Basic skills - part 4: seasonings, sauces and techniques

Basic Skills

Seasoning is something that you learn through experimentation, through the amount of meals you've cooked. Make sure that salt and seasoning goes all the way through every stage of your cooking. Ingredients that are inherently salty like capers, olives, miso can be very salty. The amount of salt needed will vary from one person to the next, so it's all about adding salt bit by bit

Simplify the Process

I don't think that pepper suits every plate of food. Pepper is great in some dishes, but I don't think it's a spice that should be used universally, all over everything.

Heat

If you, crowd your pan or crowd your tray, you're not going to get crispy, delicious, perfectly cooked food. Intense heat is to crisp things up or brown the outside. More gentle heat is something we use to take something tough and hard and make it soft and good to eat.

Get Your Pan to the Right Heat

Preheat a pan without any oil in, once it's good and hot and it's at the temperature that you want to cook at you can add oil. This method speeds up your cooking because you're not waiting around for a pan and cold food to heat up.

What Size to Chop

The size that you chop something will determine how quickly it cooks. For a sweet and soft onion 10 minutes is perfect. If you want to caramelize your onions, 20 to 25 minutes is ideal.

Adding Garlic

Garlic will cook much quicker than onions, finely chopped garlic only needs a minute or two in a pan, he says. Add it at the very end of cooking the rest of the vegetables, so you don't get burnt flavour.

Browned Butter

Cooking some brown butter is a good example of heat management. Brown butter is butter that goes into a pan and you cook it and allow it to gently brown. I think it's a good sort of practice for controlling your pan heat.

Following a Recipe

I recommend following a recipe and using your intuition in the kitchen to get the most from it. It's not always going to work to just half or double or triple or quadruple that recipe.

Anna's Top Tips in the Kitchen

A towel under a mixing bowl can be useful when whipping meringue. If something splits as you're making it, do not throw it away. A key tip is to add one spoonful of boiling water at a time and then keep whisking. It will prevent it from separating and will bring your chocolate back together

Thickening Sauces

When thickening sauces, in a small bowl, combine equal parts flour and butter and squish it together with your hands to make a paste known as beurre manie in French. It's a straightforward yet effective trick.

Creating Buttermilk and Creme Fresh

A squeeze of lemon can turn milk or cream into buttermilk or creme. A salad spinner is a game-changer when you're making a salad. There's an easy trick you can do with a tea towel to spin your salad leaves to dry them off perfectly.