Let me give you a tiny bit of background first. For a period of time, having waited tables, designed menus, organised functions and tended bar, I was a restaurant manager. It was a standard enough place which sat about 80 people and leaned on a steady lunch trade to pay wages so it could get more experimental and extravagant in the evening. The chef there had previously been a two michelin star chef who’d gotten tired of cooking after too many years in the grind and gotten involved in fresh seafood distribution instead, which is where he met the owner of the restaurant where I worked who asked him to take over the kitchen and rewrite the menu from the ground up, which he did.

When I learned of the chef’s glorious past I opted to exploit it in two ways. Firstly, I would bring in nice cuts of meat for him to experiment with so I could eat well on my breaks. That, by the way, is a big lesson for any waiters watching this - be nice to the chefs and bring them things you don’t know how to cook yourself. If nothing else your break times will improve.

Secondly, I would treat him as the idiot's guide to food preparation. I would ask him questions that seem obvious to most people until they have to answer them and then it’s not so obvious any more, is it?

This course is ideal for anyone with more than a passing interest in cooking, for budding cooks looking to expand their knowledge or even for chefs who know the methods of everything very well but not much of an idea of the why’s.

In this module we’re going to begin with the most basic among the basics - how do you use salt?

How to use salt is critical. It is one of the few flavours that the tongue can taste - 95% of flavours in fact being absorbed by one’s sense of smell. It also tends to come up a lot because it’s key in pickling and preserving food, and cos it’s nice. I wish I could be more technical on that point but alas I’m neither a scientist nor a chef - but I digress.

Kitchen salt, or kosher salt to Americans, is the most commonly used and ultimately it’s the name of the game because it’s coarse enough to give the desired crunch when used to finish a dish and easy enough to measure uniformly that you can be sure of uniform results when you season as you’re cooking.

Let me break that down a little. There’s more saltiness in a spoon of table salt than there is in kitchen salt because the grains are smaller and it sits together with less space between the grains, like icing sugar. Consequently, if you use the same amount as when you’d typically use kitchen salt then the results are different.

That’s two types of salt but the same is actually true of different brands of salt too, which is why it’s best to pick a brand and stick with it, so that how much salt needs to be added to something you cook regularly doesn’t change because there was a sale on such-and-such a brand.

Weighed, there is not a difference between the saltiness of any type of salt and another on God’s green earth. I include the Himalayan stuff in that and the Maldon too. These have proven great ways to make an extra buck from home-cookers but they make zero difference to the taste of a dish, so they’re wasted in cooking.

By all means have rocks of pink salt or flakes of Maldon at hand in your kitchen but remember their purpose is mostly textural and colour so don’t be grinding them up.

Salt mixes are another thing entirely. Dry out some lemon rind with a handful of rosemary and grind it up with some sea salt and you’ll have the perfect seasoning for chicken or whitefish.

You’ll find a hundred and one such mixes online by the way, just be mindful to not overuse any in particular or all your food will taste the same.

Right so - that’s it for salt. Coming up - olive oil.

To all those people yelling about butter right now, by the way, I love butter and I would never prepare any species of egg without it. I love to caramelise the surfaces  of a steak with it and I accept no substitute when it comes to toast.

Olive oil, however, is where my heart is, and not least because it’s full of the kind of monounsaturated fats that help you avoid an artery blockage when you eat more than the optimum amount of butter - so there. Plus, it’s got a much lower smoke point, meaning it can stand higher heats. Plus, it’s tasty.

First thing to say about olive oil is that it does have a shelf life, so use it. If you’re just after it for its health benefits save money and buy the spray and if you just want to fry things then use vegetable oil because it’ll never burn on you and it’s cheaper and it distinctly does not have a shelf life. Olive oil does and I’ll get to what I mean by that.

Anyway, buy it and plan to use it, but how? Well, handlily olive oil can be categorised by price. I live in Spain so I’m going to go with euros, exchange rates may apply.

By divisions of about 10, 20 and 35 or more per litre I’d divide them up as follows: mild, fancy and finishing.

Mild is for cooking and dressing. Fancy, is stronger flavoured and thus mixes uneasily with lemon juice or vinegar or whatever you use to make your dressings. With something like balsamic vinegar for instance, typically the sweeter or the bunch, your fancy olive oil will turn it bitter. True story.

