Shop Like a Chef

You can see these two onions weigh almost 2 Lbs.

Who doesn’t want to shop like a chef? Have you ever seen a chef shopping?  If you do, follow them around and watch what they buy.  What chefs and professional cooks prepare at home isn’t the sort of fare you get a restaurants.  Most professionals make simple, well prepared food. They use good ingredients, make most things themselves, rather than buying pre-made ingredients and unless they’re egomaniacs (which of course some are) they don’t view home cooking as a way to showcase their talents, but rather, like you do, as a way to feed, connect with and love their family.  When chef’s cook at home they make things as easy as possible. You can too!

I can’t say I represent all chefs, and frankly it’s been quite a while since I actually made a living as one.  I do know plenty of them, and they pretty much shop and cook the way I do.  There are staples I always have: chicken stock, beef base (I like Knorr, or the Better Than Bouillon brands).  I always have garlic, Parmesan cheese (not grated), kosher salt, canned tuna and artichoke hearts, lots of unsalted butter in the freezer, and  onions, big Spanish onions.  If you cook, do you buy those little onions in net bags?  Why?  Those onions drive me crazy, and if you try using large onions soon they’ll drive you crazy too!  I will try not to make this entire post about onions, but they are pretty important. When you use those little ones you end up with lots of waste, and doing way too much chopping.  

Filet Mingon.  I have never been able to figure out why anyone would shell out $29.00 or more a lb for filet mignon.  It isn’t expensive because it’s so delicious, it’s expensive because out of a 1,100-1,600 pound Angus cow, you get about six pounds of filet.  The filet is tender, and has snob appeal, but not much taste. Because it sits in the curve of the animal’s ribs, it is a muscle that hardly moves, so it is tender and extremely lean. People buy filet, trim off every speck of fat (and that’s not much) and then wrap them in bacon to add some flavor.  If you want a really tasty cut of beef, save your money and try a flat iron steak, short ribs, or chuck.  If you want to be extravagant and enjoy some really flavorful meat,  get a strip loin and roast it, or have a rib eye.  If you’re getting a prime rib, have the butcher cut the fat cap almost all the way off, but not completely; pull it back and season between the roast and the cap, then put the cap back and roast your beef.  It is the melting fat basting the meat that will make it really delicious, and keep it juicy.

Another mystery to me is the boneless skinless chicken breast.  It too is pricey and also fairly devoid of flavor.  If you don’t want to eat chicken skin, don’t, but do cook with it. It will keep the meat moist.  A lot of people don’t like chicken with bones, which I don’t really understand, though most of those people will gladly chow down on a platter of wings…  Maybe it seems too real, or it requires too much effort. I’m not sure, but I will tell you meat cooked with skin and bones tastes much better than without.  If you make a roast chicken, carve the meat off the bones, then use those roasted bones to make chicken stock. Roasted bones, chicken or otherwise, make much more flavorful stock than raw bones.

If you’re planning on making guacamole tomorrow, but all the avocados are rock hard. Buy them and a banana and bring them home and put them in a paper bag together, and close up the bag.  The banana emits ethylene gas which will accelerate the ripening of other fruits.  This process works very quickly, if you do it make sure to check every twelve hours!  This will work with any fruit and with bananas alone. Or wrap the avocado in foil, it will generally ripen to perfection overnight.

My best advice is keep it simple, and don’t make anything that sounds too complicated when time is a factor.  Why stress yourself out doing something that should be fun.  If you love to cook, cook what you love, and leave the complicated stuff to restaurants where there is a brigade of skilled people working all day to make your plate of food.