Are you with me? Good. You’re roasting a chicken.

Roast chicken with potatoes and carrots

Ingredients:

• 1 roasting chicken (about 8 lbs.)
  • If you’re cooking for one, go with a small fryer, about 4 pounds — reduce the cooking time to about an hour
• 5 Yukon gold potatoes
• 6 carrots
• Olive oil
• Kosher salt
• 6 Garlic cloves
• 1 lemon (or onion or bell pepper–more on that in a moment)
• Pepper

Supplies

• A roasting pan or dish
• A deep casserole dish
• Aluminum foil
• Chef’s knife
• Large serving spoon

Start with that chicken. Unwrap it, let it drain a little, and set it in the roasting pan. Salt it inside and out. And really salt it. You should be able to see the individual flakes of kosher salt dusting the breast and the tops of the legs. Inside, it should feel like wet sand, there’s so much salt in there–two big pinches for the inside, one big pinch each for the outside’s top and bottom. We’re talking big, four-finger-and-a-thumb pinches, ok?

Great.

Now set your oven for 400 degrees (204C). While the oven heats and the chicken comes to temperature, go ahead and cut your potatoes and carrots. I like to cut the potatoes into cubish shapes approximately one-inch on a side. I cut about a half inch from the end of each carrot, half them, then cut the thick ends in half again lengthwise.

Put the potatoes and carrots in the casserole dish, drizzle them with olive oil, sprinkle them with salt and mix them together.¹ Cover the dish with aluminum foil.

Using the side of your knife, crush the garlic cloves and toss them inside the chicken. There’s no need to peel them or anything, since you won’t be eating them later. Then quarter the lemon and shove two of those quarters into the chicken (the other two quarters? I don’t know. Make lemonade or something).²

Has your oven beeped yet? If so, great. Slide the roasting pan and the casserole dish into the oven. If they won’t fit side-by-side, put the chicken up top and the casserole down low. If it hasn’t beeped yet, just wait. It will soon.

Now leave everything alone for about an hour and 20 minutes. Yes, you can do whatever you want to. Play with the kids, watch tv, it doesn’t matter. At the end of an hour and 20 minutes, pull out the pans and set them on the stovetop. Let the chicken sit for another ten minutes or so before carving it up.

To plate, spoon the potatoes and carrots onto a plate, sprinkle a little pepper on them, and nestle a piece of chicken on top. Then spoon on some of the chicken’s rendered fat and other juices from the roasting pan.

Congratulations! You roasted a chicken, and it tastes awesome.

Variations:

You could try to roast the chicken with some herbs–a couple sprigs of rosemary inside and one on top, or you could try the same thing with sage.

You can use the leftover chicken to make an amazing rosemary chicken pasta, shred it to make sandwiches, or cook it with cumin, lime, salt, coriander and a little water to make chicken fajitas (don’t forget the onions and peppers). My family’s usually able to get three meals out of one large chicken, each different and each delicious.

Go! Cook! And let me know how it goes, ok?

1. If you use your hands, make sure to wash them thoroughly first. In fact, you should probably wash your hands more often anyway.

2. Any fairly sturdy vegetable or fruit will work for this. Essentially, what you’re looking for is something that will impart some moisture and some flavor to the chicken. A red onion work great, as does a bell pepper. Just slice it, and shove the pieces into the bird. You might even want to experiment some time and use a pear or an orange. I’d stay away from anything too fragile, though, and anything too bitter.

You haven’t given them any recipes
Who needs recipes?
Your readers might like one or two. You know, that’s why people come to a cooking blog. For recipes.
They shouldn’t.
No?
No. Besides, I’m not very good with recipes. Mine are always slap-dash and imprecise.
Then why should they bother?
They should bother so they can learn how to cook.
So what are you waiting for?

If I’m being honest, I can say I’m a descent cook. I make food good enough to win a departmental cooking contest, but I’m certainly no Grant Achatz. I’m not even an experienced line cook. But I’ve been fortunate to have a patient wife who’s willing to encourage my cooking, even when it doesn’t go well, and I know enough to pay attention so I can learn from my mistakes. A big one I run into time and again? Cooking cold chicken thighs too fast so they’re under-done in the center.

