GEORGES BLANC, MICHELIN THREE-STAR CHEF IN VONNAS, FRANCE
The defining trait of a great cook is more than a great palate, and more than great technique; it is sound judgment. It is not only knowing what to do with ingredients, but also when, where, why, and how to serve them. Cooking involves the thoughtful combination and manipulation of ingredients. Good cooking results in those ingredients tasting even better. Great cooking not only celebrates the ingredients, but also celebrates the moment.
Recipes evolved as a way to teach less experienced cooks how to prepare particular dishes, by providing specific proportions of compatible ingredients along with step-by-step instructions. However, anyone who believes that every recipe followed verbatim will always produce consistent results is kidding themselves, given the diversity within individual ingredients, whether the sweetness of fruit or the thickness of a fish fillet. Slavish followers of recipes, who treat them as gospel instead of guidelines, make the mistake of putting more faith in someone else’s instructions than they do in themselves. Many people would do better in the kitchen if they didn’t blindly follow recipes. In fact, following recipes may be holding you back from achieving your potential as a cook.
Take the time to learn and master some of the general principles of how to make food taste great — such as what to pair with various ingredients, and how to prepare them — which is the subject of this book. After all, more than a dozen years after the advent of the Food Network turned every TV set in this country into a virtual 24/7 cooking school, supplementing the burgeoning food programming on many of the other major channels, Americans are better-trained cooks than at any previous point in history. Most of us can now whip up a dish with our general knowledge of how to boil pasta, sauté an onion, or grill a steak. Today, long, detailed recipes are rarely needed for most cooking (with the exception of baking, whose chemistry requires precise measurerements).
Training wheels can be useful when first learning to ride a bike, as can “painting by numbers” when first learning to paint. Likewise, following a recipe can be useful when first learning to cook — for understanding the order of completing certain steps, and internalizing their intrinsic logic. But great cooking should be more akin to meditation: you — and all of your senses — are in the moment, and fully awake and aware. You can taste the ingredients, and know what you need to do to make them taste their best. You know, as chef Judy Rodgers famously told us for our book Becoming a Chef, to “look out the window and see what the weather is and decide what the soup wants to be.” Be fully grounded in the moment that is part of that second, that minute, that hour, that day, that month, that season, that year of your life — all at once.
To elevate your cooking to a whole new level, develop a better appreciation for the essence of ingredients, which provides insight into when and how to best use them. Celebrating the essence of ingredients allows you to work with them more intuitively and effectively. This book will help you decide what ingredients to reach for in the kitchen, and why, and what to do with them when you do.
HOW TO MAKE FOOD TASTE GREAT
A great cook is able to make food taste great by doing two basic things:
1. Understanding the essence of the moment, which comprises everything from the meal’s driving force to the occasion, to the weather, to the available time, budget, and/or other resources (for example, ingredients, equipment, etc.).
2. Understanding the essence of the ingredients, which comprises their season, regionality, weight and volume, function, flavor, and/or flavor affinities.
The deeper your understanding of both, the greater your ability to bring them together into a dish that is the perfect expression of the ingredients and the moment.
Understanding the Essence of the Moment
Why do you need or want to cook in the first place? In a day and age when more of the meals we consume are prepared outside the home than at home, cooking has become relatively infrequent. So, what’s driving you?
Always keep in mind your starting point in the kitchen, the reference point serving as the inspiration for your cooking — which can be virtually anything. Following its essence logically or intuitively will lead you to each subsequent step toward creating something delicious. Your starting point is your initial desire. It may be an ingredient, or a dish, or a country: you’re excited to prepare the first heirloom tomatoes of summer; you’re craving your grandmother’s cheesecake; or you want a dish that will take you to Italy to relive the flavors you enjoyed on your last vacation.
