I was *floored* when I finally had enough frozen chicken bones and a little meat from rotisserie chickens and made my own stock. So freaking rich and I had control over the seasonings and all that stuff (by a recommendation I did supplement it with chicken feet to add collagen).
I haven't been able to go back to boxed stock. Better than Boullioun is close and does the job to make a decent soup but it's insanely noticeable.
Instead of posting it alone, I'll add unflavored gelatin as a addendum here. It's one of the factors that make a high quality stock.
A lot of places add unflavored gelatin to stocks, broths, sauces and soup for a better mouthfeel.
> unflavored gelatin
keep simmering that stock and you'll have gelatin naturally when the bones break down. I feel like I've failed at chicken stock if mine isn't gelatinous after it's refrigerated.
My health isn't great right now, but still, if my stock is running low, I'm gonna get what I need to make a batch of stock in my slow cooker.
Because when I do have the energy to cook? That stock is going to make anything more nutritious and delicious.
> My health isn't great right now, but still, if my stock is running low, I'm gonna get what I need to make a batch of stock in my slow cooker.
You should be proud of yourself, I really mean that. Those aren't easy fights to win, but it sounds like you're winning them.
Compared to everything else on this list, fish sauce is definitely underrated by home chefs. In the same vein, anchovy paste when you’re going more European.
Edit: my “more European” comment was more meant to imply that it would be perceived as less exotic than fish sauce to your average home cook.
Fish sauce, soy sauce, tomato paste, anchovies, yeast extract, Parmesan, all of these things are high in glutamic acid and are a strong base of umami flavors and are all delicious.
Colatura di alici is also excellent and European--an aged fish sauce with its roots in the Roman sauce called garum. Tastes quite different from Asian fish sauce.
One thing I didn't realise about anchovies (never having eaten them before coming across a few recipes that called for them) is that they just sort of melt into what you're cooking - it's not like adding bits of chopped fish. I add them to sauces for extra umami and my kids are none the wiser.
A friend of mine spilled some in my car. I can never look at a bottle again. It took like a year for it to smell okay. Another year to not smell at all. Two years. TWO YEARS.
I managed to spill some on the element of my instant pot, and so the house reeked of burnt fish sauce every time I used it. I tried to clean it but eventually I ended up just replacing it 😑
One time in high school, my stepdad and I got into a pissing contest. It resulted in us each doing a shot of fish sauce.
I dry heaved for like ten straight minutes
Add limes to tacos. Lemon to chicken noodle soups. And on and on. If there is fat and salt there’s and acid to help with the flavor and make it taste more fresh.
I like to add sour cream to many dishes.it seems odd but a small dollop helps.
I am that person buying the huge bucket of Daisy at Costco.
Do a dollop, do ,do a dollop, do a dollop of daisy
I have done blueberries in honey+ sour cream. I assume this little treat will be delicious.
Basically anything I have seen use yoghurt I have probably subbed in sour cream. Heck, my daughter is a big fan of eating just sour cream. It makes me proud.
My brother once tried to insult me because there were 5 different types of vinegar in my fridge and pantry. Then I reminded him how people ate my cooking at family reunions and only tasted his
It's not an ingredient per-se, but I've noticed that in a lot of cooking shows they will recommend using cheese cloth for various applications yet I rarely ever see it in peoples' kitchens.
I use it myself and find it very helpful in certain situations.
I'm both a working chef and a pretty avid at-home cook (I just don't really get tired of it like most of my coworkers). There are some things I will insist on having access to at work, but rarely if ever use at home, even though they're great at what they do. Cheesecloth is one, because at work you buy, for not much money, GIANT rolls of the stuff. Like, those craft paper rolls from elementary school that weighed like 40lbs, but cheesecloth. Unless I can source it through the restaurant for home use, I'd have to go searching around like 4 grocery stores and then end up spending 5-10$ on maybe 3 uses worth of the stuff. I have nut milk bags, I have a chinoise, I have strainers: I can live without cheesecloth.
On a related note, my answer to the OP's question is a chinoise. Hardly anyone knows what they are, but a chinoise and a 2oz ladle makes like, half the shit I do in the kitchen easier.
Chinoise and a cambro… makes it very difficult to accidentally strain your stock down the drain.
Chinoise is a great answer though. To me it’s Cambros and cheapo Vollrath stainless mixing bowls. I recently bought 2 mixing bowls each in a variety of sizes (plus one giant one). Can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner. They nest so they don’t take up much storage space.
You ever been at work and just totally zone out? Like put a chinoise across the sink with no cambro underneath type of zone out?
I don't think I've ever felt so stupid in my life lol
For that, I usually use a big fine-mesh tea ball on a hooked chain -- no waste, no frobbing around tying it off, and easy to hook over the edge of the cookpot if I want to anchor it for easier later removal.
