Roast cooks may be born and not made, but a saute cook learns the art amidst fire and smoke. This is a method of cooking best suited for small pieces of meat and is accomplished in a wide flat pan over fairly high heat using clarified butter or oil, or a combination, as the cooking medium. The job of saute cook in a restaurant is perceived by eager young hotshots as a desirable one, and so it is, if one knows what one is doing. Novice saute cooks seem to spend a lot of time shaking the frying pans and profiling in front of the range. This behavior will be toned down after the first bout of tendonitis. The essence of the job is accuracy, speed under pressure, and economy of motion. Technique is everything. With the food properly prepared and the pan hot, a saute can be completed in mere seconds, for instance, a shrimp dish.
The steps to a succesful saute are: the initial browning in the proper size pan with the correct amount of cooking fat; addition of any nutritive or aromatic elements such as shallots, garlic, mushrooms, capers, etc.; flambeeing with an alcoholic beverage, which is done mostly for flavor; deglazing, or the addition of a liquid into a hot pan; reduction or the boiling down of the liquid used for deglazing, and finishing, where cream or butter is added and swirled into the pan.
Proper preparation of the food pieces to be cooked is important. They should be of an even thickness and size, and dry before dredging in flour. Place the pan on the heat, jack up the fire, and wait. When the pan is hot, add the cooking medium you have chosen, wait briefly for it to get hot, and then put the food pieces in the hot fat. The idea is to get them to seize immediately and start to brown. This forms a protective coating on the food which will help to keep in the juices. The heat must be regulated according to the size of the food being cooked. A veal scallopini needs quicker cooking, thus higher heat, than a tournedo of beef an inch thick being cooked medium. A chicken breast requires more moderate heat, as do duck breasts, N.Y. sirloins, sweetbreads and veal chops.
After browning the food on both sides, and the degree of browning is again dictated by what is being cooked, add any other flavorings into the pan such as garlic, shallots, mushrooms, etc. If the recipe indicates, flambeeing is carried out at this point. Flambeeing is often the first step of deglazing (not every dish is flambeed) and is done by pulling the pan off the fire and pouring in a flammable alcoholic liquid such as brandy. The handle of the pan is lifted and the edge of the pan with the sputtering liquid is tipped into the flame. The contents will usually ignite and the resulting fireball will burn off most of the alcohol, leaving only its flavor. There are cases where you might want a little more zip, Steak Diane for instance, and to accomplish this, don't allow the alcohol to ignite, or if it does, smother the flame immediately.
Most food, after being floured and dropped into a thin film of hot fat, will stick to the pan a little, leaving brown bits of flour and meat stuck to the bottom of of the frying pan. By adding a liquid to the hot pan and rubbing the bottom of the pan briskly with a wooden spoon while the liquid boils, these brown bits will become dislodged and dissolve and help thicken the liquid being used. Simple flambeeing or deglazing with brandy or wine, or even stock or water or lemon juice or balsamic vinegar will accomplish this and one could stop the sauce-making process at this point and have a nice little self-sauce, so to speak. It could be further and simply enriched by swirling in a lump of butter. The cooked food is then replaced in the pan to heat through and then plated and served.
Most of the recipes in this book take the process a step further by the addition of Sauce Demi-Glace to turn the pan sauce into something a little more luxurious and succulent. If any wine is used for deglazing it must be allowed to reduce by half to eliminate a raw taste. Add Sauce Demi-Glace, and allow this to reduce. If the recipe calls for cream, mustard, creme fraiche or any other amendment, it is added at this point. When the sauce is just "tight" enough, and experience alone will enable you to judge this point, you could swirl in a lump of sweet butter to enrich and smooth out the sauce. The food is then replaced and allowed to heat through before being served.
A competent saute cook in a restaurant situation can prepare a veal scallopini dish faster than you would think possible. And on a busy night the saute cook will prepare more dishes than you would think probable. My own personal record is 135 out of a total of 180 dinners.