alright, kiddo. home stretch.

over the course of 29 days, we’ve covered a broad stroke of topics that should now leave you with more perspective, more food IQ, and more confidence to start pushing yourself. It’s time to put it all in to practice and fast track your growth, and today - i’ve got 8 challenges to help you do that…

“chopped at home”

Pick a day this week to raid your fridge, pantry and snack drawer and turn whatever you have into culinary glory. Don’t cheat and go shopping. I dont care if you only have mustard, stale bread and turkey cutlets - you can make something with it. If you’ve never seen the tv show chopped - the challenge is entirely about resourcefulness and flavor-building on the fly. You dont have a recipe to lean on, just five tastes and the palate training from earlier lessons.

alternatively you could phone a friend or family member to suggest a random 3-5 ingredients that you need to feature in your dish. tdont worry about being judged or being perfect - this is for you and you only to audit where you are in your journey. that way theres a little less stress of serving something your not entirely confident in/

the first few times you do this dont worry about racing against the clock [another variable on the tv show] - just execute. as you do this more and more - then you can start to time yourself.

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“living life as an artist is a practice. you are either engaging in the practice or you’re not. it makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. it’s like saying - “i’m not good at being a monk.” - you are either living as a monk or you’re not. we tend to think of the artist’s work as the output. the real work of the artist is a way of being in the world”

- Rick Rubin

in my mind, theres a duality to refining every craft. in one hand, you rely on inspiration. everyone wants to be inspired. the biochemical cascade thats associated with feeling inspired is one of the greatest natural drugs this life has to offer. when you’re inspired, you’re motivated. when you’re motivated you feel like your mindset is unshakeable and your energy tank is un-drainable.

its great to feel motivated and it’s great to look for inspiration - without question i encourage it. But the truth is those things have their limitations. Life gets in the way, sometimes its the worst parts of life. Financial hardships, negativity from your friends circle, a break up with your significant other, a death of a loved one. Pick your poisonous flavor of trauma, they’ll get to you eventually and although some of the greatest works of art over the course of history have been born from hardship - most of the time they can really weigh on us, and get in the way of showing up as our best selves.

Thats where the “systems” side of the craft comes in to play. The choices, habits, and framework you have in place to make sure you are manufacturing the inspiration, not just waiting for hit to happen.

Ask any seasoned artist or creative, 90 percent of the time - the spark they are looking for actually came from just sitting down and doing the thing. Every professional writer knows that the best way to work your way out of a slump is to actually work. have a set time every single day that you sit down and hammer out your [insert goal] of words on a page or processor. Trust me, i know - i’ve been doing it for the last 29 days now and without a system, i wouldve fell off pretty damn quick.

but the inspiration will never come if you’re just sitting around praying for it to hit you. You have to look for it. You have to create an environment for it. Almost call it into existence. Many of the greats compare the brain to an antenna - like you’re not inventing your ideas, you’re discovering a transmission from the ether.

Look, idk if any of that is true - i tend not to float around in the abstract too much but what i do know is - the end result is the same.

You cant hear the message if you’re not listening for it, you wont see it if you’re not fully present with your environment, and you won’t produce anything worthwhile if you’re not actively participating in it.

to me - success in any endeavor, especially creative ones - is all about…

total immersion

if you want to excel at a new skill - you’ll have to make the decision to commit fully. You need to become obsessed. If the only thing you’re doing is living, eating, breathing, cooking, and watching - its impossible to not get good at the thing. You could use duolingo to learn spanish over the course of a decade or you could drop yourself into Mexico City for 6 months You need to be FULLY immersed in the culture of whatever it is you want to learn , and thats what we’ll do starting now. Starting with what works best.

the “doing” / experiencing

the easiest thing is to simply eat at more restaurants.

great restaurants will expose you to ingredients not readily available to the general public and will allow you to try new things you’ve never had. Dont be scared to ask questions to the staff or even meet the Chef to get a more intimate perspective on his approach to food

If a restaurant has a “chefs table” in the kitchen - reserve it.

get back there and watch what its really like, see what it takes to perform at a high level. not only do you get to eat a great meal but now you have unique access to see how these cooks and chefs operate their stations at a high clip, like an absolute machine. take it all in, then go home and see how you can apply it to your kitchen.

if youre in need of a job -

go work at a restaurant. maybe you dont want to cook professionally, thats fine. that’s asking a lot for not a lot of pay, i know. become a server and you’ll still get access to the kitchen. i used to always have conversations with servers about food and cooking - the more they knew the more our restaurant ran like a machine [and the more sympathy they had when we were in the weeds]

stage

“Staging" (from the French stagiaire) means working in a professional kitchen unpaid or for very low pay, in order to learn. Essentially it’s an apprenticeship or trial period rather than a formal job. A great way to learn a ton without a long term commitment - unless you want to parlay that audition into an actual position.

I did this with a few restaurants when i first moved to LA and didnt have a job - including Mikey Voltaggio’s “ink” - before landing the job at Gordon Ramsay’s.

engulf yourself in new and unfamiliar cultures

traveling the world or different corners of your country will change you perspective on food and life in general.

even better - you could literally MOVE. go live where the action is, either in your country or in another one. moving across the country to LA, leaving my small town was the greatest thing i ever did for my life and my career. when you’re in a small town and everyone looks the same, you are SUPER limited. You can obviously read books and watch content but you will 10x your results by living around people that are not like you.

i spent over 7 years working with kids in south central LA and i got invited into homes for birthdays and quincineras - those experiences radically changed my brain. when you are that close with people who look nothing like you, you’ll never be the same. those life experiences allow you to think and pull creatively from a new place that wasnt available to you before that. i could google a tamale or a pozole recipe - but being guided step by step by an abuela who’s been doing it her whole life is just different.

now if you cant afford to travel, fortunately for you theres been a billion travel shows, films and internet content on that magical rectangle in your pocket.

heres a gang of my favorite cooking related shows and films over the years to help you get deeper into the culture and find inspiration.

shows and feature films

chef (2014)

jon favreau’s character loses everything - is restaurant, reputation, and almost the relationship with his kid. He pulls his way out by sort of going back to his roots , starts a food truck, makes a really good cubano. everybody loves a good comeback story and this film really makes you fall in love with the craft and the beauty of doing simple food really damn well.

to prepare for the role, Favreau actually went to culinary school and then was trained by food truck GOAT Roy Choi [who became a consultant and producer on the film].

ratatouille (2007)

don’t let the “it’s a kids movie” thing fool you. Pixar films rip and you know it. On the surface, the plot is about a street rat who helps an inexperienced young commis cook high level food by hiding in his hat and conducting him like a puppet -but its a romantic and accurate portrayal of what working in a classic french brigade system is like. The ending showcases the power of food and its connections to life’s most intimate moments and reminds you as a viewer the most important detail about cooking… anyone can do it.

the bear

if you want to know what a real kitchen feels like - the heat, the noise, the way a walk-in cooler provides a respite from that very storm - this show fucking nails it. if im being honest, at the time of this article i’ve only made it through a few episodes - cuz personal trauma - but in all serious they nail the stylistic choices and the Edgar Wright style editing in a way that makes you feel the roller coaster that is working in a professional kitchen. The grit and the glory of getting in the weeds and crawling your way out of it. Anxiety inducing, but very well done.

gordon ramsay’s “the f word”

the UK version is so much different than the american shows Ramsay is on. Its less about the spectacle, sensationalism and screaming and more about the behind the scenes. you see a different side of Gordon and theres a little of the traditional travel cooking show vibe mixed in. One of my favorites.

jiro dreams of sushi (2011)

ill never forget watching this as a young cook. Jiro Ono has been making sushi for longer than most of us have been alive in a ten-seat restaurant under a Japanese subway station and bro still acts like he’s yet to arrive. Its so common to want to learn and advance on to the next thing as fast as we can - but this doc shows you the level of patience and detail it takes to build true mastery. It’s like watching a samurai sling sushi.

good eats with alton brown

probably the most goated show in Food Network history. Its a great mix of history, cheesy comedy bits, and great food. Alton brown is as legit of an orator as they come - his way of delivering higher level concepts to the layman is unmatched. At the end of each episode you’ll know how to make a recipe but also why you’re doing things from a food science standpoint.

no reservations / parts unknown

do i even have to explain why you should watch an Anthony Bourdain show?

