I wont eat out on Monday either. Its always been the chefs day off…if he/she gets one.
Food Network: I’m kinda of dissappointed in what it has become. The only show worth watching is Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, but her personality is a major turnoff. I’d never be able to work with her.
Yeah, every television network eventually becomes the same television network.
Back when the Food Network first started, they didn’t have the budget for anything but the most simple shows, with production values just slightly better than the best cable access shows. But that meant they had to produce shows with a huge amount of information and technique - because someone explaining something was cheaper than going out and shooting anything. The best example of that was David Rosengarten’s Taste. Just David on a white set, cooking equipment and food. And every show would feature a single ingredient or recipe, and he would show examples of how it would be usually, and poorly, done then show several better ways. The episode on scrambled eggs sticks in my mind. He showed dry, over-cooked eggs, eggs “extended” with various things and other assaults on the humble thing. Then he showed three amazing techniques, two of which I use today.
Why the hell doesn’t the “Food” Network show that late at night?
I like PBS for food shows. Lidia’s Italy… who better to teach Italian food, then an old Italian grandmother? Simply Ming… he has been round the block, and he knows food, plus, a friend of mine used to work with him, and has a lot of respect for him. America’s Test Kitchen is decent; you can see how their recipes and techniques are based off professional kitchens, adapted for home use.
I’m happy to keep you occupied, and you wouldn’t believe how much I appreciate the advice. This is our menu, though I’ve already started tinkering with the dessert options. (And my homemade cookies and brownies are massively outselling the frozen ones, btw.)
As for equipment, I’ve got a six-burner gas stove, a two-rack electric oven (apparently the oven on the stove is borked in some way), two panini presses, a crockpot, a microwave, a toaster, and a two-holer soup warmer thingy. A workable selection of knives, especially if I bring in my sharpener from time to time. Assorted mixing bowls, soup/stock pots of varying sizes (but no skillets, saute pans, or saucepans), assorted spatulas and dishers. A Kitchen Aid stand mixer, one of the Pro 600 models, which appears to have seen more use in the last 2 weeks than in the previous 3 years. A v-slicer that appears to have a slightly warped blade. A residential sized fridge/freezer, an upright restaurant fridge, an upright freezer, and a deep freeze that has just decided it’s not gonna freeze any more. A room that’s about the size of the cash register area at the average McDonald’s.
For man-power I mainly have me, myself, and I. Two or three days a week I have someone to help me, and she seems to know slightly more about food and cooking than the rest of the staff, but that’s not saying much. (One of them was absolutely boggled when I made whipped cream for the hot chocolate–she didn’t know you could do that at home. :eek: )
I don’t drink, and thus I have no experience with alcohol. I’ve often been a little sad that I couldn’t make those cool looking colorful drinks that people seem to enjoy
Other than that, I’ve seen a lot of sauces and other foods cooked with a bit of alcohol. How would my complete lack of alcohol use impact my cooking? Are there items that I simply cannot make or are there reasonable substitutions?
Um, when I clicked on the “Support” tab, the first thing that came up on the subsequent page was “Donote with your credit card:”
Homemade brownies? Yum!
If you have two spaces for holding soups, are you offering two every day? I would offer your creamy potato bacon as a house soup, and then make a soup of the day as a second option. Making soup from scratch is not at all hard, but it can take about 30 minutes of prep time. Don’t buy the pre-made frozen soups. They are not good.
If you can get your hands on a cuisinart, you can make just about any salad dressing you want. You have the basics covered already, but some more options would be nice. You can cut costs if you use inexpensive salad oil in the recipes where other ingredients provide the flavor.
Do you buy the BBQ pork pre made? You can braise a pork shoulder (aka pork butt) yourself. its pretty darn easy, just sear the pork in the oven, then cover it with water, BBQ sauce, veggies, etc, and simmer it in the oven for 6 hours at 300˚. Its done when the meat easily pulls apart.
You can also make your own BBQ sauce, but the stuff you can buy is pretty decent, so find a recipe that really shines. Smokey tomatoe BBQ? Chipotle BBQ? Or just stick with something basic, for now.
Some of the salads seem generic. The Master Artist salad with the turkey and cranberries is unique, and the chicken salad salad looks nice, but the rest are boring. Sure, you need a boring salad on the menu for the “less-than-adventurous local palate” but there is room for some more exciting things. Composed salads sell very well at my place.
Roasted red peppers on the veggy sandwich? If you get them from a can, try instead roasting them over the flame of your six burner stove.
The deli meat sandwiches? Boring! Pair those meats with other ingredients, like ham, brown mustard and swiss… turkey, blue cheese and cranberry mayo… roast beef, caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms… You can still offer the boring sandwiches, but list it on the menu as a “Deli Sandwich” with your choice of ham, turkey, roast beef, etc.
