Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

This event was on Tuesday, April 04, 2023 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to cours… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

Can you give me tips on how to sauté without oil, in a pan that's not non-stick. I tried onions, then mushrooms, without much success. ?

— Cynthia Dudak

Answer:

So Cynthia, that's actually something we cover quite a bit in all the classes. So that's something you'll you'll see that will come up. We actually even do a little short course on just how to do a saute without oil now just kind of a quick process on that because it's probably gonna be a repeat for a lot of people but You know just kind of a quick thing as you kind of want to get your pan heat it up and you can just wait until you see the water kind of form the Mercury ball if you drop it into it as well. I typically don't even wait for that. I'll just get my pan to start heating up and then I'll add my onions or mushrooms directly to the pan now once I start to start to see those onions or mushrooms start to stick just a little bit to the pan. I'm going to deglaze the pan and I usually use water I could use vegetable broth too. You can use a wide variety of things wine. I've seen some people do beer as well. But water is actually a great thing to do with mushrooms. Actually white wine as a fantastic thing to decrease with this too. I usually do like kind of a light Chardonnay or something people, you know, if you're deglazing with wine people, some people will say just use a cheap wine. I'm actually not a fan of that. I always say, you know use the wine you're going to be drinking for the dinner as well because it'll actually pick up some of that flavor and if it's a cheaper wine, Not have the best of flavor to it. So try to you know pick the one that you can actually be drinking with the dinner if you're doing a decrease with wine, but back to the deglazing. So even if you're doing other water, once the onions or the mushrooms start to just barely stick to the pan just deglaze to get a little bit of that brown of the bottom of the pan back onto the onions or the mushrooms that brown that's actually sticking with the bottom of the pan is the natural sugars that are coming out of those onions and sticking to it and there is an old Chef attitude. You never leave the front of the bottom of the pan because that's where the flavor is. So this deglazing which is basically rinsing the bottom of the pan with about two tablespoons of liquid. Will lift that brown those natural sugars off the pan and put them back on to the onion or the mushroom. Now if you repeat this you can keep getting it darker and darker to get that caramelization of the onions or mushrooms on there and you can do it as long as you want to to get them darker and darker if you want them lighter, you don't have to do it very long as well too. This same process works with most vegetables too. In fact, most food that I've seen you can actually do the same thing with just you know, deglazing the pan just a little bit to be able to get anything stuck on the bottom to be able to get back on the product this little heat it. It's kind of a mix between a saute and a quick steam as well. But you're kind of mixing both methods to be able to make that work out. But if you want the sure fire away just look at the either the short lesson that we offer for free or in most of the courses that we offer as well, too. but great questions, Cynthia And welcome to Rouxbe by the way.
Dan Marek

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

rouxbe.com