Top Secrets From Restaurant Chefs

The reason that special menu offering at your favorite restaurant tastes so delicious is that the chef preparing it has spent literally thousands of hours discovering the secret to great cooking. But the most talented restaurant chefs are also the most generous, and willing to share some of their best secrets on techniques you can adopt for creating your own memorable meals at home.

One of the top secrets practiced by successful professional chefs is to always use the freshest foods in season that you can find. A California strawberry at the peak of sweet ripeness in mid-July is the time to showcase your strawberry shortcake recipe, not in the middle of January. No amount of sauces or seasonings can save tasteless food, but fruits and vegetables at their peak of ripeness have a distinctive flavor and aroma that makes dining a pleasure.

Another secret is keeping your kitchen workspace uncluttered.

Keep your focus on using just a few pieces of equipment to get the job done. Invest in a good professional set of sharp knives for slicing, peeling and dicing, and a quality food processor, which serves a variety of functions, from mixing dough and batters to chopping and liquefying ingredients for everything from salad dressings to mousse.

Top chefs know the secret of practicing the fine art of seasoning foods with salt and fresh herbs. The secret is to add salt, preferably a bolder-flavored salt like sea salt or kosher salt, throughout the cooking process, continuing to sample your work in progress as you go. Salt can help bring out the natural flavor of food. And whether it’s a freshly made salad dressing, soup or sauce, you can often heighten the flavor profile by adding fresh herbs just cut from the garden.

Another secret of top chefs is to cook creatively, whipping mashed potatoes with chicken stock and roasted garlic rather than plain milk, or poaching summer peaches and nectarines in a fine sauterne or port wine instead of merely water and sugar for a simple yet classic dessert offering.

A great chef is always tasting throughout the cooking process, another secret to creating memorable dishes. Before adding more tomato sauce, vinegar, wine or other ingredient as directed by your recipe, taste first and add more flavors sparingly until your own tastebuds tell you the taste is perfection.

And all great chefs keep their pantrys stocked with essentials, such as eggs, yeast, flour, butter and cream. But don’t be afraid to experiment by adding a new ingredient to your repertoire on a weekly or monthly basis. Indulge your curiosity for ethnic cuisines by exploring local markets and reading new cookbooks.