I know what the problem is: cold chicken thighs take longer to heat through than even cool chicken does. And they have that cold bone in the center, acting like a heat sink. So I put them in the pan, sear them, and when the skin’s nearly perfect they’re still raw in the center.

Bummer.

What’s the secret? Start with chicken thighs that have been allowed to come closer to room temperature, or finish them off in the oven. Either one works all right, though starting closer to room temperature gets better results.

And I’ll get to some recipes, I swear. I just think it’s important to mention a few things before we go there.

Heat, Moisture and Time

For me, cooking comes down to these three elements. When cooking, you’re trying to heat food without losing all its moisture. At least I am. Don’t heat enough, though, and it’s raw. Heat too much and it’s burnt. Proteins cooked too high and too long end up rubbery and tough. Vegetables cooked too long and too dry become leathery or brittle. Pasta cooked too long disintegrates. Cakes and breads turn to carbon. They have for me, at least.

The thing is, knowing the various cooking methods can pull you back from the brink of a bitter disaster, and just might salvage an otherwise inedible dinner.

Cooking methods: wet and dry

If you pay attention to recipes, you’ll see the same cooking methods come up over and over again. You’ll see some of them stand alone, and others you’ll see used in conjunction with one another. The important thing is to notice. Notice when a high, dry cooking method is paired with a long, low wet one, or vice-versa. Pay attention to how people use bake and roast (in my experience, it’s mostly about temperature, but I am probably dead wrong about that). When you’re working with food, figure out how sturdy it is. Brussels sprouts are going to stand up to a par-boil much better than Ritz crackers could ever hope. But bagel dough? Boil away.

Because I cook when I get home from work, and because I want my family to eat closer to 6:30 than 8:00, I tend to rely on fast cooking methods. For the most part that means lots of cooking energy or very high heat: boil, steam, grill/broil, sauté.

Boil
I hope you know what it means to boil. If you don’t, go fill a pot with water, put it on high heat on the stove and don’t look at it. If you watch the pot, it’ll never boil.

And old wife told me that.

Anyway, boiling can be a remarkably fast cooking method because the water currents and constant motion mean hot water molecules are smashing into cool food molecules, imparting some of their energy, then racing off to gather more energy. It’s also an incredibly violent process and only hardiest foods can stand up to it. Think beans, sturdy vegetables, starches and dry pastas. Boiling won’t brown food, though, because it’s not hot enough. For browning, you need to go with direct heat and a little fat.

Steam
Heat water until it evaporates and then don’t let it escape. Steaming is a quick, efficient method of cooking delicate foods like fish. It’s also great for imparting even heat pretty quickly because a lot of hot molecules are coming in contact with the food. Steaming heats a little quicker than boiling because condensing water vapor releases some energy in the form of heat (it’s an exothermic reaction).

Steaming doesn’t get hot enough to brown food either.

Sauté
Sauté comes from the French, and means, literally, to jump. The idea here is that food comes into contact with a pan so hot the surface water in the food immediately steams away and causes the food to ‘jump’ in the pan. It’s the European equivalent of a stir fry. To sauté, make sure you have some fat in the pan (oil, butter, etc.), get the pan piping hot, and toss in the ingredients. The key here is to make sure the ingredients have enough room to let the steam escape. If they’re too crowded, they’ll end up steaming, not sautéing, and you won’t get the wonderful caramelization of sugars or the browning of amino acids.

When sautéing vegetables, it’s important to keep them moving. When searing meat, poultry or fish, you’ll want to let it sit on the pan long enough to get a good crust on it.

So now what?

Now you can cook. Seriously. Don’t believe me? Try these simple dinners:

Rosemary and sage-scented pork roast with potatoes and carrots

This is a variation on the pork roast from the salt post. See how this stuff fits together? (You’ll also see now what I meant when I called my recipes slap-dash).

rosemary and sage scented pork roast with carrots and potatoes

Ingredients

• Pork loin
• 6 Yukon gold potatoes
• 5 carrots
• Kosher salt
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Butter
• Olive oil

Supplies

• A large skillet
• A large roasting pan
• A splatter guard

Take the roast out of the fridge, salt it, and set it aside in a container on the counter. Begin preheating the oven to 300 degrees F. While the pork sits and the oven comes to temperature, cut up the six potatoes and break apart the carrots. Toss them into the roasting dish, sprinkle them with a couple pinches of salt and set it aside.

