You've been dieting for months and now someone is talking about adding FAT to your food? sheesh! Don't worry, this is fat with a difference. It stands for:
* Flavor
* Appearance
* Texture
Learn these. Apply them. Keep them in the forefront of your mind at all times and you'll rarely go wrong in the kitchen.
Start off by considering this: you already know what foods you like to eat. Just spend a few minutes thinking about WHY you like to eat them.
First of all you are attracted by the appearance of food.
You don't think so? Would you eat blue French fries? Or a green steak? How about cyan chicken?
Our eyes tell us what we would like to eat, long before we get to taste it and that's why it's important to consider how you will present your food.
You don't have to take this to extremes. Just thinking about where each portion of food is going to be on the plate is all you need to do. Plus, of course, considering what colors you will have.
It's not an accident that we like our beans green rather than gray; our boiled potatoes white and our tomatoes a bright red.
These are the basic food colors:
* Green
* Brown (As in roasts, steaks etc)
* Red
* White
* Orange/yellow
Just about all the food we eat is either one of those colors or a combination of two or more. Each plate you serve should contain at least three of them.
That's a hot tip!
Why? Because it makes shopping for your food easier.
Here's how.
You've decided you'll cook steak. You know it's going to be brown in color when cooked so what to serve with it?
Easy. Choose two colors. Let's say red and green. You know that combination will look good on a white plate.
So, what will you serve with your steak? How about tomatoes and salad greens?
Great start. But scallions would also fit the bill, as would red onions. So what about a salsa, which can be a mix of chopped tomatoes, scallions and red onions?
Do you see how easy that is? You've started out by thinking what your presentation will be like, which brings you to a simple but delicious meal as easily as kissing your hand.
You even know what to shop for!
All three of the FAT items are essential to your success as a cook. I can't emphasize this enough. Learn those, and you will already be way ahead of most cooks. As a matter of fact, you'll be way ahead of many professional chefs.
Appearance
Why is appearance so important? Because people perceive good looking food as being appetizing, nutritious and great tasting. Here's a real life example, taken from the UK:
Way back in the early part of the last century, when most people bought their food from the local shop (or grew it themselves), British eggs came in various shades of white and brown.
The main breeds of chicken were Leghorns and Sussex Whites, which outnumbered their smaller cousins, the Rhode Island Reds, by about two to one.
But the Reds had a trick up their sleeves (or under their wings) - they laid brown eggs while the others laid white.
Supermarkets began to notice that people were buying brown eggs in preference to the others and a survey by the egg marketing board showed a remarkable thing. People actually believed that the brown eggs were healthier and more nutritious than the white, simply because of the color.
It's not true of course, but the fact that the belief existed at all spelled the death knell for the poor old Leghorns and Whites, who were consigned to the dustbin of farming history. And this despite the fact that they were considered a far better table bird.
They still exist, of course, but only just. Whereas descendants of the Reds now number in their billions.
So, appearance is everything. Or very nearly.
For most people it's the first contact they have with their meal and it will make an impression on them. It's up to you to make sure that the impression is a good one.
A discussion on flavor is a book in itself.
It's another vital ingredient in your cooking and it's what you will be remembered for. It's also the easiest of the three FATs to achieve. BUT, you have to work at it!
That means three things:
1. Consider why you like the foods you do
2. Identify the ingredients that produce the flavors you like
3. Taste, taste and taste again!
Let's start with number 1.
The foods you like
Unless you have really bizarre tastes in food, what you like personally is the best possible starting point when learning to cook.
Why? Because you know what the food should taste like when it's ready. And that's important. You need to know in advance not only what your guests are going to be tasting, but also what they are smelling as the plates are being served.
So you need to know that it smells right. And that it tastes right. And the way you do that, at least to start with, is to cook foods with which you personally are very familiar.
Identifying the flavor of ingredients
Believe it or not, you identify most flavors with your sense of smell. Yes, you do have taste-buds on your tongue, but they are limited to the following flavors:
* salt
* sweet
* sour
* bitter
Everything else is 'tasted' by your ability to smell things. Which is why, when you have a cold in your nose, the world becomes a tasteless place to eat in.
To be a good cook, you need to know what each and every ingredient you use tastes like - no exceptions - and the best way to achieve that in the first instance is by smelling it.
Watch a really good chef choose his ingredients.
When he picks up a vegetable, he will sniff it. When he chooses a herb he will take a small piece, crush it between finger and thumb, and sniff it. As he selects a lemon he will use a thumb-nail to pierce the skin so that he can inhale the vapor that comes from it.
And all of those actions build up a picture in his mind of what will happen when he brings those ingredients together.