His shows were based around food but they were barely about cooking. he made shows about people, and food happened to be the conversation starter . these shows were as close to “immersion” as you can get without stepping foot into another culture. Bourdain was so fucking good at showcasing the culture and even the politics without shoving it down your throat, it always felt like he was showing you and not preaching to you.

the mind of a chef

so few people know about this one but its one of my favorites. Like the name suggests - It did a great job showing you the thought processes, obsessions, the chaos, and the detailed little rabbit holes that Chefs take to spawn their mental abstractions into the physical world. A phenomenal watch if you want the mindset and not just the techniques.

good reads

the flavor bible, andrew dornenburg and karen page

i’ve already showcased this book in a previous lesson but just in case you missed it - this is a book worth keeping on your kitchen shelf, not just collecting dust in your study. [i’ve always wanted a study]. it’s not a cookbook, its more a map of how flavors talk to each other. Its called a “bible” but its more so a massive glossary of ingredients in alphabetical order that you can come back to when youre a bit low on inspiration or unsure of a new pairing youre thinking of trying. Coming up, I relied on this thing more than all of my cookbooks combined and i still reference it from time to time.

becoming a chef, andrew dornenburg and karen page

before there was the flavor bible, the same authors curated an oral history of what it actually takes to become a professional chef. They pieced together interviews with the people who have lived it and done it on the highest level. if youre thinking about getting into the business its a solid read because its inspiring but also it’s honest about the exhaustion, the hierarchy, and the obsession required to stay in it.

kitchen confidential, anthony bourdain

this is the book that ripped the curtain back on what restaurant kitchens actually are: chaotic, dangerous, funny, full of damaged nightmares doing beautiful work and creating edible art under pressure. Before hollywood movies / tv shows like The Bear sort of romanticized the chaos, this book blew the whistle first - And its Bourdain, so its an entertaining read through and through.

white heat, marco pierre white

the original bad boy of fine dining, before that was even a trope. this book [and the photos in it] capture the raw intensity of a young chef clawing his way to three michelin stars through sheer will and fury. MPW was Gordon Ramsay before Gordon Ramsay. The whole thing is a mood.

life, on the line, grant achatz

a powerful memoir from Grant Achatz about building one of the most ambitious and highly coveted restaurants in the world (Alinea) while he was simultaneously fighting tongue cancer and the real possibility of losing his sense of taste. it’s the most vivid account you’ll find of what it costs, physically and emotionally, to chase culinary perfection. Grant is a real “Chef’s Chef.” An absolute psychopath thats done nothing but obsess about food since he was 6 walking around in his parents restaurant, an obsession that earned him 3 michelin stars and the honor of calling Alinea the best restaurant in the country on many occasions.

the creative act: a way of being, rick rubin

not a food book at all, but im telling you - read it anyway. rubin’s whole philosophy to creativity and dedication to your craft is truly astounding. His way of relying on presence, instinct, and trusting what you notice before you can explain it is exactly the headspace any great chef works from. Its a book written for creatives but literally everyone should read it because everyone can improve their lives by slowing down, learning to be more in the moment and draw inspiration from your environment. It’s called “a way of being” for a reason.

everywhere you go and everything you experience can be used or filed away for later use in your craft. immersion is about building more references, creating new memories, forging synapses between neurons and laying down new myelin for new connections to be made.

you’re expanding your scope of context to be drawn upon when the moment is right.

the truth of the matter is - like any skill - if you are not fully committed, you’re not going to get the results you’re looking for. It’s not enough to create a vague goal. It needs to be written down, reviewed, and executed. You need to continually remind yourself of the goal.

If your goal is to get a shredded 6 pack - its not enough to do abs once a week and cheat on your diet on the weekend. you may make some progress, but its not going to be optimal and any results that you do get will take much much longer to achieve.

in the same way - its not enough to practice your cooking skills once a week, or even twice. if you want to get good and do it fast, it has to become a priority. if it’s just one of your priorit-ies, thats totally fine. you just have to know you’re limiting your growth.

just one more lesson to go - see you tomorrow

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once upon a time the term brown sauce was equated exclusively with the classic sauces espagnole and demi-glace. over the years the definition got muddied up to also include jus de veau lie, pan sauces, or reduction-style sauces based on a brown or fortified stock.

espagnole sauce is prepared by bolstering a brown veal stock with additional roasted mirepoix, tomato pincage, and aromatics - then thickening it with a roux. traditionally demi-glace on the other hand is composed of equal parts espagnole and brown stock. it’s reduced by half or to a nappe consistency. sometimes its made of brown stock that has additional caramelized trim and mirepoix reduced to nappe and optionally thickened with a starch slurry.

jus lέs are made by reducing brown stocks or fortified stocks and thickening them with a pure starch slurry. pan sauces and reduction sauces are produced as part of the roasting or sauteing process. thickening can be accomplished by reduction, roux, or pure starch slurries. regardless of the approach taken though the end goal is the same:

make a basic brown sauce that is flavorful enough to be served as is - but can also be used as the foundation for other sauces as well.

the ultimate success of a brown sauce depends directly on the base stock usually brown veal stock. the stock must be excellent in quality with a rich and well-balanced flavor and aroma and without any strong notes of mirepoix, herbs, or spices that might overwhelm the finished sauce (see bottom of article)

*to clarify - an espagnole sauce is one of the 5 mother sauces. I dont want to confuse you with the various brown sauce differences - its an “all espagnoles are a brown sauce, but not all brown sauces are espagnole” type of sitch

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“nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if god had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity”

- Voltaire

this may sound stupid to say but i truly believe that most people have never tasted a single bite of food in their entire life.

i mean - they’ve eaten, but how many people are truly aware of the depths of what they are tasting? eating and tasting - are two COMPLETELY different activities and i’d be willing to bet that 90% of the population only does the first one. i know this because before going to culinary school that was the case for me. I was always a “foodie” - but i was really just a glutton. I shoveled, chewed, and swallowed but i moved on to the next bite without taking a breath nor did i have a single conscious thought about what i just experienced. I barely even breathed when i ate. My mom always told me i “ate like a neanderthal”

i guess thats what you get when you start wrestling at the age of 6 and have to forgo eating for the sake of “cutting weight”.

ask someone what they had for lunch yesterday and they can tell you. ask them what it actually tasted like — texture, acid, where the salt hit, whether the fat coated the back of their tongue or just sort of disappeared — and you’ll get a blank stare every time.

i thought tasting was just something that happened automatically the second food hit your tongue. turns out its a skill. and like every other skill in this course, it can be trained.

taste and flavor are not the same thing

if taste was synonymous with flavor, the number of flavor experiences would be limited as well. beef would be interchangeable with lamb. raspberry, mango, grape, and peach would all just be sweet, tart, and difficult to distinguish from one another. it is the odor component that makes their flavors unique and gives a seemingly endless variety of flavor experiences

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An essential aspect of great cooking is harnessing compatible flavors which involves knowing which herbs, spices, and other flavorings best complement or even accentuate the ingredietns you’re working with. a process of trial and error over thousands of years of human experience resulted in the classic cuisines and dishes we know and love toda - some of which feature timeless combinations of beloved flavor pairings

basil with tomatoes, rosemary with lamb, tarragon with lobster.

food scientists are even able to use scientific techniques to analyze similar molecular structures to come up with new compatible pairing possibilities. As odd as some might sound - examples of this include jasmine with pork liver, parsley with banana, or white chocolate with caviar.

this entire lesson is inspired by a book that i used religiously in the early days of my cooking career. the flavor bible by karen page and andrew dornenberg. anytime i was writing a new menu or trying to think outside the box, but i wasn’t super confident that my ideas would work - i came back to this book for inspiration and reassurance.

understanding the “essence” of ingredients

to prepare any ingredient well it’s vital to understand and respect their overall “essence” or soul if you will. what do we mean when we talk about an ingredient’s essence?

every ingredient has associations with it - culturally, individually and even scientifically. The sum total of those associations comprises its essence. an ingredient’s essence is way more than its flavor.

take two simple ingredients, both salty - what comes to mind when you think of soy sauce? common associations beside its saltiness might include asia [its region], rice [a flavor medium], or scallions [a compatible ingredient].

now what comes to mind when you think of parmesan cheese? aside from saltiness its common associations might include italy[region], pasta or pizza, [flavor medium] and/or basil and tomatoes [compatible ingredients].

while certain other ingredients like chicken, garlic, and onions are used all around the world, they may be neutral in their universality. many ingredients are rooted in distinct associations. some of the primary aspects of any ingredient’s essence include:

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you have to remember that when people come to a restaurant they aren’t just paying for the food - they’re paying for the service, the excitement, perhaps the exclusivity, the decor and the overall atmosphere.

when people come to a fine dining restaurant you can rest assured they have a reason. People reunite with friends they havent seen in a long time, parents get a break from the kids and seize a rare opportunity to honor their relationship - birthdays, promotions, new endeavors - restaurants are a place where we celebrate special occasions.

its our jobs as Chefs to leave a lasting impression by delivering a high level experience they will never forget.

everything in the restaurant needs to be an extension of the overall vision. the ambience has to set the right mood and the food HAS to taste good, but the food also needs to look good.

in part 1 we talked about the most common tools that chefs use to plate and make food look captivating, in this lesson we’ll be talking about the visual / artistic side.

none of that other shit matters if you bring out the food on gawdy looking plates and it looks like it just came from a buffet line. my chef / instructor from culinary school used to always say -

“if the eyes don’t like it - the stomach wont take it”

not the most poetic way to put it - and in certain contexts the phrase doesnt even ring true, but it got the point across. what we see is the first line of defense against eating something that might not be so good for us. as hunter gatherers this was a lifesaving concept, but as lovers of modern gastronomy it still plays a massive role

if we expect bright and crispy haricot vert and what we get is overcooked, limp, forest green beans - our expectation is subverted, but not in a good way.

if we have high expectations and the product is sub par, our mood drops. thats just the way dopamine works from an anticipation / reward standpoint. In a restaurant, this is a disastrous way to begin or end a great evening for you customer. At home, we still want to wow our guests and take great care in finishing what we started.

