Ancient Chinese Secret

I write restaurant reviews and was sent an assignment to come up with a recipe from a local chef. First off, I don’t go to places that have chefs, they have cooks - good cooks, but cooks none the less. Second no chef in his right mind is going to part with a recipe for some hack reviewer. In fact, the Chen and Wok is one of my favorite restaurants, I am good friends with the cook/owner, and still couldn’t pry the recipe for his most excellent Wor Wonton soup out of him. He just smiled and said, “You just come back again and enjoy it here.” 

I can guess what at least part of the secret is though. He uses chicken stock made from scratch.  Making any stock is time consuming so many places resort to canned or worse yet bullion. Yet making the stock is very easy and just involves simmering a whole roasting chicken or chicken parts along with some other flavorful ingredients for up to four hours.  

There are several rewards to those who brew their own bird broth. First is the incredible taste it brings to any dish requiring stock. Second, the cook knows what went into the pot and when creating sumptuous food control is everything. Third, there are no industrial additives such as corn by products or chemicals with long unpronounceable names that might shorten the lives of the customers or render them sterile so no new customers will come along.

In any great restaurant, the more care that is taken in the preparation of the components of a meal and the fresher the ingredients the better the food will taste. I practice the same thing at home. I buy only what I am going to cook that day so I am not fishing two week old celery out of the back of the fridge. It is as at least as fresh as when it was sitting in the market. Here’s a free tip – only buy produce and meat at markets with high turnover rates to ensure those carrots haven’t been sitting there waiting for you for a week or so.  

After ensuring the ingredients are not beyond their shelf life, including fresh herbs (I grow rosemary in my front yard), I take care to prepare them carefully and chop them as uniformly as possible so everything cooks at the same rate.  This is a chore considering my knife work is sloppy by any standards as I am usually concerned with avoiding the addition of any meat or blood from my fingers to the dish.

All the time and attention to detail put in at the beginning pays off in the end. This is as true in the home as in the finest restaurant. The people the meal is intended for will taste the love in the food, which is something the chain places can’t offer. I doubt Ronald McDonald gives a damn about his customers or he wouldn’t be serving those god awful clown burgers. They are cheap, and there is meat in there somewhere, but fresh and wholesome are not words heard in places such as those.

If time is a constraint try cooking ahead on weekends. Stock can be frozen in ice cube trays then sealed in an airtight container to be used during the week. Whole meals can be prepared and stored in the icebox or freezer for later consumption. Now please, for the sake of your family, get rid of that four week old celery in the back of the fridge…