We all learned to cook from someone. Maybe the nuances of baking came to you while making biscuits with grandma, or the ability to throw together a zingy marinade sunk in while grilling steaks with dad or, like me, you learned the finer details by watching hours of cooking show reruns on PBS.
Now in the Food Network age, we all have easy-as-the-internet access to tips from countless celebrity chefs. A new recipe, wine and food pairing or first course suggestion is only a few strokes of the keyboard away. But we at PA Eats yearned to know more than what prettily packaged web pages reveal. We wanted to know what kind of advice real-live-flesh-and-blood chefs battling it out in the kitchen trenches every day would give the home cook. So we sat down with two Delaware chefs who have 39 years of kitchen experience between them. As passionate as these chefs are about food and cooking, they were happy to share some secrets of their culinary prowess.
First Things First: Meet the Chefs
Chef Eric Aber, Chef/Owner, Home Grown Cafe, Newark, Del.
22 years in the kitchen, which “in kitchen years is more like 54.”
Chef Mike Petrilla, Head Chef, Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, Newark, Del.
17 years in the kitchen, 12 of those at Iron Hill.
Six Tips for Kitchen Success
1. Before you cook, set yourself up for success.
When trying out a new recipe, chef Aber suggests reading it over from start to finish. “Think about what it’s going to feel like to cook this recipe, from ingredients to textures,” he says.
“Go through it in your head step by step. And always have your mise en place ready. ‘Mise en place’ is a French phrase meaning ‘putting in place.’ In other words, set yourself up for success. There’s nothing worse than starting a quick-cooking meal like a stir-fry only to realize all your veggies aren’t chopped or you don’t have an ingredient on hand. Instead, save time and heartache by having all your ingredients prepped ahead of time. Chef Aber advises, “Good food is all about attention to detail, being relaxed and focused while cooking it. If a chef is running around gathering things last minute some aspect of the dish is going to suffer.”
Without this first step in the cooking process, restaurant kitchens wouldn’t be able to get a meal out in an efficient manner, and it’s just as important for the home cook.
2. Season as you go.
Seasoning is one of the most important aspects of cooking. Often what’s missing from the home cook’s recipe is two simple ingredients: salt and pepper. ”Season throughout the cooking process,” chef Aber says. He suggests seasoning each layer of a recipe with salt and pepper and using fresh herbs toward the end of the cooking process.
If you’re cooking a steak or lovely cut of meat, Aber warns, “don’t turn it and poke it, but do season often.” That way you’ll have full flavor throughout the whole dish. Chef Petrilla says seasoning as you go is necessary, but to be thoughtful about it. The home cook should “season and flavor often but in small stages. It’s always easy to add, but almost impossible to ‘fix’ when too much of something is added.”
3. Try new herbs and spices.
“Fresh herbs add both aesthetic and taste appeal to a dish,” says chef Aber. Always have fresh herbs like thyme, basil and parsley around. In fact, Aber wants us all to grow an herb garden. “All it takes is a few terra cotta pots,” he shares.
Chef Petrilla agrees that fresh herbs are a cooking necessity and adds spices to the home cook’s shopping list. One of his favorite ingredients is fennel seeds. He likes to toast the seeds, grind them into a powder and use them as a finishing dust. “It’s a versatile seed,” he says. “It lends an aromatic and earthy sweetness and can be used whole and ground and works with anything from fish to red meat to vegetables.”
4. Don’t spend a lot of money on a knife.
Contrary to popular opinion, your knife doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Petrilla takes a strong stance on this dicey issue: “Do not waste your money on the high-end pretentious nonsense. [Expensive knives] are well-made, but most are better suited to be show pieces than actually used in a kitchen as a work horse.”
Instead, he suggests, “Get something that’s comfortable, balanced and well-crafted. A thinner blade and stainless steel generally means it’ll be far easier to keep a honed edge. Plenty of great knives that are chef or utility are in the $40 to $60 range versus the $100 to $200 and beyond range.”
According to Aber, less expensive knives have softer metal, which is less difficult to sharpen than the hard metal of a heavy, expensive knife. “Keep your knife sharp,” Aber says. “You can hurt yourself in the kitchen if your blade is dull.” Besides the economical savings of a sensible, reasonably priced knife, there’s another benefit: actually looking like you know a thing or two about cooking.
Chef Petrilla says, “I see a lot of home cooks, as well as cooks/chefs new to the industry, very quick to blow their paychecks on collections of overpriced paper weights that eventually end up in a closet somewhere. When someone comes into a kitchen and unrolls a knife bag full of top-end knives that look like they’ve never been used, it’s generally a sign they’re new and haven’t spent much time in a kitchen of any kind.”
5. Cook what you love.
Chef Petrilla loves using fennel seed not only because it’s a tasty little ingredient but also because it brings him right back to what he knows and loves. “For me, it’s reminiscent of childhood,” he says. “The smell of fennel seeds often takes me back to my mother and grandparents pan-frying Italian sausage.”
In the same way, chef Aber “likes to cook familiar favorites with a signature twist.” He explains, “I want people to recognize and understand what they’re eating and yet be surprised at the nuances I add to dishes they may have already experienced in their culinary life.
“ The link between food and memories is a powerful one. That’s why we want comfort food when we’re feeling down or must make mom’s baked bean recipe when headed to a barbecue.” Petrilla relates, “The aroma of sausage cooking or fennel seed toasting is certainly no slouch in that department. I can be in the middle of a shift juggling half a dozen things and the aroma of [fennel seed] wafting through the air will always stop me dead in my tracks and put a smile on my face.”
6. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Chef Petrilla tells his staff all the time: “If you don’t get it right, start over and do it correctly. No point in pouring more time, energy and ingredients into something that has a slim chance of turning out okay and will only be a shadow of what you initially intended.”
That’s why his biggest advice to home cooks is, “don’t be afraid to make mistakes and try, try again.” This is good news for us home cooks pioneering into unknown food territory and reminds me of another bit of wisdom given by home cook turned food legend Julia Child: “The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking, you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.” Sound advice and perhaps the first lesson any home cook needs to learn.
- Photography: Rachel Knapp
