Pantry

• Don't Fear Salt   Salt is the essential ingredient that James Beard called the "sovereign of seasonings."  By itself, salt is overwhelming.  But when added sensibly to almost anything else, it recedes into the background to let the salted ingredient's flavor shine.  If you taste the salt, you've added too much.  Many cooks use too little salt; the result is food that is too bland or too bitter.

• Use Kosher or Sea Salt  Kosher salt lacks the anti-caking additives and whitening agents of common table salt and has a beguiling, coarse texture that allows you to fell how it will flavor, a quality that is easy to experience.  Rub it between your fingers and you'll know.  Sea salt has more potassium, magnesium, zinc and other nutrients than table salt.  The varieties of sea salt are colored and flavored by the waters from which they are harvested, giving you multiple options to explore.

• Season With Your Fingers And Your Eyes  Feel how much seasoning you are adding to a dish and watch it land on the food.  This gives you tactile and visual information about where and how to mix it.

• Experiment With Seasoning Salts  Just before you serve your food, your final seasoning provides one fast chance to balance flavor and enhance texture.  Some fine finishing salts worth investigation: Celtic (particularly the delicate fleur de sel de Guerande,) Maldon, Murray River, Hawaiian red (a favorite of mine,) truffle-infused, and smoked alderwood.

• Use A Pepper Mill  Pepper assigns to food an earthy, savory tone.  As tempting as it might be to use pre-cracked pepper, don't.  Freshly cracked pepper lives up to its promise:  stronger in both aroma and flavor.  A quick sniff of the pre-ground kind in comparison with one turn of the mill will demonstrate the qualitative difference.  Consider both coarse and fine texture options: use a coarse grind on beef, a fine grind on salad.  Also experiment with green, white, and red peppercorns which vary in flavor and intensity.  My personal favorite are pink peppercorns.

• When The Cook Has Done His Job, There Should Be No Need for Salt or Pepper On the Table  Well...theoretically.

• Select Oils With Taste In Mind  Olive oils offer the verdant and earth taste of...olive.  Toasted nut oils and pressed fruit oils with more forward flavors should be reserved to finish cooked foods.  Canola (which I never use after reading up on it,) vegetable, grapeseed and peanut oils all have little to no flavor other than that of fat itself.  I am a big fan of experimenting with oils, including Asian sesame oil and hot chili oil, and Wegman's makes an herb in bottle basting oil that I am partial to.

• Match the Oil With the Cooking Method  Here's the general rule:  the lighter the oil, the higher the temperature at which it begins to break down and smoke.  Deep-frying occurs at high temperature and requires an oil with a high smoke point like peanut or vegetable oil.  Olive oil, with its lower smoke point, is seldom used for deep-frying foods, but often for sauteeing or for mixing dressings.

• Use Dijon Mustard  It is the cook's standard, used in everything from mayonnaise and vinaigrette to meat rubbings and pan sauces.  It emulsifies and flavors potently without overpowering.

• Cook With Sugar  A pinch of granulated sugar, like a pinch of salt, can balance flavor and brighten food.  Bland tomato sauce?  Sprinkle in a touch of sugar to amplify the tomatoes' natural sweetness.  Sauteed onions need more flavor?  Add a light dusting of sugar to enhance the carmelization process.

• Never Lift A Lid When Cooking Rice  If you lift the lid before the rice has finished absorbing the liquid, you compromise the air pockets that have been steadily developing during cooking.  The rice will stick to itself and become dense and chewy.  To quash the urge to peek, use a glass lid.  You can monitor for a stable simmer and later confirm that the rice has absorbed all of the liquid.

• Always Let Rice Rest  Take the pot off the heat before removing the lid and fluffing the grains.  This allows any residual moisture to release itself from the air pockets in the rice.  If you were to fluff the rice without letting it rest, it would be too moist and sticky.  Rice grains should not stick together; unless you are making sticky rice or sushi rice.

• Season the Pasta Water, Not Just the Sauce  Add a tablespoon of salt to five quarts of water.  Do the same for boiling potatoes, too.

• Match the Pasta Shape To the Sauce's Weight  Never heard of spaghetti alfredo?  That's because creamy sauces adhere best to flat noodles, like fettuccine.  Long, narrow noodles like spaghetti or capellini are best with thinner sauces like pesto, oil and garlic, or carbonara.  Short, shaped pastas like rigatoni, penne, and fusilli pair well texturally with chunky vegetable and meat sauces.