This seasoning is great when used while cooking, but can also be used at the table. It's great for meats of all kinds, and veggies, anything with cheese (broccoli and cheese sauce with this stuff on it, man, oh, man). You can use it heavily while cooking, and at the table just like salt. I can barely eat a baked potato anymore if I don't have this seasoning for it. I've been known to take it into restaurants. Use it in stews, soups, chili. It is spicy but not hot.
I have never thought up a good name for it, so if you like, make one up.
All Purpose Seasoning is lame, and
Ken's Seasoning is even more lame. Most people just call it
That Seasoning and everyone knows what they're talking about.
- One-part by volume each:
Salt
Pepper
Garlic
Paprika
So simple.
OK, a few things. Fuddruckers uses it as one-part each except they only use ½-part garlic. Meaning, if you use one cup of salt, pepper, paprika, use half a cup of garlic. The ingredients, in the proper proportions, is what makes it work. At Fuddruckers we cut the garlic by half, because at one full part you have to really like garlic, as a hint of garlic flavor will come through, but at one-half part the garlic still works its magic in combination with the paprika. So, if you don't like garlic, use ½-part, cause you won't really taste it, anyway, and if you do like garlic, use one full part. Don't use more than one part, tho, as that throw things out of balance again.
This seasoning is such a simple thing, yet people always want to muck it up. Like, all the retail versions that come close to this always have something else added, like onion powder, or cayenne pepper. If you feel the need to add something, don't. Make something with this seasoning for someone and then dare them to guess the ingredients. Very rarely will you find someone that gets all four, and those who do get all four usually want to name a fifth something that's not there. It's the combination of these ingredients, in the proper proportions, that actually create something new and nearly indistinguishable from the sum of its parts.
Keeping in mind that you are using one-part each, when you use it at the table the same way you do salt, you are using ¼ of the amount of salt that you normally would, yet you will still get the same level of flavor enhancing that 4 times the salt gives you (it's a food science thing and how taste buds work). That means you can use it heavily and still not be using as much salt.
Use good quality spices. What I usually do is get those "chef bottle" Tones spices, where the they have a split lid. One side of the lip pops open for easy shaking, and the other side pops open for pouring or reaching in with a spoon. You can find these at Sam's Club, and at most restaurant supply places. You can also order these off Amazon.
You can certainly buy the same spices at most any grocery store, but they don't usually carry them in those wonderful jars. Out in the truck, smaller bottles my be preferred, and I carry a smaller bottle rather than the large ones. But I'm gonna give you how I make it at home, then you can decide what you want to do from there. You'll certainly go through more of it at home if you were there every day and cooked with it every day, than you will in the truck. I use it on practically everything, including things like burgers and chicken from Wendy's. Fries, too.
You want Restaurant Grind Black Papper, which is a power-free semi-coarse 20 mesh grind.
You want granulated garlic, which has is the same size as the restaurant grind pepper, as well as the same size as regular ol' Morton Salt.
No coarse grind paprika, but that's OK, just use the dark Spanish paprika.
The commercial chef jars are about a quart each. The granulated garlic is 26 ounces, and the restaurant grind pepper and the paprika are both 15 ounces. But all three come in the same size bottle. The chef bottles should run about $8 each, give or take.
Pour the garlic, pepper and paprika into a really large bowl or tub, probably bigger than you think, or mix it in small batches. Pour enough salt into one of the containers to fill it up, which makes the salt the same one-part as the others, then dump it in. Mix it up. A bowl works best, glass is even better, because some of it will hide and not want to mix. Use a mini whisk, even your hands, just make sure it's well mixed. Use a cup and a funnel, or a steady hand, and start filling bottles. After the first three bottles (the ones that had the garlic, paprika and pepper in them), you're gonna need some more jars, cause the salt didn't come in a suitable container for this spice, so have a few smaller jars on hand, or another large one.
One year when I was broke and couldn't think of anything to give people for Christmas, I made up a bunch of these things and wrapped them up, knowing full well how lame it was. A few months later I started getting requests for refills. They said it was the best Christmas present they've ever gotten. Go figure.
A boneless, skinless breast of chicken, cooked up in a pan with plenty of butter, loaded up with this seasoning, then turn the chicken to cook the other side and load it up with seasoning again, and you've got an experience. You could open a restaurant serving that, and only that, and do well.
Mix a bunch of the seasoning
into ground beef before you form the patties. You won't believe your mouth.
Cook up a cup-per-person of sea shell pasta, drain, add way too much butter and whole mess of this seasoning, and you're good to go.
If you can't find granulated garlic (should be easy, tho) or want to use garlic powder instead, fine, use it. Same with ground pepper, if fine ground is what you have, use it. It will taste the same. But, it will have a tendency to take on moisture and cake up. The paprika is bad enough about that, as the Tones paprika doesn't have any silicone dioxide added to prevent caking, and it combined with the salt can result in some caking, even when using the coarse ingredients. So, a teaspoon or so of uncooked rice grains in the bottle will take care of most of that, as it will absorb moisture before the other spices. But if your cakes up, just give it a little bang or squeeze and it's fine.
Use sparingly on rice, as even a small amount can make rice too salty. Eggs is one that you have to be careful with, too. Use sparingly. Used at the table this seasoning can overwhelm an egg, but it's not bad when cooking the eggs.
