Convenience foods (heat and serve) are typically made with inferior ingredients; contain way too much salt and empty calories. I do not purchase convenience products-ever! I do not use pre-made sauces, stocks or pre-made products at work and I would never feed that stuff to my family and friends. I cook with the Cucina Povera (“poor kitchen”) mindset.
In the kosher kitchen we only have so many ingredients to work with, both at home and professionally. Many ingredients that most chefs take for granted are not part of my daily repertoire due to kosher restrictions. I have a meat and pareve kitchen and cannot just add cream to a soup or sauce to thicken it. I have to work a bit harder and find other ways that fit into the kosher laws. I do not believe in using faux foods for substitutions and look to natural ingredients that are already kosher and in season. In the spirit of Cucina Povera, I embrace my constraints, accept the materials I have to work with and move on. I always say that if a recipe cannot be made without completely mutilating it, then do not make it. I have never put soy crème brulees on my menu and never will. I also do not sell faux crab or mock sour cream. Real sour cream is amazing and who doesn’t love crème brulee? The artificial stuff doesn’t come close and I have too much respect for my ingredients, clients and family to ever serve ersatz food.
Kashrut is all about making choices—not getting around them with cheap imitations.
Another tip I’ve learned over the years, learn to make one great recipe and then riff on it. Everyone should have their own signature dish. This is the dish that you know inside and out and can do in your sleep. It can be as simple as meatballs or as complex as homemade sausage. Once you have that recipe under your belt, you can shake it up. Add new flavors and ingredients and play with it. Now you have new versions and more options.
Most of all, have fun in the kitchen and take some chances. Everyone is so afraid to make a mistake in the kitchen. As long as the food is safe to eat, go ahead and play with it! No one knows what the dish was supposed to be, except you, so whatever you say it is, it is.
Don’t miss my other Secrets of a Restaurant Chef:
let me answer again. read a recipe all the way through while sitting on the couch,picture each step in order. now, see what can do done at the same time. i tell my staff that some cooking is passive and some is active. you can do active things while the passive stuff is doing itself.
most people just start in to a recipe without reading it all the way through. AARGH! do not do this. read it, think about it, then do it.
sorry Wendy! you get out of a recipe what you put in. here is my tip. Only feed the people you really love. your family, good friends and any one who is not on that list, get rid of them!
i feed those i love, great food. everyone else pays me to feed them and it works out even!
good spices are the heart and soul of a dish. cheap stuff tastes flat.
store your spices carefully out of direct light and in sealed bottles. they will keep longer
i wrote a recipe for the world’s greatest chicken soup recipe on my blog at http://www.cheflauraskosher.com and Jerusalem Post online edition.
do not repeat history-write down your recipes for your kids!
i am really fast because i do it for a living! but, you can get faster if you take one amazing dish you love and learn it inside out. then change it a bit and add variety. keep expanding upon it until you have a repertoire.
MMmmm. grav lox! pour a really cold vodka and then put the fish in the freezer for 10 minutes. gather your sharpest SLICER (French slicer knife)and dampen the blade with a wet cloth and hold the knife at a 30 degree angle and gently slice. drink the vodka!
i would love to ask popular substitutions for expensive spices in some recipes
My relatives had all their recipes memorized and wrote nothing down for future generations. I’d love to find a great recipe for Chicken Soup with Matzo Balls. I can never get it perfect 🙂
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How do you prepare such beautiful and wonderful means so quickly. A good meal seems to take me hours and I just don’t have that kind of time.
I would like to learn how to slice my homemade grav lox really thin.
i wish we could reliably get giblets, necks and all the goodies. most of that get “lost” in the processing and is probably ground into pet food.
bummer!
I’ve never eaten anything but kosher poultry (or anything else for that matter), and remember as a child the flames at the butcher to singe the feathers, lol! Chai chickens from Canada and the organics from Empire have a lot less feathers, yeah! So what happened to all the giblets and liver that we use to get? Hmmm…wish we still did.
