Pluto’s had an open kitchen, right there behind the counter. As a middle-aged woman took our orders, a middle-aged man (the husband-and-wife owners, I’m going to guess now) started cooking them. For every order of fries, he grabbed a large Idaho baking potato, shoved it into a metal box on the wall above the frier and pulled a big handle topped with a red rubber grip. The potatoes shot through the cutter with a hiss and thunk, and perfectly cut fies dropped into the hot oil. A few minutes later, the woman served up the fries wrapped in wax paper and set in a cheap plastic basket.

I can’t remember if Pluto’s double-cooked their fries. I didn’t pay much attention to food back then. But remembering how good they were, I have to think they did. After all, that’s the key to perfect fries: you fry them once at a low temperature (say, 350F) to cook them through, then flash fry them again at a higher temperature (say, 450F) to crisp the outside.

Making perfect fries at home can be tough, especially if you don’t have a Fry Daddy or some other device specifically made to dunk food in hot oil. Deep frying in pans can be a messy, time-consuming process. Luckily, you can achive results that are pretty close with a regular skillet and a big stock pot. And if you happen to be making steaks to serve at the same time? Congratulations, you get to mimic classic French fries (or pomme frites) that are often fried in rendered beef, pig, or duck fat.

Perfect steak and fries

Ingredients:

• One large Yukon gold potato for each diner
• About 1/4 – 1/2 pound of flat iron steak for each diner
• Prepared salad
• Olive oil
• Vegetable or some other generic cooking oil

Supplies:

• One large stock or soup pot
• One large skillet

1. Pull the beef from the fridge, salt it, and set it aside.
2. Scrub your potatoes, then slice them lengthwise into half-inch sections
3. Slice each of those sections cross-ways into half-inch lengths (raw French fries)
4. Put the potatoes in the stock pot and fill with cold water until the potatoes are submerged (about 1 inch under water)
5. Put the stock pot on the stove over high heat
6. While the water heats, set the skillet on the stove, add a dash of olive oil, and set the heat to medium-high
7. Once the water starts boiling, set a timer for eight minutes, and carefully lay the steaks in the pan
8. At the four-minute mark, flip the steaks
9. Let them cook another four minutes, then move them to a plate, and cover them with aluminium foil
10. Drain the potatoes
11. Add oil to the skillet until you have it filled about a quarter inch
12. Bring the heat back up to medium high, wait a bit, and add the fries in batches¹
13. Let each batch cook three to four minutes (no, don’t flip or move or touch them or anything. They’ll get good and crispy on three sides), then transfer to a plate heavily lined with paper towels
14. Liberally salt the fries, slice the steak and serve with a little salad

1. Give the fries a little room. If you put too many in the pan at once, the steam released by cooking won’t have anywhere to go, and you’ll end up with steamed, boiled potatoes instead of fried. And unless you’re going to mash them, you don’t want steamed, boiled potatoes.

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.

The week’s menu

Sunday: Sausage soup w/ kale greens

Monday: Black bean tacos

Tuesday: -

Wednesday: Pasta with italian sausage (and sage)

Thursday: Lentil Chili

Friday: Fritata and salad

The sausage soup is a modified version of Epicurious’ mixed-greens and sausage soup, which I think is a southern take on the traditional Italian wedding soup. I think.

I didn’t know whether we’d find andouille sausage at the local market, so I prepared to use Italian sausage if it came to that. I figured we’d have some left over (we do anyway, from last week), so I knew we could count on sausage later in the week as well (pasta on Wednesday).

The black bean tacos are easy, and we have half-and-half in the fridge, plus shredded Mexican cheese. In fact, we had everything except the beans.

Wednesday we’ll have the pasta plus some fresh salad vegetables, and I might swap Thursday and Friday’s dinner items, depending on how well the salad fixings are doing.

I’m going to freeze a large portion of the soup to have again in a couple weeks (soup freezes great), and we have plenty of fresh fruits for lunches and snacks through the week.

Kale-greens and sausage soup

Dice a medium onion and mince about four cloves of garlic. Sweat them in a couple tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat. While they sweat, slice a pound of andouille sausage into half-inch rounds, add them to the pot and let the fat render for about five minutes. Add a can of diced tomatoes, eight ounces of chopped kale, several bay leaves and few grinds of fresh black pepper. Add just enough water submerge your ingredients. Salt to taste, then cover and bring the soup to a boil. Once it reaches boiling, take off the lid, reduce the heat to simmer, and let it cook for about twenty minutes.

All done. If your andouille’s not too spicy, you might want to add some hot sauce at the table.

If you wanted to make this soup vegan, you could easily substitute 28 ounces of cooked garbonzo beans or great northern beans for the sausage. You’d want to add a little more oil then, and probably some more salt, since you wouldn’t get the benefit of the sausage’s salt or fat, but it would still be an amazing soup, and one that’s simple to make.

“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).

• 1 small sweet potato
• 2 carrots
• 1/4 red onion
• 1 pkg rice noodles
• @2 cups skim milk (or coconut milk for more traditional flavor)
• @1 tablespoon green Thai curry paste
• A little salt
• A little oil

Cook the noodles according the package instructions. While they cook, peel the sweet potato, and dice the sweet potato, onion section and carrots. Sprinkle the vegetables with a pinch of kosher salt. then saute vegetables over medium-high heat until the sweet potato begins to brown. Add the milk and curry paste, reduce heat to low, then stir to combine. Cover with lid.

The curry should be done about the same time as the noodles. Serve the noodles in a bowl, cover with a generous helping of the curry, then top with a few spinach leaves and bean sprouts for color and crunch.