*sigh*

Now that everyone’s into the idea of cooking restaurant-style at home, one of the biggest complaints I hear from friends and clients is how hard it is to sear properly. You can use butter instead of oil (i.e. cheat) and a really hot pan, but you have to disconnect the smoke alarm, throw open the windows, and flap tea towels around, and the end result is only cosmetic, because true searing - as a cooking technique, not just a coloring mechanism - requires temperature control. It all comes down to commercial vs. domestic gas lines, and the regulators on the stoves that deliver the flame. Even with a Wolf or a Viking lumbering in the kitchen, without high pressure delivery most people resort to using a well-seasoned heavy cast iron pan that will retain a lot of heat so they can cook more than one steak, say, at a time. This leaves little option for the quick-response adjustments that line cooks take for granted (after being beaten over the head a few times and learning that full blast is not the only BTU option).

Here, however, is a Technical Top Tip. According to one of my all-time culinary heroes, the apparition above is the answer - quadruple layer non-stick coating, super durable riveted steel handle and a body made from thick, heavy duty aluminium. The result: it conducts heat fast and micron-level evenly, retains it well, and the coating ensures that all your careful caramelization sticks to the food, not the pan. And in a delightfully snobby “I was made in France for professional chefs” way, it has no interest in making the acquaintance of induction cookers or dishwashing machines. This is as far removed from those dollar store, black-flakes-in-your-eggs, ring-bottomed, plastic-handled frying pans you had in your first apartment as you can get: my new toy may be non-stick (yup, still getting over some prejudices about that one) but this baby doesn’t ‘clink’, it ‘thunks’ with the big boys and demands a modicum of maintenance and pampering. Our relationship started after I sat in the dining room in The Capital in London, eating this…

fillet of sea bass with chorizo and crushed potatoes

…and had a road-to-Damascus moment about seared fish skin. Fortuitously, after lunch I got to go upstairs for a masterclass with the afore-mentioned hero, Chef Eric Chavot, where he proceeded to demonstrate exactly how he does it. Also present: seven other acolytes, an awe-inspiringly calm sous-chef called Richard - that’s Reeesharrrrr to you - and a bewildered stagiaire on his first day who had been assigned to be Chef Chavot’s teaching assistant/straight man. So when you’ve just eaten a piece of fish skin that is exactly, perfectly, delicately crisp, even after presumably sitting in the pass for at least long enough for plates for an 8-top to be gathered up by four waiters, and a Frenchman with 23 plus years professional experience and 2 Michelin stars (which he has held consistently since 2001) tells you to use a Bourgeat non-stick pan? I went and bought one two days later and lugged it back across the Atlantic.