When we serve food to someone else and it looks great on the plate, its not only a relief, but its an instantaneous signal that it took great pride and tremendous effort - maybe even love - to prepare this food. Nothing will put your dinner guest at ease and wow them more than a dish that looks as good as it tastes.

follow this lesson - get creative and you won’t just meet peoples expectations, you’ll exceed them.

the vessel

simply put - what are you going to be “plating” your food on?

its called plating but technically anything can be your canvas…

we’ve all seen street artists use buildings and town architecture as a canvas for paintings and graffiti, but many artists actually take that a step further

Artist Scott Wade drives his truck down dusty roads on purpose and then uses the grime that coats his back windshield as the medium for his creations.

Craig Tracy paints directly onto human skin and uses the shape of their bodies to bring his full vision into its final form

there are even micro-artists who carve entire calligraphic scenes and portraits into single grains of rice.

with food - especially in a commercial setting where health guidelines must be upheld, we may not have [or want] the freedom to serve food in these ways - but we can take inspiration from them.

for years chefs tried to transcend the standard circular white plates and come up with interesting new ways to plate the same food - plates and bowls of all sizes, black slate, see through glass and mirrors, even things like oyster shooters served in shot glasses and soups served in champagne flutes. [a lot of this can get a bit silly and played out admittedly.]

Attend a dinner at The French Laundry and you’re likely to get served custard inside of a cleaned and preserved egg shell

you walk into Noma and you’ll get root vegetables served in tiny terracotta pots with edible “dirt”.

im certainly not demanding that you to take it this far. i just want you to think deeper than “standard white plate” form time to time. the only reason chefs typically choose white plates is so you can maximize the amount of contrast between the white “canvas” and the colors of the ingredients. theres no sense of incorporating a bright green chive oil onto a black slate if you ask me - but you may feel different.

just ask yourself “how can i honor the elements of this dish through the way i choose to plate them?”

the vessel is just as much a part of the experience as the food itself.

height

lets be honest, flat food is boring food. flat food literally looks and feels “flat”. No matter how well you executed the food it still reads like a school cafeteria tray. Give the ingredients more height. Add the more structurally sound elements at the bottom so they can support the supporting cast above. A simple lean of a protein is even better than just facing it flesh side down. Let a sauce collect at the base and let something light like fresh arugula, or micro greens sit at the top. You can stack ingredients carefully or use a mold to help them stay set - we’re not going for Jenga here but we are looking to add as much dimension to the dish as we can. And practically, height keeps your components from running into each other and turning into one indistinguishable pile.

giving your ingredients more height can give the illusion that theres more food than there actually is - and positioning your ingredients upwards into a point [like a mountain] is also a great visual technique for guiding the eyes upward, exactly where you want their focus to be.

*not the most ground breaking plate i’ve ever seen, but still comes off as elegant and with a decent amount of dimension just by using that protein lean, having all of the elements meet at their peak in the center of the plate, and by stacking microgreens on top

textures

theres two ways to execute texture. physically, creating foods and garnishes that play off eachother from a mouthfeel standpoint . Making a simple parmesan tuile will feel crunchy paired with the other soft elements on the plate and it also works in another way - it provides visual texture. Literally crunchy 3d shapes that have this sort of un-natural yet artistic feel to them.

Visual texture goes even deeper than that. juxtaposing a matte colored plate against an incredibly glossy sauce. A crispy salmon skin next to a buttery smooth butternut squash puree. Our brains work are stimulated by contrast, use that in your preparations.

lines

one of the best things you can do to advance your art is look to other art forms. The concept of [leading] lines is something we can steal straight from film. When it comes to great films [and filmmakers] you have to assume that everything you see in the frame is intentional. EVERYTHING.

Lines are the most fundamental building blocks of composition. Vertical lines can help convey height, strength, dominance etc. Horizontal lines convey size, distance and even a sense of calm [like a massive landscape shot]. Curved lines tend to convey grace and diagonal lines [or tilt of the camera] can make the viewer feel uneasy. But diagonal lines can also bait the viewer in or clue them in on where they should be looking...

When a cinematographer points a camera down a hallway - the long and straight walls are pulling the viewers eyes toward the center of the frame until they converge on the subject. Nobody did this better than Kubrick if you ask me.

We can use these various lines as we plate. A swipe, drag, or straight line of a sauce from a squeeze bottle can lead our eyes toward the “subject” [ingredient] or they can play against the angle you’ve positioned your protein, etc. When we drop a plate in front of the customer - its our job as Chefs to tell them where to look first, second, third.

take a look at the the steep slope of the bowl below - its doing the exact same thing that the hallway is doing in the scene above.

shapes

Although its not really my style, Grant Achatz at Alinea uses A TON of shapes. His pastry chefs would come to the table and literally plate your dessert in front of you - the thing practically looks like a damn treasure map and takes your eyes on quite the little journey.

The use of shapes is another thing we can learn from filmmaking…

when you think about it- shapes quite literally make up our entire visual reality, so its not surprising that they make an impact on composition as well. Circles [and dots], triangles, squares, and even an amoeba-like pop corn chicken all bring a unique sort of flair to the plate.

to me [and most chefs] clean shapes create order out of chaos, which is sort of the only thing we’re doing, really.

In part 1 i mentioned molds, and they are a great way to create this order. But we can also pin this “order” up against the backdrop of more natural, “live” shapes like a wooden serving platter or even sprawling / tree- like fennel fronds as a garnish. Again, we are always looking for juxtaposition - making even the most same things- less same. a caper can be kept whole but it can also be dotted as a puree or cubed into a gelee and plated right next to eachother. same same but different.

shapes can also make “a frame within a frame”. what your eyes see in totality is one frame, but you can also place your subject inside a shape to create another frame. in filmmaking i immediately think about this iconic shot from breaking bad.

in cooking my mind goes to a beef wellington - where each layer, from pastry to mushroom duxelle, to prosciutto leads you eyes to the center where the star of the show lives, the chateaubriand. Hell even the meat adds an additional “frame” from where the outside of it was seared and gives off a pale ring compared to the bright red mid-rare finish on the inside.

classic french cuisine is famous for creating a sort of blair witchy / ritual-esque stone circle with their ingredients and drawing your eye to the focal point inside. circular plate, circular sauce, circular garnish - all surrounding the subject inside. A frame within a frame within a frame.

space

what makes the “drop” in any DJs set so impactful? What builds the most tension and fear right before a horror movie “jump scare”? Silence. Silence is space. Cinematographers use this both positive [the subject] and negative [empty space around them]. A lot can be said about the story you are trying to tell just by how you fill the space in your composition.

space is often used to convey scale and also larger the subject is in the frame [or on a plate] - the more the director is trying to say “hey pay attention dweeb - this is important”. 👇

The use of space - especially empty or “negative” space can make or break the design of a dish and its the biggest mistake i see young and novice cooks making.

In profesional kitchens Chefs have two advantages - the plates are typically bigger - and the portions are always smaller.

At home we are mostly just concerned about filling our stomachs, so in doing so we completely fill our plates. If we’re looking to make a lasting impression, this is one of the worst things you can do.

Sometimes, a large edge is all you need to create that space from your product. if you dont have large plates you either have to make your portions smaller or simply position them in a way that is captivating. it doesnt have to be equal and symmetrical all the way around, things dont always have to be at the center. A lot of chefs like to create asymmetrical compositions - scattering ingredients with intention or straight up choosing to only compose on 1 side of the plate. things can be highly concentrated without looking overloaded and as long as theres enough empty space on the outside - youre still accomplishing the same goal. its really up to you and what youre looking to convey.

we could go on forever talking about all the various shapes, textures, and patterns - we could talk about the rule of thirds or even color theory - but all of that will have to wait for another course. trust me - it will be much more exciting to do on a visual platform anyway.

until then - have an absolute blast with all of these concepts.

remember - there are no rules! only preferences.

think about what you want to say

think about how youre going to say it

compose your food in a way that says it.

as long as your placement has intention, that will take you along away. unlike the plate below which looks like they were sort of just making it up as they went along.

basic execution, little planning or intention, spacing is wack, cliche herb leaves and throwing an inedible garnish on top just cause “it needed something”

dont be a nightmare, chef.

