Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / If You Want to Make Your Food Better Use Better Ingredients Ep. 80

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If You Want to Make Your Food Better Use Better Ingredients Ep. 80 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello Chefs, This is Chefs PSA Podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Andre Netterra. On today's episode, we're gonna
• 0:04
  talk about why the fastest way to make your food better is to
• 0:07
  use better ingredients. Stay tuned
• 0:22
  this episode of Chef. 'S PSA is sponsored by J&R
• 0:24
  Grills and Smokers. Many of you have heard of J&R
• 0:26
  smokers and grills that typically last for decades.
• 0:29
  I've had the pleasure of using them for over 5 years at one of
• 0:32
  the top restaurants in Austin. They're beautiful.
• 0:34
  They gave me the control over technique and the smoke infused
• 0:37
  flavors I wanted. I'm thrilled to have J&R as a
• 0:39
  sponsor. Their commitment over the past
• 0:41
  50 years speaks for itself. They understand your passion
• 0:44
  because it fuels them too. BBQ or upscale cuisine, they
• 0:47
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• 0:49
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• 0:52
  J&R, they'll stand with you. They've always stood with me.
• 0:54
  Go to jrmanufacturing.com to learn more.
• 0:57
  Before we get started, just a really quick, brief update.
• 1:00
  Happy 2024. This is the first episode of
• 1:02
  2024. We're going to kick it off with
• 1:04
  talking about ingredients and what makes it good.
• 1:07
  But a few updates. I just put out some new merch,
• 1:10
  two different shirts. I did a poll on my Instagram
• 1:13
  page to see which one you all liked better.
• 1:15
  It was about split, so I decided to go with both.
• 1:18
  So we have two brand new We Digress T-shirts.
• 1:22
  One is black, has a shot glass and a cigar.
• 1:24
  The other one is white and it has a lounge and Miami Vice
• 1:29
  feel. Anyway, we digress.
• 1:31
  Go get your shirt, take a shot. The other thing is I just
• 1:35
  finished writing the 50 most Important Chef's PS as I'm
• 1:40
  making it into an e-book. I would love to be announcing
• 1:43
  that it's live as you're watching this, but realistically
• 1:45
  I just need a few more hours to read over it one more time and
• 1:48
  just double check the grammar and the spelling.
• 1:50
  But it's done. Finished writing it, It's
• 1:53
  formatted. I'm just reading it one more
• 1:55
  time and then I got to link it up online.
• 1:58
  Most likely by the time you're watching this or listening to
• 2:00
  this, you could go get it. Go to chefspsa.com/books 50 most
• 2:06
  important Chef's PSA's. Why this book?
• 2:09
  Well, I'll tell you why. When you think about the
• 2:12
  distillation of wisdom that Chef's PSA is, If I had to find
• 2:17
  the most important advice I could give a new cook or a new
• 2:20
  chef, this is what I would tell them.
• 2:21
  It's things that I wish I had known.
• 2:24
  Every single thing in this book is a mistake that either I've
• 2:27
  made as a cook or I've seen cooks go through this as a chef.
• 2:33
  So this is the information that I wish I would have known.
• 2:35
  It's your shortcut. It's your cheat code to get
• 2:37
  there. It's about 60 pages long, and
• 2:41
  it's interesting. As I was writing it, I was like,
• 2:42
  I'm also in the process of writing another book called Bad
• 2:45
  Cooks Everywhere, and this is the first one that's finished.
• 2:49
  So I finished fifty Most Important Chefs, PSAS, and I
• 2:51
  realized it. It's about as long as the first
• 2:55
  book that I wrote, The Red Book, and roughly about the same
• 2:57
  length as the Line Cook Survival Manual.
• 3:00
  So it's about in between. The two of those are like, I
• 3:01
  should just publish this on paperback Amazon and create an
• 3:06
  audiobook. But no, because I'm a man of my
• 3:09
  word and I promised that I would give it away for free.
• 3:11
  So I'm not saying I won't publish it later, but as of
• 3:15
  right now it will be free on my Gumroad account.
• 3:18
  You go get it. You can download the ebook if I
• 3:21
  ever decide to make it a paperback version.
