Improving Your Speed in the Kitchen

[Anna N]

But, then, I've got an warming tray on the pass between the kitchen and dining area. The filled plates/bowls go on the tray to hold until I get the pots into the sink.

I can recommend few kitchen "toys" more than a warming tray: for heating the plates, and for holding the food, it is fabulous. And it's great for melting butter and chocolate (I've never gotten the hang of that nuker thing). If you can find one by Salton, that's the best. The one I'm using now is at least 15 years old; other, newer ones from Maxim self-destructed in much less time.

That's such a good idea, Suzanne - wish I had thought of it. It would work wonderfully for me as I could set it up on the breakfast bar and it would be out of my way. Guess what I will be on the look out for as I go to the garage sales.

[birder53]

I need a mandolin!

[NeroW]

i actually like to cook slowly, langurously.

This is a pleasure for me, too. At home, naturally. I love to spend a nice Saturday drinking beers on the porch, every once in a while getting up to turn the meat in its marinade, roast some peppers, check the rise of my bread. And then back to the porch for more beer. It is so relaxing, and so different from the professional pace. Sometimes cooking in a professional kitchen doesn't even seem like cooking. It's just production.

[JerzyMade]

Another interesting aspect of timing the meals is the time it takes to wash hands in between. Next time you watch anyone on the FoodNet TV, count how many times they wash their hands after playing with poultry. Washing hands on TV doesn't make the best ratings, but these people would flunk the most basic sanition class.

I shudder to think that people actually cook like that.

[Bicycle Lee]

MULTI-TASKING!

[sequim]

I spend too much time cleaning up the counters and any bits that drop on the floor. I hate being so nit-picky~! However, I do have the clean as I go down, maybe to excess. But it's so nice to relax after dinner and know I don't have to face a mess in the kitchen. However, at dinner parties, it's more like what Moby describes. I just lose it in the last minute getting everything out and the place is a disaster zone.

I like watching Oliver's Twist and how Jamie seems to throw his meals together effortlessly. He doesn't spend alot of time getting things just so and I love how he measures (not) - I mean, it's just approximations. I'm not sure I ever see him use a measuring spoon or cup. although he will tell the viewer whether a cup or teaspoon of what he's using. I like it though, it's refreshing to see him work.

[snowangel]

I spend too much time cleaning up the counters and any bits that drop on the floor. I hate being so nit-picky~! However, I do have the clean as I go down, maybe to excess. But it's so nice to relax after dinner and know I don't have to face a mess in the kitchen.

That's what kids are for.

[marie-louise]

A few of my main suggestions have already been made by others:

- While mise en place is essential for a restaurant, I think it is a huge waste of time in the home kitchen. You are doing the right thing to read through the recipe first and think of what can be logically multi-tasked. Cooking slowly can be fun and relaxing, but only if you're not starving after a long day at work!

- I cook in a small kitchen; nothing is more than a few steps away and very few things require opening a drawer or cupboard. My utensils are in crocks in the counters; my spices and ingredients are in a nearby open pantry. My pots and pans hang on a rack. I've cooked in bigger kitchens, and now that I realize how much faster it is to cook in a small kitchen, I wouldn't trade in my little efficient space for ten yards of granite counters.

One other comment I didn't see mentioned-teach yourself to cook one or two techniques at a time. Not one recipe at a time, one technique at a time.

- Trying a new recipe-or trying to follow along with a recipe period-is much harder than making something familiar. Get a repertoire of things you can make in your sleep. Focus on a single technique or two-braises and pureed soups in the winter, salads and grilled fish or meat in the summer-until you "get it." Mastering basic techniques takes time and practice; trying to learn a new technique or two every night can be overwhelming, plus it's hard to "connect the dots" and "see" that the basic techniques behind the recipe you are making is the same from recipe to recipe.