Other factors provide the parameters of how you’ll act on that desire. They might be time (“I want to spend the day cooking for pleasure” versus “I have only fifteen minutes to get something on the table”), budget ($5/person versus “money is no object, so bring on the truffles”), occasion (dinner on a Tuesday night, or someone’s birthday), availability of ingredients (your neighbors just gave you fresh vegetables from their garden), season (the arrival of the first asparagus of spring, or the last corn of Indian summer), weather (wanting a chilled lunch to help you cool off on a hot summer day), or something else.
Your starting point, whatever it is, has an essence: Your desire to host a barbecue to celebrate the beautiful summer weather will bring up associations that will in turn bring up other associations, until you have a long list of associations, for example:
• Desire to enjoy the 80-degree sunny summer day (starting point: season, weather)
→ Have a summer barbecue (craving)
→ Invite friends over to enjoy it, too
• Prefer to cool down (function)
→ Serve cold drinks
→ Serve at least some chilled dishes
• Serve corn bought at the market this morning (available resources)
→ Serve corn salsa on grilled chicken or fish
→ Serve corn on the cob
• Have best friends over for dinner (guests)
→ Everyone eats chicken
→ One of them is from New England and can bring lobster
• Avoid turning the oven on (temperature)
→ Cook outside’ fire up the grill
→ Cook on the stovetop only ’ boil water
So, starting with your driving factor and its essence, you can follow these associations to their logical conclusion and come up with the perfect meal. For one person, it might be serving grilled chicken with a corn salsa in the backyard. For another, it might be hosting a lobster and corn boil in an air-conditioned dining room. It’s all about taking everything into consideration at once, and using sound judgment to determine how to proceed.
Occasion
Even if it wasn’t the driving force behind why you’re cooking in the first place, you’ll still want to consider the importance and significance of the meal. A quick dinner on a time-pressed weeknight will be different from a dinner made on the weekend when there is more time to enjoy the sensual process of cooking. Keep the occasion in mind when planning your meal, with the knowledge that any meal can be elevated to a special occasion — or simplified in a crunch. The elements of breakfast take on a different level of importance when they are used for a special brunch. A quick fried egg and a toasted English muffin on a Tuesday can morph into poached eggs with Canadian bacon with hollandaise sauce on an English muffin for a weekend brunch, or vice versa.
But a true special occasion — a birthday, anniversary, or holiday — definitely calls for something equally special to celebrate it. If lack of time is a factor, a birthday isn’t the time to undertake making and decorating a cake from scratch. However, it might inspire you to pick up a half gallon of the birthday boy or girl’s favorite ice cream, toast some pecans, and whip up some homemade chocolate sauce — which would take only minutes, as opposed to hours.
Weather
While seasonality will drive your choice of ingredients, the weather will drive your decision as to how to prepare and serve them. On the coldest days, you’ll want to warm your home as well as your body with slow-braised dishes, soups, and stews, and on warmer days, you’ll want to keep your home (and yourself) cooler by doing more grilling or on the hottest days serving quick-cooked or even chilled dishes — no matter what season those days may fall in.
Some cooks believe you can serve anything at any time of the year. Our eyebrows have raised upon seeing heavy braised dishes on restaurant menus in August. However, chefs have defended them by arguing that once someone is seated in an air-conditioned dining glass of hot yellow pepper soup. While the soup itself might have been made from seasonal ingredients and tasty in a vacuum, unfortunately what we remember even more vividly was how unappealing we found it, especially as our first taste after a sweltering taxi ride to the restaurant. If the same soup had been served to us cold, we expect it would have been more successful as the welcoming gesture it was intended to be.
Understanding the Essence of the Ingredients
Once you’re clear about “the problem” of what to cook, the right ingredients, well prepared, provide the ideal “solution.” To prepare any ingredients well, it’s vital to understand and respect their essence.
What do we mean when we talk about an ingredient’s “essence”? Every ingredient has associations with it, and the sum total of those associations comprises its essence. An ingredient’s essence is more than its flavor. Take two sample ingredients, both salty:
• What comes to mind when you think of soy sauce? Common associations besides its saltiness might include Asia (region), rice (as a common flavoring for), and/or scallions (compatible ingredient).
