Tragedy struck the food world today when fans all around the world learned of the tragic passing of chef and Food Network host Anne Burrell. The iconic chef was instantly identifiable, not just for her signature spiky blonde hair, but for her bright and energetic personality that made her one of the biggest fan favorites across a range of classic Food Network shows like “Chopped,” “Food Network Star,” and the show she hosted for years, “Worst Cooks in America.” Her passing at the age of 55 at her home in Brooklyn was confirmed June 17. She is survived by her husband, three children, and her stepson.
Through shows like “Worst Cooks in America,” Burrell showed a passion for teaching people how to be better cooks. After studying at the Culinary Institute of America and in Italy, she made a name for herself as a chef at multiple big-name restaurants, but her career truly came alive when she transitioned to teaching at the Institute of Culinary Education. It was that calling that led her to the Food Network, starting on the popular “Iron Chef” before going to share her passion and knowledge with millions. It was also in that spirit that she sat down with many publications, including Tasting Table, where Burrell told us her secrets for winning a cooking competition. So to honor her commitment to culinary education and love of cooking, here are a few of the best cooking tips we picked up from her over the years.
Stay organized and follow a recipe
Burrell’s advice for cooking often boiled down to not overlooking the basics, especially for home cooks and chefs that are just starting out. Speaking in an interview with Mashed, one of her biggest tips was simply to follow directions and prep your kitchen so that you don’t get flustered or confused in the heat of the moment. As she explained, “Get all your cutting done, get all your measuring done, and then cooking becomes much [easier] and much less frantic [so] you’re [not] like, ‘Oh my God, where’s this?'”
With the understandable desire to cook on the fly, use your instincts, and be creative, the power of organization is something that is often very overlooked for beginner chefs. Effectively planning your food prep may not be the most exciting part of cooking, but it is essential, especially when dealing with more complicated recipes. Burrell understood that for people who aren’t pros, the biggest mistakes can often come from panic or time constraints that grow out of sloppy or overly speedy prep work, something that was no-doubt hammered home over her years participating in cooking challenges — and hosting them.
Mashed and Tasting Table are both owned by Static Media
Taste your food as you go
Another simple piece of advice that Burrell would always drive home in interviews was the importance of tasting your cooking as you go. Like her advice for prepping well, this was born from years of experience in high-pressure environments. Burrell knew that whether you were cooking for your family or for an audience of professional chefs, the chaos of the kitchen often means that steps get skipped and ingredients left out. At some point, all of us have probably sat down after a lot of hard work in the kitchen, ready to enjoy the spoils, only to take the first bite and realize we completely forgot a key spice.
Even when you haven’t forgotten an ingredient, this is still important advice. A meal may not be complete until the very end, but you can often catch mistakes early before they ruin the dish, and you can also make adjustments on the fly. When you are cooking with a lot of spices, or adding strong ingredients like vinegar, or even just salting things, adding a little bit at a time, tasting, and then adjusting is an important habit to get into. One of the biggest things you learn as a professional like Burrell is that you can always add more of something you need, but you can rarely take it away if you added too much.
Add root vegetables like celery root to mashed potatoes
While so much of Burrell’s knowledge revolved around bigger important lessons, she also taught us plenty of great little tricks for boosting the flavor of ordinary dishes. One of our favorite was the secret ingredient Burrell added to her mashed potatoes: celery root. While not actually tasting much like celery, the root of the plant is also edible as a root vegetable with a distinctly herby flavor. And like the potato, it can be boiled and mashed. Burrell would mix about equal parts potato and celebrity root together when making mashed potatoes, infusing a basic dish with unexpectedly bright flavor that add more complexity without changing what people love about it too much.
And Burrell’s lesson in easy, subtle adjustments to classic recipes carries over beyond celebrity root. There are plenty of delicious root vegetables like turnips and rutabaga that mash well and can add a fun twist to your mashed potatoes. Burrell always liked cooking to be fun, and getting creative in accessible ways is a big part of that.
Using hot spices is about flavor, not just heat level
In our interview with her, Anne Burrell talked about her tolerance for spicy food and noted how important it is that adding hot ingredients to a dish actually makes them taste better. She differentiated between additions that just pack a punch and ingredients that actually add flavor as well as heat. Her example of a good use was Asian chili pastes like gochujang, which, while plenty spicy, also add a wonderful chile and fermented flavor to dishes. Lots of people treat adding spice like a challenge to get people sweating, but for a real chef, the end goal is always what tastes best.
That doesn’t mean spice can’t be a welcome addition: Her simple example was how a pinch of red pepper can boost the flavor of a dish without overpowering it. Too much heat can overwhelm a dish, not just making it unpleasant for many people to eat, but crowding out all those other flavors you spent time adding. A few dashes of great hot sauce can brighten up your dinner and make everything in it taste better, but cover the whole dish in it, and your food will only taste like hot sauce. As much as you may feel pressure to amp up your cooking with tons of heat, the subtle approach of complementing your recipe with spice instead of pushing it front and center is usually the best option.
Don’t take yourself too seriously
Throughout Burrell’s conversion with us and other interviews she did during her career, one consistent theme always shone through, Burrell knew that cooking was supposed to be fun and enjoyable. This is why so much of her advice had to do with prepping well and taking the pressure off of yourself. As she put it: “Take the fear factor out of it and put the fun factor in.”
As much as she built a big professional career out of it, at the end of the day, Burrell understood that food was just food. You want it to taste good, you want the people around you to enjoy it, and you want to love making it. Beyond that, you shouldn’t be trying to impress anybody. In a world where the media still loves to lionize obsessive chefs who spend their whole lives in pursuit of perfect dishes and critical acclaim (yes “The Bear” is very real), this refreshing attitude was one of the best things about her and a reason Burrell connected with so many fans. Rising to the heights of the culinary world with her joyful attitude instead of being a humorless perfectionist was one of Burrell’s greatest legacies, and a big reason why she will be missed so much.