• 3:24
  For those of you that like the physical copy, I may do that
• 3:27
  later on, but as of right now, until further notice, it is
• 3:30
  free. It's on Gumroad in about 24
• 3:33
  hours or so, Let's just say by January 8th, 2024.
• 3:38
  It's live now. Someone asked me why do I give
• 3:40
  this away for free? Well, one, it doesn't have to be
• 3:43
  for free. There's an option to leave a
• 3:44
  donation on any of the free ebooks that I have.
• 3:47
  I'm not opposed to money, by the way, but the reason I give them
• 3:50
  away for free is because part of my mission with Chef's PSA is I
• 3:53
  do want to help educate, improve and give people resources and
• 3:57
  knowledge that don't have access to it.
• 3:59
  Now, many cooks are not in a financial position where they
• 4:02
  could pay for this information, so I give it away for free.
• 4:04
  But if you're in a position where you want to pay for it,
• 4:07
  I'll take your money. It's much appreciated.
• 4:09
  It does support the cause. So other ways to support the
• 4:12
  cause. Get the books.
• 4:13
  Culinary Leadership, Fundamentals, Kitchen, Art of
• 4:15
  War, Bad Sue, Good Chef Line Cook Survival Manual.
• 4:19
  All the free ebooks are also available.
• 4:21
  Leave them Reviews. Wait a minute.
• 4:23
  Hold on. Let me say that again.
• 4:24
  Only leave them five star reviews.
• 4:26
  If you got any of my books and you haven't left a five star
• 4:29
  review, shame on you. Go.
• 4:30
  Go do that right now. What are you waiting for?
• 4:32
  Other ways that you could support.
• 4:34
  Share the show. Make sure you leave five stars.
• 4:36
  Nothing less than five stars. Why nothing less than five
• 4:39
  stars? Because it's clearly not a
• 4:40
  four-star podcast. And if you left four stars, that
• 4:44
  would make you a liar. This is a 5 star podcast.
• 4:46
  We don't like liars. Only the best chefs and cooks
• 4:50
  listen to chefs PSA. So anyway, we digress.
• 4:52
  Let's get back to the subject at hand.
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  Making your food better, using better ingredients.
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  I'll tell you, if you put two chefs together, both of equal
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  skill and equal talent, the person who has access to better
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  ingredients will make the superior food.
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  All other things being equal, better ingredients will have
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  better results. And if you took people, if you
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  took two chefs and maybe one wasn't as good as the other one,
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  but had great access to ingredients and didn't
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  manipulate them and left them alone, most likely that chef
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  will also have better food. I'm going to share a story with
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  you. When I was young, I don't know,
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  I was I think like 22 and I was taking a trip to San Francisco.
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  Now I I lived in California for a short period of time.
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  And going to California to me was a transformative time in my
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  life because I was spending a lot of time in other markets.
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  I lived in Portland, I lived in Colorado, and I lived in Dallas,
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  TX. And from there I went to
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  California. And it was my first time really
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  being exposed to amazing produce.
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  And here I was, San Francisco Ferry Building, Farmers Market,
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  wandering through all the produce, just kind of looking at
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  it. I was very impressed with a lot
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  of the things that I saw. I saw juju bees for the first
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  time at that point in time. I had never seen them before.
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  People were making crepes. I had never had someone make me
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  a crepe right in front of my face.
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  I had this amazing sandwich that was just sourdough bread, very
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  beautiful tomatoes, arugula and some farm eggs.
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  And it was like the best sandwich I've ever had, with
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  good butter on it too. But as I was wandering and I was
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  with a group of chefs who were like chef tourists wandering
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  through San Francisco, we happened to go through the grape
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  stand. And my chef friend stopped me.
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  And he's like, you got to try this grape.
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  And I was like, I'm all right. I've had a grape before.
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  He's like, Nope, you got to try this grape.
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  And so after him bugging me for a few minutes, I was like, OK,
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  I'm going to placate him a bit and let me try the grape.
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  Now, I wasn't expecting much, but in that moment it was like,
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  it's like a Ratatouille moment. When that What is that guy's
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  name, Egon or Anton, the food critic fries the ratatouille and
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  it takes him to another land. That's what I felt like.