Place the pan on the oven over high heat and add about a teaspoon of olive oil. When it gets hot (the olive oil will look a little shimmery), lay the roast in the pan, cover with the splatter guard, and leave it alone for about a minute. Turn and sear each side about 60 seconds, then transfer it to the roasting pan. Make sure the roast is down in the potatoes and touches the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle in a few pats of butter (two tablespoons, total), a couple sprigs of rosemary, and a few sage leaves. Cover in aluminum foil and slide it into the oven for two hours.

The next night you can use the leftover pork to make pulled-pork sandwiches. Delicious and amazingly easy, especially if someone’s in the middle of painting your kitchen.

Notice how in that example we used high, dry heat to brown the meat and then steam to finish cooking it? In this next dish, we do just the opposite.

Skirt steak with collard greens, potatoes and carrots

Skirt steak with collard greens and seared potatoes

Ingredients

• Skirt steak
• 16oz collard greens
• ½ medium onion
• A few strips of bacon
• Kosher salt
• Red pepper flakes
• Leftover potatoes and carrots from the roast

Supplies

• Large skillet
• Large stock pot
• Splatter guard

Again, take the meat out of the fridge and salt it. Set it on the counter so it’ll come to room temperature. Dice the onion and chop the bacon. Put the big stock pot on a big burner and turn the heat to medium. Add the bacon to the cool pot.^_1

Once the bacon has just begun to brown, add the onion. Stir it around a couple times and then let it sit.

While it sits, microwave the leftover potatoes and carrots a couple times. I used 1 minute, 15 seconds, twice.

Now, add the collard greens to the pot, give them a stir and then add enough water to just cover the greens. Increase the heat to high and bring the pot to a boil. Once it’s boiling, reduce the heat to medium and toss in a couple tablespoons of kosher salt and a few shakes of red pepper flakes. Cover the greens with a tight fitting lid and let them boil away about 10 minutes.

When the 10 minutes it up, remove the lid, but don’t do anything else.

Place the skillet on another burner over medium-high heat. Add a pat of butter. When the butter begins to brown, gently lay the skirt steak into the pan, cover with the splatter guard and let it sear for about 2 minutes. When that’s done, turn it over and let the other side sear about 2 minutes. When that’s done, move the steak to a plate and let it rest.

Now add the potatoes and carrots right into the skillet with the beef juices and browned butter. You can stir them a couple times to mix everything together, but we’re really looking for a good crust on some of the potatoes and carrots to lend some texture and taste variety, bite to bite. So just let them sit there in the pan a few minutes, then bring them off the heat.

Plate the collard greens using a slotted spoon, pile on the potatoes, and finally cut the skirt steak against the grain and place a few pieces on top.

Congratulations
You just seared potatoes that had been steamed to cook them through (the opposite of what we did with the pork roast before), boiled a hardy vegetable and seared a steak to perfection.

You have just used sautéing, boiling and steaming to cook a couple really delicious meals.

Oh….you want substitutions? Fine. You could use the same method to cook a beef roast instead of a pork roast. Or to steam potatoes on their own. If you boil other greens, like kale, don’t let them go as long. Boiling kale takes about five minutes. Instead of skirt steak you could sear chicken breasts. Or, you remember those chicken thighs from the very beginning?

Salt the chicken thighs and let them come very close to room temperature. Add a couple table spoons of olive oil to a pan, get it piping hot (medium-high should do it), and set the thighs in the pan, skin-side down. Let them sear about four minutes, then flip them over and let them sear another four minutes. Then add a half cup of white wine and a couple bay leaves. Bring it to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer for about 10 minutes. Serve with some crusty bread and Spanish rice.

Congratulations, you’ve just added another cooking method to your repertoire: braising.

1. Adding the bacon to a cool pot and letting it cook as it also comes to temperature will render more fat out of the bacon. The fat will lend its flavor to the collard greens. Plus, the bacon will end up good and crispy, if you let it cook long enough.