Thanks for your reply!
Thank you
start with fresh food-not canned or frozen. add lots of herbs and bright flavors like fresh lemon, lime or orange juice. use the best ingredients you can find and let those flavors dominate the recipe. sometimes simple is best.
i think people try too hard to make something fancy when a perfectly cooked simple item adorned with salt, pepper and olive oil speaks volumes.
make one item and then jazz up the leftovers. make a pile of beets one day and serve it as a salad one night, add it to soup the next and turn it into pasta salad the next.
do the same thing with chicken, meatballs and a turkey breast. make a bunch and then change it up so it is new flavors and presentation.
ui want to learn how to prepare beautiful food, while short on time or in advance.
this is the advanced class! i like to look at a flavor profile-Asian, Mediterranean, Spanish, Moroccan etc… or even a time period , 1960’s supper club or French Bistro etc…
then i think of what flavors come to mind for Asian for instance-sesame, ginger, Anise, garlic and then go from there. once you master that-then you shake it up by adding “partner” flavors like citrus, dried mushrooms, lemon grass and more.
if you can do that-then the world is at your fingertips. look at geography and see what grows in a region and then cook the meal.
i do that all the time. I do not need to go to the Philippines to make the food. i look at what grows there and the influences of food and then i go cook the food.
plan on one or more items to be room temperature. many home cooks pull their hair out trying to do too much with one or 2 ovens. i plan one a chilled side dish or room temperature item. i also use my slow cooker as a warmer. i can park my side dishes in the slow cooker and keep it LOW and then go on about the meal.
the foods that reheat well are those cooked in sauces. a roasted chicken reheated doesn’t stand a chance. but, in a sauce and very gently reheated in a LOW oven-will be delicious.
anything braised is great for leftovers or do-ahead.
at work, i make duck, fish and really exotic meals. but at home,
my husband likes my meatloaf! he is a chef for a private family and we both cook all day, so he likes simple food some nights.
i make homemade ketchup and add tons of caramelized shallots to the meat. i also do not over work the meat. then i smother it with ketchup and slightly under cook it. then i wrap it in foil and let it finish cooking on the counter top. it is perfect everytime.
We are a salt free family,as best one can be. I want to know how to compensate for the lack of the flavor added with salt.
practice! buy a bag of carrots and start chopping.
make good chicken stock! make won tons with ground turkey, shiitake mushrooms, ground star anise and scallions (all mushed together in a food processor). add chopped veggies and a dash of toasted sesame oil!
in a former life (before i kept kosher) i was a saucier (sauce chef) and made 25+ sauces a day in the restaurant i worked in! OY VAY.
i still make all the sauces in my professional kitchen and the trick is in good homemade stock. packaged stuff is not going to cut it. make great stock and you have great sauce. a little patience won’t hurt as well.
a quick pan sauce for chicken:
after the chicken is roasted or sauteed, add to the pan chopped shallots and garlic, scrape the pan as you SWEAT them to gather the brown bits (fond). add 1/2 cup white wine and allow it to reduce by 1/2 and then add 1.5 cups homemade chicken stock and some fresh herbs, some dried mushrooms would be tasty here as well.
reduce until the mixture coats the back of a spoon and then add salt and pepper.
my kids still love a really tasty schnitzel. i still make it for my adult children. i add my own herbs and lemon zest to the panko breadcrumbs and only fry in extra virgin olive oil. it is tasty and healthy. add some great grain dish like farro pilaf and a cooked kale and you got a healthy homemade meal.
you need to know what can hold up and what cannot. i do not attempt recipes that will not take a little abuse. so, braised dishes are a fave as well as really flavorful dishes with lots of citrus, herbs and glazes. it is the same with making pareve desserts. some recipes are meant to be dairy and some can be both.
this summer i am in love with my Piquillo Harissa on spatchcocked chicken. i will post the recipe on my blog at http://www.cheflauraskosher.com
the flavor is bright and complex and the chicken never knew what hit it!
