Learn to cook professionally, and you will probably be taught the conventional way of doing things. Cook professionally for long enough, and you will come across a few chefs who do things in ways that are diametrically opposed to the way everyone else does them.
For example, I was taught in school to make an emulsified butter sauce by adding finely diced cold butter to my reduction piece by piece over low heat. That worked fine for me until a chef I staged with in San Francisco showed a way to make it by adding a big brick of soft butter over high heat and bringing the sauce to a boil.
I was taught never, never to add salt to my stocks until I saw a chef at Zuni Cafe add a pinch of salt to the chicken stock (“It brings all the flavors together,” she said.)
I always toasted my spices; then I read Ludo Lefebvre’s cookbook and saw that he never toasts his spices because it masks their natural flavors (for the record, I tried it his way for a little while, then went back to toasting my spices).
I even worked under a chef in France who told me never to season my animal proteins because it toughens them; rather to overseason the sauces that accompany the proteins (I took that advice with a grain of salt, as it were, because this fellow was a stringy-haired, unshaven manic-depressive who would often walk around the kitchen with his shirt off).
Occasionally, I will come across an unconventional technique that makes we wonder if my approach to cooking is a little more dogmatic than it should be. For example, I’ve always peeled carrots whenever I’ve used them — until I tasted a plate of baby carrots at the Kitchen Next Door in Boulder. The carrots had so much more flavor than most carrots do, largely because they were spanking fresh baby carrots from a local organic farm, but also, I noticed, because they were unpeeled.
I’m not saying that you should never peel your carrots. The peels on the average supermarket carrot are tough and bitter. But if you’re lucky enough to come across some sweet juicy baby or preteen carrots, try cooking them without peeling them first — you’ll be amazed by how much flavor the peel adds to the carrot.
Baby Carrots with Mint, Tomato and Cumin
Serves 4.
Ingredients
1 pound baby or young carrots, well scrubbed, stems removed, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 cup marinara sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup water
2 teaspoon toasted cumin seeds
Salt
10 mint leaves, torn
Pinch chile flakes
Freshly ground pepper
Directions
Place the carrots, marinara sauce, olive oil, water and cumin seeds in a small pot with a lid, along with a pinch of salt. Cover and cook over medium just until the carrots are tender, about 15 minutes. Add mint and chile flakes along with additional salt if necessary, and freshly ground pepper. Serve as an accompaniment to chicken, pork or whole grains.
