A Sliver of Truth?

I well remember the first time a chef told me a bit of cooking dogma that made me respond, “Nonsense.” It was Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and he told me that you stuck cloves in onions when making stock because there was “a chemical reaction between the two” that made them both taste better.

After my epithet, I suggested that perhaps it simply made it easier to keep track of the cloves.

Chefs are trained to believe what they’re told, and often this dogma is passed on from one generation to another. Almost every chef I have cooked with has some little nugget of kitchen “wisdom” that, though well intentioned and sometimes functional, was more than a little unscientific. They are founts of kitchen superstitions, and it’s amusing that few chefs question their own rules, so they don’t know whether they’re actually true.

Suzanne Goin demanded that sugar left mixed with egg yolks too long would somehow negatively affect her custard and that bread pudding cooked without a water bath would scramble—neither of which happens to be true. José Andrés blamed a lack of salt in a dish of his on the clearly indisputable fact that “American salt is less salty.”

And, case in point: Suvir Saran said that cutting okra pods into slivers instead of round slices was the secret to the crispness of his fried okra salad. If true, this would be a revelation to legions of people who fear okra because of the slimy texture (which many people happen to like).

I took this on faith (forgive me; I was busy), slivered the okra I was going to use in my dish (it wasn’t easy), and got cooking. Then, while stirring the slivered okra I was sautéing, Suvir counseled me to let it cook undisturbed until lightly crisped, or else it would turn slimy.

In the end, it turns out that okra, cooked over high heat with enough room for it to brown instead of stew, loses the juices that cause the slimy texture—whether slivered or sliced. You want crisp okra? Fry or stir-fry it. Soft, moist okra? Stew it. It doesn’t matter how you cut it.