There's No Tool Better Than a GOOD Tool

One of the most important aspects of doing any job well is to have the right tool for the job. The tool doesn’t always have to be of the utmost highest quality, but poor quality tools will hinder you for sure in several ways: speed, safety and results.

This is especially true for good home cooking.

I’ve learned this by cooking in foreign kitchens, despite frequently bringing my own chef’s knife and a specialty tool or so. Vacation homes, my mother-in-law’s kitchen, even my own mom’s kitchen (sorry Mom, you know I still love you) are all harder to cook in due to the differences in a few key kitchen tools.

For example, my dear mother-in-law Eleanor had an inset glass cutting board in her 1970’s-built countertop. The glass surface was very difficult to cut on because a knife can’t “grip” into the cutting surface below the product. Picture the little slices that end up in a plastic or wood cutting board. Not only that, a knife could easily slip sideways. So all three areas I mentioned above held true: speed, safety and results were compromised.

Some people confuse the phrase “right tool for the job” with having “every tool you could ever use for the job”. I’ll admit that over the years I’ve collected a few extra tools that now reside in shoe boxes in the pantry. Yet those these tools all have one of the following in common:

• Poor quality – large Williams Sonoma roasting pan, now warped ($100 vs. $200+ for All-Clad or similar)


• Bought on a whim - hand carved salad tongs from the Broadmoor Resort


• Single purpose tool – a cherry pitter that I used once, and for the past decade have been unable to find the one time a year I need it.

Many cook books contain lists of what you must or should have in your kitchen. I’m resisting that temptation. Instead, here are my 10 Most Important Cooking Tools. You should have each of these tools on hand, and each should be of pretty darn good quality. If you can’t have them all at first (for example, as with my nephew Peter who is restocking a kitchen after being in the Marines), then this should be an important checklist for you.

I’ll simply list the top ten items here, then separately post a few comments about each. Also, I’ve selected my favorite model of each, which you can find on my a-store at amazon.com:

1. Chef’s Knife – 8” (for very small hands, some manufacturers make 7” models


2. Cutting Board – plastic or wood, avoid glass and marble


3. Peeler....the Kyocera Perfect Peeler – a true innovation


4. Non-stick Saute Pans - 10” and 12”


5. 8 Quart Stock Pot


6. Largish Sauce Pan – 3.5 or 4.5 quarts


7. Paring Knife


8. Strainer / Colander


9. Martini or Wine Glasses


10. Microplane Grater


11. Dutch Oven – hey, the glasses don’t REALLY count as a pick, do they?

I’m sure serious and non-serious cooks could debate this list extensively over martinis or Chardonnay. The logic behind this list is that when these items are poor quality, like the ones in the beach house in South Carolina we’ll be visiting again this summer, the cooking gets quite a bit slower and harder. You can count on me bringing more kitchen equipment than last year, much of it on “the list”.

Also, this is a good starting point for a beginner, especially to focus on high quality versions of each of these tools.

“I’m too poor to buy cheap”
- My Aunt Mary from Long Island

Oh - one more thing. Even in the case of simple utentsils like wooden spoons, spatulas and turners, paying a few bucks more upfront for a high quality tool will mean you may never have to replace a cheaper version.

Pasta with Chicken and Light Gorgonzola Sauce

AKA "Chicken a la Jennifer"

Here's a modified version of a recipe from Bon Appetit that I've improved upon. The original recipe called for a very small amount of chicken and a massive amount of gorgonzola.

1 slice pancetta, approx. 1/4" thick, or 5-6 slices of prosciutto, cut into thin strips

1/2 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes (NOT packed in oil), sliced into thin strips

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves

1 pound pasta

1 shallot, chopped finely

4 garlic cloves, chopped finely

1/2 cup chicken stock or white wine

1/2 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese (about 2 ounces)

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil, or other fresh herbs

1. Cook pasta while sauteeing the chicken and making the sauce. Reserve 1/2 cup cooking liquid if pasta is done before the sauce has been completed.



2. Slice prosciutto or pancetta in thin strips. Add to skillet over medium-high heat with a tiny drizzle of olive oil. Saute until crispy. Remove and drain on paper towels.



3. Salt and pepper the chicken breasts, then saute in olive oil, about 3 minutes per side, 4 minutes if very thick. Remove and cover with foil.



4. Add 1 tablespoon oil to pan, add the shallot, garlic and sun dried tomato slices. Saute for 2 min.



5. Add the stock or wine and bring to a boil. Add 1/4 cup gorgonzola and simmer until it melts.



6. Turn heat to lowest setting. Slice the chicken pieces and add them to sauce along with any juices that escaped from the sliced chicken. Add basil or other herbs.



7. If pasta is a little dry, add some reserved cooking liquid first. Add sauce to pasta. Top with prosciutto / pancetta and grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Season with S&P to taste.

