zilla369
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Posts posted by zilla369
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The Kentucky Hot Brown (not out of style here in Louisville, but perhaps most other places)
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No Hellman's. Duke's!!!
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I thought Michael did a fantastic job, and i wasn't worried that his savory dishes would count against him, knowing that he's worked both sides of the line.
I also learned something from him - i'm sure everyone except me has already incorporated this trick, but it simply never occurred to me. Did you see when he dipped his strawberries in a combo of dark/white chocolate? Well, i've always dipped first in dark and then scribbled in white, but the simulataneous combination makes a MUCH better presentation. So, for Valentine's service tonight, i dipped cherries in the two swirled colors. What a great effect. Everyone loved them. So....thanks, Michael! And i totally thought you were going to win, despite the tempering mishap.
You rock! Way to represent! Gimme an "L".... etc :)
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FJ - no worries. I didn't mean my outburst to reflect on you. But i am bitter at "bitterwaitress" because they glorify the passive-agressive remedy. Believe me, i have a sense of humor - a good one. And believe me, i know that sometimes it's difficult to hold your tongue and your attitude. That i can deal with. But i draw the line at contaminating food. I'd like to think most in the industry do draw that line. But because of a few stupid braggarts, people everywhere say "we'd better not complain - they might spit in our food!" I wish regular diners didn't have to feel that way because of a few...wait for it...bad apples.
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and they can "arrange" for things to happen to people's food. I always keep in mind that I don't generally see my food until it has been set in front of me. I've heard too much about what has been done to food then to even want to try to take the chance.
Is it right? No. But does it happen? Yup.
I'm sorry, but i want to speak up here and say that it doesn't matter - no exceptions - how obnoxious a guest is, no server, no cook, nobody, no way, no how, ever, ever has an excuse to "do" anything to someone's food. Unprofessional. Unethical. Sure, some guests run the whole spectrum from snarky to downright abusive. Abusive guests should be asked to leave and never come back. But if i ever caught someone "arranging" for anything to happen to a guest's food, they'd get fired where i work - no excuses and no questions asked. It just makes everyone who works in a restaurant look bad when servers post on a forum about all the cute things they do to plates to get back at guests who stiff them or make them mad. Go out to the parking lot and slash their tires if you must, but you better not spit in their food - the food I sent out - or you'll answer to me, the Chef, and maybe the justice system.
Culinarian's Code, anyone?
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General Mills used to have a puffed cereal called "Triples", that was waaaay better (and less sweet) than Rice Krispies; it was a blend of rice, corn and wheat puffs (made better "rice krispy" treats, as well). Sadly, i haven't been able to find it for years. I think they stopped making it.
Or maybe it's just a conspiracy to keep me, personally, from eating it.
Yeah.
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I'm sure this topic has been covered here somewhere, but for the life of me i can't find a thread on it. If anyone else does, please link to it.
Chef wants to change up the dessert menu at work. Currently one of the items is a white chocolate cheesecake (recipe and process inherited from before i came to work there) made in a sheet pan on top of a graham cracker crust. I've never liked this recipe or method as 1) the texture's just not right, 2) the cake is too shallow and often browns too much on top before the inside's done, but most of all 3)even though i have shown pantry how to cut and plate them about a hundred times (turn the pan over, torch the underside, gently place another cutting board on top and flip back over, cut with a clean hot knife) they are either too lazy to cut up a cake properly before srevice or too "busy" to do it right during service. I've also showed them how to cut a clean square into two little triangles and tilt one up on the other before garnishing. But i wish i had a dollar for every time i've walked past the pass when they're slammed and seen them mangling a crumb-covered square right out of the sheet pan with a frickin' cake server.
So... i told chef i wanted to get rid of the cheesecake, at least in its current incarnation. I told him what the problems were with the one we're serving now, and that even though i knew i could get a better cake in a springform pan, i still didn't trust pantry to cut and plate it correctly. However, he really, really prefers to keep some sort of cheesecake on the dessert menu, so he asked me to come up with individual cheesecakes for service. He doesn't care what flavors or recipe i use - but during this slow season he's also not likely to "spring" for individual serving size springform pans (which i'd really prefer) or silicone molds. Also, i'm not leaning towards using a cutter to cut rounds out of the sheet-pan cheesecake because it creates a lot of waste and i just want to get away from that sheet-pan method altogether.
