Sadly, I don’t think making out with Anthony Bourdain can be parlayed into a career.
(But just in case I’m wrong, where can I send my resume?)
Speaking of knife skills, how the blazes do you slice a ripe tomato thinly? With a knife that is - I don’t have an egg slicer. I achieve my best results with a bread knife but the tomato always goes squishy at the end.
I respect Top Chef very much because its basic premise is pure cooking – it’s not gimmicky and it doesn’t talk down to you like many other shows. I know there are some out there who cannot stand the reality-show drama that tags along with it, but it has never bothered me. The only time it did was when they tried shaving Marcel’s head :eek:
Chopped is interesting. Mystery baskets are one of the mainstays of practical cooking exams – Michael Ruhlman has a chapter on them in his book, The Making of a Chef. Some of the combinations are ridiculous in my book, but I give nothing but props to those chefs for attempting to making an actual edible dish from them.
Heck, I even respect Hell’s Kitchen to the extent of the stress level – if you can’t withstand even a portion of that type of pressure, you don’t belong in a professional kitchen.
One thing I can say for both Sandra Lee and Rachael is that they’ve brought cooking to the masses and have made it user-friendly for those who either lack the skills and/or confidence. On a bigger scale that’s the major reason why I can’t slam Food Network as much as I’d like to at times. Personally? I’ve never tried either of their recipes, but I can see where they’d come in handy.
While we’re on the subject – and while I’m being chatty – my two favorite FN chef/hosts are Ina Garten and Giada. I’ve learned from them. Neither of them dumbs down anything nor talks down to you, and I greatly appreciate that. Alton’s OK in small doses – I really don’t like those silly little skits he inserts in the middle of an otherwise great explanation. I wish Michael Symon had his own cooking (as opposed to Food Feuds) on FN rather than Cooking Channel. The rest? Eh.
I am not a professional cook by any means, but the key here is a very sharp knife.
Bingo.
I have a simple Dexter Russell slicer I picked up at Northwest Cutlery in Chicago for around 25$ on sale.
They sharpened it for me when I bought it almost a year ago and it’s scary how sharp it is. This thing cuts thin slices of tomato with ease. None of my other knives can do that.
Can you share your favorite recipe, restaurant, and chef?
I’d like Fried Dough Ho to share Anthony Bourdain. 
Ok, ok, I’ll stop. Mmmmmmm…Bourdain. I’ll be in mah kitchen.
When the good guy is chasing the bad guy through the kitchen, do you generally try to just stay out of the way of the action or do you like to assist in the bad guy’s capture by either braining the bad guy with a large piece of cookware or incapacitating him with a faceful of whatever hot dish you have been preparing? No one will think ill of you if you just look after your own business; it’s a lot safer, and the good guy probably doesn’t want to share any of the glory anyway.
(In all seriousness, do you at least get a little charge when you’re watching a movie or something and a kitchen chase ensues?)
Why do cooks brown garlic first? To me, this step makes no sense-garlic loses its “raw” flavor after being at boiling temperatures anyways, so why ruin it by frying it in oil first?
I lawys find my soups and sauces taste better if I just add chopped garlic to them while simmering.
So would we all.
I adore him. His travel channel shows are the perfect antidote to Rachel Ray’s bland pretense that all places are essentially alike. I thought his episode on New Orleans was brilliant. I also loved the one he did when he visited in his wife’s family in Sardinia. You always watch feeling as if you’ve learned something about the culture and history of an area as well as the food.
I still can’t do a flat of mushrooms in five minutes, but I worked with folk who could.
Practice, practice practice! Preferably while not sleep-dep’d to the point that you can’t tell teh difference between the tomatoes you’re slicing and the blood you’re leaking >.<
I love this thread, thank you 
Regarding tomato slicing: nothing beats a professional slicer. I want one of those even more than I want a Hobart. <3
I’m not a professional cook, but I have a special place in my heart for the movie *Under Siege *. Steven Seagal plays a Navy Seal, busted in rank so the only job he can have on the ship is as a cook’s assistant. Terrorists take over the ship and imprison all the sailors. The part that earned my respect was, after he’s been shut into a cooler, he shouts to them “Get my pies out of the oven!”