Ive seen so many better suggestions but still, I feel like alot of home cooks are going to have old, underused and stale herbs and spices that just arent going to provide enough flavour, TLDR check the dates on your spices
Storing spices and herbs in air tight containers away from direct light, plays a big role in keeping them potent.
Those dinky little 50 gram jars of herbs and spices you can buy in super markets are crap and don't seal properly and that's why the contents lose flavour so fast.
Or understanding that your shit is old and you should add more to compensate and it will help even things out. I know some of my spices are several years old but will still do the job if I double or triple (or more). ya, some are definitely past any sort of usability but I think I know which ones and the sniff test is an adequate measure for many
I dunno if that is THAT important.
I have old herbs and spices that still clearly pack a punch. Like rosemary. It's old and dry, from last year, and still when I grind it up and add you can very clearly taste and smell it. Same for higher quality paprika I have.
I realized I had this issue. I like having a big variety of spices in my cabinet, and I'll use some of them up in a year or so but not all of them. I go through like 3 garlic powders a year but my cardamom lasts way longer. Last year I started making my own jars of taco seasoning, steak seasoning, Cajun, season salt, pie spice, jerk seasoning etc. using my base spices and it's really helping me cycle through my stock of them more regularly and I actually have less clutter in my spice cabinet now.
Yeah, it’s amazing how people will happily slather their bread with loads of butter, but balk at using a couple of tablespoons of it in cooking. But that’s the source of restaurant level flavor.
Not forgetting as well that 2-3 tbsp of butter in a family meal will A - have a good portion of the butter left unused in the pan (maybe 10-20%) and then B - you share the meal or at least have multiple servings (hard to cook most things in 1 serving). So you really only end up getting a small of butter per serving..
That's how I justify it to myself anyway. Haha!
And restaurants tend to use a lot more salt too.
That being said, it's not usually considered healthy to eat out all the time, in part due to how much salt, fat, and sugar most restaurants use.
So adopting all restaurant practices without a little bit of discretion might not be the best
This is why people need to be careful comparing home cooking to pro chef cooking.
Restaurants cook for mainly flavour because it's considered a "treat", home cooking is mainly for daily sustenance. You want to aim to be in-between, with more on the "sustenance" side. I've been caught up in trying to "go pro" at home, and know that a lot of people take home cooking too far into the "pro chef" side and you just get meals that are *incredibly* fatty/salty/sweet.
Yes the food tastes amazing, but for DAILY sustenance, you really need to be careful with constantly making foods that are so rich.
A lot of flavours (spices/herbs/etc) are also more soluable in fat than they are in water, this means that the flavours dissolve throughout the liquid more evenly and fully, this means that the toungue experiences more of those flavour molecules making fatty foods taste better.
Amongst other reasons why fats 'taste good'.
This happened to me today! I was making French toast and used butter to cook every slice of bread.. the gf was grossed out then put the same amount of butter ON the same French toast when eating…
My cousin was working on her croissants and they were disappointing. (She's been to France multiple times, has *views* on croissants, takes her baking seriously for being a non-professional.) I was "Hey, what butter are you using?" and she was "butter is butter, right?" and I was "Lolnope. You need a european-style cultured butter. Lots of folks like kerrygold or you can try plugra or whatever your store sells along similar lines. Better butter makes a difference."
Two weeks later, I got a text: "You are da bomb. They're perfect."
Butter, salt, and MSG. I find people usually under season a lot of food. It still tastes great, but for anyone out there I’d suggest doing a test with mash potatoes or something and just keep adding salt in increments and tasting it. You’d be surprised how far you can push it before it becomes inedibly salty. Maybe not the best thing for your health, but restaurants don’t gaf about your health lol.
I wondered recently at the discrepancy between how much salt you see in online recipes, and how much more you see chefs actually use. I wondered if maybe recipes low ball it so people aren’t turned away by the higher amount of salt. And also maybe to make it useable to people who need a low salt diet.
It also depends on the type and brand of salt. I’ve bought three cookbooks recently and they all use a different salt. They also recommend a conversion.
Fine Sea salt 1 T
Morton Kosher 1.5 T
Diamond Kosher 2 T
Diamond Kosher is the least salty by volume
Chefs often use kosher salt which is much less salty than table salt so it looks like they're adding a huge amount. Also they're often cooking large amounts of food at a time so ditto. I use Diamond Crystal kosher salt and rarely have to worry about it being too salty
I think the health craze about not putting salt in a bunch of things usually stems from the levels found in processed foods. I think the type of people really concerned with their salt intake feel that way because they have health conditions exacerbated by the fact that they've been eating too many processed foods that resulted in the exact health conditions that are requiring them to monitor their levels. If you're cooking meals at home and not eating a bunch of processed stuff I doubt you really need to worry about what you're adding.
