In the fourth part of a five-part cooking series, Chef Seeto explains how the five sensory receptors of taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight play special roles for seasoned chefs in the kitchen.
RECENTLY, I was helping a friend to prepare lunch and was watching him toss a salad with a pair of stainless steel tongs. I had just helped him pick the wild herbs and salad greens from his garden hours before, lovingly washed and rinsed them, and now was horrified to see him crushing the delicate leaves between the tongs and bowl. I asked him why he didn’t use his hands to gently toss the lettuces with the vinaigrette. After all, fingers are much more effective at this delicate task than tongs.
My friend made a face: “I don’t want to get my hands dirty, besides its more hygienic!” That’s true, for if you’re not constantly washing your hands in the kitchen, I wouldn’t eat the food you served me either. But clean hands and fingers provide a tactile connection to your food to test for freshness, temperature and doneness.
Touch your
food more
There are many stories of famous chefs banning the use of metal tongs in their high-end kitchens so their cooks don’t bruise, squash or damage the food they are cooking, whether it’s tossing a salad or grilling a steak or burger. Our modern food culture has been slowly evolving back toward the primacy and respect of fresh produce and ingredients.
As interest in farmers’ markets and organic foods has exploded overseas, the way chefs’ handle those ingredients are changing as well. To force chefs to get a better feel for their food, they now use hands, spoons or a flexible metal spatula instead, all of which damage the ingredients as little as possible and allow the closest connection to the food.
If you can’t or won’t keep your hands clean during preparation out of pure laziness, then please wear gloves!
Tasting food
with your hands
Perhaps no other food culture is more famously linked to the sense of touch than Japan. Some Japanese chefs believe the hands can be trained to be so sensitive to not only tell the freshness and condition, but also the taste of a fish.
I know this sounds absolutely crazy but it’s a function of repetition and paying attention.
Chefs can touch a piece of fish, then taste it and remember the connection between the two. The next day they’ll do it again, and then keep repeating it until they have built up an extremely accurate sensory database that informs them of what a fish will taste like simply by its feel.
It is exactly the same as how our brain remembers food experiences through sight, sounds and smell. Touch is just another cooking tool that all experienced chefs have mastered over time. But increased use of hands also means developing an obsession with cleanliness during food preparation.
Keeping your
fingers spotless
Keeping your hands constantly clean and fingernails cut short is paramount if you cook for living. Long fingernails are a big no no in my kitchen. Not only do they act as scoops for food particles, but they will break and fall into the food.
Trust me, the only thing you want to do if you find a broken nail in your food is to throw it all back up! Nailbrushes, soap and liquid hand sanitisers are a must in every kitchen.
I sadly, and subconsciously, look at another person’s finger nails whether we are in a kitchen or not. It’s just habit, but that is the point. I freak out whenever I see one of my cook’s tossing raw meat through marinade or tossing a salad with their bare hands, and then noticing their fingernails have accumulated a black layer of food dirt.
Whether they just scratched their head or genitals (male chefs seem to do this a lot!), went to the toilet, smoked a cigarette, or just went outside for a break, those nails are teeming with bacteria.
I always carry a pair of nail clippers wherever I am cooking, and some sort of tool or brush to keep my nails clean. A neat trick at home is to have a shower with soapy suds, and rub your fingernails through your hair, using the hair follicles to remove the dirt.
Getting a feel for
the ingredients
Before cutting meats, many seasoned cooks will often run a hand lengthwise along the surface. They’re feeling the grain, the tightness of the fibres and seeing where the natural separations of the muscles are which is especially important when trimming larger cuts such as leg of lamb.
How a piece of meat feels can make a big difference in determining the best way to cook it. A softer, looser texture might mean more tenderness, so perhaps a shorter cooking time is in order, while a tighter, denser feel might suggest slow roasting or a braise. And pulling meats gently apart makes it easier to see where to cut, as with that tricky joint between a chicken’s drumstick and thigh (often called the Maryland piece of the chicken).
Running your fingers up the length of a fillet of fish will of course allow you to quickly find any remaining bones before cooking and serving it.
Testing doneness
of meats
Most young cooks who come straight from school test the doneness of a piece of meat by taking a knife and making a cut halfway through its centre, an action that is guaranteed to get you a whack from any good chef who knows better. If the damaged meat is undercooked, it goes back into the pan or on the grill, leaking its flavoursome juices everywhere as they attempt to squash it to death.
A few minutes later they will remove the meat and subject it to a second mauling, at which point it begins to look like something out of a horror movie and devoid of any moisture. They then go to serve the steak to the unsuspecting customer, turning it upside down to hide the cut marks.
That cook — I’ll call them a cook and not a chef — has shown a great disrespect of the produce and customer killing the animal not once but twice! It takes practice and experience to be able to tell the doneness of a steak with just a light touch of the hand as it’s cooking.
If you don’t happen to live with a chef, a good rule of thumb is to feel your earlobe — that’s rare. The tip of your nose resembles medium, and your chin is well-done.
Otherwise learn the right softness using the inner muscle of your hand (see diagram.)
Chefs have
lizard-tough skin
I have seen some chefs prepare whole chickens entirely on the stovetop, in a large pan with butter with their bare hands. They constantly turn the birds by hand for an hour-and-a-half or so, the movement and modulated temperature keeping the butter golden brown without burning, creating a supremely succulent result.
They don’t just prod the surface of the chicken as they move it around-they’re feeling the muscles underneath and the way the proteins are slowly setting, which will tell them when it is fully cooked.
Professional chefs and cooks have tough skin like lizards and a high tolerance for pain. Just look at most chef’s hands and arms and you’ll no doubt see the battle scars of cooking for a job although cooking solely with your hands is probably not the wisest technique for a home cook!
I remember vividly watching my mother’s hands as she rolled out a hot dough for dumplings or transferring piping hot, deep fried snacks from the fryer basket. Her hands are not as rough as that of a Fijian with kanikani, but boy were they tough! “No sense, no feeling,” she always said as she juggled high temperature food in her bare hands. As she told me, “Without taste, smell-and feel-nobody can cook well”.
Next week: In the final part of this series, we learn how sight brings together all of the elements of cooking together to produce a colourful and symmetrical picture on the plate, which when orchestrated properly, will guarantee the wow factor.
* The author is an award-winning celebrity chef, culinary ambassador for Fiji Airways and the “Fiji Grown” campaign, and honorary culinary adviser to the Fiji Olympic Team.
