The Three Home Cooking Shortcuts Shannon Bennett Swears By

Melbourne-born, Byron-based chef Shannon Bennett is a household name. After training under masters like Marco Pierre White and Alain Ducasse, he opened Melbourne fine diner Vue de Monde in his twenties. Under his leadership, Vue became a hit with diners and critics alike. He went on to sell Vue and several other venues he owned under that banner, moving to Byron Bay where he’s continued to mentor other cooks as an industry leader. Today, he runs The Belongil, a multi-venue dining destination that includes Chris Hemsworth’s “new favourite restaurant”, a neighbourhood bistro, a streetside kiosk and more.

He’s also a Miele ambassador. We sat down with Bennett to get the three top tips he gives to home cooks looking to up their game in the kitchen.

Moisture is the key to crisp roasts

It seems counterintuitive to say that adding moisture leads to perfect crispness, but that’s exactly how Shannon Bennett pulls off foolproof roast chicken, pork and lamb.

“I always roast with moisture, which is a really unusual thing to say, but it’s what I’ve done over the last 20 years,” says Bennett.

Traditionally, a cup of water is thrown into the bottom of the oven halfway through roasting a chicken to create steam. “It bursts these little microscopic cells which are sitting on the skin and are full of oil and chicken fat, so it sort of adds another layer of fat going over the top of the chicken and makes the skin crispier. People would think the opposite – that no moisture would obviously give you a much crispier product – but it’s not the case at all.”

With modern technology like the Miele Combi Steam Oven, you don’t need to worry about tossing the water in. Achieving those precise moisture levels is easier – Bennett recommends simply setting the oven “to roast on 30 per cent steam and 70 per cent radiant heat all the way through the process up until probably the last eight minutes, and then just put it back to full dry heat.” The oven automatically controls the balance of steam and heat at each stage, making the process simple.

Do away with double boilers

One of the worst parts of cooking at home is the clean-up. You’ve cooked a satisfying meal for your friends and family, sat down to enjoy it, and just when you’re ready to settle down on the couch with a glass of red, or retreat for a lovely post-meal nap, there they are. The dishes. Somehow, you’ve managed to use every pan and pot and spoon you own. Any time you can eliminate an appliance or a tool, you should.

Bennett recommends upgrading to an induction stove so you can do away with double boilers.

“I think induction is something that people have been scared of or intimidated by,” he says. “They are very scared to get rid of gas, but gas is so inefficient. There’s 65 per cent heat wastage from gas, [whereas with induction] you can cook at lower, much more delicate temperatures.”

Because there are no direct flames, you have better control of how high or low you need the heat to be. Melting chocolate and making sauces are particularly suitable for induction stove cooking.

“With induction, you could melt chocolate in a pot, directly on the stove, without burning it, which is a bit of a revelation. Normally, you would have put some chocolate in a bowl over the simmering water very delicately, making sure that you do not get that chocolate in contact with any water, otherwise the chocolate will coagulate and be ruined. With an induction stove, you can just put chocolate in an induction-compatible pot – which pretty much every pot on the market is – and pop it straight on the stove on a heat setting of two to three.”

It’s the same for making a sabayon or a hollandaise sauce. “You can just put some egg yolks, some vinegar, a little bit of water, salt, in a pot just in direct contact once again with the induction, and just make a hollandaise sauce, and then just add some melted butter. You don’t even need to clarify the butter; just have some melted good-quality French butter, and then just gradually add that into the mayonnaise over the stove.”

Steam your poached eggs

After decades working in professional kitchens, Bennett knows about cooking with large quantities. A poached egg looks simple, but it’s a deceptively hard thing to master at home – and to make in bulk.

Bennett’s shortcut involves using a steam oven to perfectly cook an egg at 70 degrees – the temperature where eggs set and the proteins coagulate.

“If you steam an egg for 27 minutes at 65 degrees, you will get an egg that’s basically cooked inside the shell like a poached egg. Just take an egg directly from the fridge and put it straight into the [steam tray or oven].”

Afterwards, you just take it out, rest it for a minute, and then you can crack it into a little pot of simmering water for just 20 seconds and voila: a perfectly poached egg. “Or, if you let them rest in the shell for four or five minutes, you don’t even need to pop them out of the shell into water – you can crack it straight onto some toast,” Bennett says.

“If you’re busy on Christmas Day and you’ve got 12 people over and you need to poach 24 eggs with some smoked salmon, this is a great way of doing it and speeding it up.”

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Miele.