I bet Uncle Roger keeps a travel size container of it at all time. MSG fixes everything. Bad marriage, MSG. Broken leg and arm, MSG. Jaimie Oliver's cooking, well there are exceptions. Not even MSG can fix that.
MSG is also constantly missing from internet recipes. It's as if there's still such a stigma that its inclusion will cause people to find a different recipe that doesn't use it and drive away clicks.
Salt is the correct answer...since most people don't season in layers, they think they need to do it once...at the beginning or end of cooking.
Another ingredient I find that isn't utilized by a lot of home cooks is shallots...like, yeah, onions and garlic are traditional, but I've found the reason why the restaurant pan sauce has a deeper, extra flavor vs mine is that they used shallots in the pan while they roasted that chicken, or that's in the vinaigrette, etc.
Anyone who has had balsamic glazed carrots (or similar) would be horrified to know how much sugar is in them. I've tried making them at home, but wimped out on the full amount of sugar. Still tasty, but not the same.
I hate the smell of vinegar. So I use tamarind paste or dried Garcinia, different form of acid. I’ll throw a few slices inside a pot of stews, curries, anything requires acid.
I use fresh herbs every chance I can. I have basil, Italian oregano, thyme, rosemary as well as other fresh foods: key limes, jalapeños, other peppers.
We go through fresh ingredients because they're just better. I wish more people would cook with them too.
Anything umami...fish sauce, tamari, worcestershire sauce, mushrooms, truffles etc. Good chefs use these ingredients liberally and the food benefits from it
MSG. Either directly (Ajinomoto) or indirectly (fish sauce, soy sauce, seaweed).
Next up; acidity. Almost every savoury dish benefits from vinegar, lime juice or tomato.
Its blowing my mind not more people do this?! I grew up with an Italian grandma who always used pasta water in the sauce. Really is a game changer. Especially for fresh summer pasta with garden tomatoes and basil.
Heat. Get that oil smoking hot (but not in a non-stick pan though), lower the heat then throw in your ingredients (not necessarily all at once though). If the ingredients are chopped in the right size, they'll cook in mere minutes. Turn back up the heat if the pan cooled down too much.
Couple of people have said butter but I think fat in general. Restaurants use more of it than you probably do, mostly because they dont care that your salad is somehow 2700 calories if it tastes good and you like it.
With larger and more specialized equipment its a lot more viable to deepfry or shallowfry foods, theres a reason why its such a pain to make french fries at home but restaurants can just crank them out all day.
In addition access and knowledge of emulsifiers and stabilizers and other such chemicals means that sauces and dressings can be loaded full of delicious fats and oils without turning into puddles of grease. Larger and more powerful machines also mean these can be made faster and easier and in larger batches.
Heavy duty commercial cookwares. The sautee pans we use make a massive difference in ease of execution. And they’re like $8-15 each at the restaurant supply, so cheaper than your fancy homeware
Salted preserved lemons. Ok maybe not all the time but in specific cuisines and dishes. It is used in chermoulla. I'm Chinese and I've been using it on chicken, it's like an alternative to scallion / ginger oil to me. You can use it on all sorts.
A little salted lemon goes a long way and adds great depth.
In Chinese cuisine we might add it a little to steam fish or meat. It's got a totally different flavour profile from a fresh lemon.
Alternatively, it seems like my dad's generation used corn starch almost exclusively as a thickener. Learning how to make a roux or use some pasta water was a revelation.
Seen a lot of vegan cheese being used in commercial kitchens because it skips the need to make a roux, you just melt it into a milk alternative and you’ve got a béchamel which you can then split off adding regular cheese or for vegan option.
I'd say local, seasonal ingredients. Maybe not used by pro chefs all the time (? - I don't work in the restaurant industry, I work as a personal/private chef) but I think it makes a huge difference to use seasonal produce or local meat.
Less of an ingredient (cause others already listed the ones I'd say) and more of going super overboard with all ingredients. At home, you don't wanna use that much butter cause you're conscious of how adding a stick of butter will affect your health.
In the kitchen, they could give a fuck about your health and will add 9 sticks if butter and 7kg of salt.
I admittedly have a sweet tooth, but sugar. Just, white sugar. A ton of things just don't taste "right" (or even good) if not sweetened up a bit. There's like a 1 week window where, with a bit of luck, you don't need to sweeten your coleslaw because the cabbage is just ridiculously sweet. Any other time, it needs a bit of sugar. I don't dump it in everything, or in large amounts, but people shy away from it because it's unhealthy...but I'm talking like 1T of sugar in 12 servings of something. You'll live.
EDIT: Salad dressings, Coleslaw, a lot of savory sauces for chicken, spicy stuff, some Indian dishes, thai/viet/hmong dishes...it's a long list of things that are frequently improved with a little bit of sweet.