“What’s the most important thing for a cook to know in your kitchen?”
[Keller] paused, then said, “Seasoning.”
“What do you mean, seasoning?”
“Salt and pepper.” He paused again. “Salt, really.”
“The most important thing for a cook to know is how to salt food?”
“That’s right,” he said.
-Michael Ruhlman, The Elements of Cooking

What’s true in the restaurant is often true in the home: the single most important thing you can do as a home cook is learn how to season (salt) your food. Many people think seasoning has to do with salt and pepper and spices (seasoning!), but it doesn’t. It’s all about the salt.

How important is salt?

Very. Salt is one of our five basic tastes, and the only one of our five basic tastes that’s naturally occurring. Salt is salty. No other substance on earth can make the same claim. Our bodies also need salt to regulate themselves. Salt helps lessen bitter flavors in food, and it helps elevate everything else. In culinary school, they teach salt first, and then continue to teach it, over and over and over until seasoning becomes second nature.

How do I salt my food?

First, get rid of that old blue cylinder of Morton’s iodized salt. Iodine deficiency isn’t a problem anymore, and the added iodine can sometimes impart a weird fishy flavor to foods and salted water. Plus, the refined, regular crystalline structure of table salt makes it inferior for most seasoning purposes. Instead, buy a box of kosher salt. I use Morton’s because that’s what they have at my local grocery store, but I’m sure any brand will do. It’s cheap, and the crystals’ structure helps it absorb moisture and cling to food surfaces. It also dissolves just fine in hot and boiling water. (And if you’re doing it right, you can pretty much throw out the salt shaker you keep on the counter or the dining room table. You won’t need it any more)

What if I’m cooking with water?

Always salt your water. The amount of salt depends on what you’re cooking and whether or not it will be absorbing any liquid. For dry ingredients like pasta, rice and lentils, you’ll want to use 2 – 3 tablespoons per gallon of water. For things that won’t be absorbing any liquid, you’ll want to use ½ cup to a cup of salt per gallon of water. In order to ensure dry ingredients are properly seasoned (but not salty), the water should taste seasoned, like a soup broth. For things that won’t be re-hydrating, like fresh green beans, the water should taste salty as sea water.

Also, don’t be afraid to taste your food as you go along. One of the great things about cooking, as opposed to baking, is that you can fix mistakes as you go. And salted water is no different. Boiling water evaporates. As the water evaporates, the concentration of salt to water is going to increase. If you’re boiling or simmering for a long time, you might need to add a little water. Otherwise, your salt concentration might get too high and your food will be ruined. How do you know if this is happening? Be aware and taste. Simple as that.

Recipe for boiled potatoes:

• Peel four medium potatoes and cut them into 1-inch cubes (give or take)
  • I like Yukon gold potatoes because of their high starch content
• Place the potatoes in a large pot, and add cold water until the potatoes are just submerged
• Place the pot on the stove top and set the burner to high
• Add about half a tablespoon of salt, stir to dissolve and then use a clean spoon to taste the water (don’t burn yourself).  If it tastes good, you’re fine. If it tastes like potato water, add another half-tablespoon of salt and taste again. There will come a moment when you realize it’s seasoned. Be aware enough to recognize this moment.
• Let the water come to a boil, then let the potatoes boil for about 7 minutes
• When they’re done, drain them

You can serve them as-is, add butter and cream and mash them, or cover them in cheese and sour cream and bacon bits. Whatever you choose, you probably won’t have to salt them.

Potato leek soup:

• Start off with one large leek
• Cut the white and very light green sections into half-inch rounds
• Sautee the rounds in a stock pot with a little bit of olive oil until they just begin to brown (over medium-high heat)
• Add cut potatoes and water (as per boiled potato recipe—and don’t forget the salt!) bring to a boil and let boil for seven minutes
• Do not drain them
• Puree using an immersion blender

If you want a brighter looking soup, you can add some cream. You could also add some cheese or nothing. The soup is awesome as-is (because you salted properly!).

