Effortless and Extraordinary in The Kitchen

To me, that’s a reminder that true elegance often lies in simplicity — form and function come together, unnecessary complexity falls away, and every element serves a purpose. No effort is wasted. The result is something both awesome and intuitive: effortless in appearance, extraordinary in experience. 

Over the years, this philosophy has shaped my approach to cooking and recipe development, becoming so ingrained that I hardly think about it anymore. But it wasn’t always like that. Cooks at the beginning of their careers — me included — often throw together lots of disparate ingredients and labor into a dish, thinking that complexity equals quality. Sometimes it works, but more often than not, the result is a dish that lacks identity, clarity, and balance. All of the flavors muddle together with nothing particularly distinct. When I taught new recipe developers how to craft a recipe for publishing, the common refrain from me was, “Good start, now take away (X number) of ingredients and knock it back to 4 steps.” Even experienced restaurant chefs understand this, albeit on a much grander scale. Through time and experience, they’ve learned restraint and nuance while still putting out something spectacular. For us at home, however, without the brigade de cuisine to prep, cook, and clean, paring down is vital. It doesn’t mean limiting a recipe to 5 ingredients when 2 more will make it so much better. It’s just that those 7 ingredients should be essential.

This is how I cook all the time, but even more so during the summer months when produce is at the peak of freshness and requires little more than slicing and dicing. I’ve learned to let the ingredients take the lead and to not strong arm them into being something that isn’t natural or logical. If my thinking is clear and the elements are honest, I am rarely disappointed, often surprised and even delighted. 

The following recipes are prime examples of effortless and extraordinary dishes I’ve been cooking all summer. 

Baking rich salmon fillets and tender vegetables in foil is a healthy and delicious way to infuse flavor into the fish — and a handy way to make a complete meal. The compound butter mixes with the burst cherry tomatoes creating a luscious sauce all on its own.

The kitchen prep on this one is a little more involved than some of the others listed here — peeling shrimp, juicing limes, chopping herbs, slicing radishes and cucumbers — but once all of the ingredients are mixed together, it’s ready to eat.

An example of the elegance of efficiency is this simple one-pot recipe that comes together in minutes and is so much greater than the sum of its very few parts. The simmering wine wilts the spinach which steams the fish which is bathed in a fragrant scallion butter. Honestly, it takes more time to describe it than it does to prepare. 

A clever mash up of pasta salad and spanikopita, this recipe takes advantage of everyday ingredients and summery cherry tomatoes and is delicious warm or cold. It’s a perfect dish to bring to a picnic, a hike, or the beach.

Talk about ingenious. This clever dish reimagines the classic and incredibly pricey lobster roll with leftover cooked salmon standing in for lobster. Because I always have a little cooked salmon in my fridge, it’s easy to throw these together, perfect for lunch at the beach. It definitely raises eyebrows here in Maine, but I can withstand the scrutiny, especially if I’ve just taken a big bite out of my sandwich. 

What I love about this recipe is that there’s very little prep on the front end. No peeling shrimp, no intense chopping, except for some cilantro for the dipping sauce. And only one pan gets dirty. I’m not sure it’s particularly elegant — you’ll need lots of napkins — but it is efficient.