So how do i get an individual cheesecake with the basic equipment i already have? I have muffin tins and ramekins of various sizes. Water bath or not? Paper slings underneath? What methods have worked for other people?
Thanks in advance for your help. I need to get this off the ground this week. And i'm sick of white chocolate (and we already have a dark chocolate torte on the menu), so any ideas in that direction are welcome - although the big thing i'm asking for your help with here is technique. Thanks!
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Thursday the lunch sous at work was minus a prep cook, so he begged me to come up with a soup of the day (pastry chef here). It was one hour until service. I went down to the walk-in to see what i could see.
Well. The purveyor's truck was late, and we had no cream in the restaurant. We were out of chicken stock. We were down to our last two carrots. There was a case of leeks, a case of baby spinach. A couple handful of new red potatoes. No fresh peppers, either green or red. No mushrooms except portobella caps that are were reserved for filet plating. No wonder he tapped me for soup duty.
Ten minutes of panicked foraging later, i was armed with one pint of cream and about 8 oz of chicken base i found in a hot-line lowboy. I started a gallon and a half of "chicken broth" made out of the base (i know, yuck - but far superior to plain water, and it was crunch time) and started chopping leeks. Gee, it's so much fun trying to rinse the grit out of leeks when you're in a hurry. I commandeered the (2) carrots, diced them and sauteed them quickly in some butter and olive oil with chopped garlic. I added the leeks, salt and pepper, sweated briefly, and de-glazed with some white wine. I added the hot chicken broth, turned the heat way up, and added some diced red potatoes. I let this cook for about 10 minutes whlie i made one last pass through the place to see if i'd missed anything. Yes! Andouille sausage, and the most beautiful, soft-stemmed fresh thyme i've ever seen. I chopped the sausage and tossed it in, glubbed in a little Pernod, threw in the baby spinach leaves, and turned the heat off. Stirred in the cream, threw in the thyme, adjusted seasonings, and poured the whole thing into the soup warmer just as the doors opened.
When Chef came in an hour later, he walked up to the soup warmer, grabbed a spoon and tasted. "Now that's a beautiful soup!" he says. "Who made this soup?"
Brownie points for the brownie maker.
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I lerve my Wusthofs, especially the Culinars. I don't mind the metal handle at all - i've never had an injury because of slippery-ness. I agree with Jinmyo, though, on the Global handles. Not because of slippage. Just because i don't like the feel.
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Here's mine. This one is like gold, works every time.
24 oz yolks
4 whole eggs
28 oz granulated sugar
4 quarts heavy cream
2 vanilla beans, split and scraped
Whisk yolks, eggs and sugar together. Scald cream and beans together. Temper hot cream mixture into egg mixture, ladleful by ladleful. I actually whisk fairly vigorously. Strain thru chinois.
Unless i'm desperate, i chill the mixture overnight. This seems to get rid of the air bubble problem. I bake mine in 4 oz clear glass souffle cups, in a hotel pan filled with a HOT water bath, 1/3 of the way up the sides of the cups. I cover the top with a flat (never warped) sheet pan. This keeps the surface from overcooking or taking on any color. Bake in a convection oven at 300F (low fan) for about 25-35 minutes. They have to be taken out of the oven when an area in the center about the size of a quarter is still quite jiggly. Then i let them cool in the water bath out of the oven before refrigerating.
If i am desperate, i chill the mixture thoroughly over an ice bath and make the water bath a bit cooler to start. I've never had any success with recipes that call for cooking the mixture over heat like an anglaise.
I know the recipe's a really big batch (makes about 50), but i'm posting it as is because i can't vouch for how it'll behave when cut down. I usually bake about half the mixture at a time - the batter holds pretty well in the walk-in for up to 4 days. Sometime soon i'll try them in a smaller batch at home.
Most recipes don't include the additional few whole eggs. I swear by this one, and so do our guests.
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3 - Quiznos - the spicy Italian - and the Peppa Bar (where's that commercial with the animals - what were they - rats!?!
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Speaking of fried chicken livers...
They make them in the deli at Wal-Mart. I buy a hot bag and eat them while i'm slumming for batteries and paper towels. Two nasty little habits in one.
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I've been on the Maker's Diet for years, and it's never helped me lose any weight.
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I love to make crackers/croutons/crostini out of very thinly sliced, then re-baked focaccia. I find focaccia to be one of the most forgiving, easiest breads to make. Great crumb and structure.
