- Exercise restraint
Jamie Oliver, cook, author and broadcaster
I’ll never forget when the great Gennaro Contaldo taught me that "restraint is the most important ingredient". To be fair, he’s taught me quite a bit, but it’s this one piece of advice I come back to time and again. It was some years ago and we were on an Italian island, making crudo. Fresh fish, salt, lemon and olive oil, that’s it, but it tastes out of this world. I probably wanted to add something else – a little bit of chilli, garlic, how about some herbs, Gennaro? – but he wasn’t having any of it. "Restraint is the most important ingredient, Jamie!"
It’s so easy to add just another ingredient – it’s a sign of skill to leave your ingredients to sing.
- Cook with wine you want to drink
José Pizarro, chef-owner, Pizarro, London
Cook with wine or sherry that you want to drink. Don’t be tempted to buy a much cheaper bottle just for cooking, as the flavour will affect the finished dish. If in doubt, use a splash (or more) of the wine or sherry you might drink with the finished meal. And definitely don’t use a wine that’s corked – the bad taste will come through in your food.
- Whisk your mince
Selin Kiazim, chef, London
Use a whisk when cooking with mince to break it up really easily, and stop clumps of meat forming, rather than hacking away at it with a spoon. I learned this when I was working at Peter Gordon’s restaurant, the Providores, from a chef called Moondog.
- Prepping vegetables? Use a tomato knife. Cooking them? Use a sandwich toaster
Jane Baxter, co-founder of Wild Artichokes food events company
For prepping vegetables, I swear by a tomato knife. We use them a lot at work: small, serrated Victorinox knives with red handles. If you’re struggling with a peeler for celeriac or butternut squash, a tomato knife with its sawing action can get right through it. I wouldn’t use it to bone a leg of lamb, but for all kinds of vegetable cookery, they’re really good. And they stay sharper for longer as well.
Sandwich toasters are a really quick and easy way of cooking vegetables. Most people seem to have been given one at some time in their life, and it’s stuck at the back of the cupboard. I like to use it for purple sprouting broccoli, because you’re slightly charring and steaming them at the same time. (You can oil them a little beforehand but I don’t think it’s necessary.) I’ll cut a leek lengthways and grill that and chop it up. You could do French beans or slices of cabbage …
- Buy a good-quality knife, keep it sharp
Angela Hartnett, chef-owner, Murano, London, and co-host of Dish podcast
I don’t think you need to have the most expensive knives in your kitchen, but you do have to have a decent knife, and if the knife isn’t sharp, you might as well forget it. You’re never going to be able to cook with blunt knives, that’s why people cut themselves. To me, your best bit of equipment is a good knife you feel comfortable with, that you handle well, and is sharp. To sharpen it, I’d use a whetstone, with a steel to keep it honed. Get someone to teach you how to use one, or I’m sure there are 15 different YouTube videos about how to sharpen a knife.
- Clear the decks
Jeremy Lee, chef-patron, Quo Vadis, London, and the author of ‘Cooking’ (Fourth Estate)
The best cooking advice I ever got was: clear the decks and keep them clear, washing as you go. It’s so easy to descend into chaos in the kitchen and then it all becomes a bit overwhelming. You’re confronted with devastation afterwards, wondering why on earth you put yourself through it. It took me a while to learn this. When you turn the corner, you’re like, oh God, why didn’t I do this all along?
- Lay the table first; season as you go; add fresh lemon; never apologise
Rukmini Iyer, food writer and author of ‘India Express’ (Square Peg)
Season a dish lightly as you go. If you’re making a curry, for example, add a pinch of salt along with the spices once the onions have browned, then again when the dish is close to being finished. What you’re doing is building up layers of seasoning and flavour. If you season right at the end of the dish, you’re more likely to over-season it (which I’m sadly finding to be true, cooking saltless meals for two adults and a 9-month-old baby).
If you think a dish has enough salt, but still doesn’t taste right, add fresh lemon or lime juice. It enhances the flavour immensely and will round off the flavours. It’s usually a good idea to add lemon right at the end, especially if cooking on the stovetop on a high heat.
Never apologise for your food. Your friends and family ought to be delighted that you’ve cooked for them, and if you forgot to add olives or parsley or grapefruit to a dish, they’re none the wiser as long as you don’t apologise profusely for forgetting them. Ditto if you’re running late with dinner: have extra posh crisps and plenty of wine on hand and everyone will be both mildly tipsy and oblivious.
My mum’s amusing if retrograde tip, which she read in an American magazine in the 1970s, is: lay the table first, so your returning husband, or arriving guests, will think you’re further on with dinner than you really are. I ignore this (as does she: Dad lays the table at theirs), but I enjoy the general message that the illusion of having everything under control can help make it so.
- Crushing garlic? Add salt. Don’t sweat veges
Sam and Sam Clark, chef-owners, Moro and Morito, London
When crushing garlic in a pestle and mortar or with a knife, to make a dressing or an alioli, a hummus or babaganoush, make sure you add plenty of salt so the garlic breaks down completely into a smooth, creamy paste, avoiding lumpy bits of raw garlic that can be unpleasant.
Also, when slow-cooking, braising or sautéeing vegetables, choose a pan where the vegetables sit no more than 3cm deep. In this way the water can evaporate successfully and you concentrate the delicious flavour and encourage caramelisation. Otherwise they boil and sweat in their own juices. I often say to chefs that, when cooking vegetables, our job is to get rid of the water in them, so we’re left with the essence of the vegetable.
- Add cold syrup to hot cake, hot syrup to cold cake
Georgina Hayden, food writer and author of ‘Nistisima’ (Bloomsbury)
In Greece and the Middle East we have a lot of syrupy cakes: it’s a way of keeping things moist and fresh in hot climates. My gran always taught me to add cold syrup to hot cakes, and vice versa, so that it absorbs properly. If both were hot, the syrup would sink to the bottom, and if both were cold, the syrup would just sit on top. I always make my sugar syrup in advance and let it cool so that it’s ready to pour over the hot cake or bake, straight out of the oven. The best way to keep a cake moist is by putting a syrup on it, so regardless of where you’re from or what kind of baking you’re doing, I think it’s good advice.
- For Chinese cooking, make your sauces well in advance
Andrew Wong, chef-owner, A Wong, London
A good tip for Chinese cooking is to make all the sauces beforehand and leave them in the fridge – they can sit there for a week no problem. Then, when you’re having a dinner party or whatever, just stir fry the ingredients, add the sauces, and you’re done, it’s perfect. With Chinese food, the sauces are probably the most important part.
- Guardian News & Media
