10 tips from culinary school and chef training that you’ll want to use at home right away

My other half regularly taps me on the fingers when I’m slicing, chopping and filleting on the cutting board. “Put a damp cloth underneath it!”, I’m often told. “Then the board won’t slide around.” He should know, because he spent years at culinary school. And therefore also in the big, exciting hotel kitchen. These are 10 kitchen tips he and his fellow chef students were taught—and that you’ll want to use in your own kitchen right now.

Here at the FavorFlav editorial office, we also have a former chef student among us. Sabina previously shared her most important lessons with us. Such as: come into the oven with us. And let that pan of soup slip from your hands if necessary. Yes, really. What else can we learn from the geniuses at hotel and culinary school?

Your knives are everything

A chef without a good knife is like Harry Potter without a wand. Useless, basically. So treat your knives like your own Gringotts—er, goldmine. Make sure they’re properly sharp. Never put them—not ever—in the dishwasher. Store them properly, possibly with a protective cover around them. Oh, and handle them carefully out of love for your other kitchen companions, too. So don’t wave your knife around as if it were a sword. Or a wand. Duh, you might think, but this is something they really hammer home at culinary school.

Feeling hot, hot, hot—but not too hot

That pan needs to be hot. But as with everything in life: too much is not good. Except with tequila, I once heard someone say, though that doesn’t seem right either. Anyway: medium heat is often the best choice. Onions and garlic burn super quickly when the oil is far too hot. They release much more flavor if you let them simmer a little more slowly over lower heat. The same goes for meat. You don’t want the outside to burn while the inside still needs a long time to cook, right? Soup is also much better simmered rather than boiled. That allows many more flavors to develop.

Use separate cutting boards for meat, fish and vegetables

There are plenty of people who start clucking nervously when frying chicken. Is it cooked? But really, is it cooked? As in: is it completely white inside? That panic has everything to do with the fear of salmonella. If you cook your chicken properly, you can let that fear go. Still, you need to be careful even before the chicken touches the pan. Never cut anything on a board that raw chicken has been sitting on. I don’t want to unlock a new panic, but cross-contamination can already happen there. Wash the board thoroughly or use several different cutting boards. The best tip is to use a separate cutting board for each product group (meat, fish and vegetables). That limits the risks to a minimum. They do the same at hotel and culinary school.

Cut with a claw grip

My boyfriend still remembers a tip he had to drill firmly into his head at culinary school. When you’re cutting, turn your “resting” hand into a claw. That’s the hand you use to hold the product you’re cutting on the board. Bread, for example, or onions, meat, cucumber… You name it. Can’t quite picture it? A claw grip is essentially the same as a claw. So curl your fingertips inward and place your hand on the product that way. This at least ensures that no piece of fingertip ends up in the dish or pan.

Label, label, label

My boyfriend used to get seriously reprimanded if he hadn’t labeled the products in the refrigerator or freezer. And you know what? That’s actually a very useful tip to apply in your own kitchen, too. Because do you still remember when you opened that half carton of cream? Or whether that mayonnaise is still fresh enough? I know, you can judge quite a lot with the naked eye and your sharp nose. But it’s better not to leave anything to chance. You don’t want to become known later as the chef who gave everyone a stomachache.

Leave room in the pan

When you’re packed like a sardine at an overcrowded festival, you feel as if you’re being deep-fried. You get short of breath, extremely hot and start sweating… Horrible. The opposite happens in an overcrowded pan. If you fill your pan to the brim with vegetables, nothing happens. They certainly won’t fry, but they won’t sauté either. The vegetables remain pale, limp, moist and flavorless. And that’s exactly what you don’t want. Make sure your vegetables have room to breathe and can cook evenly. Just as you like a little space to dance at a festival, your vegetables want to dance in the pan.

Salt? Yes, please

Salt is a controversial subject. No, too much salt isn’t good for you. According to Het Voedingscentrum, it can, among other things, raise your blood pressure. Yet some doctors say it’s not necessary to eat less salt at all. And scientists encourage people to even put salt in their tea. Chefs at hotel and culinary school also wholeheartedly approve of using salt (in moderation). It brings out the flavor in almost every dish. So definitely use it in the kitchen. Got a little too enthusiastic with the salt shaker? You can save a lot with lemon juice or vinegar. Acid “takes away” salt and brings everything back into balance.

A good start is half the battle

It became abundantly clear to FavorFlav’s Sabina when she worked in professional kitchens: good preparation is key. You don’t want to discover halfway through your recipe that you’re still missing five ingredients. Or that your casserole still needs to cook for eight hours. Or that you need a sous-vide device when you don’t have one. So make sure you have a good mise en place. Always read the recipe carefully, from the ingredient list to the to-dos. And prepare any ingredients you can prepare in advance. Chop, weigh, mix—do whatever you can. That may not be necessary when you’re making a simple AVG’tje for yourself after work on a Tuesday evening, but it’s certainly handy when you’re hosting dinner for several guests.

Pat that bite dry

How do chefs always get such a wonderfully crisp crust on their meat and fish? Simple: by patting the pieces dry with paper towels. This removes excess moisture. Moisture is your enemy in this case, because it keeps your meat or fish rather limp. So pat that bite dry.

Think about your cutting technique

No, your knife isn’t a magic wand to wave around. But it can produce plenty of magic. At least if you know how to cut properly. There’s a technique behind it. For example, make sure you cut your vegetables into cubes, slices or wedges of the same size. Why? Because everything will then cook evenly. One more tip: cut your vegetables diagonally. They’ll cook al dente at the thicker end and become soft at the narrower end. Exactly the way you want them.

Also read:

• Dishes that (star) chefs hate
• 10 dishes that chefs find incredibly annoying to make
• What never enters a (star) chef’s kitchen

Source: my boyfriend &The Kitchn