Sneaking in Flavor: Part of the Job, Most of the Fun

Literally every time I drop something into an ice bath, I get anxiety. My brain goes right to, “ $^#% it’s losing flavor, hurry up and get it out”. Technically, very little flavor is lost unless you leave it in for a long time, but it's the thought that counts.

Our job as a chef is to attack the things most people overlook, and get in the weeds of the details to create something that feels both brand-new and instantly familiar. When we approach it like that, there are all of these little opportunities when we’re cooking to sneak in more flavor. It’s how we can manage surprise diners with something that tastes way better than they expected, and they don’t quite know why.

I think being a great cook and making really delicious food requires way more effort than it does talent. How far you’re willing to go to find the little nuance and details that others don’t think about.

Cooking is a craft just like any other, and intersects are like many other crafts too. Musicians, artists, architects, designers, all have a similar plight to create something uniquely theirs and a little better than those before them. Leonardo Da Vinci is most definitely someone who can teach us a lot about creating exceptional outcomes. His super power was curiosity. He compared it to looking at the page of a book, which is meaningless when taken in as a whole and instead needs to be looked at word by word. He said, "Deep observation must be done in steps...If you wish to have a sound knowledge of the forms of objects, begin with the details of them and do not go to the next step until you have the first well fixed in memory”. Shouldn't we take this approach to rethinking every step of what we’re creating?

The recipe below I think is a nice example of exploring nuance in action. I learned the technique from chef Anthony Amoroso years ago, so credit goes to him not me. We actually used Hamachi not tuna back then. It overcooks quickly. So after a super quick sear on a wicked hot plancha-> we shocked the Hamachi in a soy and yuzu ice bath to chill the fish quickly. So it cooled quickly BUT you didn’t have to race to take it out because it was friggin marinating too!

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A few other upgrades in the same spirit:

Rest your meat in fat.
- After cooking meat like pork tenderloin or duck breast (anything where charred crust is not essential) rest the meat in duck fat or pork fat/bacon fat or even grapeseed oil, with some herbs and maybe some whole spices. Has to be the right temp ie no hotter than the temp you want your meat to reach. But the oil forms a hydrophobic barrier at the surface of the meat so there is less evaporation ie less moisture escapes, and also duh, it’s sitting in seasoned duck fat!
Cool your shrimp for cocktail in stock:
- Pour hot shrimp stock (or court bouillon) over shrimp for cocktail and let it cool in the stock (you have to wrap it in plastic right away so it cooks through. Yep, you can also do this sous vide or in a combi-oven sure.
Use the water from soaking rice
- I learned this one from chef Bouley. After you wash your rice (yes, please ^%$#&^% wash your rice!), use the water from rinsing it to poach veggies, fish, etc. Just not the first rinse, that can have sediment and such. At Bouley, we poached Tokyo turnips in rice water, the rice gluten formed a slightly thickened glaze on the turnips. And the nutty flavor of the rice was so good. It was finished with some vanilla oil. Oh yeah, add your vanilla bean pods to a squeeze bottle with oil! Great with lobster dishes and of course turnips:)
Always use your white asparagus peelings and trim when poaching
- Make the broth you poach your asparagus in with these! Also green asparagus works great with this too.