- 6/17/2025
The legendary chefs of Chef’s Table: Legends—Jamie Oliver, Thomas Keller, Alice Waters, and José Andrés—join Bon Appétit to answer your top cooking questions. From achieving perfectly crispy bacon to ordering steak well-done, they share expert tips to level up your cooking game.
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00:00I'm Jamie Oliver. My restaurant is Jamie Oliver, Catherine Street.
00:03I'm Thomas Keller, French Audrey, in Yonville, California.
00:06I am Chef José Andrés, and my restaurant is Minibar, and a few others.
00:10I'm Alice Waters, Chez Panisse restaurant.
00:13And today we are answering your questions.
00:15Your questions.
00:16Today we're answering your questions about cooking.
00:19So Reapit Murphy says, griddle or grill?
00:22Which do you prefer for cooking burgers?
00:25Griddle.
00:26Griddle?
00:27I go griddle.
00:28I go grill.
00:29Yeah.
00:30I think griddle's interesting because the fat stays around it, doesn't it, and gives you that crisp.
00:35On the griddle, it's going to get so much more content, and everything is going to be much more crunchier.
00:39Texture is important.
00:40Super important.
00:41So that's why the griddle, for me, works, because it gets the texture.
00:44Now the flavor on a natural fire grill is better than the texture on a griddle.
00:49Okay, so 1969-something Batman says, what's the best way to consistently get crispy bacon?
00:58Take your time, cook it slowly, let it render, right?
01:01Low heat, let that, because it's really about rendering the fat out, the results and the crispiness of the bacon.
01:06So if you're trying to do it quickly, you're not going to get crisp bacon.
01:10So just take your time.
01:11Cast iron.
01:12Yeah, it has to be a stovetop.
01:13It's also about the thickness.
01:15Yeah.
01:16When it's too thick, it's really hard to get crisp.
01:19Crispy bacon is the Darth Vader of bacon.
01:23Bacon was never supposed to be crispy, people.
01:25It was supposed to be used on the griddle, one side, the other, and eat it nice and fatty and warm.
01:33Crispy.
01:33Why crispy bacon?
01:34Because we love the texture of crispy bacon.
01:37This is Darth Vader.
01:38We love the crunch.
01:3899.9% of people don't know how to do bacon.
01:42This is American.
01:43No, no, no.
01:44Crispy bacon.
01:45Get out of here, people.
01:46I've got another one, guys.
01:47This is a goodie.
01:49Sapness Pussos.
01:50What?
01:51Zero.
01:52Chefs, is it rude to ask for a steak well done?
01:55Not at all.
01:55I mean, we want to cook the best well-done steak you've ever had.
01:58It's not rude to ask.
01:59No.
01:59It doesn't mean we won't think bad things of you.
02:01No judgment on my part.
02:02Yeah, when my kids order well-done steak on my dollar, that doesn't go down well.
02:07Wow.
02:08Is that a dictator?
02:09Yes.
02:10Yeah, when it comes to steak.
02:11At home, we agree.
02:13At the restaurant, whatever the guest wants.
02:15These things are easy to do.
02:18All of us have the capability.
02:19We eat steaks that are rare, medium rare, just because that's what I like in my steak.
02:24Some people have to eat their medium, medium well, well done.
02:26I don't know.
02:27Oh, Alice.
02:28Yes.
02:29So this person, Roderick Stark, asked, why are so many Americans obsessed with kosher salt?
02:36I'm not sure why he's just saying Americans.
02:38I think it's quite American, too.
02:39Chefs, in most part, are using kosher salt around the world.
02:42I've never.
02:42We don't really say kosher salt.
02:45Ah, because you don't have.
02:45Do you have iodized salt in the UK?
02:47We have iodized salt, which is like table salt.
02:49And then we have sea salt.
02:50I think we say sea salt, but it's got nothing to do with Jewish religion.
02:54No.
02:55It's not blessed.
02:56For me, you know, it's a couple of things.
02:59Number one, it's the grind, right?
03:00So we use the red box kosher salt because we're used to the coarseness of the grind.
03:04When you're picking up, you know, one pinch, two pinch, three pinch, you know, four pinch,
03:08then you know how much you're picking up because you get used to how much that grind is.
03:11So if it's a really super fine grind, then you're putting too much salt if you're used to the more medium grind.
