Dirty Secrets of a Home Cook

A food writer gives us a peek into what really happens behind the scenes in her kitchen. And some of it isn't pretty.
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Photo by Rhoda Boone

Last Thanksgiving, my guests went crazy over the shiny, crackly skin on my perfectly roasted turkey. How, they wanted to know, had I cooked the bird ahead of time and yet kept the skin so crispy? The answer: I left the cooked turkey on the counter by an open window overnight. It might be decidedly non-health-code-friendly, but this trick works every time.

As a food writer and an experienced home cook, I don't play it fast and loose with every kitchen health and safety mandate, of course. But there are some gray areas where I bend, twist, and break seemingly iron-clad rules in the name of getting a meal on the table. Here are some of the dirty secrets of how dinner gets made:

This turkey hasn't been refrigerated since yesterday. Happy Thanksgiving!

Roland Bello
1) I take shortcuts

To speed up marination, I’ll amp up the amounts of salt or acid in the mix and will pound or slice the meat into thinner cuts, dialing back the cooking time accordingly. For non-meat items like tofu, cooked beans, or vegetables, I’ll heat the marinade to a high simmer before pouring it over the ingredients.

And I don’t care what my fact-challenged radiation alarmist friends say— when it comes to steaming vegetables, popping popcorn, or cooking a sweet potato in under five minutes, I do it quick-and-dirty, American Hustle–style, in the science oven.

2) I don’t throw anything out

I’ll simmer things like kale and parsley stems, carrot tops, celery leaves, lettuce cores, and wilted leaves together with some onion and garlic, stock (or water and a bouillon cube), and maybe a knob of miso: That’s soup. I’ll throw a trashy bouquet garni of Parmesan rinds and stripped corn cobs into dishes for added flavor, revive aging spices and dried herbs with a bit of pan-toasting, and grind bread heels and stray crackers and popcorn into breadcrumbs.

My milk went bad. So I made you some cake.

Michael Graydon and Nikole Herriott

Overcooked hard-boiled egg yolks thicken pasta sauces and vinaigrettes; sour milk and cups of rejected yogurt flavors (picky kids are the worst) are saved for baking. There are few leftovers that I won’t bind together with a beaten egg and fry into a patty. For certain people (i.e., picky kids), I serve these patties with sour cream and ketchup or call them “dinner pancakes” or even, on truly audacious nights, “burgers.” For others (drunks, braggarts who just returned from Tokyo), I’ll garnish with bonito flakes and mayo and call it “okonomiyaki.”

3) I sometimes use products that get a bad rap

Homemade buttermilk biscuits aren’t difficult to make, but you know what’s even easier, and far more consistent? Biscuits made with Bisquick. Homemade ketchup is labor-intensive, and you know what tastes infinitely better? Industrially produced ketchup.

Chefs and food writers love to heap scorn on white truffle oil, currently enjoying a deeply unfashionable moment that may well stretch into a lifetime (though I once said the same thing about acid-washed jeans). But whisk it into some rice wine vinegar with a generous grind of black pepper, and its weird chemical edge gets blunted, making an intriguingly delicious and un-placeable marinade for broiled tofu.

Know why those greens were so delicious? Because MSG, that's why.

photo by William Abranowicz

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) acquired an undeserved stigma several decades ago, and it hasn’t yet fully shaken its reputation as a migraine-causing neurotoxin instead of the cook’s little helper it actually is. When used in correct proportion (about ½ teaspoon or less for a large pan of greens or pot of soup, or sprinkled like salt on a finished dish), it's an amazing flavor booster that I've been using for years with nary a complaint, even from my husband, who claims MSG sensitivity.

4) I use ingredients in seemingly strange ways

Italian purists might clutch their Speedos, but I like to deepen the flavor of a Bolognese sauce with finely chopped sautéed chicken livers. Mayonnaise and shredded zucchini make for a super-moist chocolate cake, and turkey gravy tastes best when seasoned with fish sauce. (That's right.) I’d be hard-pressed to drink instant espresso, but I add it liberally to protein smoothies, whipped cream, brownies, red-eye gravy, mole, and rubs for chicken and pork.

5) I don’t turn cooking rice into an algebra problem.

Lose the measuring cups, calculator, and anxiety. Unless you’re employed by the likes of sushi heroes Jiro Ono or Masayoshi Takayama, you can cook rice the same way you’d cook pasta, which is to say, boil until al dente in plenty of water, drain (saving cooking water for sauce-thickening), then stir for a minute over high heat in the pan to cook off any sogginess.

6) I don’t always refrigerate everything, and I sometimes freeze things you’re not supposed to freeze.

If I'm headed out of town, I’ll throw milk and yogurt in the freezer so it doesn’t spoil. The defrosted product is a semi-zombie version of the original—some water loss and protein clumping is inevitable—but hit it with a whisk, perhaps inoculate with a bit of non-frozen dairy, and your cream, milk, or yogurt will still do their duty in sauces, baking, and soups.

As for refrigeration, here's some real talk: Professional kitchens have vast, chilly walk-in refrigerators; I have a tiny New York City kitchen and an equally puny fridge. So, like some headless, aproned Tom and Jerry matron, I’ll leave stocks and soups to chill on a windowsill for hours (and shut the cat in the bedroom). And—back to that turkey—when it comes to making my Thanksgiving bird, I cook it a day ahead and leave it to cool overnight so that the skin stays crackly. So far, I haven't heard any complaints.