🥄

fresh herbs are pretty magical in the sense that once the aroma molecules in herbs are released into a dish and exposed to other ingredients, the air, and heat - they begin to undergo a host of chemical reactions. A fraction of the original aroma chemicals becomes altered into a variety of other chemicals. the initially strong characteristic notes become more subdued but the general complexity of the mixture actually increases and becomes a lot more nuanced

most of the time fresh herbs are harvested from mature plants when they’re beginning to flower. that’s when their defensive essential oil content is at its peak. an interesting variation is to harvest them as young sprouts with just a few leaves when their essential oil content can be very very different. like fennel sprouts for example contain relatively little anise-like flavor or aroma which dominates the flavor of the mature plant - the licorice type vibe is pretty polarizing for people so its a nice consideration if you’re one of those

pictured below is a list of the most common herbs you will find, and their respective applications

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everybody loves the taste of butter. even the vegans who still attempt to stand on their soapbox and speak down upon us normal people for doing so. the taste and texture and overall value butter adds to our food is inimitable to say the least.

but believe it or not, butter has some drawbacks. i know - blasphemous, but it doesnt hold up well to high heat and it also loses its emulsified property once its melted. still delicious - but not quite the level of refinement that chefs aim for.

let’s talk about 2 very simple techniques that remedy these flaws

lets first make butter more resilient.

by now - you’ve probably heard of and maybe even have used ghee. its become more widely available in stores and thanks to the internet - a large staple in most animal based / ketogenic and other health based communities.

in professional kitchens, ghee is essentially what Chefs call clarified butter.

*well technically, and traditionally, ghee is clarified butter - just taken a step further until the product becomes a more brown, nutty and caramel like flavor / aroma. It originally started in India and only made with buffalo milk, but today it’s generally done with unsalted cows milk and the two terms have essentially become synonymous with each other.

in the modern world - the purpose of clarifying butter is to remove its milk solids and water. this makes it possible to cook with a butter-flavored fat at a higher temperature than is possible with whole butter [the milk solids scorch at relatively low frying temps].

in india - before modernity and the invention of refrigeration - ghee was born out of necessity. back when ordinary butter spoils in only ten days in much of the country, the clarified version kept anywhere from six to eight months

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ill admit it- it was a little rude of me to drop some sauces on you yesterday that require a roux to thicken - before i actually teach you wtf a roux does.

a roux [pronounced “roo”]

thickens sauces, soups, and stews while at the same time imparts those dishes a unique mouthfeel and flavor. all you’re really doing is cooking flour in fat - but that process de-activates an enzyme that [if not destroyed by high heat] interferes with flour’s thickening ability. cooking flour also transforms its raw cereal-ish taste to a toasty or nutty flavor. both the flavor and the color become deeper the longer the roux cooks. in addition to that - cooking flour in fat helps to keep the starch in the flour from forming long strands or clumps when the roux is combined with a liquid.

the same weight of white roux has more thickening power than a darker roux because the browning process causes some of the starch to break down and makes it “unavailable” for thickening. therefore the darker the roux, the less thickening power it has.

the downsides of a roux are the longer cooking time it requires to remove any taste of raw flour because it creates a heavier sauce. another is probably the gluten content. however its still used pretty extensively in professional settings and some hearty homestyle applications like soups and stews. perhaps because of its european culinary heritage and its several distinct advantages.

in addition to thickening a dish, roux will change the color of a sauce and lend that nutty toasted flavor we already discussed. dark roux is particularly important in creole and cajun dishes where it gives gumbos and stews a unique character.

another advantage of using roux is that the starches in the flour do not break down as easily as some others , which creates a much more stable sauce. roux can be prepared with any type of white wheat flour. i’d say the most desirable is all-purpose because of its starch content. flours vary in their starch-to-protein ratio and that has huge implications for the quality of a roux. cake flour for instance has a higher proportion of starch to protein than bread flour will and therefore it will have more thickening power than pure bread flour roux. all-purpose flour has a thickening power somewhere right between the two, which makes it the most versatile

clarified butter is probably the most common fat used for making roux but whole butter, rendered shmaltz, lard, duck fat or tallow may also be used. each fat will influence the finished dish’s flavor so you just want to keep that in mind. pretty much any fat will do i would just avoid seed oils for the obvious reasons and theres no sense in using higher quality cold pressed olive oils etc , especially for darker rouxs.

guidelines for making a standard roux

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Just 10 lessons to go - this month has absolutely ripped by. I appreciate you for grinding along right with me and i hope you are getting a ton out of this.

today were going to tag team sauces 3 AND 4 of the 5 classic French mother sauces - for no other reason than their preparation is pretty damn similar - with just a few subtle tweaks, really

in classic french cuisine the white sauce family includes the velouté and béchamel. both are produced by thickening a flavorful liquid with a roux.

a classic velouté which translates from french as “velvety, soft, and smooth to the palate” is prepared by flavoring a white stock [typically veal, chicken, or fish] with aromatics and thickening it with a blonde roux.

back in the goat Escoffier’s time - a béchamel was made by simply adding cream to a relatively thick velouté sauce. today it’s made by thickening milk [sometimes infused with aromatics for flavor] with a white roux. the darker the roux the more golden the sauce will be. the amount of roux determines the thickness of a white sauce.

stocks used to make white sauces [mainly veal, chicken, fish, or vegetable] may be brought to a simmer and, if desired, infused with aromatics and flavorings to produce a special flavor and color in the finished sauce.

additional mirepoix, mushroom trim or members of the onion family are sometimes added either to strengthen the flavor of the sauce. cut them into small dice or slice them thinly to encourage rapid flavor release into the sauce.

*white sauces scorch easily and they can take on a grayish cast if prepared in an aluminum pan - so choose a heavy non-aluminum pan with a perfect flat bottom for the best results. simmer white sauces on a flat top for gentle even heat or use a heat diffuser if available.

for the velouté

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depending on their molecular structure some fats are solid at room temperature while others are liquid at the same temperature. liquid fats are typically referred to as oils. solid fats soften and eventually melt into a liquid state when exposed to heat - this is common with animal fats that are higher in saturated fats

in addition to being a vital nutrient, fat performs a number of culinary functions. it provides a rich flavor and silky mouth feel / texture that most people find very rich and satisfying. fat also carries and blends flavors of other foods and it makes flavor compounds and nutrients available to us that are soluble only in fat. Fat is also appealing visually in the fact that it makes food appear more moist, creamy, etc

during the baking process, fat performs even more physical and chemical functions like tenderizing, leavening, aiding in moisture retention, and creating flaky/ crumbly textures

[ok, now im craving chicken pot pie].

Fat transfers heat to foods and prevents them from sticking and it also holds the heat in food, emulsifies or thickens sauces, and creates a crisp texture when it is used for frying. Fat is incredibly unique in its ability to heat to relatively high temperatures without boiling or otherwise breaking down. this is actually what allows fried foods to brown and cook quickly. However if heated to high enough temperatures all fats will begin to break down and and eventually an acrid, off-putting flavor develops, effectively ruining anything cooked in it.

the temperature at which this occurs is known as the smoke point.

the smoke point is different for all fats. generally vegetable oils begin to smoke at around 450°f or 232°c while animal fats begin to smoke around 375°f or 191°c. any additional materials in the fat like emulsifiers, preservatives, proteins, or carbohydrates [like butter] will lower the smoke point. Repeated use of fat also lowers the smoke point. this is what makes reusing frying oil increasingly problematic with each reuse.

If you do fry your foods often, be sure to use a high quality, high saturated fat, be VERY careful of the temperatures, and reuse a maximum of 2-3 times.

while they are similar in many ways, fat is solid at room temperature and oil is liquefied. oils are produced by pressing a high oily food such as olives, nuts, corn, soybeans, etc. the oil is can be then filtered, clarified, or hydrogenated to produce an oil or fat like shortening.

cold pressing is generally what you are looking for if you are health conscious and the highly refined hydrogenated process i just described is what is commonly referred to as industrialized seed oils. we’ll come back to this in a minute…

the applications for fats and oils in a professional kitchen or bakery are almost limitless - but i’ve created this info chart below to summarize everything as best as possible. by no means is this limited to what i’ve illustrated.