03:16Kosher salt for us is without iodine because if you taste salt that has iodine in it, it's very accurate.
03:22It kind of burns your palate, so it's not very pleasant.
03:25So our substitute is now kosher salt, which becomes the workhorse for our restaurants.
03:29We use sea salt as a finishing salt, as a condiment.
03:33And different salts have different textures.
03:35Okay, this is great because the username is jour suc decision mode.
03:41What?
03:42What?
03:43Yeah.
03:44How do you spell that?
03:45Yeah.
03:46Yeah.
03:46Are you ready for this?
03:48What animal's trash parts are still cheap and have not caught on yet?
03:53Well, I don't think an animal has any trash parts.
03:56To respect where a food comes from and an animal that's giving up his life, you know, we don't want to say it's trash.
04:00No.
04:00I love pig's feet. I love chicken feet.
04:03I love lungs. Lungs are really underrated,
04:06and you just don't see them in either of our countries.
04:10You'll see them in Spain and Italy,
04:13but lungs have the flavor that is, in my opinion,
04:17like the secret flavor of some of those ragouts you have in the Mediterranean.
04:20And when you go home and do exactly the same thing, you're like,
04:22why doesn't it taste the same?
04:24And it's often lungs through the sofrito.
04:27Lamb brains, baby lamb brains.
04:29The eyes of a red snapper?
04:31Oh, my God.
04:32The eyes of a red snapper?
04:34Oh, it's so good.
04:35Oh, my God.
04:36But it's not an animal.
04:38What is it? An animal? A fish? A fish? An animal?
04:40All animals on Earth.
04:43Let's not get too about biology now.
04:46How do I get my pasta sauce to be sticky
04:50and cling to my noodles better?
04:53I mean, I always think it's that beautiful relationship
04:57between the pasta in question.
04:59Some of that starchy water that it's cooked in.
05:01That's right.
05:02And some form of fat, whether it's butter or olive oil,
05:05or something that's rendered out of guanciale or something like that.
05:08But that, I mean, that classic emulsion, right, isn't it?
05:10It's that kind of coming together of water and fat.
05:12So it's cream without cream.
05:14The amount of reduction, right?
05:16Just the appropriate amount of reduction
05:17to get the viscosity that you want.
05:18But if you're talking about pasta in general,
05:20some rigatoni have ridges, some of them don't.
05:22So the rigid ones want to capture that sauce in the ridges.
05:25The softer ones or the smoother ones don't.
05:27Oh, my God.
05:28The names are getting better.
05:30Magellan's Puma.
05:32What the heck?
05:33Okay, that's the question.
05:35Why do people like chicken thighs so much?
05:39Alice, why don't you answer this one?
05:40I kind of like the flavor of that dark meat.
05:44I think it's more moist and the thigh cooks very evenly.
05:49And then you can have a very crusty skin.
05:53More fat than thighs, yeah.
05:54Yeah, they should do chickens that they are only thighs.
05:58They should do thighs with feet and a head.
06:02So this question is coming from Never Yellow.
06:07Is air frying just convection?
06:09I have no idea what air frying is.
06:12I can answer this.
06:12Okay, okay.
06:13So air frying is a heating element,
06:17just the same as like the 1960s,
06:19with a fan blowing the heat down.
06:22Convection is normally a fan with heating elements on both sides,
06:26and you have circulating heat.
06:28Whereas air frying, which is very trendy right now,
06:30they'll say it's circulating, and it is to a degree,
06:33but it's because they have a little trivet that allows a bit of air,
06:36but it's not equal.
06:37So it's probably about 75% top convection and a kind of slightly fictitious 25% convection on the bottom.
06:45It's not frying.
06:46It's not frying.
06:46But it's kind of a play on words, I think, and it's about rendering fat.
06:51But if you are able to spray even some oil in the surface of anything,
06:55that droplets of fat in the outside in a way kind of fry without submerging?
07:01This is from ExpensiveTrust8211.
07:07ExpensiveTrust?
07:08Yes.
07:09The Trust Baby?
07:10I don't know.
07:11You're getting all the good ones.
07:13What essential kitchen tools do you recommend for someone who is just starting to cook?
07:20What is yours?
07:21Absolutely.
07:23A mantaline.
07:24A mantaline.
07:25And a mortar and a pestle.
07:26Okay.
07:27Beautiful.
