Spices are not indestructible. They lose potency from the day they are ground, and how you store and use them decides whether they taste of anything at all. Storage Keep them away from light and heat. Both degrade the volatile oils that carry aroma, and those oils are the entire reason you bought the spice. […]
Cooking meat well is the thing every cook is judged on, and it comes down to a handful of decisions made before the steak ever hits the pan. Here is how I do it. Start with temperature, not the pan Take the steak out of the refrigerator 30 to 45 minutes before cooking. A cold […]
Before the Renaissance, the chestnut was one of Europe’s staple foods, and it was used in nearly every form imaginable. Roasted over coals or baked, cooked into stews alongside vegetables, ground into flour for bread, biscuits and cakes. Sometimes it became ice cream, sometimes candy, sometimes pastry. The chestnut tree grows wild across Anatolia and […]
The call of a boza seller in the street at night is what reminds you of this drink. It is served with a pinch of cinnamon and a handful of roasted chickpeas on the side. There are fewer sellers now than there once were, but they remain one of the fixtures of a Turkish winter. […]
A kitchen is a laboratory. Even the simplest dish is a chemistry experiment with several variables, and knowing how a few of them behave makes everything easier. Here are eight that come up constantly. Test an egg’s freshness with water Drop the egg into a glass of water. A fresh egg sinks and lies flat […]
May is the month for grape leaves, and both picking them and putting them up properly take some care. Get either wrong and you will be rolling sarma with leaves that stay tough no matter how long you cook them. How to choose grape leaves Look for thin, pale leaves. Dark, thick leaves are older […]
An omelette is one of the basics of breakfast — with cheese, fresh herbs, potato, mushrooms, ham, whatever you have. But if you think of it as simply cooking beaten eggs, you are not really making an omelette. Almost everything depends on how the eggs are handled before they reach the pan. Here is the […]
Mashed potato goes with almost everything, and most of what separates a good one from a gluey one happens before the butter goes in. Here is what matters. Boil them in their skins Peeled potatoes waterlog. They take on water as they cook and break apart, and you end up mashing something that is already […]
Every cook accumulates a shelf of dried herbs, and most of them sit unused. These are the ten I actually reach for, and what each one is good for in cooking. Traditional medicine has its own claims for all of them. I am a chef, not a doctor, so what follows is about flavor. Sage […]
Most people cook with more sugar than they need, and not because they want things sweeter — because sugar is the easiest tool for fixing a dish that tastes flat. There are better tools. Here is how professional kitchens get there. Salt makes things taste sweeter This is the one that surprises people. A pinch […]