*Smoke points will vary depending on the degree of refinement and age.

I want to clear something up really quick.

Most Chefs arent concerned about health when they are cooking, at least professionally. They choose highly refined oils because they have higher smoke points, neutral flavors and they are significantly cheaper.

We, my friend, are not going to be “most Chefs”.

The whole point of this course and this substack in general is to get you to produce highly flavorful food without sacrificing your health.

Very often, highly refined industrial seed oils have been marketed to be highly “stable” due to their high smoke point. The latter is true, but chemically its a different story…

Smoke point is all about free fatty acids - the individual fatty acid molecules that have broken off from the triglyceride backbone. Triglycerides are three fatty acids attached to a glycerol molecule - its the basic structure of any fat.

Free fatty acids detach during the process of hydrolysis - when a water molecule inserts itself into the bond linking a fatty acid to the glycerol backbone and cleaves it off. This happens during the processing of fats. So for example…

Olives carry lipase enzymes. The enzymes’ entire biological job is to make this hydrolysis reaction happen. While the olive is intact and alive on the tree, those enzymes and the oil they would act on are actually compartmentalized separately inside the plant cells, so this process doesnt happen. Once the processing begins, any bruising, crushing, or mechanical damage to the fruit destroys that compartmentalization and brings lipase into direct contact with the triglycerides, thus starting the hydrolysis chain reaction.

This is why harvesting / handling matters so much for quality. If Olives sit around bruised in a bin for days before pressing or they get harvested by aggressive mechanical shaking rather than careful picking - they can accumulate even more free fatty acids. When you see the acidity number on an EVOO label [legally capped at 0.8% for extra virgin] - that number essentially represents the amount of free fatty acids per 100g of oil - which is ultimately a proxy for how well the fruit was handled.

So circling back to the free fatty acid / smoke point conversation - a free fatty acid molecule volatilizes and turns to visible smoke at a much lower temperature than a fatty acid thats still bound up in that triglyceride structure. Crude, unrefined oils carry more free fatty acids along with phospholipids and other minor compounds left over from extraction.

The refining process of oils [degumming, neutralizing, bleaching, deodorizing etc] strips those out and therfore increases the smoke point. Sounds great, we love oils with a high smoke point right? not always..

Oxidative stability is a whole other conversation

and frankly it’s the conversation seed oil defenders dont want to have. If we take a look at the degree of unsaturation in the fatty acids themselves [ how many double bonds are present in their carbon chains] - you’ll understand why they are a concern.

Double bonds are reactive sites where oxygen can attack, kicking off lipid peroxidation and the inflammatory cascade that produces rancidity, free radicals, and the aldehydes people worry about with heated seed oils. The refining process can’t change the chemical structure of an oil, it cant remove double bonds, it doesn’t change whether an oil is high in polyunsaturated fat like linoleic acid or if its higher in saturated or monounsaturated fat, but i does radically impact the liability of the oil.

Stripping out free fatty acids raises the smoke point, but in the process of doing so you are stripping out the oil’s natural antioxidants like polyphenols, tocopherols, other minor compounds that are required to protect the oil against oxidation in its crude state. So you can end up with an oil that smokes at a higher temperature and seems more heat “stable” - but it’s actually more of an oxidative liability because you’ve removed both the volatile impurities and the protective compounds in the refining process.

Extra virgin olive oil is often labled as an oil that you shouldnt use to cook with because it has a lower smoke point - yet theres no shortage of literature pointing out that EVOO is significantly more stable than highly refined seed oils due to its higher antioxidant capacity and phenolic compounds

for this and MANY other reasons, im confidently standing on the anti-seed oil side of the argument.

if you’d like to learn more of those reasons and get the science behind why seed oils are harmful - grab my free PDF HERE:

i will be doing a larger deep dive on this and many similar topics once the dust settles on this course, so make sure you are subscribed to get notified when they drop 👇

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Personally, these are the oils that i use:

High Heat Applications: ghee, tallow, coconut oil, Avocado, duck fat

Medium Heat: extra virgin olive oil, butter

Finishing Oils [low or no heat] : EVOO, sesame, nut oils

occasionally i’ll use lard, bacon fat and chicken fat but they are extremely high in PUFAs especially in the US, so i tend to keep them at a minimum unless the dish really calls for that flavor.

I literally never use refined oils anymore. Not even expeller pressed, which is admittedly a better option than the traditional hexane extracted, gumming, bleaching, deodorizing antics used for seed oil production - but its still not a good option. Seed oils to me [high quality nut oils aside] have zero upside. If they are low in phenolic content, are stripped of antioxidants and dont have fat soluble vitamins like ADEK that i can find in butter and tallow, whats the point?

Seed oils are marketed as “heart healthy” but thats based on a completely myopic and outdated heart hypothesis which demonizes LDL as the bad guy - another rabbit hole we will dive into at a later day…

Sure they make a neutral tasting aioli or dressing but from a health standpoint whoopty do. if i want to make an aioli i’ll use duck fat and EVOO.

remember that regardless of which cooking fat you choose - breakdown occurs even at moderate temperatures so its typically best to avoid cooking at high heat for most of your meals. This is something you’ll never hear a chef say either. While everyone is focused on building color and caramelization and in every dish - the majority of my foods [especially meats] are cooked at lower temperatures and using wet cooking methods over dry.

if you want to flex or youre practicing technique - by all means sear away.

But if you’re as health focused as i am - avoiding heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and advanced glycation end products is something i dont take lightly and neither should you.

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one of the coolest things about working in professional kitchens is that you come across and invent a ton of tricks of the trade that you wouldnt normally find in a textbook. Right when i came out of culinary school i was 21 and i was immediately dropped onto a line right next to you multiple guys with decades of experience, and accomplished Chefs to look up to.

countless times ive spent 30 minutes, an hour prepping an ingredient the hard way just for somebody to come up behind me and be like “hey you know you could just do it like this…”

well thanks for telling me now, mfer.

thats what this list is about - increasing flavors, improving efficiency, taking the “pain in the ass” out of a lot of the kitchens most mundane tasks, and a bunch of common “at home” hacks as well.

giddy up.

Buy your spices whole

Ground spice starts losing its aromatic oils the moment it’s ground [slowly, but surely] . Grinding exposes a massive amount of surface area to oxygen and light. So a jar of already ground cumin sitting in your cabinet for eight months isn’t doing exactly living up to its name like it did before.

Nutmeg? More like, nut-mehh. [i hate myself]

Just buy the whole seeds and pods instead and grind what you need right before you cook [use a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle.] You’ll notice the difference immediately.

Bloom your spices

building directly on the first example - Blooming means tossing your spices into a dry pan or into hot fat for a minute or two before anything else goes in. This reactivates /releases the essential oils that bring all the aroma and flavor. A lot of home cooks just dump spice powder straight into a simmering sauce and wonder why it tastes flat. Well thats your answer - the heat unlocks those otherwise dormant compounds. Btw blooming whole spices before you grind them is a great idea too, or maybe that’s just considered toasting. idk i’m just a man.

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The greatest chefs of all time learned from the Chef’s that came before them. Any trade is like that. Knowledge is passed down kitchen to kitchen, burn scar to burn scar. Somebody definitely yelled at Gordon Ramsay before Gordon yelled at his brigade. In fact that guy was none other than Marco Pierre White. Somebody yelled at Marco when he was just another grunt cook. But somewhere down that miserable and grueling learning process a lot of beauty happened.

Fortunately for you, You don’t have to get yelled at to learn what they learned. You have the internet. What i would strongly advise you to do if you REALLY want to learn how to cook, is stop looking to social media for that advice.

“the problem with a lot of young chefs today is they get carried away by trends, by influences, by movements”.

- Daniel Bouloud

Sure you can learn a lot on social media - otherwise you wouldnt be here and i’d just be talking my way out of business - but if you were starting to learn the guitar would you want to study tikok or would you want to study jimi hendrix?

Watch any Kobe Bryant interview. Does he talk about emulating random dudes on the internet or from the AND1 mix tape? No. He looked up at “GOAT Mountain.” Olajuwon, Oscar Robertson, Magic, and of course - Michael.

He talked openly about “stealing” parts of their game.

You should be trying to do the same with Chefs.

Keller, Marco Pierre White, Robuchon, Ducasse, Bocuse, and of course - Escoffier.

These are the GOATs we shoulding be studying the most - Here’s a gang of takeaways to get you started:

on art & creativity

“In a lot of ways, a lot of smells that aren't necessarily edible smell good, and they remind you of certain aspects of food. So making those associations with what smells good or smells a certain way and pairing that with actual edible ingredients is one avenue that we take creatively.”

