Sautéing is an exciting cooking experience. All your senses are engaged with the high heat, the loud sizzle of the pan, the active stirring and tossing, and the delightful smells of browning food and the perfumes of aromatics added at the end. Sautéing is best suited to small pieces of meat, fish, shellfish, and vegetables. The pieces are tossed or stirred in a hot pan with a small amount of oil. This cooks them quickly; meat stays succulent and vegetables fresh and juicy. A sauté pan has rounded sides, which makes it easier to toss the food than if you use a classic frying pan or skillet—although in a pinch, a frying pan will do a fine job. When sautéing, ingredients are added in quantity—though not in quantities that can’t be easily tossed or stirred—and need to be moved about quickly so that all sides of all the pieces make contact with the hot pan right away. The pan must be quite hot and the heat turned up before the cooking begins to ensure that the food is seared immediately. Otherwise it will start to sweat, lowering the chances of browning and raising the chances of sticking. There should be a gratifying sizzle when the food hits the pan. To check if the pan is hot enough, add a drop or two of water beforehand. Use an oil with a high smoking point to sauté. Clarified butter also works well, but whole butter will eventually burn, even when mixed with oil. Only a small amount of fat is needed, just enough to coat the pan and keep the food from sticking. Occasionally, some ingredients absorb all the oil and threaten to stick; add more oil right away, pouring it down the side of the pan so it has a chance to heat up on its way in. Meat and vegetables are seasoned with salt and pepper either in advance or right at the start of the cooking; most other seasonings are added towards the end to keep them from burning. In some recipes, garlic or ginger is cooked briefly in hot oil for flavor and removed before the main ingredients are added to the pan. Have all your ingredients ready to go before you start cooking, as there will be no time to gather them once you start to sauté.
Not all sauté recipes start with dredging the meat in flour. Instead, this recipe demonstrates how meat can achieve a nice sear simply by relying on the high heat of the pan (and a little science, called the Maillard reactions; see page 126). To encourage browning, you must make sure the meat is dry, as moisture will hinder the process. First, pat the meat dry with paper towels and wait to salt it until just before cooking (since salt will draw the juices to the surface). The sautéed meat will leave golden-brown bits behind, so you’ll want to deglaze the pan and incorporate them into a pan sauce. This one is made with a fragrant combination of brandy, shallots, apples, and raisins (all good partners for pork) and finished with cream, which thickens as it simmers, giving body to the sauce.
Liver is another good option for sautéing, since it cooks so quickly, inside and out. A simple dredging in seasoned flour is all that’s required; soaking the liver in milk first will mellow its flavor and tenderize the meat. Be sure to pat the liver dry before coating; otherwise the flour will form clumps, which can fall off in the pan. Liver and onions is a classic dish, and can be prepared by caramelizing some sliced onion (two onions would be plenty for four servings) in butter before browning the liver. Then finish by returning the onion to the pan just to heat through. Or serve with Tomato and Onion Confit (on page 306), as pictured.
Much as I love vegetables, sometimes even I get a bit bored of the same old same old, and I’m always looking for easy ways to jazz up plain sautéed vegetables. I’ve found that adding something sweet and salty nearly always does the trick, and this colorful mix is a case in point. I always make extras so I can snack on leftovers the next day, adding some crusty bread for sopping up the flavorful vegetable juices.
This is the basic method for preparing a chicken sauté to which you can add flavoring variations. You may dredge the chicken with flour if you wish. This gives a browner color but unflavored chicken is more delicate.
This sauté makes good use of an abundance of summer vegetables, the small amount of cream adding a touch of richness without overwhelming the fresh flavor of the produce. A chopped ripe, small tomato would be a colorful addition.
For this recipe, it’s best to cut the basil into fine slivers. Though it seems like that might take some time, it doesn’t have to. Just stack a few basil leaves, then roll the stack from the stem end to the tip. Then make fine cuts across the miniature “log” of leaves. You’ll have a pile of long slivers that create the perfect flavor burst in this recipe and are excellent for garnishing other dishes in seconds.
LaVerl Daily, director of Le Panier cooking school in Houston, suggests supplementing this slightly tropical entrée with rice, black beans and buttered green beans sprinkled with chopped macadamia nuts. Finish with sweet potato pie or coconut cream pie.
There is little more nourishing than milk and rice together—easy to eat and cleansing in the best possible sense of the word. Make a double batch and reheat it with a little extra milk on the following days.
Bon Appétit’s Jesse Szewczyk shows how to get the most out of your oven with three sheet pan dinners designed for every rack. Learn how to use the bottom rack for crispy, oven-fried chicken parm, the middle rack for perfectly roasted gnocchi with sausage and broccoli rabe, and the broiler for smoky, charred shawarma-spiced chicken. Use Jesse’s tips and techniques to unlock your oven’s full potential and make your weeknights a little easier.
Feeling inspired? You can follow these recipes here:
Chicken Parm: https://weigt-finish.today/recipe/a-really-big-chicken-parm
Sheet Pan Gnocchi: https://weigt-finish.today/recipe/sheet-pan-gnocchi-spicy-sausage-broccoli-rabe?_sp=36d48b46-a52f-431b-9818-bb9820bd4945.1786372123359
Chicken Shawarma: https://weigt-finish.today/recipe/sheet-pan-shawarma-spiced-chicken
Discover more of Chef Skylar's recipes here: https://diningwithskyler.com/
Starting the chicken skin side down in a cold skillet lets the fat render slowly and results in the crispiest skin imaginable. It also yields a pan of flavorful schmaltz, aka liquid gold.
Get the recipe: https://weigt-finish.today/recipe/one-skillet-crispy-chicken-thighs-with-harissa%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cdiv class="StackedRatingsCardWrapper-RIFgn jsPKbl SummaryCollectionGridSummaryItem-ilztYA cpHIzM search_result_item-6a84498072e764a1dc9a33b2">
Chef Hillary Sterling shares her restaurant techniques for cooking better vegetables. Learn how to cook restaurant-quality vegetables at home, from salt-baked zucchini and eggplant to garlicky sautéed spinach, olive oil-poached artichokes, and perfectly blanched asparagus, broccoli, and peas. These professional cooking tips improve flavor, texture, color, and more, making vegetables the star of the show.