Edited June 13, 2004 by marie-louise (log)

[Jinmyo]

Another interesting aspect of timing the meals is the time it takes to wash hands in between. Next time you watch anyone on the FoodNet TV, count how many times they wash their hands after playing with poultry. Washing hands on TV doesn't make the best ratings, but these people would flunk the most basic sanition class.

I shudder to think that people actually cook like that.

You know it's not one continuous take, right? The show is edited from multiple takes and a few angles.

Just as the finished dish or even the ones shown at various stages often actually come from the kitchen behind the stage for the money shots, stuff like wiping the knife and washing hands is usually edited out.

Most of these shows are only a half hour long.

[JerzyMade]

Another interesting aspect of timing the meals is the time it takes to wash hands in between.  Next time you watch anyone on the FoodNet TV, count how many times they wash their hands after playing with poultry.  Washing hands on TV doesn't make the best ratings, but these people would flunk the most basic sanition class.

I shudder to think that people actually cook like that.

You know it's not one continuous take, right? The show is edited from multiple takes and a few angles.

Just as the finished dish or even the ones shown at various stages often actually come from the kitchen behind the stage for the money shots, stuff like wiping the knife and washing hands is usually edited out.

Most of these shows are only a half hour long.

Of course there's a lot of cuts in what you end up watching. As long as the take ends immediately after handling meat or poultry I give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm specifically refering to uninterrupted takes where someone handles raw poultry and without missing a beat starts working on something else, touching every conceivable surface and utensil along the way. If you focus your attention on that you'll be shocked.

Besides, cooking schools have sanitation in the curriculum. When FoodNet replaces the role of a culinary school for the general public it should be a little more responsible.

[Abra]

One of the best clean-as-you-go techniques is simply to keep using the same bowl, pot, spoon, over and over again, for as many dishes a spossible. That way even if they're dirty at the end, it's just a limited number of dirty things.

I think mise en place is essential at home whenever I have guests. I like to get the meal on the table with no visible effort and very little time spent in the kitchen, so I do ahead every single thing that won't suffer from being done in advance.

I'd also add to the excellent advice you've already received the idea that in addition to prepping the chicken while the onions are sauteeing, you read your recipes for all the base elements and get them going first. If vegetables need to be roasted before going into a sauce, or rice/pasta needs to be cooked before making a salad, or veggies need to be blanched and shocked before a stir-fry, I get all that stuff going before I even touch the recipe itself. I might have 3-4 of those base things going in advance while I'm starting to read through the recipes with an eye to scheduling.

I'm a personal chef, and I regularly cook 4 servings of 5 entrees and 4 side dishes, and often a dessert, in under 5 hours, from unpacking the groceries to sweeping the floor on the way out. It's the principles I've described, as well as what others have said above, that make that possible.

[winesonoma]

I need a mandolin!

Takes to long to wash and there hell to retune so you can play them after you slice onions. What you need is a mandoline.

Edited June 13, 2004 by winesonoma (log)

[birder53]

I need a mandolin!

Takes to long to wash and there hell to retune so you can play them after you slice onions. What you need is a mandoline.

Okay - I'll take one of those too!

[Anna N]

But, then, I've got an warming tray on the pass between the kitchen and dining area. The filled plates/bowls go on the tray to hold until I get the pots into the sink.

I can recommend few kitchen "toys" more than a warming tray: for heating the plates, and for holding the food, it is fabulous. And it's great for melting butter and chocolate (I've never gotten the hang of that nuker thing). If you can find one by Salton, that's the best. The one I'm using now is at least 15 years old; other, newer ones from Maxim self-destructed in much less time.

That's such a good idea, Suzanne - wish I had thought of it. It would work wonderfully for me as I could set it up on the breakfast bar and it would be out of my way. Guess what I will be on the look out for as I go to the garage sales.

BINGO! Warming tray found at garage sale this a.m. - $3.00 - Again, thanks for the hint, Suzanne.

[chromedome]

Hee!