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  It was like a grape times 10. It was like a concentrated
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  grape. I'd never had a grape that good
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  in my life. And I was like, wow, if a grape
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  can do this, what else do I need to taste?
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  And so as I was wandering through the farmers market, I
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  was just tasting everything. Shortly after that, I took some
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  continuing education classes at the CIA and Saint Helena.
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  And part of what we did in the class was we went to the farmers
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  market, we bought a bunch of produce, then we went back and
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  cooked it and it was all really trying to understand how good
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  ingredients can impact the food that you're making.
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  Now, up until this point in my career, I was very technique
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  driven. I had a very solid repertoire.
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  I was all French technique, Italian techniques, stocks and
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  sauces, the classics. But I didn't really pay much in
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  attention to the ingredients because at that point in time,
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  like, not everyone had access to great ingredients, especially in
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  secondary markets. You know, I hadn't really worked
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  with shallots too often. You know, shallots were still
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  kind of unknown in a lot of places how having a really good
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  tomato, you didn't see you had your typical Romas, and that was
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  pretty much all you have. But now being exposed to the
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  early grilled tomatoes and all these different beautiful colors
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  that I didn't even know, tomatoes could come in and
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  different sizes. And yeah, at first I thought
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  they were fake. I was like, why do these
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  tomatoes look like zebras? And why are they purple?
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  Why are the carrots purple? And what I learned, and this is
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  early 2000s, I remember David Chang, I think called out
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  someone in one of his magazines or maybe maybe was in a tweet or
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  something. But he said, you know, the
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  difference between New York chefs and California chefs is
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  like California chefs are all figs and twigs.
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  It was, you know, taking a shot that it was just basically, you
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  know, just very simply done food, you know, some ricotta
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  with some figs with some Vin Cotto, some black pepper, some
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  olive oil, whatever. It was just very simple cooking
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  where they were doing more interesting things in New York.
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  And it wasn't just, you know, a lot of people were calling it
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  lazy cooking at the time because it was just minimally impacted
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  food, manipulated, I should say, just letting the ingredients
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  shine on their own. Marco Pure White talks about
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  this. He says, you know, Mother Nature
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  is the true artist. Things that grow together, go
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  together. Elaine Ducas talks about that,
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  making sure that ingredients do the heavy lifting of the
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  cooking. If you're using good
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  ingredients, you don't need to manipulate them too much.
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  The good ingredients don't necessarily need a good chef.
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  The chef needs the good ingredients more than the good
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  ingredients need the chef. I'll give you an example.
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  You take a mediocre cook. Let's just say you go to
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  someone's house and they're having a house party.
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  They're not a trained chef. They're, you know, Real
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  Housewives, Real High, Real Housewives of LA or wherever.
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  Atlanta. I don't.
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  I don't know where the Real Housewives are right now, but we
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  digress. You go to one of their parties,
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  Housewife comes out. She doesn't know how to cook,
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  but she knows how to shop and she's smart and she knows how to
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  pair her ingredients. And she gets good bread and
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  perfectly in season tomatoes and really high quality Italian
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  olive oil and fresh basil intelli cherry peppercorns in
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  her Peppermill and a flaky Maldon salt.
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  And she goes to the charcuterie counter.
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  She gets the porchetta and the saucisan and the finocchiona,
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  and she gets some Iberico and Spanish chorizo.
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  And she makes a beautiful spread with heirloom tomatoes and
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  burrata cheese drizzled with high quality olive oil and fresh
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  basil, finished with Maldon salt and a bunch of salami and some
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  artisan bread and high quality European butter and some fresh
• 10:39
  radishes and baguette. And she opens up a little tin of
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  caviar to go with it. And she has really good high
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  quality creme fresh and she has nice crackers because she
• 10:47
  doesn't know how to make bellinis.
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  And she accompanies it with a couple of jams, a membrio, some
• 10:53
  accoutrements. Maybe there's some beautiful
• 10:57
  produce there as well. There's a perfectly ripe Peach,
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  some cherries sliced up. She's drizzled everything with a
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  high quality aged balsamic vinegar.