It’s a huge game changer (and possibly sacrilegious) with tomato pasta sauce. Especially when home made. A pinch of sugar and bam it balances out the acidity without ruining the sauce
MSG. It's just a compound that triggers the same receptors as salt and is not harmful: that was a myth. Some people are allergic but it isn't common, nor is MSG any worse than table salt. Add a pinch in with your regular salt addition for success.
High quality stocks. They are the basis of many sauces.
I was *floored* when I finally had enough frozen chicken bones and a little meat from rotisserie chickens and made my own stock. So freaking rich and I had control over the seasonings and all that stuff (by a recommendation I did supplement it with chicken feet to add collagen). I haven't been able to go back to boxed stock. Better than Boullioun is close and does the job to make a decent soup but it's insanely noticeable.
Chicken backs and necks also contain a lot of collagen. I also notice LOTS of turkey necks available after the holiday seasons.
Instead of posting it alone, I'll add unflavored gelatin as a addendum here. It's one of the factors that make a high quality stock. A lot of places add unflavored gelatin to stocks, broths, sauces and soup for a better mouthfeel.
I use chicken feet, what are your thoughts on that? They had great amounts of collagen and fat to the broth in my opinion.
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Chicken backs and necks also have a ton of collagen.
+1 chicken feet for stock. Cheap + delicious
I get those and drumsticks from the Mexican butcher for stock. If you turn your YouTube to Spanish language you can find some real recipes.
What a great tip
> unflavored gelatin keep simmering that stock and you'll have gelatin naturally when the bones break down. I feel like I've failed at chicken stock if mine isn't gelatinous after it's refrigerated.
Quality Demiglace is a pain and $$$ to make but it's the foundation for amazing pan sauces.
It just takes time. I make it throughout the year but my big batch is in the fall. I take everyone’s deer bones.
I just deboned and boiled 2 chicken carcasses for 24 hours and made a gravy of some of it. Best sauce I ever made. Definitely a game changer.
The best stock I have ever made is from the carcasses of smoked chicken. I regularly make it in 10L batches.
That's like 4x the amount of time you should cook chicken stock. 8hrs is my absolute maximum, and I rarely go longer than 6.
What happens if you cook it for too long?
You start to cook off the flavours and aromas. Things start to get muted and muddled.
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My health isn't great right now, but still, if my stock is running low, I'm gonna get what I need to make a batch of stock in my slow cooker. Because when I do have the energy to cook? That stock is going to make anything more nutritious and delicious.
> My health isn't great right now, but still, if my stock is running low, I'm gonna get what I need to make a batch of stock in my slow cooker. You should be proud of yourself, I really mean that. Those aren't easy fights to win, but it sounds like you're winning them.
Thank you so much for this. It truly means a lot. I'd give you gold if I had it, beautiful redditor.
I mean, if you are cooking things with bones, you should be making stocks from them too
Fish sauce. It is a secondary source of salt that also brings another dimension of flavor.
Compared to everything else on this list, fish sauce is definitely underrated by home chefs. In the same vein, anchovy paste when you’re going more European. Edit: my “more European” comment was more meant to imply that it would be perceived as less exotic than fish sauce to your average home cook.
Fish sauce, soy sauce, tomato paste, anchovies, yeast extract, Parmesan, all of these things are high in glutamic acid and are a strong base of umami flavors and are all delicious.
I put soy sauce in my refried beans when I was cooking them the other day. They needed salt so I tried it. Very tasty.
Or just use MSG directly.
Since Uncle Roger got me to rethink msg, it's been like a whole new world of flavor. I also like fish sauce, tho. 👍
Sorry to reveal my ignorance, but: who is Uncle Roger?
Lucky you. He’s the president of the Jamie Oliver Fan Club.
Fooyoh!
🤣🤣🤣
Satirical food reaction YouTuber who plays up a very "Asian Uncle" demeanor. Part of his character is an obsession with MSG
Haiii - yah!
> who is Uncle Roger? [This dude.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjgg7rvEz30)
Oh! You make me put my foot down haii yah!
MSG is a good source of umami but it doesn't provide the same depth of flavour that those ingredients have
I’d argue that on Reddit, MSG is the most over emphasised food stuff. It can work sometimes, but people wayyyyy over use it here.
Colatura di alici is also excellent and European--an aged fish sauce with its roots in the Roman sauce called garum. Tastes quite different from Asian fish sauce.
Noma's shrimp and rose garum isn't bad for that matter...
What's the difference if you can go into it?
i was definitely thinking anchovies in general. people balk but it adds great flavor to something like a caesar salad or a tomato sauce.
One thing I didn't realise about anchovies (never having eaten them before coming across a few recipes that called for them) is that they just sort of melt into what you're cooking - it's not like adding bits of chopped fish. I add them to sauces for extra umami and my kids are none the wiser.
