My favourite kitchen secrets from The Cook Up

Unlocked by the editorial desk... and 700+ episodes of this weeknight favourite.

Credit: Jiwon Kim

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The Cook Up with Adam Liaw

series • 

cooking

PG

series • 

cooking

PG

For the last few years, I've had the distinct pleasure of working on editing the last three seasons of The Cook Up, totalling almost 800 recipes and I have plenty bookmarked. I have spent hours poring over the recipes to make sure home cooks can tackle them at home.

With such an incredibly diverse and talented number of guests spanning over 700 episodes, it has been a privilege to be so close to so many precious, cultural recipes so rarely translated into English and many with beautiful anecdotes and memories to boot.

Inevitably, every season I learn more and more from the incredibly talented guests who generously share their knowledge. So, today, I’m sharing with you all the best tips and tricks I learned from the sixth and current season of The Cook Up.

It's been a true privilege to be so close to so many precious, cultural recipes.

As a Southeast Asian, I found Japanese cuisine to be fairly mild. Compared to Korean or Chinese cuisine, I thought it did not have much chilli.

However, much to my surprise, I learned in Martin Benn's fat udon with banana prawn and rayu (chilli oil) recipe that Japan has its own chilli oil. What sets the rayu apart from other chilli oils is the use of mirin, shio kombu and a little shichimi togarashi, giving it a unique flavour profile.

Rayu enhances fast recipes like noodle and dumpling recipes, but it can also transform fried eggs, salad dressings and stir-fries with very little effort. It's a flavour provider worth keeping on hand.

The next culinary surprise came from Giovanni Pilu's porcetto arrosto con pinzimonio, a Sardinian roasted suckling pig recipe. I have tried Chinese suckling pig in the past, and it was incredible – it had the crispiest skin and most tender meat, but considering I don't want to invest in a spit-roast turner, homemade suckling pig of any kind seemed out of reach.

Well, it doesn't have to be, according to Pilu. He's nailed the technique for roasting suckling pig in a standard home oven. He's perfected the exact temperatures and times to cook it at, ensuring moist meat and crisp skin.

Credit: Jiwon Kim

Speaking of great Italian cooking tips, while I've cooked many baked or stove-top risottos, they've never had the right texture. This season I learned why.

Alessandro Pavoni shared how to make his mushroom risotto all'onda-style (wave risotto-style), meaning that the risotto moves almost like an ocean 'wave' when stirred.

Forming this texture is partially done with the mantecatura technique: the whipping of risotto with cold butter and cheese off heat before serving. The chilled butter gives the risotto a thermal shock, resulting in a dreamy velvety texture.

Meanwhile, my favourite tips from Adam Liaw this season revolve around making simple adjustments to classic recipes. Liaw added a little powdered gelatine to the sauce of his chicken and prune tagine with pistachio couscous.

Adding powdered gelatine helps mimic the effect of long and slow cooked stock.

This is a genius tip and extremely useful for home cooks, since most homemade stocks cooked down with animal bones tend to be very gelatinous, creating a very luscious mouthfeel for soups, sauces and stews. This is missing in store-bought powdered or liquid stocks, which tend to be sold gelatine-free.

Another tip Adam loves is to add a small quantity of bicarbonate of soda to help marinate proteins (also known as velveting) in more than Asian dishes (like his Shanghai shredded pork and cabbage, beef pad see ew and Taiwanese popcorn chicken). He also uses this technique in his prawn and lemon guazzetto and lamb and potato kofte recipes.

Velveting is a tricky and precise technique to execute effectively. Too much bi-carb and your food tastes soapy. Not marinated for long enough and your protein remains tough. Liaw's figured out the exact quantities and timing for you to get the best out of a little bicarb without the stress.

As always in my editor's corner, it's been a real joy to continually learn so many culinary insights and wisdom from each and every season of The Cook Up.

I hope you enjoyed exploring these culinary gems with me as much as I did, and I hope you give some of these great tips and tricks a try at home in the kitchen.