- Grant Achatz, Alinea

“good cooking does not depend on whether the dish is large or small, expensive or economical. if one has the art then a piece of celery or salted cabbage can be made into a marvelous delicacy whereas if one has not the art, all the greatest delicacies and rarities of land, sea or sky are of no avail”

- Yuan Mel, Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet

“A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.”

- Charlie Trotter

creativity in the kitchen is a muscle you have to flex. sure you can borrow or “steal” from the chefs that have come before you but thats not true creativity. keep an open mind as you walk through life, as open as a child is who is seeing the world for the very first time. pay attention deeply to the foods you eat and your environment as a whole, everything can be used as inspiration for a new dish. everything from your past can be called upon to bring something truly unique into this world. you have the ability to see things the way no one else does.

on cooking from the heart.

“A recipe has no soul. You, as the cook, must bring soul to the recipe.”

- Thomas Keller, The French Laundry

“happy and successful cooking doesn’t rely on know-how. it comes from the heart, makes great demands on the palate, and needs enthusiasm and deep love of food to bring it to life”

- Georges Blanc, Michelin three-star chef in Vionnas, France

“Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself”

- Anthony Bourdain

“Cooking is a holistic process of planning, preparing, dining and sharing food. I place food at the center of our humanity, as it nourishes not only our physical bodies but also our emotional and spiritual lives. Food is truly a cultural phenomenon that informs our traditions and our relationship with the earth. I genuinely believe that food connects us all.”

- Eric Ripert, Le Bernardin

cooking is the same as every other pursuit in life in that in order for it to be wildly fulfilling you have to remember why the hell you’re doing it. there have been many times in my career where i sort of “lost” the passion to cook. Where everything felt laborious and a drain on my energy, it just felt like a pay check. That wasn’t the fault of cooking it was my own. it was a moment in time where i let a wave of emotions and a desire to be elsewhere stop me from living in the moment.

i forgot how special cooking for other people can be, what an offering it is. you’re literally sustaining life in other people. put some intention behind it, create with love and from the present moment and it will always sustain you

on transcending recipes

“A home cook who relies too much on a recipe is sort of like a pilot who reads the plane's instruction manual while flying.”

“Cooking is an observation-based process that you can't do if you're so completely focused on a recipe.”

- Alton Brown

"A cookbook must have recipes, but it shouldn't be a blueprint."

- Thomas Keller

“no rules. Don't be afraid to do whatever you want. Cooking doesn't have to have rules. I don't like it that way.”

- Masaharu Morimoto

recipes evolved as a way to preserve what works and to teach less experienced cooks how to prepare particular dishes by providing specific proportions of compatible ingredients along with step-by-step instructions. however as we’ve discussed previously in the course - 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 filet. devout 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. i truly believe that 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 ultimate potential as a cook

on letting ingredients speak.

“Mother Nature is the true artist and our job as cooks is to allow her to shine.”

- Marco Pierre White

“First of all, for me the secret is in the ingredients. You don't need to start spending fortunes on organic foods and start becoming way over budget. The better the ingredient, the littler that needs doing to it.”

- Gordon Ramsay

“on every forkful regardless of what’s on the fork, there has to be salt, acid, and heat. however unless you are serving a pepper-crusted dish or a lemon or vinegar dish, your seasoning should never be detected. instead your beans should taste like beans and your rabbit should taste like rabbit. diners don’t need to know how much salt, acid, and heat are in the dish and none should be obvious. when a diner tastes your dish all you want them to be thinking about is those beans or that rabbit”

- Sharon Hage, York Street [Dallas]

“Well, cooking starts with shopping. If the ingredients are not good, you don't do it. Just change your mind and do something else. When you serve lobster, you've taken a being's life away. Therefore if you create a recipe, you have to be very dedicated to elevate the lobster, to make it good and tasty of course, but at the end of the day it's a matter of paying homage.”

- Eric Ripert

“my motto has always been: find the best ingredients possible listen to what they tell you about how they want to be prepared. mess with them as little as you can. keep their integrity but at the same time focus their flavor which is where creativity comes in.”

- Vitaly Paley, Paley’s Place [Portland, OR]

the defining trait of a good cook is more than a great palette and more than a great technique. To me it’s about having sound judgment. it’s not only knowing what to do with ingredients but also when, where, and 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 experience and that special moment in time.

At the end of the day, great cuisine is simply about making foods taste the way they are supposed to taste. But then again, there are no rules. Lifes not so black and white ok?

on the craft

“This is the great challenge: to maintain passion for the everyday routine and the endlessly repeated act, to derive deep gratification from the mundane. Repetition is the mother of perfection. If there is true perfection, it's about doing something over and over again. I truly think that if somebody does a recipe they've never done before and gets it right, they're probably more lucky than they are talented.”

- Thomas Keller

“Failure is enriching. It's also important to accept that you'll make mistakes - it's how you build your expertise. The trick is to learn a positive lesson from all of life's negative moments.”

- Alain Ducasse

“You need an entire life just to know about tomatoes.”

- Ferran Adria, El Bulli

“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”

- Anthony Bourdain

“People like to think the creative process is romantic. The artist drifts to sleep at night, to be awakened by the subliminal echoes of his or her next brilliant idea. The truth, for me at least, is that creativity is primarily the result of hard work and study.”

- Grant Achatz

“No matter how much creativity goes into it, cooking is an art. Or perhaps I should say a craft. It abides by absolute rules, physics, chemistry, etc. and that means that unless you understand the science you cannot reach the art. We're not talking about painting here. Cooking's more like engineering. I happen to think that there is great beauty in great engineering.”

- Alton Brown

some people go there entire lives re-making the same dishes over and over again. they cook the same 5-10 things for dinner. every birthday they make the same pasta salad and every summer cookout they make the same pork bbq. theres nothing wrong with playing the hits, ultimately if your friends and loved ones request something you do well then by all means do what makes them happy - thats the most fulfilling thing about cooking anyway.

but on your own time, try some new shit. there are thousands of items in your local grocery store that you can play with, probably hundreds you just walk by and never give the time of day to - or maybe you think “one day i’ll figure out what to do with these sunchokes” . forget “one day” - do that shit now.

thousands of ingredients means a gazillion possible combinations to play with.

at least pick one day of the week to try something new.

take 10 minutes a day to practice a new technique.

30 minutes a day to learn a new cuisine, culture, or recipe.

at the end of the day, this game is a never ending one - should you choose to make it that way.

cooking is great because it works so many parts of your brain. to be great you need to be a highly skilled, highly rigid technician - but you also need to be pushing the boundaries of your creativity. i cant think of many things more fulfilling than that.

🥄

Here we go. Mother sauces part 2 / 5. A somewhat tricky sauce for beginners but one that is absolutely iconic and is incomparable in terms of flavor and texture.

Since the largest part of hollandaise is butter, the success or failure of the sauce depends not only on skillfully combining egg yolks, water, acid, and butter into a rich and smooth sauce - but also on the quality of the butter itself.

Hollandaise sauce is prepared by emulsifying melted or clarified butter and water in the form of an acidic reduction and lemon juice with partially cooked egg yolks. A number of similar and derivative egg emulsion sauces can be prepared by varying the ingredients in the reduction or by adding different finishing and garnishing ingredients, such as tarragon [see bottom of post].

Hollandaise can also be combined with whipped cream and/or velouté to prepare a glaçage, which is used to coat a dish that is lightly browned under a salamander or broiler just before service. Hella classic French shit, i dont think ive seen a glacage on a menu my entire american life tbh.

Melted whole butter or clarified butter may be used in a hollandaise, it really just comes down to your personal preference. Some chefs like melted whole butter for the rich and creamy flavor it imparts to the sauce [which is best for most meat, fish, vegetable, and egg dishes.] Others prefer clarified butter for a stiffer, more stable sauce.

Whatever the approach, the butter must be quite warm [somewhere in the range of 145°F (63°C)] but not too hot or the sauce simply won’t come together successfully. In general the ratio of egg to butter is 1 egg yolk to every 2 to 3 oz (57 to 85 g) of butter. As the volume of sauce increases, the amount of butter that can be emulsified with one egg yolk also increases. For example - a hollandaise made with 20 yolks can usually tolerate more than 3 oz (85 g) of butter per yolk.

Pasteurized egg yolks may be used for hollandaise but theres not really a point. The method outlined here cooks the yolks enough that salmonella becomes a non-issue.

An acidic ingredient is always included in hollandaise both for flavor and for the effect it has on the protein in the egg yolks. The acidic ingredient [which can be either vinegar reduction or lemon juice] also provides the water necessary to form the emulsion in the first place. Whether to use a reduction or lemon juice comes down to the desired flavor of the finished sauce and obviously personal preference. A reduction will impart a more complex flavor, particularly if lemon juice is also used as a final seasoning.

