Cooking tips from top chefs. Pt 2

• Recipes are only a guideline, not the Bible. Fell comfortable replacing ingredients with similar ingredients that you like. If you like oregano but not thyme, use oregano.

Alex Seidel
Fruition, Denver

• A braised or slow roasted whole beef roast of pork shoulder can be made into several dishes and sandwiches all week.

Elizabeth Falkner
Citizen cake and Orson, San Francisco

• Do not use oil in the water when boiling pasta: it will keep the sauce from sticking to the cooked pasta.

Missy Robbins
A Voce, New York City

• Taste as you go.

Anne Burrell
Secrets of a Restaurant Chef

• When you're going to saute garlic, slice it rather than mincing it-it's less likely to burn that way.

Aarti Sequeira
Aarti Party

• When you browning meat, you should blot the surface dry with a paper towel so the meat doesn't release moisture when it hits the hot oil. Too much moisture makes the meat steam instead of sear, and you will lose that rich brown crust.

Charlie Palmer
Charlie Palmer Group

• A cast-iron pan is a valuable kitchen ally. It offers an even cooking surface and is a breeze to clean.

Linton Hopkins
Restaurant Eugene, Atlanta

• Add cheese rinds to vegetable or meat broths for another dimension of flavor.

Paul Virant
Vie, Western Springs, IL

• Invest in parchment paper for lining pans, It makes all of your baked goods super easy to remove, and it makes cleanup a dream (no butter-flour mixture or errant batter to scrape off).

Matt Lewis
Baked, Brooklyn and Charleston, SC

• Don't overcrowd the pan when you're sauteing-it'll make your food steam instead.

Ryan Poli
Perennial, Chicago

• When you roast a whole chicken, the breast always overcooks and dries our because the legs have to cook longer. This is really a simple way to keep a chicken breast moist: Separate the breast and the leg: season as you normally would and roast as you normally would, but remove the breast sooner than the leg.

Tim Cushman
O Ya, Boston

• To cook a steak, I always start by cooking it on it's side where there is a rim of fat on its narrow edge. I render it down so there's good, flavorful fat in the pan for the rest of the cooking.

Alain Ducasse
Adour and Benoit, New York City

• Taste what you make before you serve it. I'm amazed that people will follow a recipe but not taste the dish to see if it needs more salt, pepper or spices.

Brad Farmerie
Public and Double Crown, New York City

• When making mashed potatoes, after you drain the potatoes, return them to the hot pan, cover tightly and let steam for 5 minutes. This allows the potatoes to dry out so they'll mash to a beautiful texture ans soak up the butter and cream more easily.

Wolfgang Puck
Spago, Los Angeles

• If you don't taste it, don't expect people to like it.

Monica Neal
Lucyred.com
MonicaEatsNY.blogspot.com

• For a moist chicken breast, when cooking a whole chicken, start cooking the chicken breast side down first. It will soak up the juices. Turn chicken over half way thought the cooking process. The chicken will be cooked evenly, the breast will be moist and the skin with have a great color when browned.

Monica Neal
Lucyred.com
MonicaEatsNY.blogspot.com