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Chefs Are Revealing The Ingredients That Bring Dishes From “Okay” To “Incredible”
Redditor u/RybaYTC asked, “Cooks of the Reddit, what’s the essential ingredient in your meals that other people don’t use?” Here are 5 of the best suggestions:
1. “Fresh ginger. I grab a decent-sized piece from the grocery store, cut it into one or two inch pieces, throw it in the blender with about 1/4 cup of water, and blend. No need to peel it. Then, I freeze it flat in a plastic bag and break off a piece whenever I make a sauce or marinade.”
2. “Use full fat everything. You’ll end up using less to achieve body and a fuller flavor in your dishes. Cream, plain yogurt, cottage cheese, quality butter, quality mayo, etc. The quality of dairy and fats is important.”
3. “Kosher salt. Table salt, iodized salt, the Himalayan pink salt, and sea salt all have their places as either ‘get your kid their iodine’ or as nice finishing salts with their own flavor. But all those recipes you cook with? All of them are tested with kosher salt. The flakes are the perfect size for getting a consistent level of salt in a dish. Use it!”
4. “Don’t just salt your water; level up and season your rice and pasta water with stock or chicken bullion cubes.”
5. And finally: “Time. Just leave the damn thing alone for awhile. This applies to letting meat cook long and slow, letting bread bulk ferment and rise for those extra hours, mixing at the correct speed for however long instead of cranking the KitchenAid to 10, marinating, getting ingredients up to room temp, whatever.”
“You can get fancy and learn to time things well, so you don’t have dead time waiting on things, but rushing your ingredients is a great way to ruin a dish.”