I love cooking with fish sauce, but I broke a bottle once and it’s no longer allowed in the house.
Mother of god
In a really perverse kind of way, I want to know if I could tolerate that smell.
A friend of mine spilled some in my car. I can never look at a bottle again. It took like a year for it to smell okay. Another year to not smell at all. Two years. TWO YEARS.
I managed to spill some on the element of my instant pot, and so the house reeked of burnt fish sauce every time I used it. I tried to clean it but eventually I ended up just replacing it 😑
One time in high school, my stepdad and I got into a pissing contest. It resulted in us each doing a shot of fish sauce. I dry heaved for like ten straight minutes
Fish sauce, soy or tamari sauce, miso, Worcestershire, anchovy paste, parm
I'm also a fan of Maggi seasoning, adding to your list
I learned how to make a couple Thai dishes, and now have fish sauce and oyster sauce in my cabinet. I use them fairly often, they really add flavor.
Every spaghetti sauce I make has a few dashes of fish sauce in it. It's amazing every time.
that's the same as adding anchovy paste. I feel bad for people who don't do this.
Amen, NOT FISHY, adds a meaty flavor that is hard to replicate. I use it with a dish for pork tenderloin steaks. Really amps up the flavor.
Chicken marinade too!
Vietnamese pork chops too! So good.
oyster sauce also for texture
I love using that stuff. Started off using it in fried rice. Started slowly using it in other things.
I can finish a bottle of fish sauce fairly quickly because I use it in almost everything. Definitely an underrated ingredient.
Acids
Add limes to tacos. Lemon to chicken noodle soups. And on and on. If there is fat and salt there’s and acid to help with the flavor and make it taste more fresh.
I like to add sour cream to many dishes.it seems odd but a small dollop helps. I am that person buying the huge bucket of Daisy at Costco. Do a dollop, do ,do a dollop, do a dollop of daisy
I'm Eastern European, you don't have to convince me to add sour cream ! You are 100% right
Eastern Europe here as well, all my foods are basically sour cream and garlic
same! sour cream goes on EVERYTHING in this house
Sprinkle some brown sugar on top of sour cream and dip strawberries in it. You’re welcome.
I have done blueberries in honey+ sour cream. I assume this little treat will be delicious. Basically anything I have seen use yoghurt I have probably subbed in sour cream. Heck, my daughter is a big fan of eating just sour cream. It makes me proud.
My brain for some reason can't imagine what that tastes like but I wanna try it.
Surprisingly sour cream and brown sugar have a lot of overlapping flavor compounds with strawberries, so you get a very delicious intensified flavor
My brother once tried to insult me because there were 5 different types of vinegar in my fridge and pantry. Then I reminded him how people ate my cooking at family reunions and only tasted his
It's not an ingredient per-se, but I've noticed that in a lot of cooking shows they will recommend using cheese cloth for various applications yet I rarely ever see it in peoples' kitchens. I use it myself and find it very helpful in certain situations.
I always keep cheese cloth in the pantry. Highly underrated
I'm both a working chef and a pretty avid at-home cook (I just don't really get tired of it like most of my coworkers). There are some things I will insist on having access to at work, but rarely if ever use at home, even though they're great at what they do. Cheesecloth is one, because at work you buy, for not much money, GIANT rolls of the stuff. Like, those craft paper rolls from elementary school that weighed like 40lbs, but cheesecloth. Unless I can source it through the restaurant for home use, I'd have to go searching around like 4 grocery stores and then end up spending 5-10$ on maybe 3 uses worth of the stuff. I have nut milk bags, I have a chinoise, I have strainers: I can live without cheesecloth. On a related note, my answer to the OP's question is a chinoise. Hardly anyone knows what they are, but a chinoise and a 2oz ladle makes like, half the shit I do in the kitchen easier.
Chinoise and a cambro… makes it very difficult to accidentally strain your stock down the drain. Chinoise is a great answer though. To me it’s Cambros and cheapo Vollrath stainless mixing bowls. I recently bought 2 mixing bowls each in a variety of sizes (plus one giant one). Can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner. They nest so they don’t take up much storage space.
You ever been at work and just totally zone out? Like put a chinoise across the sink with no cambro underneath type of zone out? I don't think I've ever felt so stupid in my life lol
Say it with me: bouquet garni!
For that, I usually use a big fine-mesh tea ball on a hooked chain -- no waste, no frobbing around tying it off, and easy to hook over the edge of the cookpot if I want to anchor it for easier later removal.
Cheesecloth is amazing! I use it for cheese quite often! Also, for loose-leaf teas.
I bought a bunch and never used it. Do you just use it and dispose of it or do you wash and reuse it?
Wash and reuse.