The most common use of alcohol in cooking is deglazing, a process which lifts stuck-on flavors and bits of food from the pan before they become burnt and useless. The process usually involves violent and instant boiling which “cooks off” alot of the alcohol, and leaves behind everything else. If you do not wish to cook with alcohol, you can deglaze with just about any liquid. Chicken stock works well for savory dishes, and apple juice goes with most sweet things. You can even use plain water to achieve the same physical effect, but you won’t be adding any flavors in that case.
Alcohol also carries some flavors in food, that otherwise would not be present. Tomatoes are a classic example. The alcohol in a vodka tomato cream sauce doesn’t add anything that wasn’t there already. Vanilla is another one that benefits from alcohol.
Fortified wines are often used to add rich, sweet and fruity aspects to hearty sauces and soups. These often come with a lot of sugar, and their primary purpose is sweetening along with deglazing.
Flambe is usually just about looks, but there is also other things going on in the pan. The liquid can deglaze the pan before it flames up, and the flame caramelizes sugars in way that the stove can not. You could use a torch to achieve that effect with out the alcohol.
Finally, there are some recipes that use an alcoholic beverage as a main ingredient, like beer cheese soup, or port poached pears. It is difficult to find a non alcoholic substitute that works for these recipes.
Its a museum. 
Psst. That isn’t how you spell donate.
One thing I noticed in many seasons of Hell’s Kitchen is that a majority of the cooks smoked. Is this representative of the industry? Does smoking among cooks seem to be more prevalent than the general population?
I thought this would be a bit of a liability when it comes to tasting food, and indeed in one season the winner of the blindfold test was one of only a couple non-smoking contestants.
Please forgive a tiny hijack.
Do you happen to know who shot those images?
Oh, dear. I’ve never really poked around on the website, so I never noticed that. I shall speak to Miss Trish soon as she comes in this morning.
Ambly, the brownies are triple-chocolate espresso brownies, and they are beyond divine. I made a new batch Monday and had three of them sold before they even came out of the oven. Actually, I should make another batch tomorrow during our evening event…for stockpiling in the freezer. Yeah, that’s the ticket, for stockpiling in the freezer.
Right now the pork comes on the same truck as everything else, but the food rep was by yesterday and apparently left me some samples of pork loin for making my own. He’s also supposed to be getting some samples of stock bases and broths before I commit to buying 12 pounds of anything. I’m not going to tinker with the salads much for the time being–it’s 40 degrees outside, and it ain’t getting any nicer for a few months. Folks aren’t really in a salad sort of mood right now, so they’re a back-burner issue. Right now I’m going to focus on getting the soups in order, then address the sandwich issue, and let the salads wait till spring.
Anything new I try is getting a rotation as the weekly special to see how people like it and to encourage people to try it. People will try a lot more if it’s on the special board with a bag of chips for $5 than if it’s on the menu alone for $4.50. Weird, but true. Next week I’m trying out my French onion soup, with a grilled Swiss sandwich to simulate the toast rounds on top. Week after that, a Hot Brown sandwich–turkey, swiss, bacon, tomato, and a swipe of mornay sauce run through the sandwich press. I’m thinking it will get a place on the permanent menu.
I have absolutely no idea, sorry.
Asking this one again because it seems to have been lost along the way:
What movies stand out for you as getting professional kitchens/cooking RIGHT?
Ratatouille has already been mentioned. There are fine details in the backgrounds that are accurate, that you won’t even notice until watching it 3 or 4 times.
I heard Big Night was good, but I never saw it.
Waiting had some things right, but not much. In particular, the cooks anxiously watching the clock as closing time approaches, and a chorus of moans as some family comes in 30 seconds before closing time. That happens in the real kitchen. But “The Goat” does not!
I’m affraid my movie knowledge is horrible, so I don’t have any other examples 
My cook friend once called me from her job in a fine dining restaurant. “They’ve gone too far!” she said. “M- just showed me his dick right here in the kitchen! Sexual harassment!”
I said, “One question before you call a lawyer. Before he whipped it out, did you say to him, ‘M-, show me your dick,’?” She grumbled that she could have said something like that, and I could hear her fellow cooks laughing. So, maybe not “the goat”, but certainly plenty of rough humor.
Please tell me this was because the dishwasher operators quit! :eek::p.
How much time do you spend developing new dishes. versus trotting out your own existing recipes on any given day? I mean, I presume a professional chef works what what’s available and fresh and good that day, but how much is done from scratch including the recipe development (like we see on Iron Chef / Chopped)?
I’m in France now, so it doesn’t seem any more prevalent with cooks than everyone else. But back home, I’d say that it’s pretty average considering you’ve usually got a group of young people. The percentage never seemed any higher to me than, say, bartenders who smoked or whatever. Also, the higher class the restaurant, the less smokers. No time for smoke breaks.
Can I add on to this question? From the cooking side, how much time do you get to learn a new dish? When a new dish is developed, particularly something with unusual ingredients or techniques, does everyone have a meeting to learn how to prepare it, do you get the chance to make practice versions of the dish, or is it just tossed out there and you figure it out on the fly? Something in between?