Hello friends,
There is one thing in the restaurant’s kitchen that makes the chef’s work significantly easier when cooking or creating dishes: preparation.
Without preparation, you aren’t going anywhere. We have various items made in batch, such as different types of vinegars, flavoured oils, flavoured salts, pickled vegetables, fermented food, dehydrated food such as powders and so on. It’s not only that it makes our work easier, but it’s essential that we have a well-stocked larder with long shelf-life items.
While there are many differences between cooking in a professional kitchen and cooking at home, there are also many things and ‘tricks’ from restaurant’s kitchens that we can use when cooking at home. Building a larder is definitely one of them.
I hear you say ‘but I don’t have time and space in my kitchen to stock so many items. Fret not, me neither. You don’t need five types of vinegar, three different salts and fifteen jars of pickled vegetables. What you need are a few basic items that can either be made in batch or take very little time to prepare. The one thing they share? They last long, so you only need to make them like once in a couple of months.
Here is a list of items that I think that belong to every kitchen:
Pickling liquid
I always try to have a small-ish bottle of pickling liquid in my fridge that is ready to use. It greatly reduces your time when you would like to pickle those herb stems or random vegetable leftovers that you ended up with. Having it prepared ahead of time, it also breaks down the subconscious barrier that you have when you are about to perform an extra task in the kitchen. With pre-made pickling liquid, it will literally take no more than three minutes to pickle something. You chop up that broccoli stalk, put it in an airtight container (Kilner jar, etc.), cover it with pickling liquid and put it in the fridge. You see, it’s even less than three minutes. Here is a simple recipe for pickling liquid that I usually use.
Pickled vegetables
Naturally, if you have prepared the pickling liquid that I just talked about, you will end up having pickled vegetables, or whatever you have decided to pickle. If you are a pickles-hater, skip to the next one. But I love pickles. Even more, if they are homemade and zero-waste. Sometimes your dish requires a bit of an acidic element and that’s when pickles come in. That gherkin in a burger can be replaced by pickled shallots or simple pickled cucumber. I love to sprinkle pickled carrot top stems on my sandwich or toast. Looking for a garnish for the main dish? Why not use pickled cauliflower leaves? I always have a few small jars of pickled vegetables in the back of my fridge.
Fermented food
Wanna step up from pickled vegetables? Then try fermenting. Fermenting is an excellent way of extending the shelf life of your vegetables that you don’t know what to do with. The simplest form of fermentation won’t take more than five minutes of your time and fermented vegetables will last in your fridge for up to six months, or even a year if your fridge is really cold. The process of fermentation creates a more complex flavour than pickling and it is also healthier thanks to the presence of lactic acid bacteria in the process.
You can ferment most of the things that you would pickle. Fermented radish is on top of my list in tastiness, followed by fermented carrots. There are multiple small jars of fermented vegetables in my fridge at any given time, so I have them handy when I need a bit of a funky note in a dish. An odd combination I like is fermented vegetables with bread and butter. Go and give it a try. I have a few recipes for fermented vegetables on here, such as fermented cauliflower leaves or fermented radishes.
Flavoured oil
At least one. My all-time favourite is the roasted garlic oil. I would love to tell you that your kitchen won’t smell like garlic for a few hours but I would be lying. However, I will happily put up with a garlic smell in exchange for a ridiculously good-tasting borderline-addictive garlic oil. Not a fan of garlic? Infuse your olive oil with chillies or lemon peel. Got some time on your hands? Then make a green herb oil. It looks beautiful on the plate and adds an extra bit of fancy to your dish.
Herb oils and flavoured oils are a nice upgrade from olive oil and add an extra layer of flavour to your dishes, whether it’s a salad or protein-packed main dish. Heck, it even looks great in a bowl of soup.
One important thing I want to note is to never, ever, under any circumstances should you keep your flavoured oils at room temperature. I don’t care who told you that storing herb oil on the kitchen counter is fine, but he is wrong. God forbid to keep fresh (not roasted) garlic oil at room temperature. Botulotoxin is not fun and if herbs and garlic are kept in an environment without oxygen (submerged in oil), they promote the growth of bacteria. The flavoured oils that you buy in shops have been either pasteurized or acidified, therefore they are safe to keep at room temperature. Homemade infused oils must be kept in the fridge and used within a week.
But what is the best place to store infused oils? Freezer. Pour the oil into small containers, or use an ice cube tray to store your oil in the freezer. You have probably seen this tip like thousand times already but it truly is one of the handiest one at home.
Vegetable powder
What on earth is a vegetable powder? It’s a dehydrated and blended vegetable. Most often, it’s various trimmings of the vegetable that we dehydrate and blend in a spice blender to a fine powder. Why should you have vegetable powder in your kitchen? Because it’s a concentrated flavour. Not only that, but it’s also another way of helping yourself to avoid wasting food and while the process of dehydration takes a few hours, your active time in the kitchen is not more than fifteen minutes. Chop the vegetables into the smallest pieces possible (or grate them), spread on a dehydrator sheet and put it in your dehydrator overnight set at 40-50C.
Most of the vegetables are completely dry in about twelve hours. Once your vegetable is completely dry, blend it into powder. The ideal piece of equipment for that job is a coffee or spice blender, but even a regular blender with a chopping attachment does the job, although the powder won’t be super-fine. Store your powder in a dark place in an airtight container and sprinkle some of it on your vegetables, into your pasta dough, put some in the white sauce that you are making, sprinkle some on your breakfast, sprinkle it everywhere. But no, really. Tomato powder gives an extra layer of umami to your dish, powder from radish leaves or herb stalks adds yet again another layer of flavour to your dish, and leek top ash gives a touch of bitter notes to acidic dishes. Don’t forget to experiment.
Now how does having a few larder items in your kitchen helps with your zero-waste cooking and food waste-reducing efforts at home? It makes cooking easier. It’s much easier to whip up a quick dinner from random leftovers if you have a couple of tasty ingredients pre-made. It’s much easier to recycle your ‘leftovers’ if you already have a few items ready.
Most of the time, cooking at home is about keeping it simple and making it easy. Spending extra few minutes in a kitchen per month can help you in that. I certainly don’t mind preparing a few items in batch, in order to save time later on. That is time well invested.
Part two of this series is coming at you next week.
P.S.: Don’t forget that you can reply to this email if you have any questions or simply post questions under the post here so everyone can see.
Until next time,
Vojtech