This is a hot little cooking tip I learned from an Asian chef I once shared an apartment with and I recommend it to you for an extra pungent result when cooking in a skillet, or fry pan. If you intend to season your dish, whatever it is, with salt and pepper sprinkle them into the dry pan before you start cooking and heat them up. There will come a point when you realise from the scent that they have released a certain fragrance and that’s the point at which you add any fats or oils you intend to use for cooking.

The same trick, or ‘truc’ as the French cooks say, works just as well if you intend to add a liquid instead. Using it will give you a much more pungent, but ‘softer’, finish. If you want to adjust the seasoning at the end of the cooking time you can do that, but use a separate pan to ‘cook’ your seasoning before adding it.

photo credit: Jason Sandeman