How Not to Suck at Cooking

How can cooking go wrong?

There aren’t many cardinal sins. Not seasoning, using rotten ingredients, not tasting as you go, not giving a shit about the outcome, these are the big ones. Instead, I offer a list of rules I try not to break, to make sure my work is as good as I can make it.

1. Avoid the gratuitous overuse of cheese. This is a huge issue in the USA. Cheese on everything, all the time. This is an incomplete list of things that do not need cheese: tacos, hamburgers, french fries, steak, seafood, chicken sandwiches, green salad, and most importantly, SCRAMBLED EGGS! If you need cheese to enjoy scrambled eggs, you are scrambling your eggs wrong.
2. No letting fried things get soggy before they get to the customer. If you can’t fry right, find another method.
3. Avoid pre-mixed seasoning packets. This was a problem when I worked in New Orleans. They love their creole seasoning. And it has its place, but they put it in EVERYTHING, so everything tastes kinda the same. And real Indian cooks don’t use curry powder. They will make their own masalas out of whole spices, and use different ones for different purposes.
4. Avoid dry herbs. No exceptions. You haven’t smelled a bay leaf until you’ve smelled a fresh one. Get a big bag and keep them in your freezer.
5. Never skip brining meat that needs brining. Certain meats run dry. Chicken and lean pork are the biggest offenders. Once you grill a brined pork chop, you will never go back.
6. This is for all my chefs out there: never include an ingredient just because it adds color. Every component must contribute flavor, aroma, or texture. Micro-greens can be awesome. Micro-greens for their own sake are lame.
7. No mirepoix in stocks. If a sauce needs onion, celery, and carrot, add them. If a sauce needs shallot, star anise, and pink peppercorn, add that. The flavors of vegetables and herbs take minutes to infuse, so why not keep your base stocks neutral? If your stock tastes like Dinty Moore beef stew, so will your demiglace. (Hat tip to Paul Bertolli, who destroyed conventional wisdom on this one.)
8. No salads with dressing on side. All salads must be tossed. The light touch of dressing on lettuce is what makes a salad. Also, with the dressing on the side, the salt won’t stick. Salad, literally translated, means salted. If its not dressed, its not a salad.
9. No fake balsamic vinegar. If it cost less than 30 bucks, it isn’t balsamic vinegar, its regular vinegar with sugar and caramel color added. Real balsamic vinegar is trebbiano grape must, allowed to reduce and oxidize for hours and hours over a very low flame, and then aged in a series of progressively smaller barrels to pick up sap from the wood. Its an expensive process. Cheap knock-offs do not belong in fine cuisine, any more than American cheese does.
10. Do not overdress plates! Exhibit restraint! Often, chefs will get high on their own farts and want to put 25 components on a plate. For certain chefs (Achatz, Gagnaire), that is a component of their style, and it works, and they have the stars to prove it. But for most, it makes for a confusing mess and your line cooks will hate you. Remember what Coco Chanel said. Before you go to a party, look in the mirror and take one thing off! Every element on a dish should positively need to be there.

Okay, I'm getting off my soap box.