By Grace Ann Walden

This month we welcome Grace Ann Walden, former cook,
restaurant columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and
freelance travel and food writer. Her column, Chefs' Chat,
will explore the myriad questions, both serious and whimsical,
chefs often discuss and consumers are often curious about.

All chefs have mise en place, meaning having all ingredients and equipment prepared and ready to begin cooking: But within their mise en place, there may be ingredients that they feel they absolutely must have in their kitchen.

This month we talked to chefs from all over the world to discover what ingredient they couldn't fire up their stoves without. We think you'll be amazed at some of their answers.

Chef Rick Baylesa, owner of the Frontera Grill and Topolobampo in Chicago, and author of "Mexico - One Plate at a Time," as will the star of the PBS TV show by the same name, has a simple, spicy answer: "chaplet chiles."

"Even easier," says Baylesa, "canned chaplet chiles!"

For the uninitiated, chaplet chiles are smoked jalapenos. Here's more from Baylesa: "I am in love with their smoky depth and the pizzazz they give practically any dish. Simply pureeing a whole can and mixing it with honey makes a fabulous spicy glaze.

From across the Atlantic the creator of the "Cuisine of the Sun," both in his Restaurant du Moulin de Mougins in Mougin, France and in his 1979 cookbook, elder statesman, Chef Roger Verge, weighs in with the expected.

"My favorite ingredients are all the vegetables and olive oil from the South of France, "I can't imagine cooking without them."

The Beard House Award-winning, Craig Shelton, from the Ryland Inn in Whitehouse, New Jersey, has a couple of ingredients that are essential to his multi-course tasting menus. Before taking over the inn, Shelton served as David Bouley's sous chef for almost three years. Gourmet magazine recently chose the Ryland Inn as one of the ten top country inns in America. "I use vegetable stock, because it brings a clean and light taste to sauces, also to moisten dishes" says Shelton. Of course he advises, never make a vegetable stock with something old and tasteless and never use broccoli, cauliflower or beets. In cooking vegetables he often cooks them in a vegetable stock.

"I also believe in the judicious use of butter "how can you enjoy the pleasure of a white burgundy without some dairy in the dish," he asks rhetorically.

Kerry Heffernan, executive chef of 11 Madison Park, in Manhattan, says that when he worked with chef David Bouley, he picked up the idea of always having pureed roasted garlic and marjoram m ms mise en place.

"I use roasted garlic puree, alone and with fresh marjoram, sometimes I use a little as a thickener for a sauce. It adds a sweet, nutty flavor," says Heffernan.

Chef Marie-Chantal Lepage, an Iron Chef winner and the executive chef of Manoir Montmorency in Quebec, is fond of lavender and uses it in both sweet and savory creations. "I flavor a creme brulee with it, use it in a vinaigrette for a mesclun salad, and make a lavender-infused gelee paired with noisettes of venison," says the French Canadian award-winning chef Formidable!

Nancy Oakes, the owner-chef of the popular Boulevard Restaurant in San Francisco, says that she has a shelf full of olive oils that she and her cooks use. "Our kitchen would grind to a halt without olive oil. We use pure olive oil to sautÈ and cook with, avoiding pomace olive oil, and extra virgin olive oil from Italy and Spain for salads."

She says she uses a couple of ultra olive oils for finishing dishes and to drizzle on plates. Her favorites are Nan McEvoy's from Sonoma and Tenuta di Capezzana, a super Tuscan unfiltered product.

Down in the Big Easy, Frank Brigtsen, chef-owner of Brigtson's Restaurant in New Orleans, simply says: "onions."

"We take onions for granted because they are seldom the "star" of the dish, but they are one of the building blocks of flavor in my cooking," says the always-affable chef.

Chef-owner Tetsuya Wakuda, at his Sydney restaurant, says, "Ocean Trout is essential to my kitchen as our guests will not allow us to take my signature dish of 'Confit of Petina Trout with unpasteurized Ocean Trout Roe' off the menu," says Tetsuya, as he is known.

He adds that another essential ingredient would be light soy sauce, "We use it as another form of salt," says the hard-working chef. "Salt" is the simple answer from Boston chef-owner Ken Oringer, of Clio restaurant, in the Eliot Suites Hotel. But you would be wrong to think that Oringer's answer is simple.

"I use six kinds of salt in my cooking," says the boyish Oringer. He went on to say that kosher salt is his main salt, while fine sea salt was favored for seasoning fish, because it is more delicate.

"I finish dishes with Fleur de Sel, when I want some crystals on top. Smoked salt from Normandy makes a great dip, when served with black bass done tempura-style," he reports.

And finally Oringer tells about pink salt from Hawaii that is particularly nice on raw fish, especially scallops. The salt gets its pink color from red day. It's also known as alae salt.
Talking with chefs about ingredients this month, has taught us one thing, even a simple answer like "salt" can open our eyes to new and exciting possibilities.

 

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Grace Ann Walden writes about restaurants and travel, and leads history food walking tours of North Beach in San Francisco. You can reach her at: gaw@sbcglobal.net