How to cook anything
My 10 rules to kitchen success
Salt it. The water, the veggies, the starch. Salt it all. (Hint: the reason why you crave restaurant food is because they use way more salt than most home-cooks. Use a little more salt, and you’ll save money at home and still not use as much as most restaurants do.)
Buy cool stuff and use it. I love seasoning blends and sauces and have lots of obscure ones that I pick up on clearance all over the place. (One of my favorite places for sauce sourcing is, weirdly enough, TJ Maxx.) The other night my inspiration started because I needed to use some old zucchini - add pasta, feta, ground pork and that weird jar of Moroccan Tan-Tan and you have a smoky, salty, summery pasta dish.
Speaking of feta, wander through the store, buy things that call to you, and trust yourself to use them. I bought a block of feta at Grocery Outlet because it was two dollars. I didn’t have a recipe in mind or a plan, but feta shouldn’t be left to fend for itself so I selflessly stepped up. It perfectly topped-off the Moroccan pasta.
Don’t forget the golden rules of cooking: salt, fat, acid, heat. (You can add sweet and umami here if you must quibble.) If your dish is well-seasoned, if there is a slight slide of fat on the tongue, if you have an acid-tang in the aftertaste and a little heat, either because the dish is cooked properly or because you gave it a quick chop of a pepper or a palm-full of curry powder - it’s quite hard to mess it up.
If it grows together it goes together: Olives and soft cheese, zucchini and tomatoes, rangey red wine and beef, bright white wine and clams, potatoes and garlic, citrus and seafood, peppers and onions. If you’re trying to cook something on the fly, just ask yourself - could these things thrive in similar climates? If the answer is yes - go for it.
Commit to a flavor profile and go big. Many home-cooks are afraid of over-powering flavors and so shy away, making the home version boring and forgettable. If you want to eat a curried sweet potato or a Thai noodle dish or a sizzling slab of Carne Asada - make it at home! But do it right. Use more seasoning than you think you need, taste again and again, and make sure that anyone who tries the dish can pick up the flavor, because that’s what brings joy to food. Around the world, we’re all working with the same stuff: a starch, a protein, a vegetable. The herbs, spices and configurations are what make a Turkish kebab and a Mexican fajita two very different experiences.
Wander. Wander through the grocery store. Wander through the farmer’s market. Wander through the cooking section of a big-box or discount store. Order a weird dish you’ve never heard of from a food truck. Wandering is a luxury, but even if you only make time for it occasionally, your kitchen and palate will thank you.
See your cooking as creativity. Sure, you can meal-plan, but don’t let practicality steal your zest. Sure, you can google a recipe and follow it, but you could also get inspired by a cookbook and then wing it. Let creativity and cravings guide you and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Fill your freezer. We raise our own beef, Adam frequently brings home fish (for a while we had tons of wild Alaskan halibut and salmon, what a treat!) and we buy pork and chicken from local producers in bulk when we can. Having protein in the freezer means we eat everything - from oxtail to stew meat to sirloin steak - and has taught me how important the seasonings, sides and sauces truly are. Even the most humble cuts can be elevated with the right blend of spice and style, and as a result of eating this way, we not only cut down on food waste, but we teach our kids to eat well at any price point.
Cook and eat with gusto. Make the chorizo, fry the tortillas, use fresh cilantro. Make a kofta patty, stew your oxtails the Jamaican way, add the extra splash of cream to the potatoes. Cook and eat like your life depends on it - because it does. Without food we die, without joy we wither. Step away from the frozen entree and instead, make yourself a spicy, sloppy, umami-drenched homemade bowl of ramen noodles in the same amount of time. Slurp it into your mouth because why not? Every meal should be treated like a kiss.
Fun! Thanks Dani!