For a nice finishing touch, a couple grinds of fresh black pepper and a pinch of fresh-cut chives add a bit of color and really bring all the tastes together

Green beans:

• Add a quarter-cup of kosher salt to a half gallon of water
• Put it on the stove and turn the heat up to high
• While the water heats, get a couple large handfuls of green beans and prep them for cooking – snap the ends off and, if you’re feeding folks with small mouths, break the beans in half
• When the water comes to a boil, gently place the green beans in the water and let them go for about seven minutes.
• Drain them in a colander and serve immediately

What about meat?

I salt beef, pork and chicken when I take it out of the refrigerator. Ideally, I take meat out of the refrigerator about 20 minutes before I’m going to cook it to give it a chance to come up towards room temperature (don’t worry, the salt should prevent any bacteria from getting cozy in your food, and the subsequent heat should take care of anything hearty enough to survive the salt). I add enough salt so the meat looks like it’s had a light dusting of snow (see photo, above).

Pork roast:

• Start with a large pork loin
• Salt all sides liberally and set it in a pan on the counter
• Begin preheating the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit (eventually I’ll do metric conversions for the folks in England, Canada and the rest of the civilized world, but for now you’ll have to do your own)
• Cut up some potatoes and carrots and set them in a roasting pan
• Sprinkle the potatoes and carrots with a little olive oil and a little kosher salt
• After the meat has come up to temperature (about 15 or 20 minutes) place a large skillet on a burner over medium-high heat
• Let the pan get hot, add a little olive oil, then sear the roast on each side for about sixty seconds–this will give you the wonderful texture and flavor that comes with searing
• Then move the pork into the roasting pan (make sure the loins are touching the bottom of the pan), cover the pan in foil and stick it into the oven for about two hours

When you’re done, you’ll have perfectly seasoned pork that just falls apart it’s so tender

What about fancy salts?

Mario Batali uses three kinds of salt. I’ve just branched out from kosher and am now the proud owner of some very coarse gray sea salt. I add just a few grains to roasted beef or roasted potatoes. The large grains don’t dissolve and provide a wonderfully crunchy, delightfully seasoned bite. A very little bit goes a long way. For fish, I think you could get the same effect with some coarse-grained sea salt. The white crystals would look striking against the deep red of raw tuna, for example. Just remember: a little goes a long way.

What now?

Now go get yourself some proper salt. It’s the first step in becoming a proper cook (and a better person).

Beyond beans, she’s always liked broccoli and potatoes, and when we deign to visit places like Panera or Crispers, she goes for the broccoli-cheddar soup. Seems simple, but all that cheese? Not the healthiest. By working with Yukon gold potatoes, I came up with a fantastic, rich soup that’s so flavorful, you’ll swear it must be bad for you:

Ingredients (serves six)
six medium Yukon gold potatoes, cubed to equal sizes (about 1/2 to 1 inch)
1 bunch broccoli
kosher salt
2 cups cheddar cheese, separated
black pepper (to taste)

Technique
Chop
Puree

Methods
Boil
Roast

Put the potatoes in a large stock pot, approximately 6 quarts. Add cold water until the potatoes are covered by about an inch of water. Add two tablespoons of kosher salt. Place the pot over high heat and cover with a tight-fitting lid.

Turn on the oven, set for 400 degrees F. Chop the broccoli to remove the florets (the top pieces that look like oak trees at a distance). Keep the florets intact and spread on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with salt and drizzle with olive oil.

When the oven is at temperature and the potatoes are boiling, set a timer for seven minutes. Place the broccoli in the oven and let each cook until the  timer beeps.

Remove the broccoli from the oven and take the potatoes off the heat. Add half the broccoli to the potatoes and puree using an immersion blender. Chop the remaining broccoli and stir it into the soup, then slowly fold in about half a cup of the cheddar cheese. Serve with hearty bread and garnish with a teaspoon of the remaining shredded cheddar in each bowl. Bring the soup to table with the remaining cheese and allow people to stir it into their soups as they see fit.

This soup couldn’t be easier and tastes wonderful. The starch from the Yukon potatoes gives the broccoli cheddar soup a wonderful, rich mouth feel without adding fat, and since it doesn’t use chicken stock like many other soup recipes, your vegetarian conscience remains clear. Just avoid the smugness. No one likes a smug vegetarian (right, Bittman?).