WHAT ITALY TAUGHT US
A journey with Chef Raine & Sommelier Mark
04 | SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
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Simple doesn’t mean ordinary.
During his recent two-week immersive cooking course at the Italian Culinary Institute, Chef Raine Sindicich came away with a renewed appreciation for something that sounds almost too simple: using fewer ingredients, and making the most of them.
One of the things that surprised him most was the way garlic was used.
“If they want a garlic profile in a dish, they will make infused garlic oil and use that in the dish. That’s it. We cooked in class for two weeks, and we used raw garlic in one dish.”
One dish. In two weeks.
For a cuisine that Americans often associate so strongly with garlic, that was eye-opening.
Instead of relying on raw garlic to dominate a dish, the chefs used infused oils to bring in the flavor more subtly. Extra virgin olive oil might be infused with garlic, chili, citrus or other ingredients, becoming an ingredient all on its own.
But the lesson went beyond garlic.
Raine noticed that Italian cooking wasn’t built around adding layer after layer of dried herbs, dried vegetables or other ingredients simply to create more flavor. The emphasis was on fresh, high-quality ingredients and using them with purpose.
That doesn’t mean Italian cooks never use dried ingredients. It means they don’t need to rely on a long list of additions when the ingredients themselves are good.
It’s a different way of thinking about flavor.
Rather than asking, What else can I add? the question becomes, How can I get the most from what I already have?
That philosophy connects directly to one of the larger lessons Raine brought home from Italy: respect the ingredient.
A good olive oil should taste like something. Fresh herbs should taste like themselves. Garlic doesn’t need to overpower a dish to give it a garlic profile.
Sometimes the most sophisticated cooking is knowing what not to add.
That’s one of the things Italy taught Raine, and one of the ideas he’s bringing back into the kitchen at Victor’s.
Simple doesn’t mean ordinary. It means intentional.