Fancy oil is great for marinating things like tuna or peppers or for simple low-heat slow cooking like garlic confit. Anything where the oil is the complement and won’t be at war with anything is good for fancy.

Finishing is the type of oil that needs its own stage time. If it’s over 35 euros a litre and priced fairly it’s got something to say and its accents will overpower anything that’s not willing to sit in the background. A drop or two on cream of fresh tomato soup or focaccia is what you want it for if you want it. I do, by the way. I say again. Buy them to use them but do use them.

Once again - these things have a shelf life, so buy them as close to the ‘packed on’ date as possible. They need to be kept in a cool dark place, ironically especially the mild one because it will lose its flavour easiest. It’s ironic because nine times out of ten people keep it above their stove. If you’re into doing that just save yourself some money and buy vegetable oil because heat turns good oil bad fast.

Your best oils should be kept in the fridge and will keep well like that for up to a year. They shouldn’t be around for a year though. Buy them, plan to use them, and do.

Next up we’ve got herbs and whether or not it’s OK to use dried ones.

Worse - can you imagine a pesto made with dried basil?

Actually that would be a good experiment to illustrate what I’m talking about. In the vast majority of cases drying out herbs causes the flavour to disintegrate with the evaporating water. This causes for a much more subtle flavour than what you’re after if you’re looking to herb up your dish. This is why, in most cases, you’re better off just not using it and concentrating on correct seasoning and fresh ingredients.

There are two exceptions that I can think of - oregano and bay leaf and I’ll leave the bay leaf section until the end because I just hear a whole bunch of you go “Yes! What the hell is the deal with bay leaves!?” and I want to hold the tension as much as I can.

When it comes to oregano, for some reason, dehydration has the opposite effect. It intensifies the flavour. I invite anyone to try this. Dried oregano has a tendency to have three times the potency as the same volume of fresh, hence so many kitchens opt for it. I’m not saying not to have fresh oregano on hand, by the way. I’m saying that in this case the dried alternative works just as well in terms of flavour and I’ve never yet encountered an oregano-featuring salad so as far as I’m concerned - go nuts with the dried stuff.

The others - basil, thyme, rosemary. Don’t. Just don’t. Fresh or nothing.

And to the home kitchen folks who are going

‘But what if I buy a bunch of herbs and don’t use it all - what then?’ Well then, my friends, wrap them up tight in plastic and fire them in the freezer and they’ll keep their flavour for a month or so.

They’ll defrost nasty as hell but they’ll still flavour something nicely enough, even if they won’t work for a salad or a garnish.

Coriander seems to have a particularly short lifespan once clipped, but it will also elevate a carrot and cumin soup to new heights just the same when coming from the freezer.

Note to self - make a course about food recycling and sustainability.

And that about winds it up for this module folks…

Ah wait… there was one more … all together now - bay leaves!

Make yourself a cup of tea but switch the bag for a bay leaf - fresh or dried, doesn’t matter - and leave it steep for fifteen minutes and take a sip. It’s undeniable.

Bay leaves give a subtle, veggy, earthy backdrop to stocks, soups, sauces and stew. Like the lighting crew of a great play, not many people will recall what they did but that standing ovation is for them just the same.

That’s all I’ve got to say about herbs, next up is onions so you’re going to want to pay attention.

The answer - sweetness. Sugar. Simple.

Well why not use sugar, then? Why not use an apple or a strawberry either? Because it’s a different kind of sweetness is why, but sweetness is the key. Onions have a number of barriers to that inner sweetness in play but as you get over them and they key mixed in with the sweetness that makes up the body of the flavour you’re after. Sulphur is the main barrier and we’ll get it into that in a minute.

Firstly, I’m going to break them into three relatively broad categories: red, white and yellow.

The three categories are easily substitutable, but if you’re cooking with them then yellows are the most desirable because they’re the sweetest, which essentially means they contain less sulphur.

Onions pick up sulphur from the soil as they grow. It’s what makes them sharp to taste and what makes your eyes water when you cook them.

You get rid of it by ‘sweating’ the onions, or cooking them on a low heat. You literally sweat the sulphur out so you’re just left with the fibre and the sugar.

Red onions are primarily sought for their colour. Do a blind taste test next to white onions and you’ll realise this to be the case.