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Today im asking you to convert.

thats right, after two weeks of this course ive decided im starting a cult. i mean they don’t ever last and the endings are always a bit macabre - but fuck it.

im kidding. for now… 😈

but not about the conversion. as an american who grew up with the unnecessarily confusing imperial system - having to figure out how to multiply and divide fractions just so i know how much flour to use in our family christmas cookies - i was delighted to see that as soon as i started working in high level kitchen environments, all that shit went out the window.

today - im paying that delight forward to you. Unless youre from outside the US - than mb you’re already used to what im about to say…

if you’re going to start taking cooking seriously, you’re need to start converting and developing your recipes into grams. To hell with all the measuring spoons and cups, theyre dead to us now. [jk you keep them but ya know, just in case].

Grams don’t lie.

A gram is a gram whether you’re in a rented Airbnb kitchen in Lisbon or your own kitchen in Ohio, and that’s reason number one to make the switch - Because it travels. If you pull up a recipe from a French pastry chef, an Italian nonna, or a young culinary student in Osaka, if it’s written in grams you can execute it exactly. Numbers dont change regardless of the language [ingredients do so good luck] - but you still dont have to do math conversions, no imperial to metric jumping jacks.

i rarely bake - but i swear everytime i do and im following some recipe from the internet i find myself wondering if i packed the cup of brown sugar too much or too little. This is especially important in the baking / pastry world.

weight measures the ingredient itself while a cup or spoon measures a container that's part ingredient and part empty air. Pack flour differently, scoop it differently, and that "Cup"measurement isn’t as accurate as you think.

Weighing your ingredients in grams solves for this.

Reason 2: is about scaling.

Say you’ve got a recipe built for four and you need it for ten, OR you’re cooking for one and need to cut it down to a quarter. Try dividing 2/3 cup by 2.5 in your head while youre working against the clock. Dividing 160 grams by 2.5 is a hell of a lot easier.

Reason 3: it’s the standard.

Walk into any real kitchen - The French Laundry, The Fat Duck, Alinea - you will not see measuring cups. You’ll see scales. High level chefs running michelin star establishments rely on precision to uphold that status and expectation - and nothing is more precise than weighing out your ingredients down to the gram.

Reason 4: the health side of things

if you’re the type of psychopath that likes paying any attention to what you eat, grams make tracking your macros and calories a little bit more seamless. Every decent food tracking app — i like Cronometer - is going to have a way to convert to grams. You weigh your chicken thigh, you weigh your rice, you punch in the number and call it a day. No more “medium” apples and “small” onions, which is a completely subjectve unit of measurement btw …

I tell every single one of my 1:1 coaching clients the same thing when we’re building out their meal plans: buy a damn gram scale. It’s a super cheap / high leverage tool you can own and it makes you a more precise cook in the process. If you already have a gram scale ill assume you’re once again from outside the US or you’re a drug dealer - or both. Don’t worry your secret’s safe with me.

at this point i personally no longer physically track my calories / macros - i did in the beginning and i practiced eyeballing the measurements until i got VERY good at doing it. Now i can take a pinch of salt and know how many grams im holding between 2 fingers, 3, or 4. I can hold a piece of cheese in my palm and guess the weight within a gram or 2. I can look at a bunch of chicken chopped up on my cutting board and do the same.

Put this into practice and over time you’ll master it too.

Some final notes on converting:

If you’re dealing with bigger quantities as you batch prep your proteins for the week [a whole brisket, a costco size case of chicken thighs] - you’re not calculating out individual grams anymore. you switch to kilograms. Same logic obviously you just use a bigger unit so the numbers don’t get absurd. Thinking about how much 4,480 grams of chicken is, is just silly.

If you’re throwing a dinner party and you need a specific count per guest, use the count not the weight. Say you want each of your six guests to get four pieces of shrimp, dont go by the weight of shrimp per portion on your prep sheet, just write 24 pieces of shrimp as your “all day” count [plus a few extra for the safetys and, the chef’s troubles of course]. Shrimp and scallops etc are already sold by weight so you’ve factored that in when you bought them.

Ultimately it can be helpful in certain circumstances to list both more than 1 unit of measuremtn. One “large Italian eggplant” can be written down as well as the gram weight right next to it. That’ll at least give you more context when putting together a shopping list and selecting your produce at the store.

But remember produce varies and so do peoples brains. When someone says “this eggplant is large” my first thought is “large in comparison to what?” My large my not be your large and vice versa.

if you give both the natural language description AND the number it gives you some extra flexibility and insurance.

Either way the gram method is great because the same goes for both dry AND liquid ingredients across the board: flour, sugar, water, stock, oil - all of it can be measured in grams and theres no confusion when communicating a recipe to your family member, a gang of young cooks, or a chef with 30 years experience.

Get a good gram scale. The great thing is a good gram scale is very inexpensive.

Something like this will do just fine.

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Day 15. We’re half way through. We’re really getting to an exciting place where the lessons are starting to compound, where you can stack things from lesson 1, 5 , 7, and 15 and actually produce a product that you are really proud of. If you have been applying these lessons you should be experiencing some serious cooking gainz by now.

We’ve done a bunch of theory, expanded flavors as well as techniques. You can envision a dish from the start, your execution should be better in during, and you should have a great idea on how to finish your food to taste. But how do we finish the dish - on the plate?

Plating is all about the experience. Remember when i said “the eyes eat first” - if your dish gets brought to the table and it looks less than stellar, the diner might enjoy the taste but at minimum they are going to remember what it looked like. And frankly, they’re going to talk about it to their friends [if your lucky they wont leave a review].

In a future lesson we’ll get into the more artistic, theory side of plating - but today we are going to start with hardware…

Tweezers

We’ve already touched on tweezers in Lesson 8 - so i wont spend too much time here, but plating tweezers are extremly common and very valuable. Where regular tongs are large and clunky, culinary tweezers allow you to place something exactly where you want it without your fingers getting in the way, knocking other elements out of place or and smudging the plate and leaving your greasy sausage fingerprints behind. A lot of garnishes we Chefs use are very very tiny, so even those of us without sausage fingers may find it hard to pick up a delicate element and place it with the finesse we want - especially without bruising it. A single micro-herb, a shaved truffle curl, a segment of citrus - all of these should be honored with precision and human fingers [even the most skilled ones], can get clumsy and shaky in the middle of a stressful service. When you’re in the weeds, a good pair of tweezers will help you be as lasered as ever.

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Chef’s love efficiency. It’s not enough to feed you something that tastes delicious, we want to do it in a way that is highly calculated, and extremely refined. Mise en place is the broad term we’ve already discussed ad nauseum but theres a sub-philosophy beneath the mise en place umbrella that simply cannot be glossed over, and that’s both precision and refinement. Our ability to keep our stations clean and our preparations even cleaner is what separates a high level chef from an amateur home cook. What to the outside world seems absurdly inconsequential is what’s actually considered bare minimum to a Chef. Im talking about the difference between pushing sauce through a 5 dollar Walmart strainer and letting it drip overnight through a cheese cloth…

tools of refinement

put simply, these are the tools that separate a rough product from a polished one.

Sieves and strainers are used to sift, aerate and help remove any large impurities from ingredients both dry and wet. colanders and china caps are used for straining and draining foods, sauces, and braises to remove the aromatics. These are all great toos, but there are 3 tools in particular that take this to a whole other level.

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You wanna know 1 thing every Chef is disgusted by? Overcooked vegetables. When i see a musty - on the way to being brown overcooked ass vegetable i think about how long that ingredient took to blossom - from seed to soil, all the time under the sun it took to mature, all the attention, sweat and hard work a farmer put into growing it … all so some shoemaker could be careless enough to drain the life out of it in the matter of minutes.

You might think its not a big deal but vegetables are so incredibly delicate. When you overcook a bunch of asparagus or some beautiful haricot vert - not only do you lose the vibrant green nature from a presentation standpoint, but you are quite literally squeezing out precious nutrients and electrons that we could otherwise harvest for our biological advantage.

There are many ways to cook vegetables - but today we are going to talk about a very foundational technique every cook learns early in their career.

Big Pot Blanching

BPB is Chef shorthand for “quickly boiling vegetables in a big pot with a lot of salt in order to preserve vibrant colors and nutrients”.

basically any vegetable can be cooked in this manner. the only difference is that some vegetables provide you with more room for error and depending on what you’re cooking, the time will also be a variable that needs adjusting. these sorts of vegetables that have the least room for error by far are green vegetables. chefs want their green vegetables to be bright. the difference between a highly saturated green vegetable and a dull forest green is one that can really make or break a dish.

after all - “the eyes eat first”

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9 times out of 10 when i tell a home cook to “season” something, their mind immediately goes to spices. While i agree the terms are very closely related and are often used interchangeably at home - in professional kitchens if your chef tells you to “season” something, hes not talking about cumin, paprika or cloves.

