On Bad Chefs

“You can learn a lot from a bad chef.” A head chef of mine once told me that. He was not, I assumed, referring to himself, as he was quite a good chef. Beyond that, I wasn't quite sure what he was talking about, but I was still new enough about the game to be afraid of admitting I didn't understand, and therefore look like an idiot. For the record, I'm no longer afraid of looking like an idiot from time to time (some might suggest I excel at it). At any rate, it took me a few years to figure out what he meant, or what I think he meant. Honestly, there are at least two ways of interpreting his statement, and I'd find it difficult to choose which was his true intent. I'll explain.



The statement – “You can learn a lot from a bad chef.” – can be read as: “Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.” It is only from the most absolutely abysmal chefs that we have no skills, knowledge, or techniques to pick up. You don't know, when you meet a fellow cook, what you'll learn. It's easy to dismiss a burger cook as the grill-monkey we all know he is, but if you take the time to ask him, he'll probably show you exactly how thick a burger patty should be and just how long to cook it to yield the perfect burger. Sure, he doesn't know which end of a knife to grab, but you'll learn something.

The other interpretation, the more cynical one, is that you can learn how not to cook by watching someone else do it poorly. This is possibly more true than the first reading. Spend a bit of time with a mess chef and you'll quickly get your fill of chaos, and you'll work clean for the rest of your career. Taste the aftermath of a cook trying to cover burnt, bitter pasta sauce with a sprinkling of sugar (yes, I've seen it happen) and you'll never try to cover your mistakes again. Bad cooks have quite a bit to offer.

I know this as fact because I learned more about the best way to cook a steak by watching an endless parade of no-hopers ruin perfectly good cuts of meat.

I was working, at the time, in a cosy, country pub where customers ordered starters and sides, but chose and purchased from a display case raw steaks which they then cooked on a giant grill within sight of the kitchen. I watched hundreds of steaks silently endure torture at the tongs and spatulae of so many clueless cooks. I noted, in horror, such a number of meat cooking no-no's I couldn't possibly recount them all here. Observing the procession of mistakes, however made me a better steak cook.

Here, in a nutshell, is the worst way to cook a steak: Begin by choosing the largest-looking steak, one with the greatest surface area, though this will most likely be the thinest. Look for a lean one; fat, they say, is bad. Now, don't bother seasoning the meat at all, and oil is optional. If the meat sticks to the grill, you can tear and scrape it off later. Put the steak on a warm, not hot, part of the grill. It would be a shame to overcook the meat quickly, “stewing” is the aim here. As your steak stews and steams in its own juices, be sure to turn it several times, and if, god forbid, it ever ceases to produce a pitiful plume of smoke or the death knell also known as “sizzling” press it as hard as you can with the flat side of the spatula, attempting to squeeze the last bits of moisture out. This should cause a spectacular flair-up and will dry your steak nicely. Continue cooking until all traces of life have been wrung from your cut of beef and then transfer directly to a plate and eat immediately.



Cooking a steak properly, obviously, includes none of the above. (“Properly” also means no more cooked than medium, preferably medium-rare.) A good steak requires special handling, high heat, lashings of seasoning, one or two turns (at most), and a good, long rest between cooking and eating. Learning to do all of this well is, unfortunately, only done through practice. I can, however, offer a few tips.

First, choose thick cuts. You want to cook your meat on high-heat long enough to form a caramelized meat crust. This doesn't happen with steaks a mere one centimetre thick.

Second, season the bejesus out of the meat, just before you cook it. Tons of salt and pepper mean tons of flavor.

Third, cook the meat on the highest heat possible. You want to sear and seal, not stew and steam.

Fourth, leave the fucking steak alone. That's right. Leave it alone. Let me introduce a term into your cooking vocabulary: “passive cooking.” Let the meat cook half way before you think about flipping it. Once you flip it, don't touch it until you pull it off the grill. This also means no mashing the steak down with your tongs. Sure, this makes pretty fire, but ask yourself what exactly is going up in flames. The flavor and the juices, that's what.

Finally, rest your steak. Rest it in a place which is warm but not hot enough to cook it more. Rest it for as long as you cooked it. This relaxes the meat and allows it to finish cooking (pull your steak off the grill a bit before it is done – a take it off at medium-rare and with a proper rest it will become medium). If you can't stand the thought of meat at just-above-room-temperature, slap the sucker on the grill for thirty seconds each side just before serving.

Getting the difference between rare and medium-rare is a matter of repetition. Cook a few thousand of the same cut and sooner or later you get it right. While you are learning, I suggest you do what every chef who has ever learned does: poke the meat every few seconds. Get to know how it feels as it cooks. Periodically, cut a slit and have a look at the inside, to see how cooked it is. Before long you'll be a pro. Trust me.



Steak Frites

Since, as I have outlined above, cooking a steak is a matter of practice, I suggest pairing the many steaks you will cook on your way to perfection with some homemade french fries (and some mustard). The golden, crispy, “frites” as they are called in French bistros, will encourage you to practice again and again.

2 large starchy potatoes
2 litres frying oil

Cut the potatoes into long, thin sticks. Try to keep them as uniform and as even as possible. Soak the cut potato in several changes of cold water until the water remains clear. This removes as much starch as possible. Drain well.

Heat the frying oil to 140ºC. Working in batches, fry the potatoes for 5 minutes, and then drain thoroughly on paper towels. There should be little or no color change in this cooking step. The potato is cooked now, and can either be left at room temperature for a few hours or stored in the fridge or freezer.

Just before you are ready to eat (that is, when your steak has rested) heat the oil to 180ºC and cook the fries until golden and crisp – about 2 minutes. Drain, season well with sea salt flakes, and serve.