They are good to brighten up a sandwich or a salad and they’re good to pickle. Cook them and they lose the colour and then they’re just the same as the rest.

White onions are more tender and less sharp. They’re good for cooking obviously but they’re also great to give an accent to food when used in small amounts, such as with a hot dog or pico de gallo.

Then yellow, the Brad Pitt in this category. Versatile, sweet and handsome as hell and way longer shelf life than any actor ought to have. Onion! I meant onion.

For real though - yellow onions are the cornerstone of any sofrito or mirepoix worth its salt. Have some respect. Sauteed, caramelised. Beautiful.

How do you select an onion? Like an apple - firm, unbruised, clear skin. Firm is super important because loads of onions begin to go bad from the inside out and an onion going bad is up there with a mouldy fish in terms of nasty business - it is not for the faint of heart.

Some people - to stop their eyes watering as much when they cut them - soak them in  water beforehand with the skin off. Do that and taste that water after and tell me something isn’t lost in the process. There is a way past this, however.

Get a nice sharp knife and learn to use it.

The eye-watering that makes onions so famous is caused by the sulphur, the famous sulphur I’ve been mentioning, bursting out of onion and into the air. This can, to a point, be avoided by use of a superior knife because you slice through the sulphur pockets instead of bursting them. That said, if you care enough about cooking to buy a nice knife then there’s every chance you’ll just get used to it eventually.

There’s two primary categories to cutting onions also - rings and Parisian.

Rings is, you’ve guessed it, when you chop off one end and keep going in straight lines til you get to the other side. This is the handiest way to prepare them for salads and such.

Then in Paris - according to the name at least, you cut them end to end and dice them after that.

Other cuts are available folks but in one way or another they can usually be subbed under one of those two.

That’s all for onions folks - next up is frozen seafood.

Yes is the answer. No, sorry, yes of course is the answer and there’s one more on the end of that - most of the seafood you’ve ever eaten was in all likelihood frozen recently beforehand, including that which you buy from the vendor in your local fancy supermarket.

This makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. Smaller things go off quicker so though a scallop would be tremendous and sweet and emanating sea-flavours if you cooked it on the pier as it comes off the boat two days later, unless it’s been frozen in between, it would take a relatively careless man to munch it.

These days, except where explicitly labelled differently, most fish is cut, portioned and frozen on the boat that catches it, using a technology called IQF or individual quick freezing.

Basically, the faster and colder you freeze something when you catch it then the better it is on the other side of the process.

So - how to defrost for best results.

Slowly in a fridge over many, many hours.

Microwave it if you want. Put it under a lukewarm tap at your own risk. The fact is fish is a more delicate proposition than meat and hasty defrosting leads to flaky and soggy fish - fine for a chowder but not for a plate.

The other thing is, some fish you should either really know and trust the vendor or only get it fresh from a place you’re sure isn’t fibbing.

Salmon is a good example. It tends to be fatty and it’s more flavourful than most fish and so delicate is fish to defrost that a lot of that flavour can be lost in the process depending on how soon after it died it was frozen or its age or a bunch of other factors.
Everything is better fresh, but salmon is a bigger risk frozen.

You can be relatively more sure of more neutrally flavoured fish working out for you - things like prawns or scallops or tuna.

That said, try to steer clear of simple presentations. If you’re cooking for people who know their seafood then giving a frozen fish centre-stage is too noticeable to survive scrutiny. Leave that kind of carry-on for the off-the-boat restaurants, unless you’ve a way to get fresh stuff reliably.

Fresh cod is incredible enough to pan-fry, squeeze lemon on and serve. Frozen it might be a better call to go pil-pil or with peppers and tomato or even a misoyaki marinara, which you can literally defrost the fish into.

Next up folks - let’s talk soy sauce.

Soy sauce is made from fermented soy beans. Japanese soy sauce tend to add grains and legumes to the fermentation process whereas Chinese and Korean favour just soy beans, though of course in both cases they have culture fungus to ferment and brine to preserve it in.

Cook it down with sugar and you get the beginnings of teriyaki sauce. It’s wonderful stuff. Wonderful stuff that’s misused all too often, so it’s good to know the difference between types.

Two main types - light and dark.

Light is lighter, if saltier and higher in acidity and thus more favourable as a condiment. Pop some into your scrambled eggs and thank me later.

