Habits of Moderately Effective Cooks

Since returning home from Ballymaloe and Nopi, I've been (unsurprisingly) spending a lot of time in my kitchen. I've been spending time in other kitchens too, with a brief stage at The Herbfarm and shadowing a private chef on a job. There's a lot that goes on in commercial kitchens that I can't easily replicate at home, but I've developed some new habits that don't require a walk in fridge, speed rack, or dish pit. Maybe those of you who cook at home can use some of them, too.

• Tasting made easy

"Season to taste" might be the most prolific phrase in cook books and recipes, and for good reason. It turns out you can't season to taste if you don't, you know, taste your food. Tasting isn't a one time offer, either. Cooking can (should) be an iterative process, wherein you adjust and adapt your food based on how it tastes in the moment. To this end, I now keep a container of spoons out next to my stove top, always at a moments reach. These serve not only as a tasting vessel, but a reminder to myself as well, to check in with my food and see how it's getting on.

• You're going to need a bigger bowl

Whether dressing a salad, whisking egg whites, mixing dough, or anything of the sort, use the biggest bowl you've got. No, bigger than that one. You can be much more efficient at tossing or whipping ingredients around when you aren't worried about them spilling out onto your counter. I have a lot of mixing bowls in my kitchen, and it's rare these days that I use anything but the largest.

• Easy access

All pantry ingredients are not created equal. If there is a single thing that I've done in my kitchen to improve my cooking, it's keeping salt in a large-mouth container on the counter. No fussing with a shaker that may or may not be clogged, no rummaging through drawers or cupboards while something was burning on the stove, no being forgotten out of sight and mind. Salt is one of those things that I just keep around, somewhere where I can easily grab a pinch or a cup.

• More towels, fewer mitts

I don't think I saw a single oven mitt at Nopi or The Herbfarm. They're kind of fussy to put on and take off in an environment where you really don't want to waste seconds, and if you happen to wear a hole in one without noticing, you're going to have a bad time. Kitchen towels, on the other hand, are everywhere. At any given time there are at least three on my counter. One for wiping things down, one or two for grabbing hot pans or oven dishes, and another for drying dishes from the sink. Fold a dry towel in half, then in half again, and you can pull a dutch oven out of a 500 degree oven just as well as with any oven mitt out there.

• Whistle Wash up while you work

Kitchen porters are pretty much the greatest people in the world. They're manning the dish pit cleaning up the (huge) mess the cooks are making before, during, and after service. Without them, restaurant kitchens would be overflowing with dirty pots, pans, plates, and cutlery after the first course. You probably don't have a KP in a dish pit at your house. I sure don't, but that doesn't excuse a filthy work space. There's a lot of down time in cooking. While you're waiting for that pot of water to boil or roast to come out of the oven, there's no reason not to wash some dishes or load the dish washer. I think a lot of people are put off cooking at home just because they don't like doing a mountain of dishes after a meal. So, don't do that. Next time you throw a pot or mixing bowl in the sink, if there's nothing else to do, just give it a wash and be done with it. You'll be glad you did after you've eaten and all the mess you made during prep is already taken care of.

• Prep for days

These are destined for risotto or pasta ...in a few days.

Long, slow cooking can coax some really beautiful flavor out of some ingredients, but who has the time? Some things simply don't need to be fresh, so why make them fresh when you're busy enough as it is? In a restaurant, you have maybe 15 minutes from when an order comes in to sending a plate to the pass. It takes a lot longer than 15 minutes to assemble a complex dish. Days longer. I never really appreciated how much of a dish you can make ahead, or how far ahead 'ahead' was, until I saw it in action. The best way I can explain this is by example. I recently made a recipe from the Nopi cookbook (which wasn't on the menu while I was there) for Pistachio and Pine Nut-Crusted Halibut with Arugula and Parsley Vichyssoise. (Really delicious by the way, would recommend). When it came time to serve, I had the everything on plates in about 8 minutes. It took a lot longer than 8 minutes to make the dish. The nut-crust and vichyssoise I had made the day before, they both keep fine in the fridge over night. A few hours before dinner, I portioned the fish into individual servings and laid them out on a sheet tray which I stuck in the fridge until it was time to eat. The only real work to be done come dinner was throwing the fish in the oven, then dressing the plates. I think a lot of seemingly intimidating recipes can be approached this way. Break your dishes down into components and you'll find that many can be handled hours or days in advance. Do lots of small tasks at a more leisurely pace, and you can get some pretty impressive results with little blood, sweat, or tears.

• Little black book

I take lots of notes in the kitchen now. Part of this is because I'm more actively trying to develop recipes of my own, but even if you are cooking word for word from your favorite cook book, I think you should take notes. Did you forget something in the oven and cook it 3 minutes too long? Over or under season your sauce? Think you need to double the garlic next time? Write it down. I always used to think I'd remember what I did and what I wanted to change next time I made a dish. I never remembered what I did or what I wanted to change. Plus, taking recipe notes is fun. I write jokes and stories to future-me in the margins of my recipes. Things that make me smile and want to revisit (or avoid at all costs) recipes. This is all supposed to be fun anyway, right?