• What comes to mind when you think of Parmesan cheese? Aside from saltiness (flavor), its common associations might include Italy (region), pasta or pizza (which it is a common flavoring for), and/or basil and tomatoes (compatible ingredients).
While certain other ingredients — such as chicken, garlic, and onions, which are all used around the world — may be neutral in their universality, many ingredients are rooted in distinct associations.
Some of the primary aspects of any ingredient’s essence include its seasonality, its taste, its volume, its function, its regionality, its weight, and its flavor affinities. While the importance of each factor varies, depending on the dish, the goal when cooking is to ensure that all of these factors are respected in the ingredient’s use.
Seasonality
"It is almost a cliché to talk about seasonality if you are a New American chef. You are cooking that way naturally. I had a customer complain that his favorite pea ravioli was not on the menu. I explained that peas were not very good at the time, so that we were featuring corn ravioli. I don’t focus on making an ingredient that is not at its peak taste better; I simply take it off the menu. Chefs still pay more attention to seasonality than customers do. We still have diners who want berries in the middle of February!"
— ANDREW CARMELLINI, A VOCE (NEW YORK CITY)
Cooking with ingredients at their seasonal peak is such a central tenet of good cooking that it bears constant repeating. In stores across the country, you can find almost any ingredient at almost any time of year. However, an ingredient’s mere availability offers no assurances of its quality.
Each season suggests a different palette of ingredients, and different ways of preparing and serving them. Classic holiday dishes represent time-tested ways of celebrating the season: Picture a grilled hamburger followed by a red, white, and blue strawberry shortcake accented with blueberries and whipped cream served on the Fourth of July, or roasted turkey with stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. (If you’re not convinced of the perfection of each dish’s expression of the season and occasion, just imagine eating each menu on the other holiday!) Each season also suggests its own beverages; for example, summer calls more often for lighter-bodied white and rosé wines, just as winter calls for fuller-bodied reds.
Taste
Every ingredient has its stereotypical taste (bananas are sweet), plus its actual taste, which may be a function of its age or ripeness. For example, a banana may increase noticeably in sweetness as it ripens and its color changes from green to yellow to brown. That is why it’s crucial to taste your ingredients when cooking. If you don’t — and, as a result, don’t end up making other adjustments (for example, slightly decreasing the amount of sugar used when using very ripe bananas) — you’ll find your dishes to be out of balance. Even seemingly similar ingredients (such as regular versus aged balsamic vinegar, or Italian versus Thai basil) can vary dramatically.
York Street’s Sharon Hage on Classic Flavor Pairings
I try to eat a lot of different foods and read a lot of different types of books to try to break away from classic pairings. I have had a million pork dishes, and I keep thinking that there has to be something else besides pork with sage! I try all these different things then turn to another cook and say, “Got any sage?”
There is a reason for tomatoes with basil, and for lamb with mint. What I don’t make is lamb with mint jelly — but there will likely be some mint someplace on the dish.
Roasted beets work with salty cheese, whether it is [Italian] ricotta salata, or [Mexican] queso fresco, or another country’s version of salty cheese.
The fun part is to discover what the classic pairing is, then present it to people in a way that makes them think it is different, while still being true to you as a chef. It would be hard to imagine summer tomatoes without the basil component. We might add some chives or mint or sumac, but the dish will still have some basil as well.
Weight
It was through our study of wine that we developed an appreciation for the critical role of understanding a wine’s body, or weight — and, in turn, the relative weights of various foods. In fact, weight has eclipsed color as the key factor in pairing wine with food. Weight and season often go hand in hand, as we crave lightness in summer and heavier dishes when temperatures fall. In summer, that craving for lightness could be satisfied with a salad of fresh greens topped with shrimp or chicken and tossed in a vinaigrette. Our winter cravings for more substance and warmth might lead us to a hearty stew made with red meat and root vegetables in their own thick sauce.
