40 Years of Cooking Tips From the Food & Wine Classic
We delved into our archives and interviewed chefs and food pros for the best cooking advice from 40 years of demos at the F&W Classic in Aspen.
Mark Gardner
Over the last 40 years of hosting an event with the best chefs in the world giving cooking demonstrations, we’ve picked up a thing or two. When someone like Giada De Laurentiis has a secret to making your carbonara even better, or Carla Hall shares a trick to keeping the skin of fried chicken extra crispy, you pay attention. We love those moments when Stephanie Izard tells us her essential cooking gadget, Tyler Florence explains why he adds pepper at the end of cooking a steak, and Shota Nakajima unpacks why he watches his tempura as it fries. Read on for essential cooking tips shared at the Classic by the best in the business.
1. Update your spices and baking powder
“If you still have the same spices that you had when you got married, throw them out,” Patricia Wells, cookbook author, restaurant critic, and F&W contributing editor, told a Classic audience. “Use fresh herbs whenever you can, and remember that every ingredient is important. Salt is just as important as filet mignon.”
Related: These Are the Essential Spices Every Kitchen Should Have
2. Cut fibrous vegetables on the bias before cooking
At one cooking demo, Justin Chapple, F&W’s resident Mad Genius cook, explained that you should cut fibrous vegetables (such as celery) on the bias; it exposes more of their fibers and thus helps them cook more evenly and quickly. This will also allow you to serve the vegetables in larger pieces while retaining a tender texture.
3. Use a straw to hull strawberries
Justin Chapple has an easy trick for hulling strawberries that doesn’t require a paring knife. Just poke a straw through the bottom of the strawberry and push it up until the leafy top pops out.
Sourdough Pancakes with Maple-Molasses Strawberries
4. Add cinnamon to make your carbonara a little extra
“I make my carbonara with part bacon, part pancetta,” Giada De Laurentiis explained at her cooking demo in 2007. “Brown up the pancetta and the bacon, just like you would when you’re making any bacon. And then when it’s crispy, sprinkle ground cinnamon over the top. The cinnamon adds a little bit of sweetness and a lot of warmth because as the fat renders out of it, it sort of absorbs the cinnamon into the pancetta and the bacon. This dish is one of those things you will dream about. That’s how good it is.”
5. Your wrist is the best place for a caviar bump
“We would do caviar bumps on the airplane to Aspen,” remembers Mark Oldman, a veteran leader of wine seminars at the Classic. “A chef taught us this; you do a shot of caviar off the pulse points on your wrist because apparently that warms the caviar and makes it more aromatic.”
Related: All About Caviar
6. Filling a piping bag? A jar can help
When you are trying to fill a piping bag with frosting or meringue, pastry chef Claudia Fleming recommends standing the bag tip down in a cylindrical container (like a quart-size deli container or a mason jar). This way, you can keep your hands free and scoop the frosting, ganache, or whatever else into the bag more easily.
7. Make homemade chocolate shell with just two ingredients
If you love crispy, crunchy chocolate shell on ice cream (or other frozen desserts), pastry chef Paola Velez says making a homemade version is a snap. Just melt 1 1/2 tablespoons of coconut oil and 1 cup of chopped chocolate or chocolate chips together in the microwave in brief increments, stirring in between, until you have a smooth mixture. Let come to room temperature, then dunk away.
8. Crumple paper towels to drain fried foods
“Carla Hall was frying chicken, and she crumpled up the paper towels instead of just having a pan with flat paper towels. She said that it’s easier for the chicken to rest on them that way,” recalls Ken Goodman, a chef turned photographer who has been photographing the F&W Classic in Aspen for 10 years. The arrangement allows air to flow around the chicken as the grease drains, helping that hard-won crispy chicken skin to stay crispy. “I had never done that before. I always do it now. It makes a difference,” Goodman says. “There’s always more grease captured when you crumple them up, so the fried chicken sits on top haphazardly.”
9. Use your cilantro stems
While demonstrating her famous birria recipe, chef Claudette Zepeda urged the audience to never, ever throw out their cilantro stems, as they’re packed with flavor. To garnish tacos, she chops up the stems and leaves to get the maximum flavor from the herb.