07:28But do you know what we call a mandaline in the kitchen?
07:29What?
07:30A crippler.
07:31Because there are so many young people who are using mandalines so quickly that they
07:36end up always cutting their fingers.
07:39Yeah, yeah.
07:40And they've crippled themselves.
07:41I like that Japanese inexpensive.
07:43Yeah, that's what we use now.
07:45Yeah, that's what we use now.
07:46But you just have to be careful.
07:48But the mortar and pestle, for me, is indispensable.
07:52But a knife?
07:53A knife's a good idea, too.
07:55Okay.
07:56And obviously a good set of pots and pans that will last you forever.
07:59Thirty years ago, I was given one set that is the same one I use today.
08:02Yeah.
08:03Shaka Brada asks, general question, how long do you leave your steak out at room temperature
08:09before grilling?
08:10Depends what the room temperature is, I guess.
08:12Depends on the size of the steak?
08:14Two hours, three hours, and nothing is going to happen to you people.
08:17Nothing's going to happen.
08:18It's like eggs.
08:19I mean, my mom always had the eggs outside and nothing happened.
08:22Yeah.
08:23So, the more time the better.
08:24Yes.
08:25Would you ever take a steak out of the fridge and put it right in a pan?
08:27Never.
08:28If I'm really hungry.
08:29If you had a really cold steak in a really hot pan, if you go rare or medium rare, it's
08:34going to be chilled in the middle.
08:36It doesn't cook correctly.
08:37No.
08:38It doesn't cook correctly.
08:39It needs to be all the same temperature.
08:40Specialist Plum673 asks, what is a very, very American ingredient?
08:52American cheese.
08:53That special mustard that you get on burgers?
08:55What's it?
08:56The French cheese?
08:57Frenches.
08:58Heinz ketchup.
08:59Ketchup will win the day.
09:00American?
09:01Tabasco sauce.
09:02Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:03Definitely.
09:04Everywhere, every bar in the world has Tabasco sauce.
09:07Every restaurant that serves oysters has Tabasco sauce.
09:09But then if we go with the bounty of the goodness of the earth or the sea, I would say
09:14oysters.
09:15You can go to Des Moines, Iowa, and in an Irish pub, they'll have a special of oysters.
09:20I would say oysters is a very American ingredient.
09:23Okay, so this is a person whose name is Denim Duck.
09:29Denim Duck.
09:30Denim Duck asks, why don't Michelin chefs use a food processor for onions?
09:34We like to do things with our hands, of course, and depending if you're dicing an
09:38onion, you don't want to put it in a food processor because you want consistency in the
09:41shape of the dice.
09:42When I was young, we were using a meat grinder.
09:44A meat grinder.
09:45Because we were doing so many onions, and the meat grinder was very effective.
09:51The truth is that, yeah, it was kind of an onion, soupy, final product.
09:57The answer was, we were making sofrito.
10:00That's my point.
10:01If you're going to be cooking it for five hours, it doesn't really matter.
10:03Put them in a food processor.
10:04Put them in a meat grinder.
10:05A deleted user says, I give up.
10:07Why do non-stick pans always lose their non-sticks?
10:10I would say, if you're losing your non-stickiness, it's because it wasn't good enough quality in
10:15the first place and you're using metal tools.
10:17If in doubt, get yourself a cast iron pan and you'll be fine.
10:20I don't think non-stick pans will last forever.
10:23Oh, yeah.
10:24I mean, non-stick pans have allowed us to make amazing things.
10:27Yeah.
10:28Now the issue is, are they healthy enough?
10:30The new ones are, yes.
10:32They've removed a lot of the chemicals that were prominent in the old versions of non-stick pans.
10:36Technology has improved.
10:37Okay, so chefs, our answers were okay?
10:40I'm not sure.
10:41Did we look like experts, like legends of chef's table?
10:45I think we had more comments than answers, actually.
10:50Can you explain to me in English what a deleted user means?
10:54It's just like a...
10:55Is somebody you kill after asking the question?
10:57A deleted user?
10:58Yeah.
10:59What happened?
11:00What are you doing to them after they ask the question?
11:02Look, if it's the wrong question...
11:04You want to under...
11:05Oh, my God!
11:06A deleted user asks...
11:08I mean, this is very strange.
11:10I don't want to be part of this.
11:11That is strange.
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