The Pantry

The secret to success in the kitchen is to have a well-stocked pantry.

Pantries come in all sizes from dorm-sized entities to ones more resembling the running of a small-sized military operation so it is necessary to understand where you lie on this scale.

There are three variables at play — method, money and madness. Let's examine them in reverse order because that would be the methodical thing to do.

Philosophers through history have pointed out with tedious and wearisome regularity that madness is relative. What matters is the intensity of your cooking habit, the regularity of company showing up to partake, and the depths of your obsession. The CC is pretty clear that on a scale of 1 to 10, his dial goes all the way up to 11 (but that was obvious, right?)

Money is a subtle point and one not routinely discussed in polite company. You do not have to be rich to have a large pantry (but it helps.) What is more important that you have a sufficient amount that you can juggle a complex operation and keep renewing ingredients as they run out which they will. It helps if you live in New York or London because of the insanely well-stocked ethnic markets which are dirt-cheap but the Internet allows you to source far and wide with consummate ease at this point.

(On a historical digressive note, this is something that an upper-class Englishman could do with consummate ease pre-World War I — source top-quality ingredients from across the world — he used the telephone. The First World War destroyed the aristocracy and their elite tastes and the Depression and the Second World War laid utter waste to it. It's taken us 60 years to get back to where some were albeit with a much larger degree of democratization.)

Method, of course, is the magic that mediates between money and madness. Here tastes differ so you will have to define it for yourself. It matters what cuisines you routinely cook. The CC's tastes run to French, Italian, Indian, Japanese and Thai (in alphabetical order) with liberal elements of Greek, Mexican, Persian and Sichuan thrown into the mix but yours might differ.

De gustibus non est disputandum. (in this case, quite literally!)

The list conceals more than it reveals. Each of the first three (French, Italian, Indian) constitute of tons of regions with a variety of ingredients to juggle and this requires a level of complexity that is quite deceiving when it comes down to one sentence.

So you need to source your "stuff", stock it regularly, juggle it all correctly to make sure nothing gets wasted or destroyed and cook daily to enjoy it all!

Thanksgiving

Champagne with Pomegranates
♥ Bruschetta with Spicy Roasted Squash, Onion Jam & Blue Cheese ♣ Duck Confit with Spicy Pickled Raisins & Pomegranate Seeds
Frisée Salad
Duck-fat Roasted Potatoes with Rosemary
♦
Almond-stuffed Dates with Rosemary & fleur de sel
♠
Chocolate

Let's Bolt Out of Here

Have you ever had a lettuce and it was slightly bitter?

It's been "bolting".

No, the CC is not making this term up. It seems to be standard terminology in the horticultural world.

Bolting is the plants' attempt to produce seeds, flower and reproduce.

Once plants have bolted, there's no going back because it's just a fact that they just want to flower and reproduce whereas we want to eat them. They turn bitter because it's a first-line defense against predators including humans who most certainly are exactly that.

There's a general tendency of humans to buy larger produce. More bang for the unit buck and all that but you'd be better served to pick smaller varieties that haven't yet bolted out of town.

Plating Tricks

One of the more clever tricks that a talented home cook can learn from chefs is the idea of layering things on a plate beneath the main dish.

It's easy enough to sprinkle stuff on top but doing so beneath where it lies invisible involves a little bit of understanding. This is a technique that can only work for dishes that are more or less constructed in the French manner. It wouldn't work for Chinese cooking, for example, which has an entirely different aesthetic in terms of serving.

When we eat something, we inevitably press down (knives + forks) or we scrape (spoons). Either way you are literally touching and pressing down against the bottom of your plate. Compare with chopsticks where you lift away from the plate.

The idea then is that you can subtly enhance the flavor in ways that are entirely unobvious.

For example, you can put a dry powder at the bottom of a plate on which you serve a salad. The powder if suitably dry and crunchy will not only adhere to the greens as the fork presses down but hit the tongue first because of the way the salad is eaten. You will get a "hit" of a crunchy nature that constrasts with the salad.

A similar related idea is that of a gastrique served beneath meat and seafood dishes. It's a sweet-sour reduction that will adhere to the meat as you cut it. (Pressure on the fork; knife does the work.)

It's theatrical magic but entirely simple once you understand the trick that makes it tick. It's a pretty general concept only limited by your imagination. Two ideas are presented below for your delectation.

Almond Breadcrumbs

Ingredients

12 blanched almonds
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
salt

Recipe

Roast the almonds in the oven at 350°F for about 12 minutes. Make sure they don't burn. Chop fine.

Process the almonds, breadcrumbs and salt to a fine powder in a coffee grinder or a food processor.

Orange Gastrique

Ingredients

1 cup orange juice
2 tbsp. vinegar
salt

Recipe

Combine and reduce at medium high heat until thickened. Be careful that it doesn't burn.