newguy

Cut it in half raw, rub the cut side with melted butter and season liberally with salt and pepper. Roast it cut side up. If it becomes brown, flip it over. You want a beautiful roasted, buttery flavor. Don't put it in the nuker. It'll steam, might as well drop it in hot water.

A 3.5 lb bird can be seared on the breast side in a pan. That will crisp the skin. As for potatoes, you should boil a little ahead of time. It takes longer than 45 minutes to bake a potato. Other veg should definitely cook in time, unless you didn't cut them into small pieces? If the meat was 180 degrees, it was done. The paprika probably had something to do with the color of the meat. Usually you can take a chicken out at 140 or 150 and let it rest. The carryover cooking does the rest of the job. 180 degrees is old school, grand mother temperatures.

I used to be a "knife junkie" until I started working in a kitchen. The philosophy there is 1 knife fits all... I have an 8" Wüsthof chefs knife, and a $3 plastic handled pairing knife that i throw away when it gets dull. You should be able to use 1 knife for everything. So if your santuko works, spend your money on something else.

I've noticed one thing about forming that shape. It doesn't really work with store bought ice cream for some reason. When I started my job, I had to help plate pastry, and all ice cream is quenelled. I wanted to practice and I had a tough time at home, so I just learned at work with their ice cream.

Does anyone out there know a reasonably priced place in or near Madison NJ where I can buy a chef's knife?

Silver Sulfadiazine or Silvadene is the best stuff on the planet. I had a 2nd degree burn on my right hand after slipping on some steps with a stockpot in my hand. Fat managed to jump out and land right on my hand. Silvadene on it, with in one day, felt great. I was back to work the next day. I've given this stuff out to probably 5 people at work now, it's a community bottle.

All true points. We use the morels when they are in, Chanterells now etc... It may not the the meat/fish that drives the special, it might just be what the sous chef thought was interesting that day. Maybe someone ate something somewhere and was inspired to create something else etc... It is fun to see them created. A lot of the dishes are product driven and can use almost any protein. Not substituting meat or fish. I think the specials created for meat, need any type of meat protein. For instance we couldn't take say grouper and switch it up for some hangar prep because it wouldn't be right. But maybe there is grouper with a certain prep. We could easily use halibut, or bass, or skate or whatever they liked when buying.

the place I work is completely seasonal, menu changes 4 times a year (at least). Products are bought at the market, so there is basically no chance of using a non-seasonal ingredient. I find that they are usually creative, not more than the usual menu, but different because it's not on the menu. It keeps the interest of a lot of people to change it weekly. Certain menu items aren't always the most creative because there are people that don't eat "everything." A special I suppose you can do whatever you want with because people don't have to order it if they are looking for something more "mild."

The one reason I could see ordering specials is maybe there is an unsual fish they don't know or a different cut of meat a customer might not know. Then people may say, that sounds interesting, I'll try it out.

this is what i find interesting. My entire life specials have cost more than regular dishes. I just automatically assumed that it's just because it's not on the regular menu. I very rarely order specials, and won't order one if they don't give the price of the dish. I'm really not sure what the justification is to raise the prices. I'm not quite sure what the markup is, if any at the place I work. It's not exactly cheap, there, but on a busy saturday night, we could sell 20 or maybe more.

It's really fairly impressive what takes place. Sometimes the sous chef will just say "new special, it's X ingredient, cook it this way, with Y, & Z, do it." I ordered monkfish for the special etc... Sometimes it's "hey i got this calamari, what should i do with it?" Then the ideas start bouncing all over the kitchen. Then somehow a dish comes out of it. When one is made for the wait staff, once they eat it, they know it which is why it's done. They have an easy time describing something they've eaten 30 minutes before service. I'm not sure if this procedure is the "norm" everywhere, but I always found it impressive. I've had days where a special was created when i'm on my day off. This isn't exactly easy because all the prep is in my box, so at service time, I don't know what it looks like or how it should be cooked to order etc... It's much easier when I see/prep the special.

We don't have prep cooks, we all do our own prep. If there is something that is unknown to one of us, the sous chef will help out, which is a portion of his job. We will go to the market twice a week. Occasionally there we'll see something and say "let's use that" and we'll buy it without a dish in mind, just a product. The restaurant is fancy, all the dishes are nice. Specials are nice dishes that come up weekly, in addition to the rest of the menu. If it's presented to the wait staff, it takes 2 minutes, so what. Thats not exactly "labor" that is going to raise a dish $7 or something.

There really isn't "labor" involved in changing or adding a dish to a menu. Tell the waiters what is in the dish and they write it down. Tell a cook what is in the dish and they have to prep it, so they will automatically know what the dish is at time of service.

Cut the bottom and top off so it will sit flat safely without rocking. Then, using a knife, cut the outside off like you would to supreme and orange or grapefruit etc... Make sure you push the knife away from you, and hold it firm since it's considerably more firm than a citrus fruit. But this works.

I grew up in northern NJ and spent many evenings in NYC restaurants. I automatically assume specials are considerably more money than regular dishes. Maybe it is just an east cost or larger market thing to do. I am also a cook. Specials often aren't necessarily more expensive to produce, they often contain the same ingredients already in the restaurant. Our's also change weekly. However, the fish for instance is ordered special for the specials. Occasionally it is flown in from different places, which may increase the price slightly. This is an interesting topic.

L'ecole is the ending of the school's classes. The students don't do an externship, they cook in that restaurant instead. It doesn't last that long, so you may go one week and have a few stellar students working the kitchen with a certain instructor. A few weeks later the students might not be as good, and the instructor might not be as good. Therefore you won't get constant food all the time like in a restaurant. For $35 it's decent eating though. Not going to blow the roof off of anything though.

I used to live by Cheng du 46. I'm surprised to hear you say it wasn't great. I had a number of fantastic meals there. I moved near Shanghai Jazz, but have yet to go. I do hear it's a great time, and good food too.

"Also, shouldn't have been stored in a plastic bag. They would have been better "stored" as bookends on your shelf. " No one buys books in college. Or squash for that matter...

Do yourself a favor and get a sharpening stone. Never go near an electric sharpener. There are absolutely terrible for a knife, problem is that they are so easy and will sharpen your knife so quickly. Once you sharpen a knife well with a stone, you won't have to use it very often, especially if you are using it at home.

We try NOT to think about it. We just go back to work every day, remain in the kitchen 12-14 hours a day, and not think of the others that come in just in the nick of time to grab the last bite of family meal from us and hear them say "man it's hot in here..." I'm aware, I've already been here for 7 hours...

I don't know if this is getting absurd, but what if you started with 6 cups of juice, and reducing to 3 cups? You'd have a more intense syrup, then try a few eggs and the remainder of the recipe?

How about adding a few egg yolks, and dropping down to half and half?

I'm right handed and keep the fork in my left for some reason. Tell your kids to eat with their hands in camp...

How can you cut into a container on a scale and compare it to 6 cups diced? Does your original recipe state how much liquid you should have? Watermelon's probably differ drastically?

You can use them the next day. Just make sure you use them ASAP.