A lot of cooks, in my opinion don’t know how to use garlic corrcetly. Think of how many recipes you have seen that read: “first, saute the onions and garlic in oil…” The garlic will be burnt, bitter, and nasty before the onions are properly cooked. That step should be: “first, saute the onions until they are translucent, then add the garlic, and then…”
Raw garlic has its place too, if you want a sharp astringent flavor, but just be careful with how much you use. You can also blanch it to get a mellow sweet garlicky flavor, and of course, roasted garlic is a completely different deal.
But “browning” garlic, in a saute pan is usually wrong.
Hey Snooooooopy, will you help me move this 7-tier wedding cake across the kitchen? Becareful, we don’t want to drop this!
Kitchen scenes in movies and TV shows are usually all wrong, so I just roll my eyes and try to ignore what I saw. Hollywood does that to every profession, though, so its not that big of a deal. Some movies do their homework, and get things right, and those do get me a bit excited.
Easy question. Thomas Keller. French Laundry.
Favorite Recipe? Consomme. The process is thrilling and the outcome is rewarding.
As others have said, a crazy sharp knife. But if your knife isn’t up for the task, and most arent, use a bread knife.
For me, it was when I realized I was having a conversation with someone, including full eye contact, yet I never stopped chopping. I can’t do it with everything, but there is no reason why I can’t slice green onions blindly.
You’re other question is very thought provoking. Aside form knife skills, understanding recipes, kitchen math, and seasoning, the different jobs in a kitchen demand different skills. When I was a line cook, I sometimes amazed myself with how much information i could remember at once, and how much multitasking I could do. And on a good night, I kept it up for three or four hours, with at least 6 to 10 tickets hanging at any moment. Timing different entrees perfectly, pulling things out of the oven just as they finished, putting plates together at the exact time as the other stations, and then sneaking in an appetizer or two without missing a step… its a hard feeling to describe. Its like having an adrenaline IV drip that keeps your body moving gracefully in high gear, while your brain is like an air traffic controller timing every move to be precise and efficient. Of course, some nights were like a train wreck, where every goes wrong and things keep pilling up, but somehow you still plow through it, and most of the guests don’t even notice. But thats not just “cooking,” that is “line cooking.”
But reflecting on this makes me think of all the little steps involved. Knowing how hot a pan should be for each task. Knowing where each tool is so you can grab what you need without looking. Learning how to flick an toss the pans to achieve the desired turning or stirring motion. Mentally timing each part of the cooking process. Sorting out the tasks that take the most time from the quick ones, and sorting out the things that require your full attention from the ones that can “sit on the back burner.” Its time management on a micro scale, with a splash of finesse and dexterity.
Great to see so many responses, and apologies for starting a thread before a starting on some long days at work! But here I am again.
Sooooo important. Your onion should be nearly, if not fully, cooked before adding the rest of your aromats (garlic, ginger, carrots, celery, herbs, lemongrass, fennel, what have you).
Garlic shouldn’t take over your dish. When cooked properly til the flavour is soft and subtle, you can use lots of it, but it has the potential to be a “dirty flavor” and become all you can taste. Blanching garlic a few times in water and then simmering in milk, then throwing into the blender with just enough of that milk to blend gives you a beautiful puree with a great garlic flavour that goes well with nearly anything. But whatever you’re doing with it, don’t burn the garlic!
My advice for tomatoes? Insanely sharp knife. Anything else and you end up with tomato mush.
