Jim Fisher shares his top tips
Dinner party success is hard to come by. There always seems to be some sort of disaster - if you're lucky it doesn't cause too much disruption.
Seen as it's the season to be spent with friends and family and this usally means time bondng over food and drink, we've enlisted the help of Jim Fisher.
Jim is a chef and owner of cookinfrance.com, a cooking school in Dordogne, SW France - he certainly knows how to keep big crowds happy when it comes to food and he's decided to share his top cheffy tips.
These will help to make sure that your Dinner Party doesn't go down like a balloon. Enjoy!
Top Cheffy Tips:
Reduce, reduce, reduce! Boil your stocks to reduce the water content by as much as 85% - it concentrates flavour and takes up less room in the fridge or freezer (takes less time to when making a sauce as it’s already reduced).
Use salt intelligently, not so much as a seasoning, more as a flavour enhancer - a little salt, even in sweet recipes like sweet pastry or shortbread, really brings out the flavour of the other ingredients without making it taste overtly salty.
Use pepper judiciously - unlike salt, this powerful spice is a flavour thief making almost everything it touched taste of itself (it was used in Indian cuisine to mask tainted flavours long before chillies arrived from the Americas).
When making ice creams without a recipe add 20 per cent more sugar than you feel it needs - freezing reduces the free movement of flavour molecules and locks down their effect on the tongue.
Take tomatoes and fruit out of the fridge at least two hours before you intend to use them - a strawberry will taste 20 per cent more flavoursome at room temperature than at 5°C, the temperature of most fridges.
Learn to toss foods in a frying pan as stirring can break up ingredients and render them to mush - practice tossing rice or chick peas in the garden (but do it at night so as not to worry the neighbours!).
Swirl, don’t stir - chefs often swirl sauces in a pan instead of stirring with a spoon as it’s quicker, saves on washing up and doesn’t cool the sauce down.
Keep eggs in the fridge - they last longer and remain in better condition (use room temperature eggs for mayonnaise only)
Pre-heat frying pans dry - you can get them hotter for better searing without a fug of smoke from adding the oil too early
Oil the food, not the pan - that way, you can get the pan hot and get a good colour on the ingredient
Cook meat (especially large cuts) from room temperature - this ensures the heat transfers evenly through the joint giving it consistent cooking and a uniform colour
Use lots of water in boiling - when blanching vegetables, use lots of well-salted water: the more water you have, the faster it comes back to the boil
Use lots of water when refreshing - after blanching your vegetables, use lots of really cold water to quickly cool them down ready for storing in the fridge (ice helps, but if you don’t have enough, have another fresh bowl on standby) and change the water as soon as it becomes tepid
Overpower sauces and dressings - these loose flavour when eaten with the ingredients they are dressing, so power them up by as much as 20 per cent
Over-salted sauce - simmering chopped potato and carrot in an over-salted stock or sauce will remove some of the salinity. Adding full fat cream - effectively turning the it into a cream sauce - has a similar effect by coating the salt molecules with fat
Taste, taste and taste again! Taste your food at every stage, from raw ingredient to finished dish - you can never be a better cook if you don’t know how evaporation, heat, cold, and the addition of seasoning affects flavour and texture
Make a quick stock from vegetables and onion skins – rather than reach for the stock cubes, make your own quick stock using any combination of three of the following: carrot, onion, celery, shallot, garlic & fennel. Onion skins will help give the stock a mahogany-coloured depth.
Never use distinctly flavoured vegetables like parsnip, cabbage, sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, turnip, tomato or potato as these will lend the stock, and any subsequent sauce, too pungent a flavour.
Practice using a large chef’s knife – they’re great for big chopping and small dicing.
If all else fails, remember the words boldly displayed on the cover of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: DON’T PANIC!
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