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  What? What are you thinking?
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  You're thinking I want to be at that place.
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  I want to eat that food. Meanwhile, you're over there
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  messing around with three day old salmon that was farmed and
• 11:19
  you're trying to make it taste good with your oh so special rub
• 11:23
  from your spices that have been sitting on the shelf and that
• 11:26
  are all expired and have lost their potency.
• 11:29
  Whose house do you want to eat at?
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  It doesn't. It doesn't matter.
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  I mean, realistically, you want to eat at the person that's
• 11:33
  going to have the better spread through housewives.
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  Now, zero skill. Choose just a good shopper.
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  But simply by being a good shopper, that person now, zero
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  skill, they're just a better shopper.
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  But that's where you want to eat, because the ingredients and
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  the quality of what you're buying makes a huge difference.
• 11:51
  Using ingredients when they're in season is going to make a
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  huge difference, right? Your cruciferous vegetables in
• 11:56
  the winter, your hard squashes in the fall are perfect for
• 12:00
  purees and ravioli fillings. Hard roasting, smoking,
• 12:04
  charring. In the summer, your stone fruits
• 12:08
  are perfect, pairing them with a nice high quality hormone, using
• 12:12
  good cheeses. Your lamb in the spring, your
• 12:15
  asparagus, Fresh peas, Morel when they're in season, That
• 12:18
  short period of time when white truffles are in season and you
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  shave them simply over a simple risotto.
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  I mean, food really doesn't get better than that.
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  Like, trends come and go, but when you're just focused on like
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  the really high quality good things, a little goes a long
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  way. Like I was saying, you want an
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  amazing dish on your menu and you don't know what to put on.
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  Make the most amazing baguette or buy it with the most amazing
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  butter, some radishes and some celgris. 10 out of 10 Everyone's
• 12:48
  going to love it. Picking the right corn to make
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  your tortillas again. Everyone's going to love it.
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  Some simple warm tortillas with heirloom corn from Mexico grown
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  from a specific region that is known for growing that corn
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  makes a huge difference. There's also the health benefits
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  of using minimally processed food, going to the farm and
• 13:08
  seeing how they're growing your food.
• 13:10
  I have a Chef's PSA that I I've used a few times that says if
• 13:13
  you want to understand food better plant a garden.
• 13:15
  And I mean that go to our farm. You don't just have to plant a
• 13:18
  garden. Go to our farm.
• 13:19
  See where your meat is coming from.
• 13:20
  See where your vegetables are coming from.
• 13:22
  See how the cheese is being made.
• 13:24
  Understand that process. I went to a Maple syrup farm.
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  I don't know if it's a farm. Anyway.
• 13:30
  Cabin sugar shack, that's what they're called.
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  I went to a sugar shack where they were making Maple syrup and
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  it blew my mind. I didn't realize how Maple syrup
• 13:38
  was made. Was up in Vermont and Montreal
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  and they tap all these trees and the SAP is coming out of the
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  trees and it looks like water when it's coming out and they
• 13:47
  put it, they put in this big thing and they boil it down into
• 13:49
  a syrup and I don't remember exactly what it was but it was
• 13:52
  something like 50 gallons make one gallon if I'm not mistaken.
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  I could be wrong of Maple syrup, but trying that warm Maple syrup
• 14:00
  at the sugar shacks, it doesn't get better than that.
• 14:02
  It was pretty amazing. I got to try the sugar on snow,
• 14:07
  where they reduce the Maple syrup into almost like a taffy
• 14:10
  and they pour it over snow and they roll it onto a popsicle
• 14:13
  stick. 11 Madison Park I think does a more swanye version of
• 14:16
  that, but it's fun to see that, to see where the food is coming
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  from. Your ideas will also start to
• 14:22
  spark. You'll get new ideas how to
• 14:24
  write menus. You'll be able to combine food
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  more interestingly. You'll understand that things
• 14:28
  that are growing together in proximity, things that are
• 14:31
  growing and together in proximity of time, meaning in
• 14:34
  season, will start to taste better.
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  You'll be able to level up your game, then you add your
• 14:39
  technique to it. You plus it, you make it better.