Speed tips – I have seven children, and would like to spend less time in the kitchen!
mandolin. love my Asian Benriner. gotta be careful though. i like to be in control-just ask my staff 😀 and prefer to do the cutting, not a machine.
yeah-those feathers! I have a slight advantage in having staff that takes of those things for me 😀
at home, i just pluck and pull the same as everyone else. the good news is that kosher poultry tastes more “chicken-y, ducky etc…) it is just a better product despite a pain to work with.
i love cooking fish. start cooking with room temperature fish, that way the fish is not cold in the center-same for meat. get your pan nice and hot and lightly coated with oil. season the fish and put it “presentation” side down (the pretty side). DON’T TOUCH IT for a few minutes until it has caramelized. you can peek at it by lifting a corner. then flip it. ONLY TURN IT ONCE! for salmon, turn the heat off and let it finish in the pan-called pan roasting. for halibut, put it in an 350 degree oven for an additional 7-10 minutes until it is just cooked through.
perfectly salting your food is like adding compliments. the salt opens your taste buds and send electrical impulses to your brain telling you that something really good is going on in your mouth. no salt-no messages and NO compliments:-)
Knife skills! I am slow at chopping things up.
I want to learn how to combine flavors so they complement each other.
Timing!!! How can I get the whole meal served so that we are not waiting for one item, while the rest of the meal gets cold.
I would love to know how to make food in advance and not have it dry out when it is reheated. I’d also love to know which are the best foods to freeze and the best way to freeze them.
I’d love to learn how to grill steak so that it’s done inside, but not burnt outside, and not dried out 🙁 Love your blog!
Please share your signature dish with us. Thanks for sharing those awesome tips with us.
I would love to learn some more advanced knife skills. Great article!
I would like to know how to make very good wonton soup
Awesome tips. Thanks for sharing.
I would love to learn how to make those amazing sauces chefs make to accompany their dishes. Sometimes they truly make the dish exceptional!
I am new to Judaism but I have always loved to cook (I finished 1 year of my 2 year culinary degree before I moved.)
What is a tasty Kosher meal that is really quick and kids would love?
I would like to know more about how to prepare the food in advance (e.g. for Shabbat) without it losing its oomph.
Assuming that you’re not using a knife, do you prefer using a mandoline or food processor for slicing?
I would also like to know if professional chefs receive their Kosher poultry with sooooo many feathers? I certainly do : (
I would like to know how your fish ALWAYS turns out perfectly?
Everything
many cuts of beef are secondary cuts which means they are cut from a larger piece of meat. typically that shields the meat from the kashering/ salting process. Stew meat and
Rib eye steaks should not be salty until you salt them! They need salt to get flavorful.
but a roast could be salty to start with. so, i usually go easy on the salt with roasts and larger cuts of beef.
when i make duck-i never salt it and i go easy on the salt with chickens.
I would like to learn how to offset the saltiness of some kosher meats. I already don’t add additional salt, but sometimes it can be overwhelming.
i am glad you asked! start with the meat. ask your butcher to cut 1 1/2 inch thick rib-eye steaks. you want meat that has NEVER been frozen. freezing ruins the texture.
once you are ready to cook the steaks, bring the meat to room temperature. preheat your grill or saute pan. generously salt and pepper the meat. place the meat on the grill/pan and leave it for 5 minutes. To get the “cheffy” looking grill marks, rotate the 1/4 on the same side (this is the presentation side facing the diner) and continue grilling for another 3 minutes on the same side. turn the meat over and grill for another 3-5 minutes. Remove from the grill/pan and place on a sheet pan. do not stack the meat! Loosely cover with foil and allow to rest for 8-10 minutes. slice or serve!
start with room temperature meat,
you only turn the meat once,
and allow it to rest!
I want to learn how professional chefs make the best juicy steaks!