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Always takes me longer, too. Not because i'm lazy or inefficient, but because i'm something of a perfectionist (although not a complete perfectionist, as you can see from the photos).
It's a constant challenge to balance your own exacting standards against profitability/possible future business/pleasing the client, isn't it?
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Anne, i feel you totally. One problem was, though....i frankly had no idea how long it was gonna take me. And once i got into it, i ran into a lot of problems i didn't anticipate. That's not management's fault; it's a function of my inexperience. Thankfully, management knows my work ethic and asked me if i worked off the clock, and i replied truthfully. And they were very complimentary, but they said "it's great you learned something, and thanks for learning 'off the clock', but we really want you to be paid for any time you spend working for us." However, they would have preferred that i come up with something that pleased the client while still being less labor-intensive.
Upside is....they gave me a $2 an hour raise this week. Not because i asked, but because they think i'm doing a great job. How often does that happen?
So, i'm happy. Happy, happy, happy.
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Thanks for the kudos. Yes, everyone was appropriately appreciative. I gave out a lot of business cards.
The real shame is...it was way too labor intensive. I actually punched out and did a lot of it off the clock, because we were having a slow week and we were all told to try and hold our hours to 30 or less. But there i was, in the middle of it, and i wanted to finish, but i also didn't want to get in trouble when payroll rolled around. The boss was out of town on a well-deserved vacation. But, i felt like i was learning something valuable for the future, so i donated about, oh, 6 hours of my own time. In the end, i think it was worth it. I'll bet i could duplicate the project in half the time if asked to do it again. The price was about $400 for the whole job. Ingredients were fairly cheap, and most of them were already on hand. As many of you know, those edible flowers cost about $17 for 50 blossoms. That was probably the most expensive thing besides the chocolate for the truffles. But my hours, had i been paid for them all, would have made the project only marginally profitable.
Every day's a lesson. Right?
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Picture of the finished product in this thread.
I wasn't too unhappy with the result, but i'm definitely gonna do the pan-sandwich-with-spacers method next time. Thanks again for your help, people.
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Pictures!
Caramel Mousse Napoleons
Linzertorte
Truffles
Der buffet
Thanks again, everybody, for your suggestions!
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It's not really viable for commercial work, due to the price, but at home i swear by Pam Cooking Spray with Flour. Absolutely the best thing for my really ornate Bundt Pan, for instance.
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Do tell. Whats the "parsley game?"
Heh. Glad you asked.
In their book How to Play With Your Food, wacky magicians Penn & Teller describe a game they developed during years of dining out together while on tour. It could really work with any superfluous, non-messy garnish, but for purists it's only done with parsley sprigs.
The point is to sneak your parsley sprig onto your dining companion's plate while they aren't looking. Whoever ends up with the most parsley on their plate when the check is presented has to spring for the meal. At first it's easy to win, but when your frequent dinner companions catch on, it gets more challenging.
The trick is to play close attention to your plate. In the book, Penn Jillette describes an evening out during which a car actually crashed into the restaurant through the front window...and neither one of them even looked up from their plate. Granted, that's a little extreme. Sometimes i bribe the server to put extra parsley on my buddy's plate. Sometimes i carry several sprigs of parsley in my purse wrapped in tissue.
Yeah, i know. We're sick puppies.
By the way, i highly recommend the book to anyone who enjoys all things about food. It's hilarious.
edited: just for the hell of it
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Face to face is the only way to sit if you intend to play Penn and Teller's "parsley game" - as my roomie and i are constantly doing.
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Well, kinda pedestrian, maybe, but i love asparagus with seafood, and i think that'd be neutral enough while still being tasty.
Not a vegetable, but i've been wanting to try Roasted Grapes. These are seedless grapes, roasted on the vine in olive oil, salt and pepper. Would look pretty on the plate, as well.
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Rerun - it's on now.
I know i'm perverse, and this is bad karma, but...i love watching them try to move the completed pieces to the judging tables.
Crunch
Crackle
Oops
Yikes.
Kitchen Confidential TV Show on FOX
in Food Media & Arts
Posted
Maybe i read the linked article wrong, but what i thought was going on is that the article was talking about two shows: 1) Half-hour adaptation of KC on Fox, with the main character's name being "Jack Bourdain", and 2) A show starring the guy from "Ed" about a record producer.
In any case, as others have said upthread, i have low hopes for the half-hour format for the KC show.