Game plan:

1. Start pasta water



2. Prep tomatoes, shallot, garlic.



3. Prep prosciutto or pancetta, and saute.



4. Begin cooking pasta



5. Saute chickens and remove.



6. Saute other items and complete sauce.



7. At some point while chicken or other items are cooking, pasta will be done. Reserve some cooking water and drain.



8. Combine all.

My Friend Jennifer Wouldn't Eat This Dish

My friend Tim made a chicken and pasta dish for his family last week, and despite high ratings from reviewers on epicurious.com, he thought it turned out poorly. In fact, his wife Jennifer disliked it so much she wouldn't eat it. So Tim turned to me for a little advice.

I told him he has too many swing thoughts before he hits his drives, and he ought to take more time to line up his putts. But that wasn't the kind of advice he was looking for.

The reason Jen didn't like the dish was the overpowering amount of Gorgonzola it contained. He also wasn't pleased with the color, which came from using the oil from jarred sun-dried tomatoes. I took a look at the recipe he used (you can link to it here: Pasta with Chicken, Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Gorgonzola Sauce) and saw a few things I'd do differently.

• There indeed was a LOT of Gorgonzola in the sauce, especially since the recipe called for only 9 oz. of boneless chicken breasts.


• Besides the cheese, the recipe is at the mercy of the oil in the sun-dried tomatoes. Some are tasty, some are average, but you have somewhat lost control of the tastes depending on which brand you happened to buy. By using sun dried tomatoes sold in the dried fruit/nut section of the grocery store, you'll get a little more texture (many jarred SD tomatoes are mushy) and you can control the flavors.


• Cooking prosciutto slices in a sauce is a waste. LIttle or not flavor will come through. However, frying them up to a crispy texture first will turn them into a nice topping at the end. Pancetta works the same way and is a little easier and less expensive to work with.


• AND by sauteing the chicken in the same pan as the prosciutto / pancetta, you carry some of that flavor over to the chicken.


• The recipe doesn't mention adding salt and pepper to the chicken breasts before cooking. This is an important step to bring out flavors from a pretty bland protein. Also, letting the chicken warm up at room temperature while you are slicing the other ingredients will allow it to cook better than if it's very cold straight from the fridge.


• Garlic is fine as an aromatic base, but a little shallot (or regular onion) and garlic are even better.


• I LOVE fresh herbs, but I think 1/2 cup of basil is a little much. Not a big deal, just my taste.

To put my money where my mouth is (or should I say put my mouth where my mouth is?), I made my revised version of the dish last week. Frankly, I think Jen would eat it with the changes I made. In fact, Tim and I are playing a golf tournament this weekend, and are having a family dinner Saturday night. This dish will be on the menu for sure.

You might read this and think, "Who cares, Tom. So, you revised a recipe to suit it to your taste." True, but I think there is a key differences in what I recommend. I think my version provides a fresher, better balanced profile of flavors. And what family of four would really be satisfied with just over half a pound of chicken mixed into one pound of pasta. I'm not recommending big portions and overeating, but that ratio is just poor.

Tim's story reinforces one of the most important principles I use to cook well: beware of random searches for recipes online. Just because the ingredients sound like a great combination doesn't mean that the recipe is well composed.

I recollect similar recipes as this one from my favorite old cookbook, Cuisine Rapide by Pierre Franey which are well composed, and use similar ingredients and techniques. You might want to check out that book sometime. It's out of print, but copies are still available via amazon.

Fancy Marinated Olives

This version of marinated olives takes a bit more work than the Orange-Fennel version I just shared. But people will love the sweet and tangy flavors combined with salty olives.

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 shallot, sliced

1.5 - 2 cups mixed brine cured olives

2 strips lemon zest, cut with a vegetable peeler

2 strips orange zest, same

1 bay leaf

1/2 of a 3 inch cinnamon stick, crushed

8 whole allspice, crushed

8 black peppercorns, crushed

2 garlic cloves, crushed and sliced (maybe I was in a destructive mood when i created this recipe, what with all this crushing going on).

4 tablespoons olive oil

1. Heat vinegar, sugar and shallot until reduced to about 1 tablespoon of liquid.


2. Combine all ingredients up to garlic and oil.


3. Heat garlic in oil for 30-45 seconds, until it just begins to color. Immediately pour garlic and oil over olives and mix thoroughly.
   

Orange Fennel Marinated Olives

This is a simple recipe to put together, but is definitely better if you can let it marinate for at least a day. The olives will keep for about a week refrigerated.

1.5 to 2 C brine cured olives - any variety, to your taste

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon grated orange zest (from one medium, or half a large orange)

2 tablespoons capers

2 tablespoons olive oil

1. Gently rinse the olives under cool water. This allows you to better control the flavors, rather than the taste of what the producer used to brine the olives.


2. Toast fennel seeds in a small skillet over medium heat. As soon as you can smell the seeds, remove them from the heat. Gently crush the fennel seeds.


3. Smash and slice the garlic clove.


4. Grate the orange zest with a zester or microplane grater. If you don't have such a grater, use a peeler to take a 1 inch by 3 inch peel off the orange, then cut away the white pith on the back of the peel using a sharp knife. Then slice the peel into the thinnest strips you can create.


5. Combine all the ingredients, and add a turn or two of fresh ground black pepper.

Olives should marinate for a full day in advance, if possible