Pay Attention!

I'm about to lecture you on paying attention, and it will likely turn out badly. I’m sure to misspell something, make a grammatical error, or make a grievous error in judgment that will show what a hypocrite I am. However, I will press on and tell you that the most critical thing in good cooking, and one of the most common omissions, is just paying attention to what you are doing. I am not so good at this in many aspects of life but in cooking I think I do it better than most.

The previous post spoke about how to use enough salt to make sure that the flavors in your dish stand out. This is one aspect of paying attention, and there are many in cooking.

I recently cooked for some friends over the holidays: A favorite recipe for beef tenderloin in salt crust (there goes that pesky salt again). The beef is seared, encased in a dough made with coarse salt and herbs, and then roasted for about half an hour before being left to sit in the salt crust for an hour. While the beef was in the oven, I was struggling trying to make a béarnaise sauce which eventually broke and was ruined. The failed béarnaise annoyed me but in the middle of this I had missed my oven timer, and the beef cooked about 15 minutes too long. I pulled it out of the oven and broke the crust to avoid cooking it more, but it was too late. My friends said it was fine but for me it was ruined – I would just as soon eat my tires as well done filet mignon. What made me so furious was that I had lost concentration on what really mattered – the centerpiece of the meal . The moral: Pay Attention!

In this case, I did at least do one thing right: I set a timer. I ignored it when it went off, but at least it gave me a chance. Timers are great for tricky things like broiling where an extra minute can ruin a dish. In general I have switched to using the timer on my phone to remind me of what I need to do. There are also smartphone apps that will manage multiple timers - I am downloading one as I write this.

Paying attention comes up in many little ways while cooking. Let’s go back to salt for a minute. I watch shows on TV like Top Chef and I’m amazed at the number of times the judges complain that foods are under-salted. Same with restaurants. What is the problem here? Certainly these chefs know how to cook well – much better than I do. The problem is that they are not paying attention – no wonder, given the pressure they are under. I can forgive the Top Chef contestants, but not the chefs in a restaurant who are doing their normal job. If I serve my food without tasting it, I expect it will be wrong most of the time. Whenever possible, you need to taste the food as you make it and before you serve it.

Another aspect of paying attention is in the way you compose your meal. If you are serving a fine wine, don’t make things so spicy that the food will detract from the wine. Often, the better the wine, the simpler the food it demands, though matching wine and food deserves many articles to itself.

Finally, think about presentation. My Mom says that food should have some color in it. At one time I sided with my Dad who felt the purpose was eating it and smelling it, not looking at it, but now I’ve come around to her way of thinking. Even when cooking very simple things, you can add some visual interest without adding much time. Add a green herb (basil, for instance) to tomatoes. Add a useful garnish, like a lemon wedge and a little parsley, to a piece of fish. The combination of these little things (especially the seasoning!) can make the difference between an average meal and a great one.