Jump up!
Posted on | November 16, 2009
If you want to be a chef, this is the one method you must, must master.
Sure, all cooking methods are a must-know, but this one, is the heart of them all, the one you will use ten times to any one time you use another method.
What method am I talking about?
Come sauté with me
Sautéing is the last of the dry heat cooking methods I want to talk about. Next, I’ll get into wet heat methods, such as poaching for which, after my second term exam, I now have an understanding and fondness.
There seems to be some confusion around how to sauté, a confusion no other dry heat cooking method seems to have outside of, say, grilling, so let me take you, step-by-step through the sauté process. You’ll see; this is really easy.
1. Pick the right pan
At school, we use heavy stainless steel pans. At home, I use All-Clad pans. I love the All-Clad pans, but they are costly. We also have aluminum pans at school, but I tend to avoid these because they are so thin. So here’s my best advice: Get the best pans you can. If they are good ones (such as All-Clad) then they will last a lifetime, give good results, and be easy to clean. I know this because I used to use cheap pans at home — I would ditch them and replace them every five years or so — and now, if something happened to my All-Clad, I would replace them in a heartbeat even though they are several times more expensive than my cheap pans were. They are just worth it.
2. Get hot
Turn your burner on. High. Put your pan on your burner. Wait. No, wait. Wait until the pan is hot.
3. Oil me up
Add just enough fat to cover the bottom of the pan. Remember, you are not frying here, just sautéing. So don’t glug, glug, glug the oil into the pan. (And, by now, you should know to use an oil with a high smoke point, such as a safflower oil.)
4. Add your food
Carefully, you don’t want hot oil to splash against tender flesh. Oh, and if your oil is too hot, feel free to lower the temperature. But not too much: Sautéing is a high heat / low oil method of cooking.
5. Oh la la
Sauté is French for “to jump.” This method of cooking is called “sautéing” because the food jumps in the pan. How does the food do that? Well, by you moving the pan and flipping the food. To do this, hold the handle (I find it easier to hold the handle near the end, away from the pan) so the edge of the pan furthest from you is tilted downward, then shove your arm forward a few inches ending with a snap of the wrist upward. This forces food to travel, quickly, to the edge of the pan (as you move your arm forward), then spring into the air (as you snap your wrist upward) in an arc where it will turnover as it comes back to the pan.
Sigh. I know. There is nothing like seeing someone do it. By now, I bet you’ve seen a million cooks on TV flip their food. All I can suggest is you (1) practice every chance you get and (2) have the courage of your convictions. A weak flip accomplishes nothing, but a bold flip can turn your food over without the use of any utensils. And, hey, that’s one less spoon to wash!
And, a luxury we don’t have at culinary school: Get the kids to clean up any bits of food that flip themselves across the kitchen (at culinary school, we are the kids!).
6. Oh la NO!
If your food, however, is a slab of meat, say a chicken breast or a steak instead of a pan full of vegetables, do NOT flip it over and over. Instead, leave your pan be so your food can cook. And remember the lesson we learned in the post on grilling: Your meat will release from the pan when it is cooked. Then, and only then, should you flip your meat (this was one of those small, but dreadfully important, lessons I got from a chef at culinary school).
7. Sauce me up
See the brown left in your pan when you removed your food (a lot if you were cooking meat, maybe little or none if you were cooking vegetables)? Congratulations, you have a fond. A fond is the tasty start of a yum yum pan sauce. Say, for example, you cooked yourself a nice steak. After you take it out of the pan, and while it is sitting on your cutting board, uncut and reabsorbing its juices, why don’t you throw some vegetables and herbs into that fond, say some sliced mushrooms and shallots and minced fresh thyme. And, once those are cooked, how about adding a serious splash, say a cup or two, of red wine or cognac. How about stirring your wine, scraping your spoon against the bottom the pan to release that fond and all its yummy goodness into your wine. Then how about turning up the heat to reduce your wine and concentrate its flavors. Then, once your wine is the consistency you want, how about finishing it with some salt and pepper and a good knob of butter. Why, look, you are a five-star restaurant!
My super best bonus sautéing tip: Finish in the oven
At culinary school, we pretty much used the ovens almost exclusively to finish cooking. And this sounds obvious, but it is brilliant.
See, if I was sautéing something at home, I always thought I had to finish the entire cooking process in the sauté pan. Sometimes, that resulted in perfect outside and a raw inside or a burnt outside and a perfect inside. Not so good. But at school, I learned that you could use the sauté pan to get the effect you wanted, then, if need be, finish your cooking in the oven.
Brilliant.
So, when I make zucchini fritters, for example, I sauté them until they are lovely and golden brown on the outside, then pop my sauté pan (oven safe, of course) into the oven so they can finish cooking inside. Perfect fritters! So, unless I am doing a fast sauté (stir fry, for example, or thin vegetables) where I know, for a certainty that what I am sautéing will cook through, then I automatically turn the oven up high so I can finish my food there, with no worries about burning it on the range.
You may have known this all along, but, to me, this was a revelation and a stroke of genius that has radically changed the way I cook at home. I’m curious — do you think this is a tip you will use?
Comments
7 Responses to “Jump up!”
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November 16th, 2009 @ 7:45 am
Hey there,
Yes, the tips on sauteeing have been really helpful. Especially the bit about finishing in the oven because Lord knows there were times when I got the outside just perfect only to have raw bits inside. So Thank you for your help!
November 16th, 2009 @ 8:34 am
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November 16th, 2009 @ 9:44 am
Absolutely! I, too, always thought the pan was the be all and end all. Voila! My oven! ::facepalm::
I wonder; my Dad & I had a running argument. He insisted one could sauté using broth or stock (to reduce fat). I insisted that was steaming, at best. He passed away, so I win by default (don’t flinch; he would’ve appreciated the joke!) but really – it’s gotta be a tiny bit of fat, no?
November 16th, 2009 @ 9:58 am
Great tips! I am the same way–I usually finish cooking in the oven.
November 17th, 2009 @ 8:56 am
We were taught that the definition of sautéing is high heat / low fat. Not low broth, not low stock.
So I doubt my chef would agree with your dad.
And I don’t see any advantage to sautéing with stock, anyway. On one hand, I suppose your dad could be going for low fat, but sautéing already is low fat (and there is fat in stock). And you’re right – it would add moisture where, perhaps, none is wanted.
So, yes, you win (with my apologies to your dad who sounds like he was a lot of fun)!
November 17th, 2009 @ 2:34 pm
‘the courage of your conviction’ part on flipping the food in its pan is the one I like best- very Julia Child-ish…
great post– loved it. I think I’ll go saute something, anything now!
November 18th, 2009 @ 9:25 am
I don’t know if it would add moisture because from my understanding, as meat heats up, moisture is forced out of the meat fibers which is why you need to let the meat rest before serving (to reabsorb the moisture that left the meat). So again not an expert, but I don’t think the meat would really absorb the stock/broth during cooking (similar to sunscreen I guess). Sauteing specifically uses fat because it creates a layer of protection between the meat and heat source so that while the inside cooks, the outside doesn’t burn.
There is a great book that I picked up on this kind of stuff and if you’re interested in food science I think you’ll enjoy it – “On Food and Cooking”.