As kiz said, I find Top Chef to be interesting because it does try to be more about the world of cooking - not being on the Food Network may be part of that. I do respect that many of the challenges are similar to real restaurant life, but I will never get over my hate for “black box” challenges, those ones where you get a box full of mystery ingredients and must create the best dish. I’ve competed in them, I’ve watched them, I’ve judged them, and I just find them dull. To me, they don’t really represent the skills you need to have in a kitchen. It’s so very important to be creative, and I feel that kind of creativity is best shown by being able to make a menu and serve it to a hundred guests flawlessly night after night, not a one-off challenge where you have to turn Twinkies, maraschino cherries, and soy sauce into a dish, or whatever. But as for shut-off-your-brain TV, I like Top Chef just fine.
The only good thing about Sandra Lee and Rachel Ray is hearing famous cooks subtly or not-so-subtly mock them. Saying I loathe them would imply I care more about them than I do; the only time I ever turned on the Food Network at home was to watch Iron Chef (which I differentiate from the black box challenges I mentioned above due to the fact that only one ingredient is secret, and not really all that secret at that, plus I like most of the recurring judges) or to watch Laura Calder, who is on food network Canada and is a total babe, because she’s smart and well-educated and actually has recipes for things like rabbit-apple terrine. There will always be Sandra Lees and Rachey Rays as long as there are housewives who drink wine coolers with lunch, and there’s no point in hatin’. Plus, Sandra Lee’s kwanzaa cake is the gift that keeps on giving. Try watching that on a bad day and not laughing your ass off.
And what AmblyDoper said about plating is very similar to how I feel; you don’t just want stuff on a plate. Good plating to me is clean lines and nice angles, not tomato skin roses and icing sugar shapes and making hearts with chocolate sauce. Plate swooshes with purees can be good, but don’t over do it. Colour is important; that doesn’t mean relying on bright colours but knowing about artistic things like sight lines and where the eye moves to and coordinating colours. Don’t have too many items, or it just looks like stuff on a plate.
As for knife skills, it really is the repetition that helps. Anything in a kitchen is repetition until you get it. I used to dread shucking oysters, and one Valentine’s Day I ended up with that task. A few hours and six hundred oysters later, I was the goddamn queen of it. With knife skills, it’s learning to do it, and then setting challenges like doing it in shorter and shorter amounts of time.
And, though I was happy to see curly parsley sprigs mentioned and to see other cooks step into the thread, I am terribly, terribly dismayed that no discussion of plating has turned to paprika sifted onto the rim of the plate. C’mon people! 
I figured you were working doubles or something, so I was sort of filling in along with everyone else. What has amazed me so far in this thread is that, even after not being in the kitchen for so long, I still remember most of what I did there!
I think they can be inspiring and creative if you’re given viable contents, a decent pantry, and enough time to execute something decent. Being able to think on your feet and turn on a dime are, IMO, two of the more unsung qualities of a good cook. The stuff they show on Chopped, though, is ridiculous – it’s as though they’re purposely putting in whackadoodle contents on the premise that whackadoodle contents equals higher ratings and more stressed-out chefs :rolleyes:
OMG, the Kwanzaa cake!!! I’d forgotten about that!!!
Like I said upthread, I can’t loathe them either. They cater to a particular audience, and if they can lure that particular audience into a kitchen, more power to them. Or maybe not so much power :eek:
Wow. Just… wow. I hadn’t seen that before. And I thought MY cake decorating skills were miserable. At least my cakes taste great, which I can’t believe that monstrosity does.
I have a friend who is a professional cook (she would thump me if I called her a chef) who hates kitchens in movies because they are never realistic. The one film that I remember her being genuinely pleased by was Ratatouille. When she found out that Thomas Keller was involved in making sure the food and kitchen came out right, she was not surprised. I distinctly remember her grabbing my arm while they were making something (eggs?) and saying, very surprised, “Hey! That’s exactly how you do that!”
