Cooking like a professional chef

from Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain


Important ingredients that professional chefs use:

shallots - Use in sauces, sauté items, and dressings.

butter - It's the first and last thing in the sauté pan. Sauté in oil and butter and then finish sauces with it.

roasted garlic - Sliver thinly for pasta (like in Goodfellas), use a mix of fresh and roasted garlic in Caesar dressing. Avoid burnt, old, and jarred garlic, as well as garlic that was cut too long ago. Don't use a garlic press.

chiffonaded parsley - Thinly sliced washed, dried parsley (flat leaf, I assume).

stock - "the backbone of good cooking"
Roasted bones, roasted vegetables, and water, then reduce, strain, and freeze.

demiglace - Combine stock, red wine, shallots, fresh thyme, bay leaf, and peppercorns. Slowly simmer and reduce until it coats a spoon. Strain and freeze in ice cube trays. Make sauces with demiglace and finish with butter.

fresh herbs - Throw out your dried herbs. Use fresh herbs to cook and garnish. Garnish suggestions:
* chervil - chicken breast
* basil - pasta
* chives (uncut) - fish
* mint (with whipped cream and raspberries) - desserts