10. Let your rice cook in peace
Top Chef season 19 winner Buddha Lo says that when you’re cooking rice, you want to leave it alone. Lifting the lid to peek very occasionally is OK, but resist the temptation to stir. You don’t want to disrupt the starches in the rice while it cooks.
11. Add garlic to the pan last
Chef Tiffany Derry explains that adding garlic to the pan last will help ensure it toasts instead of burns. Guy Fieri agrees; when he sweats vegetables in a pan, he always puts the garlic in last and advises that you do the same. “If you want to do it wrong, do the garlic first,” he says. “[To do it right,] always onion first. Garlic goes in last, and as soon as it gets nutty caramel, add liquid.”
Guy Fieri: Winner Winner Veggie Dinner
12. There’s a smarter way to cut corn
“Putting a small bowl inside of a bigger bowl, and then putting the corn on top of that gives you a place to cut the corn. It falls into the bowl without falling all over the counter,” Tyler Florence shared at a 2018 demo in Aspen. “That’s a pretty good idea if you are making fresh corn salsas for the summer.”
13. You don’t have to choose between butter and olive oil
At his cooking demos, chef Marcus Samuelsson likes to heat up both butter and olive oil in the pan before sautéing. Butter adds a nutty flavor, while oil can really take the heat and allow you to cook at a higher temperature — plus, you get beautiful browning this way.
14. For the best tempura, watch the bubbles
Chef Shota Nakajima offers two ways to check if your tempura is ready when you’re frying. First, look at the sizzle of the bubbles around the tempura — if they’re big, he says that there’s still a lot of moisture in the batter, and it needs a few more minutes of frying. He also likes to hold the ingredient with chopsticks and feel the vibrations as it fries. If the vibrations are big, that also signifies there’s still a lot of moisture in the batter and the item isn’t cooked through. In order to avoid oily tempura, Nakajima says to pull each piece out of the oil slowly at an angle, which reduces the amount of oil that will cling to the ingredient.
15. De-stem leafy greens by hand
“I remember Hugh Acheson, I think, correcting me on how I was de-stemming kale on stage, and it was an eye-opener,” Gail Simmons says. “I was doing it way too precisely, using a knife, and he just ripped it from both sides off the stem, and it was perfect. I have never looked back.”
16. Cook green plantains with the skin on
“In the ’90s, when Mary Sue Milliken peeled green plantains at our restaurants, we’d put them in the sink. It was very hard to peel them. It was just so time-consuming,” remembers Susan Feniger. “One year, we were walking by a Classic demo where Rick Bayless was doing something outside, and we saw him slicing green plantains with the skin on, on a slicer or on a mandoline, and then frying them. It was like, Oh my God. That’s something that has stood out for me over all these years. We used to spend hours having our team peel green plantains, and then I saw Rick do it thinly on a slicer, and frying them. You can eat them with the skin on that way. I remember how great it was. I think we were both sort of shocked by that technique but have used it ever since.”
17. Make gravy from lobster shells
“The lobster gravy that I did [during the Brooke’s Brunch: It’s All Gravy, Baby demo in 2022] is something that I use on biscuits at my restaurant,” Brooke Williamson says. “It’s something that can also be a delicious sauce on top of a steak. It’s great on eggs Benedict. It can be turned into soup. I didn’t realize that 90% of shellfish flavor came from the shells. I’ve been throwing away the shells for years, but now I stash them in the freezer because I know I can make stock with them. You can make lobster gravy just from leftover lobster shells and do it in 45 minutes.”
Turmeric-Poached Eggs with Chive Biscuits and Lobster Gravy
18. Be particular about your soy sauce
“I love doing blind taste tests,” says Stephanie Izard, who encouraged Classic attendees to do the same for their everyday ingredients. “When we were getting ready to open Duck Duck Goat, we did a bunch of blind taste tests of soy sauces, which is one of those things I feel like we all take for granted.”
19. Everything is better with anchovies
“I love teaching people that anchovies make everything more delicious,” says chef Katie Button. “It’s just a fact. I was working on a video for the Food & Wine crew one day, and I made anchovy butter to spread on a slice of baguette. I blended the anchovies with butter, salt, and a fair amount of garlic and slathered it on the bread. When I took a bite, it blew my own mind. It was so freaking delicious that I sighed out loud. I loved being able to share it with the Food & Wine team because it’s rare that a chef is surprised at the deliciousness of their own creations!”
