How I Learned to Pivot in the Kitchen
A chef shares his secrets for amplifying dull soups, roasting the perfect salmon, rescuing bland chicken, putting out grease fires, and other kitchen hacks.
When there’s snow and ice underfoot, I’m one slippery step away from a total wipe-out. If I’m holding a coffee or on my phone, the threat of capsizing is magnified. I may be laser-focused and sure-footed in the kitchen, but once I step outside, my speed walk to the car can transform into an out-of-control cartwheel at any moment.
The upside is I’ve become a reluctant expert on the art of falling. As I’ve shared ad nauseam with my wife and kids, there’s a right way and a wrong way to nailing the landing. Most people splay their arms and legs out like a parachutist in rapid descent, flailing away as their elbows and wrists break their fall - often breaking their bones on impact.
After years of playing tackle football in my youth (and winters spent perilously skating on frozen ponds), I had an epiphany. Don’t fight the fall by throwing out your hands - that’s when the spill leads to a sprained wrist (or worse.)There’s a better way: “tuck and roll.” When you start to fall, tuck in your shoulder, try to relax your muscles, and upon hitting the ground, roll to one side. It’s not intuitive, but diffusing the blow across the upper side of your body might save a trip to the ER.
Finding the Upside to Falling Down
Turns out, learning how to properly stumble and recover has taught me a few things about running a successful restaurant. The typical professional kitchen is controlled chaos, a case study of how the best-laid plans go wildly astray. How a chef deals with spontaneous kitchen calamities can be the difference between a full dining room and an empty dining room. Or similarly, if you’re hosting a dinner party, are your guests cleaning their plates and asking for seconds - or “saving room for dessert?”
Learn To Pivot In The Kitchen
When things go FUBAR in the kitchen — the metaphorical slip on black ice — the one thing you can’t get from cooking school or cookbooks is learning how to quickly respond. If the alfredo sauce is a hot mess, or the stove is on fire, there’s no time to ask Google or call a hotline. Quick action only comes from the school-of-hard-knocks experience…Or from perusing blogs like this :)
And lord knows I’ve done my time. Salvaging a bland soup, reviving a tepid sauce, or maximizing flavor while roasting delicate salmon fillets - it’s all in a day’s work. As any self-respecting chef will tell you: a recipe is only as good as its execution…and the last-minute tweaks done with tasting spoon in hand.
That said, here are a few panaceas for the most common pitfalls that can befall even the most accomplished chefs.
The Soup Dilemma
Your labor-of-love soup which you’ve spent hours preparing and simmering is, much to your dismay, tasteless. The first law of soup: give it a day. Soup always tastes better the next day. After that, if it still needs help, add more seasonings (not just with knee-jerk salt - but fresh and dried herbs, paprika, chopped parsley, and/or black pepper). If it’s a creamy seafood chowder, a dash of dry sherry will do wonders. If the soup is too thin, purée about a third of the soup in a food processor and stir it back into the pot. Keep tasting until the soup hits the right note.
Your Grill Burns Everything to a Crisp
Grilling meats is not for the faint-hearted. Too often there are hot spots on the grill, flash-cooking on one side while barely heating on other spots. Rotating and frequent turning is one common-sense strategy. Another trick: finish the meats in a hot oven. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and when the grilled meats are about halfway cooked, transfer to a sheet pan and roast until an acceptable level of doneness (as measured by a probe thermometer.) This method should ensure that the meats are all evenly cooked, not some charred and some raw.
Turn Your Back For a Minute - and the Stove’s On Fire!
1. Don’t panic. Reach for a metal lid or sheet pan and cover the fire. A damp towel will also smother the fire. (You want to deprive the flames of oxygen.)
2. Turn off the heat source. (Seems obvious but worth reinforcing.)
3. If your gas grill is on fire, shower the grill with salt or baking powder and quickly turn off the burners. (This method also works with grease fires.)
4. As a last resort, spray the fire with a fire extinguisher. Hopefully, there’s one tucked away in a nearby cabinet. (If not, you should get one.)
5. If it’s an electrical fire, call 9-1-1.
Salad Dressings Need Not Be Boring
This counts as a kitchen-fail by omission. One of the greatest sins a restaurant can commit is neglecting to offer an interesting salad dressing. There are four simple, essential ingredients (olive oil, vinegar, Dijon mustard, and a sweetener like agave or honey). Focus on the kinds of vinegar - red wine, balsamic, white wine, sherry, cider, herb-infused, and rice vinegar. Then add a fruit - such as mangoes, peaches, cherries, pears, kiwis, raspberries, or sundried tomatoes.
From here, making a stunning vinaigrette is easy: simply poach the fruit in the vinegar until soft, then cool, add the oil, mustard, and sweetener, and puree in a food processor. For additional nuances, add a hint of juice, such as pomegranate or apple cider, or enhance the vinegar with lime or lemon juice. Chill the dressing until ready to serve, and whallah, no more humdrum salad dressings!
Enhancing the Eternally Dry Chicken Breast
Boneless chicken breast is a lean, healthy protein, extremely popular, but too often it is overcooked and dry. Cardinal rule: never serve roasted, boneless chicken breast without a sauce or condiment. The mildly flavored white chicken will benefit from almost any side sauce - fruit chutney, salsa, BBQ sauce, lemon-tahini dressing, teriyaki, aioli, pesto, chimichurri, there are so many choices. The only wrong choice is no sauce at all.
The Key to the Perfectly Roasted Fish, Revealed
You’ve just bought a beautiful, fresh, very expensive fillet of seabass or salmon. Now what? Here we go: preheat your oven to 400 or 425 degrees, depending on how hot your oven runs. Melt butter in a saucepan or microwave. (One to two tablespoons per fillet.) Lay fish on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper and spoon melted butter over each fillet, followed by a squeeze of a fresh lemon wedge and sprinkling of paprika and coarse salt. Roast for fifteen to eighteen minutes until the center is no longer fleshy and a probe thermometer measures 150 degrees.
Now here’s the secret: while the fish is roasting, set up a small metal mixing bowl with a fine-meshed sieve. After you’ve pulled the salmon from the oven, very carefully strain the pan juices through the sieve and into the bowl. Ladle the intensely flavored pan juices over the fillets. This simple kitchen hack ramps up the taste of any roasted fish - you’ll thank me later.
Whether it’s a kitchen hack or a life hack, the most successful pivot is rooted in thinking outside the box. When your best-laid plans go off the rails, and your soufflé is about to fall (or in my case, I’m about to fall flat on my face), don’t get down or give up. Stay calm, look around, think hard and fast for a solution, and carry on!
Great read and so many handy tips - thanks!
Hmm I was a student at Cornell in the 80s but left in 86 - wonder if I got to visit your cafe before then?