In professional kitchens, to “season” something actually refers to the use of either salt, or acids.

our goal as flavormaxxers isn’t to necessarily to add an entirely new flavor to the dish, It’s actually to just enhance the ones that are already there. So essentially you have a dry version and a wet version to utilize depending on what you need it for. And i know what you’re thinking, “chef, but vinegars are acids and they are VERY strong flavors so how does that make sense?” - this is of course true.

Vinegars by themselves can be incredibly intense depending on the variety, quality and the goal for the dish. If you’re pickling vegetables or your serving a red onion mignonette for oysters - theres no avoiding the up front pungentness and dynamic of flavors that we all associate with vinegar. but the other truth is that vinegar loses much of its sharpness when it’s heated. So if you were to use it at the beginning of a cooking process like deglazing your shallots / rice in a risotto, the flavor is much less pronounced by the time the rice is cooked and yet it still provides a vital inflection to the dish. It all just depends on the vibe you’re going for. Higher end vingegars / acids can be a flavor to showcase, or they can just uplift lift the ones that you want to.

Salt has the ability to suppress bitterness and pull both sweetness and savoriness to the forefront of a dish. Acids do a phenomenal job at cutting through the heavy richness of fat AND they brighten up any dull flavors - which ultimately takes a dish thats just sort of mid all the way up to a well balanced 10. This is why a a steak can be completely dredged in spices and still taste like flat. You can make a curry with all the spices in the world and it’ll still taste muted if you never season it properly with salt and acid at the right moments.

Seasoning is a technique you apply throughout cooking, not just at the end.

Vinegars: your acidic arsenal

Acid is half the seasoning equation, and although citrus fruits can be extremely valuable in this context - vinegar is where most of our “seasoning” takes place. Here are the ones you’ll actually use most often:

Red wine vinegar is sharp and slightly fruity, and it’s the workhorse for many vinaigrettes, red meat preparations or accompaniments [chimichurri] and deglazing for many pan sauces. White wine vinegar is lighter and cleaner and can fulfill many of those same roles - its just way better suited for more delicate ingredients, sauces for fish and poultry or anywhere you want acidity without the darker color or the robostnuss of RWV.

WWV is often considered the most neutral cooking vinegar and so it is typically a chef’s go to for most preparations.

Balsamic vinegar this is an italian product that’s produced from white trebbiano grapes. What makes balsamic unique is that the must is cooked and concentrated until it’s deep and rich in both color and flavor. the vinegar gets its dark color and pungent sweetness from a lengthy period of aging in barrels of various woods like chestnut, juniper, or mulberry. balsamic can be aged as little as three to five years or for the most noble versions anywhere from 12 to over 100 years which is just absolutely insane. if you ever have the chance to taste older / higher quality balsamics like any stravecchio over the age of 25 years, do it. many of these high-quality balsamics are used as an aperitif or a digestif after a meal - they’re that good.

just be careful when buying balsamic on a budget, The cheap stuff is sometimes a wine vinegar with caramel color and sweeteners added. WAFN.

white balsamic vinegar is also fire. it comes from modena italy but it’s made from an entirely different process than classic balsamic. the grape actually undergoes pressurized cooking in order to prevent the caramelization of both flavor and color. it’s only aged one year in uncharred barrels to make sure the color and flavor once again remain light. if you want a ton of flavor but you don’t want to darken the end result of your dish, white balsamic is a phenomenal way to go.

france gives us banyuls vinegar from banyuls sur mer, the same region that is critically acclaimed for its fortified wines. banyuls typically spends five years or more maturing in oak barrels and during the final year of aging the vinegar from an older batch is added to trigger the ultimate conversion from wine to vinegar. the result is a tart blend loaded with complex aromas of allspice, anise, nuts, and vanilla.

from the area of southern spain around jerez de la frontera comes sherry vinegar. Sherry has a nutty, slightly sweet depth to it that also comes from its aging process. just like balsamic vinegar some sherry vinegars are aged for 30, 50 or even 75 years. It’s excellent finishing lentils, roasted vegetables, or anything with a Spanish lean. A few drops at the end of cooking will do more work than you’d expect.

Rice vinegar is mild and slightly sweet, and it’s your go-to for anything Asian influenced: sushi rice, quick pickles and dressings that a touch of acid without sharpness. Apple cider vinegar is fruitier and a little funkier. Its great in dressings where you want acidity with a little bit of roundness behind it. Champagne vinegar is the most delicate of the bunch, subtle enough to use in vinaigrettes & where you don’t want the acid to overpower anything.

if you remember one thing, remember this: match the weight of the vinegar to the weight of the dish.

Light, delicate food gets light, delicate acid. Rich, heavy food can handle something that’s a bit sharper and more in your face. As always go light at first. You can always add more but you cant take out.

Salt

Not all salt is created equal. The texture, grain size, and mineral content of the salt you use changes how it performs between your fingers and obviously in your final dish.

Ask any pro chef what his go-to all around workhorse salt brand is and i’ll be willing to bet that he or she says Diamond Crystal. DC is what is known as a “utility salt”. It can be used to season anything from a soup to animal proteins, fish, vegetables - you name it. From a chef’s perspective you cant beat it. It has a nice even coarseness, not too big not too small, just a real solid texture. The issue is it’s not the most clean if you’re looking at it from a health standpoint.

Chefs also love to have a gang of different finishing salts in the rotation - Maldon and fleur de sel are the two that typicaly top the list. And just like vinegars - theres not really a limit to the types of salts that can be sold or created - sel gris, black lava salt, truffle salt, herbed salts, citrus, bourbon infused - pretty much anything can be infused into a salt.

In terms of healthy salts, I started using Redmond sea salt over 10 years ago and i havent really looked back. I prefer the finer grind that they have. I find that the regular grind kosher salt is slightly too big for final seasonings [sometimes you’'ll bite down on a chunk and its pretty off putting. If you’re just going to use it while you’re cooking it’s typically not so bad because the salt is going to break down when its exposed to heat.

I like Celtic Sea Salt as well - the texture for that is definitely applicable for both cooking and for making the final adjustments but it seems to have a higher moisture content so it sort of clumps together in my experience. It’s not as easy to “make it rain” in an even spread . That’s why I prefer the Redmond.

On Redmond and heavy metals/microplastics

There have been claims over the years that Redmond tests high for certain heavy metals. The truth is any mined, unrefined salts are always going to carry trace heavy metals because they come out of the ground with everything that was in the ground. It’s important to watch our heavy metal exposure but its more important to make sure we are supporting the endogenous detoxification systems in the body so that we can eliminate them. You should also be getting routine lab work to verify that this is the case.

Redmond doesnt test anywhere near what most pink himalayan salts do - and they had been marketed as the “healthy” option for years. They consistently show up testing at unsafe levels for microplastics and heavy metals, regardless of the brand that sells them.

Always look for companies who openly share their mineral / heavy metal test results, and Redmond has always done that.

Copy of mineral-analysis | Redmond Life

This is your reminder to TASTE TASTE TASTE.

i encourage you taste all of your vinegars, all of your salts individually in order to understand the depth and the nuances of their flavors. Most people tend to think that vinegars are just vinegars and salts are just salts but it’s only because they’ve never taken the chance to sit down and truly take notice to them, reflect, and even journal out the flavors and tones that they’re experiencing. developing a practice like this will substantially improve your palette, awareness and understanding of which foods they pair well with the most.

more on this in tomorrows lesson!

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Ok. You’ve spent ten lessons learning to see, smell, listen, touch, taste, and organize your way through a kitchen. Over the course of the next 20 lessons im going to sprinkle in each of the 5 “mother sauces” from traditional french cuisine. Mother sauces are the foundation of most sauces you’ve ever seen on a restaurant menu. A bernaise is a derivative of a mother sauce. A mornay is a derivative of a mother sauce. A bordelaise and a bourguignonne, the same. Of course there are MANY sauces that fall outside of this family but the 5 mothers sauces is the framework that every young cook learns very early on in culinary school.

We’re going to learn one at a time starting today - and we’ll begin with the easiest to prepare.

a standard Tomato sauce. 🍅

Tomato sauces of all kinds range from simply seasoned and fresh to complex and highly seasoned are featured in so many different cuisines from around the world. tomato sauce is a generic term used to describe any sauce that is based mainly on tomatoes.

Tomato sauces can be made several ways. they may be raw or cooked anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours. in some versions olive oil is the only cooking fat. For others rendered salt pork, hocks, or bacon are incorporated into the base. Some recipes call for roasted veal or pork bones. Others are made strictly from tomatoes and the desired vegetables.

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