Related: The 5 Best Anchovies to Buy, According to Chefs
20. Choose your salt carefully
"Salt is not just salt,” said Barbara Tropp, the late chef and owner of China Moon Cafe in San Francisco, one year at the Classic. “Kosher salt is very mild; it has nothing but salt. It’s a background, like the dull person at a dinner party who makes everyone else look terrific. When sea salt takes over, it’s like the mad Italian you invite for a meal. It has a big personality; it dances with ginger, garlic, and chile. For my colleagues who use butter and cream, they need sea salt. Table salt tastes vile. If you truly dislike someone, give that person table salt. It’s acrid and bitter, twice as salty as the kosher variety.”
Related: Allow Yourself the Small Thrill of Using Multiple Salts
21. Use this pantry ingredient to stabilize your simple syrup
Simple syrup is commonly used to sweeten drinks. Chef Michelle Bernstein suggests adding a little corn syrup to the mix, which will help stabilize it.
Related: Simple Syrup Is Your Home Bar's Best Friend
22. This trick is the secret to crispy duck
Love duck? Follow chef Shirley Chung’s cue and score the skin (with shallow cuts, without touching the muscle) so the fat can render easily and the exterior gets nice and crispy.
23. You don’t need fancy kitchen tools
Top Chef season 17 winner Melissa King gives you permission to save money on kitchen peelers. “U-shaped peelers are my favorite,” she said in her seminar one year. “They’re a dollar or two. Don't get the fancy ones — they drive me nuts. This is the one that chefs use in professional kitchens, and you can just peel down and get that nice layer of zest.”
Related: The 9 Best Vegetable Peelers for 2023
24. Cook with instant coffee
“Instant coffee or freeze-dried coffee can be stirred into sauces at the very last minute. It can be mixed into dressings, vinaigrettes, and yogurt to make coffee yogurt. It can be stirred into your ice creams or sprinkled on your ice creams — it has a really interesting, nice crunch,” said Wylie Dufresne one year at the Classic. “It’s a really fun, easy, simple product that you can do interesting things with. I wouldn’t necessarily use it to make a pot of coffee, but we fold it into gnocchi dough to make coffee-flavored gnocchi.”
25. Learn how to store cheese
“So most people think that the best way to store cheese is in plastic,” says cheese expert Laura Werlin. “No! That's the wrong way. Instead either put it in wax paper or parchment paper, and put it in the crisper of your refrigerator.”
26. Steam your tortillas for the best tacos
“I will always go for fresh corn tortillas,” says Rick Bayless. “They really want to be steamed. An easy way to do it is in a little vegetable steamer: Just bring some water to a boil, put the tortillas over your vegetable steamer, put a top on it, and just let them sit off the fire for 10 to 15 minutes. The other way you can do that is to wrap them in damp paper towels and stick them in the microwave, full power, for about 30 to 45 seconds.”
27. Make large batches of brown butter
Los Angeles–based French chef Ludo Lefebvre follows the philosophy that you can never have too much butter. The French kitchen is based on butter, after all, but one sauce worth adding to your repertoire is brown butter, since, as the chef says, “Everything is good with brown butter.” You can drizzle it on fish, mix it into chocolate chip cookies, or make brown-butter potato gnocchi. The best part? You can make a big batch and keep it fresh in the fridge for a week. Brown butter isn’t difficult to make — it all comes down to timing. The trick is to stop cooking it before the milk solids start to burn, and Lefebvre’s solution to prevent the solids from blackening is to stick the saucepan in an ice bath immediately after removing it from the heat.
Parisian Gnocchi with Butter Sauce
28. Bake with unsalted butter
Biscuit mavens Carla Hall and Martha Stewart recommend opting for unsalted butter when making biscuits, so you can control the level of salt. Hall notes that every butter brand’s level of salt is different. Once you know the level of salt in your butter, you can adjust the recipe as needed.
Carla Hall's Buttermilk Biscuits
29. Reduce wine before cooking with it for extra flavor
When making coq au vin, chef Ludo Lefebvre likes to reduce the wine (ideally a Burgundy) beforehand to concentrate the flavor. Also, he says to opt for a wine with flavor that you actually like! It's worth the splurge.
