When it comes to creativity and innovation, Chef Stuart Brioza has created a cult following for flavors and dishes that are uniquely his own. The success of his restaurants, State Bird Provisions and The Progress, are testament to that. So, it was only natural that for his workshop with our students, he came in with a framework on how he develops a new dish.
Stuart is on San Francisco Cooking School’s Board of Advisors, and long ago when the school was just an idea, we tapped him to gain more insight into how we could genuinely further the craftsmanship of cooking in our future students (and his potential future cooks). Stuart encouraged us to build into our curriculum the necessity of being a part of the local restaurant food scene. He noted:
“Young cooks should be exposed to the great restaurant world we work in. It will make them better students as they will understand the dialogue of food, chefs, farmers, and artisans with practicality. I am fueled by teaching and one of my responsibilities to any young cook upon hiring is that this restaurant will make them better cooks than when they arrived.”
Stuart’s passion for teaching was evident as he walked through his creative thinking process and explained techniques in detail. Here are 10 lessons we learned with Chef Brioza:
1. When developing a dish, start with ideas and ingredients rather than recipes. Think in ratios — ratios are your friends — and then draw from a continuum of past methods and recipes.
The class started their lesson by making a bright and fiery chili sauce, balancing a ratio of fresh chili juice, lime juice, salt, and grapeseed oil.
2. Always taste ingredients. Adjust your recipe to strike the balance you want.
Taste the pepper before you start — different crops can change in flavor over the course of a season. Is the chili sauce too hot? Add more oil — the fat will take down the intensity of the flavor. Or, maybe start with a sweeter pepper.
3. How to Season Correctly: “It’s a little thing that makes a huge difference”
One of the first things Stuart teaches a new cook is how to season correctly. Use Kosher salt. Make sure there are no lumps. And most importantly, season high (about 16 inches up) so that the salt sprinkles down evenly. This small detail is so important that Stuart has students practice on a sheet of parchment to see if they’re seasoning evenly.
4. Pay attention to your positioning at the cutting board.
You will be cutting a lot so it’s important to get this right from the get go. Align your body parallel to the board and position your knife so it is perpendicular to the board. Make sure your knife is cutting straight down, and not angling as it cuts.
5. “Garlic is like listening to music.”
This ubiquitous allium is in everything. But pay attention to what frequency it hits. You have your high frequency, this is your Miles David trumpet. Salt and acid belong here. Low frequency is your heavy bass — your fat. And mid-frequency is your all-around sound that fills in the gaps. Stuart shared, “I like my garlic to be in the mid-frequency range, along with other accessory flavors like herbs.”
As we approached garlic in various applications (sliced on a mandolin and fried to delicate wisps, crushed and used to infuse cooking liquid for potatoes, microplaned to add a kiss of flavor), Stuart urged us to notice how different garlic smells when it is crushed vs. microplaned vs. chopped. “Chopped garlic is the worst. We only microplane and crush at the restaurant.”
