HANDOUT - HOW TO SAUTÉ Summary: Probably the most important technique I can share with you is how to sauté properly. Once learned and in your repertoire, you will be free to be creative and devise your own recipes with whatever ingredients you have around. As a novice, this technique is easy and allows you to prepare meals in a moment's notice. This includes sautéing chicken, fish, vegetables, or meat. That's the beauty of learning a basic technique. Compare it to learning how to read a financial statement. Once you know how, you can effectively read any company's report. Sautéing Sautéing is cooking food quickly in the right amount of oil and/or butter over high heat. You can use a skillet or sauté pan, but make sure it is big enough to comfortably contain what you are cooking. Preheat it--you need high heat when sautéing to cook ingredients quickly; otherwise the internal moisture tends to push to the surface and your ingredients won't brown. Butter or Oil? Butter will give your food the best taste and a wonderful golden crust but burns more easily. Olive oil produces a nice crust and will not burn as quickly, but also doesn't leave as rich a flavor or color as butter alone. So, the Reluctant Gourmet uses a combination of the two. What you cook and the amount you're cooking will determine how butter and oil you use. For example, use about 1 to 1-1/2 tablespoons of each for 2 or more chicken cutlets and 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of each for 2 or more fish fillets. Preheating the Pan Have you ever asked yourself why the cookbooks and cooking magazines suggest you preheat a pan before adding butter or oil to it? There are two reasons you do this. All pans have hot spots. If you add butter or oil to a cold pan it can start burning before it melts or heats up. For example, if you add butter to the hot spot, it may burn before it completely melts and coats the bottom of the pan or if it is added to a non-hot spot and hits the hot spot it may burn. There is an _expression, "A watched pot never boils" which means if you stand there and watch a pot of water come to boil, it seems like it is taking forever. Our attention drifts and we get distracted. The same is true when heating up butter and oil in a pan. Have you ever added some cold butter to a cold pan, pushed it around a bit, became distracted and walked away only to have the butter burn? By preheating the pan you are ready to start cooking the moment you add your fat. Your attention is focused. How to Preheat a Pan All you have to do is put it on your burner on low until it warms up to about 180 degrees F. You don't want to preheat it on high or you will burn the butter or fat as soon as you put it in the pan. I know what you're thinking. " If you put it on low, won't the pan keep getting hotter and hotter?" That's what I use to think, but the answer is no. The pan will only get as hot as the amount of heat (btu's) you apply to it. If you preheated a pan on low, it would get to a maximum temperature and that's it. To get more heat you have to add more btu's. Remember though, once your pan is preheated, you are ready to cook and when you add your butter and/or oil, you must crank up your heat before you start to sauté. The butter or oil will actually bring down the pan temperature and besides, 180 degrees F. is not hot enough to sauté. anything. Basic Technique You will know your pan is hot enough and it is time to start when the butter stops foaming and begins to turn a pale brown. Add your ingredients and be careful not to let it start smoking (it happens and it's a pain to eat your meal in a roomful of smoke). Cooking time will vary, depending on what you are cooking. For example, I cook chicken cutlets for approximately 3 minutes on one side and then 3 to 4 minutes on the other. For fish filets, 2 to 3 minutes, flip and another minute on the other. Never use a fork for flipping, it pierces the meat and lets the juices escape. You should serve immediately but if you want to make a pan sauce (and you probably will), transfer components to a plate and keep in a warm oven. How Much Heat When Sautéing? Just like your chopping skills that take time to develop and get better the more you work at them, sautéing skills are the same. In the beginning you start off slowly while improving your technique and as you get better, you can build up speed. Most home cooks who don't sauté 100 meals a night, six nights a week don't have the skills to work at the highest heat even if they are not working at a monster commercial range. For us mere mortals, it's best to start off using medium high heat until you build up your speed. With some dishes, where there is a lot of liquid to reduce, it's fine to crank up the heat to high, but as you get close to finishing the dish or when the sauce is at the right consistency, you may want to turn the heat down a little so it doesn't get away from you. And by all means, don't walk away from the stove. There have been times when I am finishing a pan sauce and something else that needs to be done distracts me and the sauce reduces too much. If this happens, you can try to save it by adding a little more stock but it will turn out better if you stay with the sauce from start to finish. If you must walk away, (like when one of the kids need immediate attention) just remove the pan from the stovetop and finish it later. The other factor is the sauté pan. If you are using a well-made, heavy bottomed sauté pan, there is more room for error. That's because when the pan is doing it job properly, it disperses the heat evenly throughout the bottom and sides and the heavy bottom will prevent burning. With less expensive pans that are thin and made of inferior materials, hot spots develop that cause one part of the reduction to heat faster than another resulting in uneven cooking and burning. Deglazing Deglazing is a technique often used to create a base for making sauces. After you finish the sauté and remove the excess fat, you will notice small amounts of flavor rich browned food particles stuck to the pan. To loosen these bits, just add a small amount of liquid, (wine, stock, lemon juice for example) to the pan and start stirring. It is important you remove the pan from the heat when adding any liquids with alcohol so you don't end up with singed eyebrows. You can now use this mixture to create a wonderful sauce to accompany your meal.