Sauté

“SAUTÉ,” CHEF PARDUS SAID TO MY class at the Culinary Institute to begin that day’s lecture, “is a blast. Sauté is where the action is on a Saturday night. Sauté is where you guys all want to be in about three years, right? Sauté is the next step to sous chef. Sauté is the guy who’s juggling eight or ten pans at a time, makin’ flames, makin’ things jump. Sauté is the hot seat.”

But then he paused. The eloquent, excitable chef transformed into donnish professor, turning to an easel with the lesson’s talking bullets, his wooden spoon a pointer: “Sauté is: a rapid, à la minute cooking technique. It has no tenderizing effect, so the product has to be tender. You cannot sauté a lamb shank. The cooking is fast. That’s why it’s so much fun. Bing bang boom, it goes out the door. In a small amount of oil. Over high heat.”