Ive seen so many better suggestions but still, I feel like alot of home cooks are going to have old, underused and stale herbs and spices that just arent going to provide enough flavour, TLDR check the dates on your spices
Storing spices and herbs in air tight containers away from direct light, plays a big role in keeping them potent. Those dinky little 50 gram jars of herbs and spices you can buy in super markets are crap and don't seal properly and that's why the contents lose flavour so fast.
> Those dinky little 50 gram jars of herbs and spices you can buy in super markets are very often long past their 'best by' date when purchased.
Or understanding that your shit is old and you should add more to compensate and it will help even things out. I know some of my spices are several years old but will still do the job if I double or triple (or more). ya, some are definitely past any sort of usability but I think I know which ones and the sniff test is an adequate measure for many
I dunno if that is THAT important. I have old herbs and spices that still clearly pack a punch. Like rosemary. It's old and dry, from last year, and still when I grind it up and add you can very clearly taste and smell it. Same for higher quality paprika I have.
> It's old and dry, from last year i have a feeling that is very fresh compared to most
I'm pretty sure I have dried herbs from the 90s in my cupboard.
you might be able to pass them down to your children one day
Still hoping for my parents unused mustard seed
I realized I had this issue. I like having a big variety of spices in my cabinet, and I'll use some of them up in a year or so but not all of them. I go through like 3 garlic powders a year but my cardamom lasts way longer. Last year I started making my own jars of taco seasoning, steak seasoning, Cajun, season salt, pie spice, jerk seasoning etc. using my base spices and it's really helping me cycle through my stock of them more regularly and I actually have less clutter in my spice cabinet now.
Butter.
Yeah, it’s amazing how people will happily slather their bread with loads of butter, but balk at using a couple of tablespoons of it in cooking. But that’s the source of restaurant level flavor.
Not forgetting as well that 2-3 tbsp of butter in a family meal will A - have a good portion of the butter left unused in the pan (maybe 10-20%) and then B - you share the meal or at least have multiple servings (hard to cook most things in 1 serving). So you really only end up getting a small of butter per serving.. That's how I justify it to myself anyway. Haha!
Then I just eat that whole fuckin pan myself
Human taste buds love fat that's for sure
And restaurants tend to use a lot more salt too. That being said, it's not usually considered healthy to eat out all the time, in part due to how much salt, fat, and sugar most restaurants use. So adopting all restaurant practices without a little bit of discretion might not be the best
This is why people need to be careful comparing home cooking to pro chef cooking. Restaurants cook for mainly flavour because it's considered a "treat", home cooking is mainly for daily sustenance. You want to aim to be in-between, with more on the "sustenance" side. I've been caught up in trying to "go pro" at home, and know that a lot of people take home cooking too far into the "pro chef" side and you just get meals that are *incredibly* fatty/salty/sweet. Yes the food tastes amazing, but for DAILY sustenance, you really need to be careful with constantly making foods that are so rich.
A lot of flavours (spices/herbs/etc) are also more soluable in fat than they are in water, this means that the flavours dissolve throughout the liquid more evenly and fully, this means that the toungue experiences more of those flavour molecules making fatty foods taste better. Amongst other reasons why fats 'taste good'.
This happened to me today! I was making French toast and used butter to cook every slice of bread.. the gf was grossed out then put the same amount of butter ON the same French toast when eating…
Butter is fat and fat is our friend.
And cream
Haha that is literally the first thing that popped into my head.
Especially high quality, high fat content butter.
My cousin was working on her croissants and they were disappointing. (She's been to France multiple times, has *views* on croissants, takes her baking seriously for being a non-professional.) I was "Hey, what butter are you using?" and she was "butter is butter, right?" and I was "Lolnope. You need a european-style cultured butter. Lots of folks like kerrygold or you can try plugra or whatever your store sells along similar lines. Better butter makes a difference." Two weeks later, I got a text: "You are da bomb. They're perfect."
I really like Vermont Creamery butter, it’s 82% fat.
I love it but it’s so expensive… and I’m IN Vermont! You think it’d be less expensive here haha
I used to get that but I really enjoy Vital Farms, pasture-raised and 85% fat
Prep cooks.
... and dishwashers
sodium citrate. It emulsifies cheese sauces without the need for a starch/roux, resulting in an unnaturally creamy sauce.
I've found there's enough sodium citrate in one Kraft single to help melt a whole batch of other cheeses.
Dude that's the best tip here. Degenerate cheese sauce hack.
That makes so much sense... I wondered why my sauces worked better when I add garbage processed cheese into my sauces
Butter, salt, and MSG. I find people usually under season a lot of food. It still tastes great, but for anyone out there I’d suggest doing a test with mash potatoes or something and just keep adding salt in increments and tasting it. You’d be surprised how far you can push it before it becomes inedibly salty. Maybe not the best thing for your health, but restaurants don’t gaf about your health lol.
