Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The employee meal

The employee meal is the hardest meal for me to make. The purpose of employee meals are to feed the people who worked just as hard as you did so they can have a healthy meal, and don't have to go home late at night and prepare anything. To make a good employee meal, there are many elements involved, time, cost, and the likes and dislikes of the employees.

The ingredients of a stock that were strained out, can be used in making an employee meal
When you make employee meals you have a limited amount of time. From the moment you walk in to work, until the kitchen is closed, you must have the employee meal finished as the kitchen closes. This means that you have to manage time between, doing prep work, making orders, and cleaning up the kitchen. That alone is not difficult to do, the next stipulation is you must think of the food cost, you cannot use the king crab, steaks, or any other high end ingredients, unless it is a special occasion. The kind of food that goes into employee meals are the type that cannot be served to customers, not to say that they are bad parts. If you ordered a grilled salmon, you expect to be served a nice fillet, not the spine or tail. For employee meal, these parts that are often overlooked and thrown away can be used to make delicious soups, scraped clean for meat to use in other dishes, or make pseudo versions of the items on the menu. Thinking about time and cost makes this a little more challenging, but finally to make a good employee meal you have to think about what the employees like. If one person doesn't like the dish you are preparing, too bad, sometimes you just can't help it, but if half the people don't want to eat, then you have a problem. While thinking about time and cost, you also have to be able to serve something that the employees will actually eat, they may not be customers, but they are also people with different likes, dislikes, and allergies like anyone else.

This may get you thinking that employee meals are just a hassle upon the cooks, but it is the exact opposite. The employee meal is the perfect training tool for aspiring chefs. You learn to speed up the cooking process, explore your creativity, and have a sense of how much the restaurant actually pays for the food you use to feed your customers. I have been making employee meals since I started working, and while most of them do not fit the ticket of being good employee meals, they have been steadily getting better and I will share with you, my reader how to make some of these cheap, quick meals. Stay tuned for more.

8 comments:

  1. Why wouldent the employees just use a frozen dinner of some sort instead of attempting to whip up stuff from the kitchen, seems like it would be easier than trying to prepare a new meal.

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  2. Exactly what I was thinking Ciriis.

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  3. Sometimes we do get to have those kind of meals and I really enjoy the break from having to make lunch/dinner. But at my restaurant there is not enough space in the pantry and the refrigerators and freezer to fit 25 employee meals a day for a week especially since deliveries come once a week (except produce).

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  4. I never really considered that a restaurant that isn't a chain would definitely have to find means to feed their employees (as they aren't being compensated by a head office). I guess its a good way to use the "unservable" yet edible food.

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  5. I've been reading through your blog and I really like it, I'll be following :)

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  6. PIZZA PARTYS! best employee meal or thai cuisine mmmmm but thats alot of work

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  7. I've tried this before, in K-Town/Toronto at the Joker Lounge.

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