It sure has stiff competition, but that’s one of the reasons Ratatouille is (just barely) my favourite Pixar film. Oh, the gleam of the copper in the restaurant kitchen… the descriptions of the cooks… Paris at night by the Seine… love it all. I was also not surprised to find out Mr Keller was involved. And yes, of course most films get kitchens all wrong, like they get most professions all wrong, but there’s nothing to do but shrug and laugh at the fact that all kitchen staff in film always have ree-dic-u-looos and curiously unidentifiable accents.
I’ll speak a bit to what you mentioned about your friend and the term “chef”. The terms chef and cook are sometimes used interchangeably in conversation. Sometimes you hear of people going to “chef school” and coming out a “chef”. Chef is short for chef de cuisine, the head of the kitchen. Now use of the terms is going to depend on your background, but the way I learned it chef is a title, something you have to earn kitchen by kitchen and not something you can get a degree for. It’s not like going to med school and coming out Dr. So and So. I’ve worked in five-person kitchens with one chef, one sous-chef, and three cooks. I called the* chef de cuisine *“chef”, and everyone else by name. I’ve worked in kitchens where you’ve got a chef, two sous chefs, some junior sous chefs, and a gaggle of line cooks. I called the chef de cuisine “chef”, and everyone else by name. In smaller kitchens you get to know people pretty well; if a new sous chef had come in and wanted to be called “chef” all the time I would have done it, because they would have been my superior. When I was a sous chef I told new hirees not to call me chef, because it felt weird to me. Working in larger kitchens and Michelin starred restaurant with huge brigades, you end up with situations like two head chefs and an executive chef, and each station (butcher, saucier, garde manger, etc) having their own chef de partie (chef of the station) and some underlings. It’s pretty hard to keep track of all the other stations and who’s the chef de partie of each with such a large staff, so you pretty much see everyone call everyone else chef, in a joking manner, or a serious manner, or an I-don’t-know-who-you-are-so-I’m-being-careful manner.
As for people calling *themselves *chef? There are great cooks who do it, I’m sure. I’ve never heard any great chef I’ve known personally introduce themselves as a chef. Usually they just say they’re a cook, and if pressed will say they’re the chef of restaurant X. That’s why I titled the thread Ask the Professionals Cooks. There are certainly some who would say Chefs, due to how they’ve been taught, and you can’t really say either is wrong or right.
If a dish comes back, it’s usually thrown out right away. It certainly won’t be recycled for other customers. The line staff are usually too busy to eat, and most chefs wouldn’t be happy seeing that anyway. However, it’s pretty common to just move the full plate to the dish area and turn a blind eye when the dishwasher eats it. Dishwashers bust their asses and don’t make a lot, and are often quite happy to get a gourmet meal free of charge just because someone decided after the fact they wanted to change their mind or else has some incredibly specific, incorrect version of what “medium rare” means in mind.
I moved from butchery to pastry when the kitchen I was in needed someone to fill the pastry section. I didn’t have a passion for it to begin with, mostly because being young and female I didn’t want to be pigeonholed into that section. But I am very good at it, so I stuck with it and do enjoy it. I still miss butchery though. It’s very systematic, very precise. I’m at the place I am now almost solely to have the name on my resume, and when it’s time to move on, I’d be open equally to a pastry job or a butchery job.
I don’t know. I don’t know how long I’ll do this, certainly I won’t still be cooking on the line twenty years from now. I’m good at my job and talented, but will never be a Michelin starred chef and don’t want ten or fifteen years to pass and find myself chef of a crappy restaurant just because I wanted to be in charge or felt I had to do or be something because of age. For me, parlaying this into a career where I can use all my food and kitchen knowledge would be ideal; cooking has given me a fantastic opportunity to travel and I’d like to get to do a bit of that still. I know people who have “turned corporate”, as they call it, and work as restaurant consultants or reps for high-end food suppliers. It’s something I would be good at and though I’d miss the adrenaline, it will have to happen sometime.
I don’t get flambe-ing stuff-to me, it is mostly for show.
But vodka in tomato sauce is real…and adding a shot of brndy to lobster bisque makes it divine!
What do you think about finishing sauces with booze?