Cooking Under Pressure

I travel all over the world to teach cooking classes and perform culinary demonstrations for the public.

It's always a tricky proposition, though -- while I love the real-time interaction with people, you never know what kind of a situation you're going to walk into.

Because it's not feasible to travel with your crew, equipment and food, you really have to depend on the kindness of strangers.

Recently I traveled to Tampa, Fla., and Santa Barbara, Calif., to do a series of cooking classes and demonstrations and tastings for Lincoln -- I'm working with the company on a campaign for its new luxury SUV, the MKX.

In Santa Barbara, I arranged for a local chef, Paul Becking, from the restaurant Elements to provide the support staff and prepare 1,000 tasting portions of the dishes I was to demonstrate.

We'd never worked together before, but Becking seemed bright and competent over the phone as we figured out the details; there really is a camaraderie among chefs and a willingness to help out whenever we can.

When Becking and I discussed the food for the demonstration and the tastings, we decided to handle the same dish two different ways.

The demonstration dish, one of my recipes, had to be done in under five minutes, so we decided to cook it as written.

The 1,000 tasting portions were to be served over a period of six hours, starting at noon, so we would have to prep those another way, to keep them as fresh as possible.

My flight from Florida had me arriving in Santa Barbara by 11:30, only a half hour before I was to start my demonstrations -- barely enough time to check the preparations and get started.

Of course my flight was delayed, and by the time I got to Santa Barbara it was 12:45 -- almost an hour late. But when I finally arrived, the setting was perfect.

It was a beautiful, balmy, Southern California afternoon. Just over 800 hundred people were gathered around the cooking stage, all eager to learn about my five-minute flavor cooking. I took a look around and after a short panic attack I quickly saw that Becking and his staff had done a great job of preparing both the showcase dish and the tasting dishes. Phew.

The demonstration had to be done right then and there, in front of everyone.

One of the recipes I prepared was steak, pizza-man style, from my most recent cookbook Rocco's 5 Minute Flavor.

In the recipe, it calls for four 7-ounce beef round sandwich steaks, a tender but inexpensive cut of beef that isn't too thick.

One key to five-minute flavor is buying strategically, and this tasty cut cooks up quickly.

Becking had suggested flatiron steak instead of beef round for the demo, and I suggested we use beef short rib for the tastings because it holds up well over time.

(Flatiron steak is a little-known cut of beef from the upper shoulder area; it's also referred to as chicken steak. But any tender cut of beef will work here: New York strip, rib-eye and tenderloin all are excellent choices, as long as they are thinly cut.)

< Previous

1 2

Next >