Ode to Sauté

Isn’t Sauté just a fancy French term for frying? Au contraire, mon frère!

Being a come-here from the North, I’m not going to even attempt to make and argument about frying technique’s while surrounded by all of these Southerners. I will though, discuss the intricacies of Sauté. Being a recent graduate of the world renowned culinary training center’s Whole Foods Market Culinary Center grueling “Sauté for beginners” course (well, it was 3 hours, and you got to eat everything you made, so how bad can that be?), I feel completely qualified.

Let me see what I remember:

Seems those French bastards don’t always have to make everything difficult. The technique of Sautéing, is rather straight forward.

1. Use high heat: The purpose of Sauté is to sear or caramelize the food so that the natural water/juices are sealed into the food. If you use a lower heat, you will actually just steam the food (which is another technique all together). It’s best to start with the pan temperature a little higher, than what you want to actually cook with, since whenever you place the food in the pan, you will drop the temperature of the oil. Once you have the food in the pan, and the temperature comes back up to heat, you can adjust your flame back down.

2. Use only enough oil (butter, etc..) to make a light layer (coating) of the pan: Keep your cooking oil/fat to a minimum, Remember, this is called Sautéing, not Frying.

3. Once you have put the food in the pan STOP MOVING IT AROUND JACKASS!!: I know how tempting it is, but once you have placed the food in the hot pan, leave it the hell alone! Yes, I know, it sticks to the pan immediately, but if you would just be patient, you will discover that at a certain point, once the food has developed a good outer crust, it will loosen from the pan. The best way to watch for this, is just to gently move the pan back and forth. The other purpose for doing this, is to keep any oil/fat that is not in direct contact with the food, from burning. If your oil/fat starts to smoke, you have already burnt it, Toss it out, and start over with new oil.

4. Refrain from using non-stick type pans: The purpose for non-stick pan’s, are to extract water/juices from the food, which creates the non-stick effect. Remember, the idea behind Sautéing is to retain the water/juices.

5. Always make sure your ingredients are dry: #1 reason, it’s just plain dangerous. If you like having grease burns all over your body, and the potential for burning your house to the ground, then disregard this rule. Besides the fact, you will probably end up semi-steaming your food.

6. Food should be at room temperature or higher before placing in pan: For one, if you place cold food into the hot oil/fat, it will drop the temperature dramatically (remember rule #1). You will also end up over cooking the outside of the food, with the center under-cooked.

Now that you have all the official secrets of Sautéing, give it a try.

Perhaps:

Chicken Sauté provencal?

Sautéed Wild Mushrooms, with wilted Baby Spinach and Chevre ?

Carrots in a caramelized Balsamic reduction?

Well, that was actually what they had us make. So, if and old-stoned-out idiot like myself can do this, I’m sure anyone stupid enough to read to the end of this thread is capable as well.