Can you do the same? Of course you can. Actually you do it every day and never even think about it.. Smell is one of the senses that are operating on a sub-mental level all day every day. All you have to do is bring it to the conscious level and think about what you are smelling.
You will be pleasantly surprised by (a) how easy it is and (b) what a difference it makes to your approach to food.
You will reach a point, very early on, where you automatically know that two flavors do not 'belong' together. And you will achieve it with ease.
The next bit is even easier :0)
Tasting time
The essence of good food preparation is to taste everything, both before, during and after cooking!
Now I don't mean that you should take a nibble of raw fish or any other meat, but I am talking about any marinade you use, any spice and certainly every herb.
You also need to know what happens when heat is applied to those things.
Why? Because they change both in flavor and in consistency. The result may or may not be pleasant and the only way to find out is to taste the result before your guests do.
Let's suppose you've used a terrific marinade for your loin of pork. You know it tastes good because you tried it before you added it to the raw meat.
But will it also work as a sauce?
The only way to find out is to heat it up and taste it. And that's when some hidden problems may surface. A certain bitterness, for example, or perhaps it's too sweet, or over salty.
Sidebar: of the four basic flavors - salt,sweet,bitter,sour - only bitter is the one you can do next to nothing about. If you can't cook it out through prolonged heating, you probably can't get rid of it at all.
Make this your number one rule: Before you add anything to a dish, taste it. And taste the dish again after adding the new ingredient.
Keep tasting all through the cooking process and, most important of all, just before serving, which is also when you should add the salt, any of the 'delicate' herbs such as basil or coriander, and/or flavor lifters such as lemon juice.
You can add pepper at any time but strong flavors such as chili and garlic should be added early on in the cooking process.
You will be surprised at how quickly you grasp the differing flavors and what happens to them when mixed or heated.
You will also be surprised at how soon you will start to experiment without recipes to hold you back. And it will get downright exciting as you discover that sugar can be a better flavor enhancer than salt. And that ordinary old lemon juice can lift a tasteless disaster into something approaching a masterpiece.
Never be afraid to try something you think might work, but do add small amounts at a time and - you've guessed it - taste after each and every addition!
Texture
We've all been served it; soft, unpalatable food that looked okay, smelt okay but turned to mush in our mouths.
You know the sort of thing: soggy French fries, stodgy pastry, stewed cabbage, vegetables that have practically turned to soup.
Not all of this is caused by overcooking. Much of it is as a result of cooking at the wrong temperature. We're going to discuss that elsewhere in this series, but for now consider this:
It is better by far to under-cook something than to overcook it
What was that? How about chicken? All right already! Chicken is an exception. It must be well cooked to avoid food poisoning but, that apart, the above still applies.
Okay, so the mashed potatoes are a little lumpy. Take a tip from the pros – change the name - call them crushed potatoes instead. That texture is more important than you think.
There is no worse eating experience than a plate of food all with the same texture. It's just plain hard work. So, plan your plate!
Think about the textures you are going to use and see how they match up with your color scheme. It makes everything just so simple.
Going back to our original idea which was, if you remember, steak with salsa and green salad, let's look at what we have in terms of textures:
There's the moist, slightly chewy steak, the soft tomato coupled with the much firmer onions, and of course the crisp salad leaves interspersed with lighter, softer leaves.
That's a great mix. Add some really well-cooked French fries and it's perfect. It's also incredibly simple.
Sidebar:well-cooked French fries are crisp on the outside and sugar soft inside. It's achieved by cooking them twice in very hot oil. You get the oil smoking hot and plunge them in, but only for a minute. The temperature of the oil will drop so you take them out until it's back up to smoking and then finish them off. This time, because they're hot, the fries won't cool the oil and you'll get a crisp, virtually fat free finish.
Green vegetables, too, need to be cooked quickly and at high temperature in order to retain their texture and color. So, boiling - not simmering - water. Better yet, steam them.
Incidentally, greens will stay green if you don't cover them during cooking. More about this as you read about cooking techniques.
Summary
Good cooking consists of concentrating on only three things: flavor, appearance and texture.
By considering appearance and texture even before you begin to cook you can quickly arrive at a menu, the produce you need and even to some extent the method of cooking you will use.
You will take care of flavor by smelling the ingredients you intend to use and by tasting them before you use them.
You'll continue to taste each dish during the cooking process and especially after adding a new ingredient.
By erring on the side of under-cooking rather than over-cooking, you will preserve the textures you have decided on to give your finished dishes an 'in-the-mouth' appeal, as well as stunning visual appearance and great flavors.