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  Think about how lethal of a chef you would be if you had the best
• 14:46
  ingredients and the best technique unstoppable.
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  You have to sharpen your knowledge in both technique and
• 14:52
  ingredients and make sure you're using them and knowing which
• 14:55
  techniques to apply to those ingredients.
• 14:57
  Also knowing when to not mess them up and restrain yourself
• 15:00
  from doing too much to something simple.
• 15:02
  Again, like I said, you get a beautiful piece of bread and you
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  toast it and you drizzle it with olive oil and you rub a little
• 15:10
  clove of garlic on it. Maybe nothing else needs to be
• 15:12
  done. Maybe you put a slice of Hermoni
• 15:14
  Barrico on it and some Papara Peppers.
• 15:17
  Again, keeping it simple. Now I will use one little
• 15:21
  disclaimer, and that is just because you got it from a farm
• 15:25
  or just because you're buying it in season doesn't necessarily
• 15:27
  mean that it's always good. So use your intelligence.
• 15:29
  If it's unripe, make sure you're make sure you know how to select
• 15:33
  food. If you're in a restaurant and
• 15:35
  you're accepting the delivery, check your deliveries.
• 15:37
  Hold your vendors accountable. Don't just accept it.
• 15:41
  Because it came from the farm, right?
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  But it doesn't. All food, I guess comes from a
• 15:45
  farm, right? Isn't that what Anthony Bourdain
• 15:47
  says? It's all farm to table.
• 15:49
  Here's your homework. If you live in a place where you
• 15:51
  go to where the farms, go to where the farms, talk to your
• 15:53
  vendors. Go see where your meat is coming
• 15:56
  from. Go see where your cheese is
• 15:57
  being made. Go tour the local farm where
• 16:00
  your produce is being grown. If you have the opportunity,
• 16:03
  plant your own garden. You're going to make mistakes.
• 16:05
  That's OK. That's how you learn you're
• 16:07
  going to kill a few plants. Don't be so hard on yourself.
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  Go foraging. Learn what the edible plants are
• 16:14
  in your area. Learn preservation techniques
• 16:18
  like lacto fermentation, pickling, canning.
• 16:22
  Preserve ingredients when they're at their best so you
• 16:24
  could use them throughout the year.
• 16:25
  I know, I mean, I'm talking citrus, like everyone just
• 16:28
  preserves lemons, but you can preserve all the citrus.
• 16:30
  Preserve your limes, your oranges, your grapefruits, your
• 16:34
  Meyer lemons, your Buddha's hand, all of that you could
• 16:36
  preserve if you're in a position where you can't always buy the
• 16:40
  high quality ingredients. Because let's be honest,
• 16:42
  sometimes you're not in that position.
• 16:44
  Everything needs to come from the big master distributor and
• 16:48
  you get the commodity ingredients.
• 16:50
  Well, maybe you don't buy everything, but maybe you just
• 16:52
  buy a couple of things. Maybe you're tomatoes, right?
• 16:54
  Maybe it's not everything on your menu, but maybe just your
• 16:56
  passion is getting the local tomatoes.
• 16:59
  Or maybe you're passionate about just making sure that you use
• 17:01
  this finishing olive oil or this finishing salt.
• 17:04
  If it's going to be the center of the plate item, let it shine.
• 17:07
  Maybe the supporting cast isn't all from the farm because you
• 17:10
  can't afford it. Sometimes farm to table is a
• 17:12
  little bit more expensive, but if you could start incorporating
• 17:15
  better ingredients in your food, I promise your food will be
• 17:18
  exponentially better. Trust me.
• 17:21
  Go get some good ingredients and go cook some good food.
• 17:24
  Tag me on Instagram at Chef's PSA.
• 17:27
  I want to see what you're making.
• 17:28
  If you want to support the show, you know what to do.
• 17:30
  Make sure you leave five stars. Nothing less than five stars.
• 17:33
  Go to chefspsa.com. Go get this happy cook hat.
• 17:36
  We digress. Shirt Chef's PSA Shirt The 50
• 17:40
  most important chef's PSA is free.
• 17:43
  Most likely by now. Go get it.
• 17:45
  See you next week. Hit the porno music.