Cooking for Fine Dining

Ever heard of the saying “the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?” Funny how that works out as the best chefs are mostly men (and that is said without bias to the superb female chefs out their). The only point is how ironic the saying is, considering that cooks come from different ages regardless of gender. It is safer to say that the best way to a person’s heart (regardless of the individual being male or female) is through the tummy. Food, generally speaking to include ice cream in its state of coldness has a magic of warming the heart. The stomach when filled with food has a way of making the brain remember not only events but emotions that come with those events. Food sets and changes emotions in an instant. And taste is everything. The food you see may look palatable but if it doesn’t taste right then presentation is nothing. Fine dining though, or what others call Gourmet Dining. calls for extra preparation as presentation is the key to making the food look palatable.

The intricacies placed in cooking food for Fine dining entails sumptuous meals being made entirely from impeccable ingredients and from scratch. No premade meals. No microwavable meals. No takeouts. Sounds tedious? Not really, Fine Dining is not only for the experts nor should be afforded extravagantly in top notch restaurants. Fine Dining may also be done at home with ingredients available for daily cooking and even frozen products. Lets us make wonders and attempt to make ordinary meals and common food to gourmet foods without getting into the intricacies of Hospitality Courses.

Our first pit stop is pastry dough. Creating pastry dough is not only time consuming but also expensive if you need lots of butter to make them.  If you are in need of pastry dough for baking pies then it is less expensive and time consuming to use ground graham or any crackers of your choice folded in with melted butter. This makes excellent crusts at minimum time. If you’re looking for the flaky layers effect then keep filo dough and simply fold extra butter into it.  The mixture can then be used to make pot pies and tarts. Leftover salmon, roasted vegetables and cheese wrapped in this dough mixture gives you an elegant new dish.

Next stop is STOCK. Gourmet dishes often require stock to be used for everything braised to stews, soups, and sauces. You can make your own stock with the flavors you like and set it aside in your fridge till you are ready to use it. Most stocks can be kept for a maximum of one week. Best stocks are made from simply boiling the meat (white or red) to include the bones for about 40 minutes. Drain the stock, let cool and refrigerate. Flavors can eventually be added depending on what you want to do with it.

Going to Organic Vegetables doesn’t mean having your own garden like the real chefs do or purchasing vegetables and fruit daily to ensure that they are freshly picked. The trick is to know what you have and what you want to do with it. If you like to serve steamed asparagus then the fresher it is the better. When making soup, asparagus found in your freezer would work out. Frozen fruits when handled well would be the same like those freshly picked if you reheat or defrost them just enough for them to maintain their texture and flavor.

And our last pit stop would be substitution. Gourmet cooking and recipes in Hospitality Courses usually include ingredients that are either time consuming to make or not readily available in your spice rack or your kitchen. Here are some helpful hints of what may be substituted for what when you either ran out of them or they are not available. A cup of stock we mentioned earlier can be substituted with diluting a bouillon cube, or an envelope of broth based powder in one cup of boiling water. Allspice can be substituted with cinnamon combined with ground cloves. Apple pie spice can be substituted with cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom; Arrowroot with flour and cornstarch; Buttermilk with yogurt; coconut cream with whipping cream; corn syrup with brown sugar and water; cornstarch used for thickening sauces with all-purpose flour and granular tapioca; garlic with garlic powder; garlic salt with garlic powder and salt; honey with water and sugar; ketchup with tomato sauce, brown sugar and vinegar; lemon juice with vinegar; Pumpkin pie spice with cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg; and Worcestershire sauce with steak sauce.