Risking sounding immodest, whenever I serve meat to friends and family, the first thing anyone says immediately upon tasting it is, “Wow.” After some processing time, they’ll follow up with a question: “What did you put in this?” My response, to their general amazement is, “Salt.” Strangely, no one has ever asked exactly how I cooked the meat they think is so delicious. The point, then, is not what you add to the meat that’s important, but rather it’s the meat itself and how you choose to cook it. No marinades, no additional seasonings are required, aside from salt, if you’re using good ingredients and you know how to cook them.
Tag: Home cooking
Your Meat Sucks.
One of my known mental failures is that I have a profound weakness for dualisms. I often see the world around me in the rigid terms of distinct dichotomy. There are right and wrong answers to the problems we face, good and bad decisions, wise and foolish outlooks. Over the years, I’ve found one particular dualism applies, without fail, to all of my close friends. There is one group of friends whose company I enjoy, with whom I indulge in food and drink and varied conversation. For the second group of friends, all of the above is still true, except they also require that I come over to their house and try their shitty cooking.
Spices and Flavor Pairings
Many of you have followed up with me in curiosity about why I haven’t tackled spice flavor pairings, having already done the more complex work of building a spice blending paradigm and classifying every aromatic I’ve ever worked with into categories to make that paradigm useful in a general sense. I recommend that you read those articles, if you haven’t yet, before proceeding with this one. Now, in a similar exercise to how I approached herbs previously, I’m covering spices in the specific sense.
A Quick Guide to Herbs (Reader Question)
I asked you guys for questions and you delivered some great ones. Thank you so much for that! Unfortunately, to adequately answer your questions will take a lot of time and attention, so I’m going to take them one at a time and clear through them over the next couple weeks. That said, I’d like to start off with this one:
I love herbs and want to use them more in my cooking, but I just can’t figure out when to use them and how. Can you speak about some common herbs and their use?
Ask Me Anything!
Many of you have sent me your questions about everything from substitutions in my recipes, where and how to procure ingredients to alternative, time saving cooking techniques. I’ve been flattered by your interest, but I also have come to the conclusion that I should probably start a regular forum to address your questions. I’ve also made…
Sanjay Keswani 