Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Ask The Chef

I'm a chef by trade, so feel free to ask your questions whaeltsoever. Keep it related to food/cooking techniques

1: What is your favorite dish to cook?
2: What is your least favorite dish to cook?

What are some cheap and healthy meals people can cook mid-week!

Do you become immune to the onion agony over time or have some method that helps you get through chopping them? I wear swim goggles or wet the area beneath my eyes with a damp paper towel, but I know how intense a kitchen can be and how little time there might be for something like that. Having worked with chefs once or twice, I don't know how they managed to breathe when we were in the weeds tbh!

Yessss. Chef talk!


Most underrated ingredient?

1. Absolute favorite? Mongolian beef with streamed Jasmine rice or ziti carbonara.
2. Least favorite? Bearnaise sauce.

Personally, I like to make rice and beans. You can do practically anything with rice. I'd suggest not mixing up the beans because it wouldn't look good. Are you vegan/vegetarian?

I used to kinda quint my eyes to circumvent that, but I think I've gotten used to it because now I can brunoise onions all day and it doesn't affect me.

I can only answer from a subjective point of view, but I really really think the things behind MSG are massively overblown, but that wasn't your question exactly, but I'm not entirely sure that bay leaves get enough props because bay leaves work in almost every cuisine except something like Indian cuisine, but everything else? Definitely.

No I'm not, but I'm also not opposed to eating vegan or vegetarian meals

Absolutely!

oh def. People are silly. MSG hate is absolutely anti-Asian sentiment Did you happen to see David Chang’s Ugly Delicious? I enjoyed that, lots of kitchen nostalgia for me.

I'm gonna take a look at it

Hello!

1. What got you interested in becoming a Chef?

2. Who taught you how to cook?

3. Do you know how to cook gluten steaks?

4. Do you cook by throwing things together without following a recipe or do you follow a recipe?

What's a cooking tool or technique that other chefs swear by, but you find unnecessary?

That's quite a tough thing to ask because I think, because cooking is an ever-evolving thing, that every technique will have some usefulness. The only process I PERSONALLY don't care for is reverse-searing because it simply annoys me

1. I've always enjoyed cooking, but it was Chef Andre Rush and Chef Brian Duffy where were my biggest influences.

2. I started out as a home cook, so it was my mother, my grandmother, and learning by hit-or-miss, but I was formally trained by Chef Jerry Osuna and Chef Scott Cohen.


3. I prefer to use seitan when I make vegan steaks


4. Interesting fact: a lot of the best recipes came from taking different ingredients and hoping for the best, so I go by a recipe when I'm making a dish, then I take ingredients when I have a wild idea

Really basic question friend, but do you have any good Mac and cheese tips or recipes?

Yes. The great thing about Mac and cheese is that you're not confined to one type of macaroni. I use extra sharp cheddar, havarti, Muenster, and Asiago. ⅓ cup each with 1lb of macaroni.

Is that weighed cooked or dry?

Whats something i could say to impress an inspiring chef friend of mine