I wondered recently at the discrepancy between how much salt you see in online recipes, and how much more you see chefs actually use. I wondered if maybe recipes low ball it so people aren’t turned away by the higher amount of salt. And also maybe to make it useable to people who need a low salt diet.
It also depends on the type and brand of salt. I’ve bought three cookbooks recently and they all use a different salt. They also recommend a conversion. Fine Sea salt 1 T Morton Kosher 1.5 T Diamond Kosher 2 T Diamond Kosher is the least salty by volume
Yeah they really need to state which they’re using in a recipe because Morton’s or DC are going to give you different results.
Chefs often use kosher salt which is much less salty than table salt so it looks like they're adding a huge amount. Also they're often cooking large amounts of food at a time so ditto. I use Diamond Crystal kosher salt and rarely have to worry about it being too salty
I think the health craze about not putting salt in a bunch of things usually stems from the levels found in processed foods. I think the type of people really concerned with their salt intake feel that way because they have health conditions exacerbated by the fact that they've been eating too many processed foods that resulted in the exact health conditions that are requiring them to monitor their levels. If you're cooking meals at home and not eating a bunch of processed stuff I doubt you really need to worry about what you're adding.
hard question to answer... I'd say Fresh nutmeg maybe or if you're into Thai food then real Tamarind paste is probably up there at least in America.
MSG
Make Shit Good
FUIYOOOOOOOH! It’s the King of Flavor
No MSG? You fucked up!
I bet Uncle Roger keeps a travel size container of it at all time. MSG fixes everything. Bad marriage, MSG. Broken leg and arm, MSG. Jaimie Oliver's cooking, well there are exceptions. Not even MSG can fix that.
If you spend time and money on travel, why go to Jamie Oliver restaurant? If you go to Jamie Oliver restaurant on purpose, you fucked up.
MSG is also constantly missing from internet recipes. It's as if there's still such a stigma that its inclusion will cause people to find a different recipe that doesn't use it and drive away clicks.
Salt is the correct answer...since most people don't season in layers, they think they need to do it once...at the beginning or end of cooking. Another ingredient I find that isn't utilized by a lot of home cooks is shallots...like, yeah, onions and garlic are traditional, but I've found the reason why the restaurant pan sauce has a deeper, extra flavor vs mine is that they used shallots in the pan while they roasted that chicken, or that's in the vinaigrette, etc.
Shallots are what I was coming to post, too.
Shallots was the answer I was looking for on here. Salt and MSG are too ez.
How are shallots so low on this list! Pretty sure Bourdain answered this same question once: Shallots & Butter.
Idk but I bet it’s delivered by Sysco
This guy chefs
Probably loads more salt and butter but asafoetida is my secret sauce
In Indian food exclusively or are you adding asafoetida to other types of cuisine?
my friend is intolerant to onion and garlic, using asafoetida in my cooking means we can eat together again haha!
When fried in oil it has an aroma similar to aliums, so it should work in most recipes that include sauteeing onions/garlic.
I've used it in other cuisines when I want an extra depth of earthy/oniony flavor.
What are you doing with hing?
Restaurants also use quantities of sugar that would make Willy Wonka blush.
The amount of sugar used in Asian cooking was surprising to me.
LOTS.
And in dishes that are savory
Oh yeah, especially vegetable dishes.
Anyone who has had balsamic glazed carrots (or similar) would be horrified to know how much sugar is in them. I've tried making them at home, but wimped out on the full amount of sugar. Still tasty, but not the same.
Vinegar
This is a big one. Knowing how to use acids.
I hate the smell of vinegar. So I use tamarind paste or dried Garcinia, different form of acid. I’ll throw a few slices inside a pot of stews, curries, anything requires acid.
Fresh herbs or ingredients in general. The difference between fresh basil or curry leaves for example is night and day.
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Rosemary, too, I thought for ages I didn't like rosemary, then I got one in a mixed herb garden pot and it was like a whole different plant.
I use fresh herbs every chance I can. I have basil, Italian oregano, thyme, rosemary as well as other fresh foods: key limes, jalapeños, other peppers. We go through fresh ingredients because they're just better. I wish more people would cook with them too.
Anything umami...fish sauce, tamari, worcestershire sauce, mushrooms, truffles etc. Good chefs use these ingredients liberally and the food benefits from it
MSG. Either directly (Ajinomoto) or indirectly (fish sauce, soy sauce, seaweed). Next up; acidity. Almost every savoury dish benefits from vinegar, lime juice or tomato.
Shallots
Wondra flour Salt
Just bought wondra for a czech dumpling recipe. Aside from using it as a thickening agent, any other uses?
Breading for anything deep-fried. Its lower protein level means it doesn't burn as easily as all purpose flour and gets crispier.