Reading this thread has been like watching the last two years of my life passing before my eyes. I've always been a very capable home cook, and a very helter-skelter one. I seldom bothered with recipes except as a source of ideas; if I saw something that appealed to me I'd just bang out my own version on a wing and a prayer. The vast majority of the time, the meal would turn out excellent. And the vast majority of the time, it would be 30-60 minutes longer than I'd estimated, and the kitchen would be a shambles when I was done.

Then I went to cooking school.

Then I went to work at an upscale restaurant.

Talk aboutcher "sink or swim" moments? Oy.

I'm getting pretty good at accelerating under stress, now. At my day job we feed 700 people in 45 minutes or so during the lunchtime rush. I have two hours to prep and complete my day's production for lunch (and accomodate any catering contracts that have come along); then roughly two hours of lunch (12:00-12:45 is the part that really wails along...); then finish my day on other prep (tomorrow's mise, etc).

Since I work directly in view of our clientele, cleaning as I go is pretty mandatory. Unfortunately the dish pit is at the very back of the shop and I'm in the very front, so I have to resort to making "relatively neat" stacks of rinsed dishes during the morning crunch. I'll only have time for two or three trips to the dish area in the run of a morning. And by the same token, I need to get everything I need from there pretty much on the first try.

So...as for recipes lying about the prep time? Look at who's writing them. If it's a professional cook, you know that he or she is very, very fast by layman's terms. Even those food writers who spend a high proportion of their time testing recipes will generally have learned to be quick.

One important thing that the professional kitchen teaches is to "never prepare at the time of service what you can do ahead."

Break down your recipe. What can be done that morning? What can be done a day ahead, or even two or three? For example, will you be using fresh thyme tomorrow? Pluck the leaves from the stems tonight while you're watching TV. Chop, rinse, and dry your parsley. Chop and seed your tomatoes. Carrots can be peeled and held in water; peas or beans can be tipped and "stringed."

Many things, far from deteriorating, are improved by advance preparation.

The whole notion of "mise en place" is of mixed benefit to the home cook. If your kitchen is small enough that everything is within reach, and if you always know where everything is, there's not much benefit to having all of your "stuff" sitting out. In fact, in some kitchens I've used if you set out all your ingredients you've got no counter space left to work in!

In larger kitchens, though, it is well worth organizing yourself first. My general rule is that if I can't reach it in a maximum of two steps, I'll get it out before I start. Not that I've had a lot of larger kitchens to work with, at home...

Right now I have a tiny kitchen with mimimal counter space and storage space, so prep room is difficult to come by. I generally use the pull-out cutting board as a work surface, placing one of my eight or ten lightweight cutting boards on top. I have lots, so that I can quickly switch gears between meats and non-meats. My knife drawer is directly beneath the pull-out cutting board, so I need to get my knives organized before I start. Unfortunately, my kids are frequently improvisational when putting away the dishes, so I often find myself delayed as I dig around for a vital utensil that's gone missing. At such moments my generally laid-back parenting style may develop something of an edge!

I keep an inexpensive spray bottle on the counter filled with a bleach-and-water solution for sanitizing with. If I want to re-use a given knife I only have to give it a wash and then a quick spritz with the sanitizer. Likewise, when changing cutting boards, I sanitize the underlying work surface to avoid cross-contamination.

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I am often asked by friends whether professional chefs have a secret to cutting onions without tears. "Why yes," I say. "They delegate the job to someone else!"

[SobaAddict70]

Depends on if I'm making a meal for myself or if for a group of people.

Lately, I've been working out so haven't been cooking as much as I used to. These days, dinner's usually done in half an hour and tends to be simple and boring (at least to eGulleteers' standards) but gets the job done in 1/3 the time it used to take.

Once in a while I'll go all out. Once in a very great while.

Soba

[Samhill]

One of the things I like most about cooking is that headspace, almost a high that comes with being able to stack steps and timings up in your head, so that you always know where you are and what's next. Everything just kind of intuitively flows. Probably the best thing I learned from working in a restaurant. In between, "If you got time to lean, you got time to clean!"

Edited June 21, 2004 by Samhill (log)