Which is more important, great ingredients or great technique?
I'm new here so maybe this has been discussed before repeatedly but it is always interesting to me to hear where people come down on each side of this question. Do great fresh flavorful ingredients trump technique or does technique win out by preparing food perfectly to bring out its best flavor?
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28 Comments:
Put it this way...a great chef will produce far better results with great ingredients than with sub par ingredients.
derosa at 9:48PM on 07/28/09
the ingredients should be the star of the show.... of course, a little technique doesn't hurt either.
pooch at 10:24PM on 07/28/09
Great ingredients.
You can be inconsistent or amateur with your technique but the food will still be yummy.
I guess technique would matter more for more advanced dishes like souffles though.
gingercookiewithlime at 10:36PM on 07/28/09
I would have to say that great ingredients are more important. No matter what techniques you have at your disposal, you can't assemble a perfectly ripe peach or heirloom tomato in the kitchen. Old dried beans will never be as good as fresher ones, no matter what you do to them. Etc.
Nicholas H at 11:02PM on 07/28/09
So Fred down the street with a great grass fed steak and a hot grill can outdo Tom Valenti and a shortrib? How about if we give Fred fresh eggs and some veggies and maybe a free range chicken and give Charlie Trotter a carton of eggs from the grocers last week whatever is in the veggie bin of the fridge and a Tyson?
inkandsausages at 11:12PM on 07/28/09
maybe it depends what you're making...or baking.
bigfatmouth at 12:14AM on 07/29/09
A perfectly ripe tomato doesn't need any technique to be wonderful, but lousy technique can ruin it. You can buy the best meat available and ruin it with poor technique.
On the other hand, it also depends on your definition of "great ingredients." Some of my favorite dishes are peasant food, using humble ingredients. An amazing loaf of bread doesn't need designer flour and bottled water and imported yeast.
I can make an amazing stock using the leftover carcass of a roast chicken along with some wilty veggies and other odds and ends. Not the best ingredients, by any means, but much better than the stuff you can buy in a carton at the supermarket.
Both are important.
dbcurrie at 1:43AM on 07/29/09
I think you can cheat your way out of middling technique with great ingredients and vice versa, but not in extreme cases. I'm not a great chef by any means, but I had a pretty limited repertoire when I was in college. My friends always thought I was a really good cook until I confessed that everything I made for them was chock full of butter and heavy cream. Otherwise, I would just assemble (not actually cook) dishes with fabulous produce, cheese, or bread!
fanghsing at 1:55AM on 07/29/09
great technique. come on, people. hundreds of years of cuisine has been based on peasant food - braising cuts, nasty bits, unapproachable vegetables - that people had to really make an effort to prepare deliciously. that bone marrow you're paying out the nose for? that was scrap that someone had to cook one day purely for sustenance. and now that technique has made what used to be garbage a delicious dish. Charlie Trotter has made his career out of that philosophy.
unarata at 2:02AM on 07/29/09
Great Technique, ingredients does help but I have had wonderful tasting dishes that were of not from the best ingredients and because the person knew what to do with it being handed down generations.....One of the best dishes I ever eaten.
pjracz10 at 2:35AM on 07/29/09
@unarata - you are assuming that peasant food is based on less than great ingredients? It might actually be more important that "butcher's cuts", offal, and the veggies found in peasant food be fresh and high quality. Personally, I don't equate high quality with expense or rarity. High quality = fresh, ripe, local, in season...etc.
derosa at 6:31AM on 07/29/09
if i had to choose i would say great ingredients and the kiss principle (keep it simple stupid) but I think both are important you dont have to have great technique but you do need a basic skill set. and I know making bread or stock isnt basic anymore but in my world it is.
huneybumper at 7:26AM on 07/29/09
A little of both....nothing worse that having a beautiful cut of meat, and having it serve WELL done.
katiedid at 7:44AM on 07/29/09
neither is a complete deal. one is valueless without the other. But, in saying that what is great technique or a fabulous ingredient to one person, is another persons undesirable ingredient, tripe isn't on my gourmet list, but I know menudo fanatics who feel it is the greatest. Charlie Trotter has a style based on his ingredients of choice, Paula Deen has hers, different techniques for different ingredients. So maybe in saying that, I feel having a broad range of kitchen skills can overcome some ingredient deficiencies.