Volume
One important aspect of an ingredient’s flavor essence is its “volume.” Think of a stereo dial with “1” indicating a “quiet” seasoning of chopped parsley, and “10” suggesting a “loud” mound of freshly chopped habanero chile peppers. You’ll use them very differently to create very different effects, while striving to achieve the same all-important balance in the final dish.
So, is the ingredient you’re working with quiet, moderate, or loud? You need to be aware of an ingredient’s volume whenever combining it with other ingredients. If a dish is overspiced to the point where you can’t taste its essence, it’s wrong. Consider:
Proteins
Light and/or quiet: fish, shellfish, tofu
Medium and/or moderate: white meat (chicken, pork, veal)
Heavy and/or loud: red meat (beef, lamb, venison).
Cooking Techniques
Light and/or quiet: poaching, steaming
Medium and/or moderate: frying, sautéing
Heavy and/or loud: braising, stewing.
Herbs
Light and/or quiet: chervil, parsley.
Medium and/or moderate: dill, lemon thyme.
Heavy and/or loud: rosemary, tarragon.
Function
Different tastes serve different functions. Saltiness stimulates thirst (think of all those free salty peanuts in bars!), while sourness quenches it (think lemonade). Saltiness heightens the appetite, making this flavor especially effective in appetizers. Bitterness also stimulates the appetite, and can promote the other tastes with which it is paired while adding a note of lightness to a dish. Sourness is refreshing, and adds a fresh note to any dish to which it is added. Sweetness is famously satiating, making it ideal (not to mention customary) to end a meal with a sweet dessert, or at least a sweet note (such as a cheese course with honey or sweet figs).
Certain foods, such as the spices cinnamon and nutmeg, are thought of as “warming” foods, so their addition to dishes is thought to add a warming quality that might be especially welcomed on a cold day. There are also “cooling” foods (such as cucumber and mint) that can be used just as judiciously.
Keeping an ingredient’s function in mind will help you use it most wisely, and avoid unfortunate mismatches of flavor and function. We still remember an otherwise delicious beet salad we were once served as an appetizer in New Orleans that was so sweet it killed our appetite for the rest of our meal.
Region
Determining the region that will serve as the reference point for whatever you’re cooking is one of the easiest ways to create successful flavor marriages in the kitchen. Thinking regionally is as important to good pairing as thinking seasonally is to good cooking. Many people are familiar with the maxim “If it grows together, it goes together,” and this is still the best place to start as a guide. Knowing what country you want to draw on will narrow your list of ingredient choices, often for the better! For example, as chicken is the world traveler of ingredients, if you’re making a chicken dish, you’ll especially need to decide on a region of inspiration. Are you going to root your dish in Mexico by topping it with salsa, or take it to France by finishing it with a mustard cream sauce? The accompaniments you choose will reinforce the dish’s sense of place. Would rice and beans, or boiled new potatoes, be most appealing served alongside it?
Flavor Affinities
A perfect ingredient served plainly can be an extraordinary thing, whether a perfectly ripe and sweet piece of fruit, or a silky slice of raw fish as sashimi. But in the real world, perfect ingredients are all too rare — and there are few ingredients whose flavors can’t be helped along by a pinch of this or a splash of that. A sprinkle of sugar will bring out the flavor of strawberries. A squeeze of lime will bring out a melon’s sweetness. A drizzle of vinegar will provide a tasty counterpoint for salty French fries.
Understanding what herbs, spices, and other seasonings will best bring out the flavor of whatever it is you’re cooking is some of the most important knowledge any cook can master. The pages that follow emphasize modern-day flavor affinities that have been proved in some of the best-respected kitchens in this country in this millennium.
Studying the language and syntax of ingredients in these pages will allow you access to the collective wisdom — and impeccably sound judgment — of some of America’s most imaginative chefs.
By Karen Page & Andrew Dornenburg in "The Flavor Bible", Hachette Book Group, New York, 2008, chapter II. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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