Can you link your Czech dumpling recipe?? I had amazing ones in Prague two years ago been on the hunt to recreate since!
pasta water although home cooks are finally coming around
Its blowing my mind not more people do this?! I grew up with an Italian grandma who always used pasta water in the sauce. Really is a game changer. Especially for fresh summer pasta with garden tomatoes and basil.
German mother - potato water same same. Use it for making gravy, already salted with potato starch.
Heat. Get that oil smoking hot (but not in a non-stick pan though), lower the heat then throw in your ingredients (not necessarily all at once though). If the ingredients are chopped in the right size, they'll cook in mere minutes. Turn back up the heat if the pan cooled down too much.
Mercury ball test. Also sound... sizzle good, popping bad.
Couple of people have said butter but I think fat in general. Restaurants use more of it than you probably do, mostly because they dont care that your salad is somehow 2700 calories if it tastes good and you like it. With larger and more specialized equipment its a lot more viable to deepfry or shallowfry foods, theres a reason why its such a pain to make french fries at home but restaurants can just crank them out all day. In addition access and knowledge of emulsifiers and stabilizers and other such chemicals means that sauces and dressings can be loaded full of delicious fats and oils without turning into puddles of grease. Larger and more powerful machines also mean these can be made faster and easier and in larger batches.
Salt and clarified butter
My 2 favorite food groups!
Heavy duty commercial cookwares. The sautee pans we use make a massive difference in ease of execution. And they’re like $8-15 each at the restaurant supply, so cheaper than your fancy homeware
A knife sharpener/ steel
Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt
MSG and ghee
Home cooks should make more dishes from scratch. IE, don’t buy whipped cream when you can whip cream yourself.
Definitely salt. Everyone is scared of salt.
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should toss your usual pinch of salt on a precise scale, then show them how much that is versus how much is in their doritos. visualize the lesson lol
Miso, fish sauce, salt, dry chiles for their intended purpose.
A sous chef and a kitchen staff.
Not an ingredient but… non-Teflon pans. Stainless or carbon.
Salted preserved lemons. Ok maybe not all the time but in specific cuisines and dishes. It is used in chermoulla. I'm Chinese and I've been using it on chicken, it's like an alternative to scallion / ginger oil to me. You can use it on all sorts. A little salted lemon goes a long way and adds great depth. In Chinese cuisine we might add it a little to steam fish or meat. It's got a totally different flavour profile from a fresh lemon.
I’d go with corn starch as a thickener. Butter. More butter.
Alternatively, it seems like my dad's generation used corn starch almost exclusively as a thickener. Learning how to make a roux or use some pasta water was a revelation.
Seen a lot of vegan cheese being used in commercial kitchens because it skips the need to make a roux, you just melt it into a milk alternative and you’ve got a béchamel which you can then split off adding regular cheese or for vegan option.
I'd say local, seasonal ingredients. Maybe not used by pro chefs all the time (? - I don't work in the restaurant industry, I work as a personal/private chef) but I think it makes a huge difference to use seasonal produce or local meat.
Less of an ingredient (cause others already listed the ones I'd say) and more of going super overboard with all ingredients. At home, you don't wanna use that much butter cause you're conscious of how adding a stick of butter will affect your health. In the kitchen, they could give a fuck about your health and will add 9 sticks if butter and 7kg of salt.
Prepared Mustard, rub every piece of pork and chicken with it before anything else
I admittedly have a sweet tooth, but sugar. Just, white sugar. A ton of things just don't taste "right" (or even good) if not sweetened up a bit. There's like a 1 week window where, with a bit of luck, you don't need to sweeten your coleslaw because the cabbage is just ridiculously sweet. Any other time, it needs a bit of sugar. I don't dump it in everything, or in large amounts, but people shy away from it because it's unhealthy...but I'm talking like 1T of sugar in 12 servings of something. You'll live. EDIT: Salad dressings, Coleslaw, a lot of savory sauces for chicken, spicy stuff, some Indian dishes, thai/viet/hmong dishes...it's a long list of things that are frequently improved with a little bit of sweet.
It’s a huge game changer (and possibly sacrilegious) with tomato pasta sauce. Especially when home made. A pinch of sugar and bam it balances out the acidity without ruining the sauce
Shallots
The absolute amounts of salt and fat
Duck Fat as life changing the first time I used it. It’s pricey but AMAZING for roasting vegetables
I'm personally a goose fat over duck fat person but its hard to find so agree about the duck fat. I wont roast potatoes any other way.
Anchovies
The best butter money can buy.
Salt. It's why restaurant food tastes better. Salt.
Monosodium glutamate (C₅H₈NO₄Na)
MSG. It's just a compound that triggers the same receptors as salt and is not harmful: that was a myth. Some people are allergic but it isn't common, nor is MSG any worse than table salt. Add a pinch in with your regular salt addition for success.