Superpowers must be used in moderation

Some ingredients can lift a dish to another level – but woe betide the chef who gets carried away

In my kitchen, there are certain “magic” ingredients, including balsamic vinegar, truffle oil, dried ceps, maple syrup and the star of today’s recipe: smoked paprika. These ingredients have the ability to make a dish really dazzle – so much so that they should really come with a sticky label, warning young chefs to handle with care.

The reason I say this is because I have observed, over the years, that an inexperienced chef tends to get overexcited at the power that these ingredients have to make something ordinary into something special. Truffle oil is a great example. I can remember buying my first tiny bottle from Carluccio’s deli in Neal Street, Covent Garden, back in the early Nineties, when it was less known – and still made with real white truffle rather than the synthetic truffle “aroma” often used today. It was astonishing: used judiciously, it could add an extra dimension to a dish.

When I went to Gordon Ramsay’s first restaurant, Aubergine, in Fulham, I encountered a parsley sauce that took my breath away. This was nothing like my mum’s parsley sauce – basically a roux with chopped curly leaf parsley – but was an even, intense green with a depth of flavour I found difficult to explain.

As I tasted more, I realised that the taste of the sauce came partly from the parsley having been recently puréed, giving an electric freshness. I also detected a hint of truffle, which had cleverly been used to pick out and emphasise the herb’s “vegetal” quality. After this, whenever I was making a green sauce – be it parsley, leek, watercress or whatever – I would add just a couple of drops and the result would be spectacular.

My warning still stands, however. The use of these ingredients in a young chef ’s career often follows an arc, rather like a good Hollywood screenplay. They are introduced to the ingredient, but then in the second act they risk the relationship by taking it for granted. Truffle oil, for example, was dismissed as “middle-class ketchup” because it was so overused.

I’ve always tried to avoid this. The refrain often heard in my kitchen is:

“If you can taste it, you’ve added too much.” This may sound absurd, but flavours can take a while to develop.

All chefs need to learn this restraint if they want a happy ending.

Smoked paprika gets a fair bit of use in my kitchen both at home and at work, but it, too, needs to be used cautiously. It has the superpower of making everything, even vegetables, taste of bacon. This comes from the way that pimentón or Spanish paprika – as opposed to Hungarian – is smoked in the drying process.

I can remember my first published recipe – a very proud day – was a pork chop cured in smoked paprika and maple syrup. I had the idea because I hoped the paprika would make the chop taste like smoked bacon. It did, but it also tasted a bit bitter so I added maple syrup. This idea came from my love of American breakfasts – and boy, did it work.

The result was so spectacular that I began, back in 2003, to make my own maple-cured bacon. I’m flattered to see both ideas now being used everywhere so I figure it was a success. It had to be really, because it contained two items from my list of magic ingredients.

To see Stephen Harris talking at the Whitstable Food Festival, October 6 (£12), and for 20% off all talks, go to ticketsource.co.uk/whitfood and enter the discount code

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