Meat guy at 8:35AM on 07/29/09
i think they're both important, but forced to choose? better ingredients.
gastronomeg at 9:19AM on 07/29/09
The chicken came first!
The technique is more important. You adapt the technique to fit the ingredients and the constraints (time, space, etc). If you have "bad" ingredients you use a different technique to compensate. If you have great ingredients you adapt the technique to get out of the way of them. I spend too much time watching "cooking" shows like chopped and iron chef and what I notice is that the biggest failure for the chefs is just making something wrong. Like burning it or leaving it raw or their sauce doesn't come together or they throw in weird stuff.
Cooking was invented to make bad ingredients good.
joeqboo at 9:25AM on 07/29/09
I'd say it depends on the situation and it doesn't hurt to have a combination of both. I'm a baker, so it's usually technique that matters in a lot of cases. A few store bought eggs in a brownie batter aren't going to taste different if I remember not to over mix. However, on the flipside, if I make a great shortcake but use crappy Driscolls out-of-season strawberries to top it, I'm just wasting my time.
meem21 at 10:37AM on 07/29/09
For most of us who cook simple dishes in our own kitchens, fresh high quality ingredients trumps all. They don't need much done to them, after all.
A skillful cook can do wonders with great technique, to rescue even lesser ingredients. But let's try to use the best technique on great ingredients.
lemonfair at 10:38AM on 07/29/09
I'm surprised this thread hasn't become a verbal fist fight. This is something I would think many people feel strongly about (I do!). . . and would fight to the death to get their point across. . .
joeqboo at 11:25AM on 07/29/09
hmm. bad ingredients would not always be rescued by great techniques, and bad techniques can ruin great ingredients- even if you are just cutting a really good, fresh fish into sashimi, you can ruin it by doing it wrong. I'm leaning toward great ingredients though. especially for simple dishes.
hmw0029 at 12:01PM on 07/29/09
Technique. When someone is able to utilize their depth of knowledge and experience, they are likely to work well with random inconsistencies on the fly and be able to compensate on less than "fresh and flavorful ingredients."
I'd choose the skilled brain surgeon...
Cassaendra at 12:29PM on 07/29/09
hhaha whoah this is a tuffie.
As far as my priorities go when I'm cooking:
I'd rather have quality ingredients and no recipe
than a recipe and crappy ingredients.
does that count as an answer? :D I think most of you guys covered what is more IMPORTANT overall.
hungrychristel at 1:27PM on 07/29/09
While I agree with part 1 of your comment above...
a great brain wouldn't need a surgeon
apples and oranges
derosa at 1:29PM on 07/29/09
A great chef should choose great ingredients. I think ingredients trump technique.
Chew on That at 2:35PM on 07/29/09
A great chef uses everything on hand. Including the offal, tough parts, and scraps. If a chef NEEDS great ingredients he's not a great chef. Obviously chefs should try to pick and use the best of what's available to them (especially if they charge too much).
But given the best ingredients it still doesn't take much to completely screw up a meal. Cook too long or too little, cutting the wrong way on the grain of the meat, poaching instead of braising cause you have too much liquid, steaming instead of frying because you put your stuff too close together in the pan, not cleaning the scales off your fish right. . . There's a reason that one cooks a rib eye different than a shoulder. Given two different quality of the same cuts of meat you wouldn't tell a big difference in the hands of a great chef but in my hands you would.
joeqboo at 3:11PM on 07/29/09
Thanks for your comments so far and I like joeqboo am surprised at the level of civility (nicely done folks). While this may seem like a quick and breezy question it also touches on what we think about our food. What does your answer reveal about the way you cook and your mindset while doing it? What does this question mean to those who can't afford the best ingredients? Can you be too "techniquey" and ruin the fun? Can you be too obsessed with purity of ingredients and become a little foodie fascist? (The whole Alice Waters controversy comes to mind)
inkandsausages at 9:24PM on 07/29/09
This would be a great challenge for one of the TV chef shows and see what kind of dishes they would come up with less that fresh ingredients. Most people could come up with a tasty and incredible dish with something that came out of their gardens. Too large zuchinni's and too long on the stalk corn can take a pro to remedy.
janaatwg at 9:40PM on 07/29/09
Ingredients, but that said, the one chef technique that will change all that is patience.
michichan at 11:25AM on 07/30/09