Dark is for cooking and marinating. Crush some garlic into and leave a steak in it for twenty four hours - beef or tuna - and thank me later.

Light is a waste to cook with as its subtler notes get drowned out or you overuse it just to taste a thing and by that point you’ve oversalted. It’s saltier, by the way. The brine has less chance to break down. Low sodium, by the way, is not the same as light. Don’t think you’re doing your ticker any favours by choosing it.

Dark is more flavourful and less salty so chefs use it at will. It works great for the base of a sauce much like sofrito in Mediterranean cooking. Next time you’re cooking a beef stew for example, throw in one cup of dark soy with three of stock and thank me later.

This module is more of a correction than any of the others. Many, many, many people seem to believe that soy sauce exists only to make rice a less boring dish and it just isn’t so. It is soy, in fact.

Light is great as a condiment and dark for cooking in different ways but with the same goal - to deliver to the human taste buds a holy grail known as free glutamates which when combined with salt work to intensify the flavour of virtually anything you feel like eating.

Some of you may have recognised that word. For those who didn’t , don’t worry because we’re about to get to it. We’re going to close with a controversy, in fact. The last module of this course is on the fake health-scare of 90’s cooking but a chef’s best friend all the same MSG.

I’ve never worked in a kitchen that didn’t have a large supply on hand and quite frankly I never wish to operate my own without it. Folks, I’m talking about MSG and if all that’s accomplished with this course is to have redeemed its good name then that will have been enough.

For those of you in the cheap seats up there the acronym stands for monosodium glutamates and the only way you haven’t tasted it is if you’ve never eaten in a restaurant ever. The taste is more subtle than saltiness, sweetness, sourness and bitterness all and yet it has the power to elevate each of these in turn when combined with them. And yet its name has been so muddied for years it’s often disguised among the e-numbers on ingredients panels as ‘autolyzed yeast’.

When I first began working in restaurants MSG was at the business-end of a smear campaign that it has never quite recovered from. Chinese restaurants everywhere had been engaged in a PR war with nutritionists and food scientists for the better part of a decade until many finally caved and deceptively labelled their menus MSG-free as a means to an end. The fact is, the kind of Chinese food one finds prepared in every town and burrough in the Western world continues to use MSG in their cooking. Most restaurants do, full-stop.

So why is this controversial?

Well, back 1968 an academic called Robert Ho Man Kwok alleged he was experiencing fatigue and chronic back pain in relation to his consumption of Chinese food. How did he allege this? With a letter to a Medicine Journal that got published and widely circulated. Similar anecdotal evidence emerged and a rumour-ville was set into motion.

If you peruse the internet these days there seems to have been as many studies run on the long-term effects of MSG as there have been with cigarettes and alcohol and they can find absolutely nothing and yet people still see the smoke they imagined leading to a fire that never really existed.

So why continue cooking with it despite the controversy, you might ask. Taste MSG on its own and it barely registers. However, combine it with anything savoury and it produces a fifth taste, one known as ‘umami’, which roughly translated from Japanese means ‘pleasant savoury taste’.

Sources of such a taste have been identified in fish sauces in the kitchens of Pompei, so it’s not like it’s a 21st century phenomenon.

It was first scientifically identified in 1908 by a Japanese scientist named Kikunae Ikeda wishing to identify the source of the pleasant savoury taste from a particular type of seaweed called Kombu. Since then it has been identified as occurring naturally in so many types of food the logical next step was to synthesise it and so we arrive at MSG.

MSG, subtly applied, causes a reaction to your taste buds not unlike the contrast increase of  a good camera - learn to tweak it right and the results are transformatively favourable. Of course, as with everything, including picture contrast, too much distorts and mutates the results.

My chef friend, who I’ve not seen or spoken to in years - hello Alfredo, if you’re watching this - would mix 1-to-10 MSG to salt and use this for the vast majority of his seasoning. He even put it in ceviche. I’m not in a position here to show you how to use MSG but rather I’ll conclude with a push for you to do so. Experiment with soups, vegetables and figure out the sweet spot and you’ll never look back.

That about wraps up this course on Frequently Asked Questions About Food. I hope you enjoyed watching it as much as I enjoyed making it. Please leave a review and a comment and remember there’s plenty more where this came from so if you seek a sequel then all you have to do is ask. Bye now!