vegetables. Cooking without the lid allows you to see when green vegetables are perfectly cooked.
The rules say a lid traps acids, creating brown, mushy vegetables. I followed this rule for many years, not once thinking of breaking it until one time at home I was making dinner for my family and I didn’t want to get the big pot; it was in the back of the bottom cupboard. Plus, I didn’t want to wait for that big pot to come to a boil.
I grabbed a medium pot that was big enough to hold the broccoli I needed. I brought it to a boil with the lid on, added the broccoli and then covered it again to help the boil recover. The broccoli turned out great. It cooked faster than normal and fast is the key to cooking green vegetables.
I can still dice tomatoes pretty quickly, thanks to my early lesson – not the first lesson, but the second lesson from the sous chef. I’m also getting dinner on the table at home quicker because of the new ways I’ve learned to do things over the years.
My old chef might be disappointed to hear I’m dicing tomatoes in a different manner than I was originally shown, and he would really hate to hear that when I cook fresh vegetables at home I do it in the microwave: place them in a bowl filled with a third of water, cover with plastic wrap and cook for two minutes. I would tell him this is the “New French Style” of cooking.
John Selick is the senior culinary manager at Sodexo Healthcare Services for University Hospitals in Cleveland.
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