The Sneaky Trick to Cooking Like a Chef

Here’s a tip for you.  Say you’re one of those people who cooks primarily from recipes and you can’t quite figure out how to choose ingredients that go together.  How is it that chefs know A+B+C=deliciousness? How do they put things together and make them work?  Well, ok, experience and education, but say you don’t have time for that.  How can you expand your improv skills in the kitchen without a culinary degree and maybe even without a cookbook?

Go to the farmer’s market.

Buy everything you see.

In doing so, you are shopping seasonally, which is a fancy word for buying things that are in season right now, wherever you are.  Seasonally does not mean tomatoes in May in Chicago. Sorry. But seasonally does mean: tastes great together.

Go home and

slice,

dice,

chop,

And throw it all together.

Maybe you sauté it.

Or.

Maybe it’s a salad.

But I’m telling you, they will be flavors that compliment each other.

This week, late May in Chicago during a cold, wet spring, you find asparagus and morels and green garlic at the market.  A+B+C+eggs (for extra credit) and you have deliciousness on a plate! Dinner last night was amazing.  I was too excited to eat it that I couldn’t be bothered to photograph it, but here are the parts:

Shop and cook locally and seasonally and you’ll be a genius in the kitchen.  Easy peasy.  You can do it!

Oh, and one more chef tip for you, and chef friends, back me up on this: butter.