30. This single-use kitchen gadget is worth it
Stephanie Izard finds a lot of kitchen gadgets to be unnecessary, but there’s one she can’t live without, especially in the summer. “A cherry pitter — it’s pretty sweet. If you’re going to eat cherries for the season, it’s definitely worthwhile," she says. And beyond easing the process of pitting cherries for summer salads and pies, it also works with olives year-round.
31. Leave the tails on your shrimp when you cook them
Justin Chapple says that doing so prevents the tail end, which is thinner than the head end, from getting overcooked — an unfortunately common mistake people make when cooking shrimp.
32. Collect seaweed for the kitchen
When she is in Maine, Martha Stewart strolls the beach and collects seaweed, and she often serves oysters on the half shell. So even if you don’t feel comfortable cooking with seaweed, you can use it for presentation. “At my house in Maine, there's seaweed everywhere,” Stewart told Food & Wine. “I get kombu. You can pick that up out of the ocean and dry it. It takes like 12 months.” After drying the seaweed, she grinds it with salt to create seaweed salt, which makes for a robust and briny seasoning.
Related: The Correct Way to Eat Mussels and More Seafood Tips from Martha Stewart
33. Char your food over a wood fire
Most foods are improved with a stint over a wood fire, says Jacques Pépin. “You do a fire in the woods and you eat hot dogs, which are basically burned to cinders, and it’s never tasted better in your life. There is a communion with nature when you see the flame, when you cook with it, the smell and all of that.”
34. Flour your stew meat
When flouring meat before searing it for stews, do so generously. Andrew Zimmern says to use 1 cup of flour for dredging for each pound of meat in the stew so the meat browns well and so there is enough flour to help thicken the stew. And of course, season the flour mixture first! (The meat, in the case of this 2022 demo, was iguana.)
Related: Why Andrew Zimmern Thinks You Should Cook an Iguana for Dinner Tonight
35. Follow these tips for a perfectly seared steak
Tyler Florence says that when you're searing steak, two things are key: First, make sure the surface of the steak is as dry as possible. And heat up your pan to make it as hot as possible before adding the steak so the meat develops a nice crust.
Related: Tyler Florence Reveals His Secrets to Cooking the Best Steak
36. Keep your cucumbers crunchy
Recipe developer and blogger Tiffany Chen, also known as TiffyCooks, says that when you’re making cucumber salad, you should season the sliced cucumbers with a mixture of sugar and salt first to coax out water. This will help the cucumbers stay crunchy.
37. Add pepper after cooking your food
“Don’t add pepper to your food until after it’s seared or grilled, since pepper burns,” says Tyler Florence. “Our guests are always surprised by that tip.”
38. Invest in one great knife — and learn how to sharpen it
Victor Protasio / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
“At almost every demo, I’ve shown how to sharpen your knife and talked about the importance of having one great knife instead of like 20 knives that are pointless,” says Susan Feniger. “Have one great knife and know how to take care of it. With so many people, you go to their house and even if they even have a good knife, it is so dull you can’t cut anything anyways. I like to explain to audiences that that’s how people cut themselves — by using a dull knife. And if you cut yourself with a sharp knife, it’s a lot easier to stitch up.”
Related: The Food & Wine Guide to Kitchen Knives
39. Boil lobster safely
Hubert Keller, executive chef of the now-closed Fleur de Lys in San Francisco, has a trick for cooking lobster without risking getting burned by the boiling water. “Hold the lobster so that the tail goes into the pot first; otherwise the tail, which is still moving, will splash you with boiling water,” he advises. Do as Martha Stewart does, and boil your lobsters with a cup of vodka, because as she says, “If you were going to be boiled alive, wouldn’t you like to have a drink first?”
Lobster with Pinot Noir Sauce, Salsify Puree and Frizzled Leeks
40. Cook your food your way
“I think that there are too many rules in cooking,” says Kristen Kish. “You don’t need any rules. Do your own thing. I am Korean, but there’s a whole backstory of me finally realizing I’m allowed to cook Korean-ish food because I’ve never felt comfortable doing that before. It’s a long time coming for me, and I finally feel comfortable cooking Korean-ish food. At the end of the day, if whoever’s eating it is enjoying what they’re eating, should it really matter how you got there?”
Top image by Allan Zepeda
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