Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Summertime is here!
Well, school has been out for a few weeks, and work has been less hectic, so I will be able to post some more! Just gotta get back into the groove of things. During my time working and not updating I've learned a few new things, and experimented with some other things, which will all lead to some pretty interesting new posts! Look forward to it!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Looking back on March
Well, it is a few days late, but march was a good month for me. I made enough money in March to pay for my Fall semester and I was able to save almost all of it because I didn't have time to spend any money.
Well my goals for last month were to get better at making tempura and cutting fish, and I think I achieved my goals though there is still a lot of room for improvement.
This past month, I barely had time to study for school (getting the required liberals out of the way before doing the rest of my cooking) and my grades really suffered because of it. The end of the semester is coming up fast, and I really need to get to working on my schoolwork. So instead of putting most of my extra time to practicing my knife skills and other things, I will be studying. I think I'll still have some time to put up some new posts, so see you soon!
Well my goals for last month were to get better at making tempura and cutting fish, and I think I achieved my goals though there is still a lot of room for improvement.
This past month, I barely had time to study for school (getting the required liberals out of the way before doing the rest of my cooking) and my grades really suffered because of it. The end of the semester is coming up fast, and I really need to get to working on my schoolwork. So instead of putting most of my extra time to practicing my knife skills and other things, I will be studying. I think I'll still have some time to put up some new posts, so see you soon!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Overtime work gets harder
Well sorry for my absence the past few weeks. With the end of spring break also comes the ending of working 60+ hour weeks. My boss is back, and we just hired a new worker, so I can "relax" by going back to my 40 hour a week schedule. Anyway if you ever think about working in a kitchen, you can expect to be working for long hours at least at some point in your career.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Cross Contamination
Have you ever gotten a "stomach flu" or the "24 hour runs"? Well more than likely food poisoning is the culprit. There are a few major points that you should watch out for when you are cooking at home or at work. Toxins, spoilage, and cross contamination.
If you have toxic food. Don't prepare prepare it unless you are knowledgeable about it. Wild mushrooms may look tasty, but don't eat it if you don't know if its toxic or not. The same rules apply about many other foods, like fish (Fugu), plants, and insects. Toxins are simple and straightforward to avoid.
Spoiled food? We all know what moldy bread looks like, but would you be able to tell if other foods are spoiled, like soups, and meats? There are three ways to check if something is spoiled. Look at it, if it looks rotten, it probably is. Smell, unless its supposed to smell rotten its probably rotten. Also if it doesn't smell rotten, it may smell "sour" just like milk. Other than the "sour" attribute, that food obtains, I think everyone knows what rotten meat, and seafood smells like, so smell is pretty straight forward as well. Last, if the food looks, and smells alright, but your are still unsure, taste it. Taste it does not mean eat a whole mouthful, it means take a small bit and check the taste. If it is spoiled, spit it out. If you are at home and the food looks and smells alright, but your instincts tell you otherwise my advice would be to follow your instincts. At work, if you are still unsure after tasting it, get a second opinion from someone.
If you are sure the food isn't poisonous, and not spoiled, the last thing you have to check for is cross contamination. The basics for this is, if you cut something like raw meat on your cutting board, make sure you wash your cutting board and knife, before cutting something else. The same rules apply to allergens, if you use one spoon to serve peanuts don't use the same spoon to serve berries to someone with a peanut allergy. With cross contamination it is easy to understand, but harder to put into practice, because you have to think about what you are doing.
It is easy to make sure you don't get food poisoning at home, as long as you follow those simple steps. If you are going out to eat you are placing your fate in other peoples hands, so be wary, but don't let it scare you away from going out to eat.
The reason I bring this up is the other day at work, I had my helper (whos been working for a good 6 months in the same kitchen as me, and over a year of previous experience) preset some bamboo shoots for the night service. Then before we opened, I smelled something "sour" and knew instantly something had past its prime and needed to be thrown out. So I searched for it and found that the bamboo shoots that he had set were the culprit, and threw it out, and asked why he was going to serve something spoiled, and the response I got was "I didn't know". I thought I did a good job teaching to always check food for spoilage because first off, it is dangerous to the customer, especially young children and the elderly. Second, its utterly embarrassing to have spoiled food leave the kitchen unless its in the trash. So I went back and made sure that everyone who is below me knows how to check for spoiled food, so that this kind of thing does not happen again.
If you have toxic food. Don't prepare prepare it unless you are knowledgeable about it. Wild mushrooms may look tasty, but don't eat it if you don't know if its toxic or not. The same rules apply about many other foods, like fish (Fugu), plants, and insects. Toxins are simple and straightforward to avoid.
Spoiled food? We all know what moldy bread looks like, but would you be able to tell if other foods are spoiled, like soups, and meats? There are three ways to check if something is spoiled. Look at it, if it looks rotten, it probably is. Smell, unless its supposed to smell rotten its probably rotten. Also if it doesn't smell rotten, it may smell "sour" just like milk. Other than the "sour" attribute, that food obtains, I think everyone knows what rotten meat, and seafood smells like, so smell is pretty straight forward as well. Last, if the food looks, and smells alright, but your are still unsure, taste it. Taste it does not mean eat a whole mouthful, it means take a small bit and check the taste. If it is spoiled, spit it out. If you are at home and the food looks and smells alright, but your instincts tell you otherwise my advice would be to follow your instincts. At work, if you are still unsure after tasting it, get a second opinion from someone.
If you are sure the food isn't poisonous, and not spoiled, the last thing you have to check for is cross contamination. The basics for this is, if you cut something like raw meat on your cutting board, make sure you wash your cutting board and knife, before cutting something else. The same rules apply to allergens, if you use one spoon to serve peanuts don't use the same spoon to serve berries to someone with a peanut allergy. With cross contamination it is easy to understand, but harder to put into practice, because you have to think about what you are doing.
It is easy to make sure you don't get food poisoning at home, as long as you follow those simple steps. If you are going out to eat you are placing your fate in other peoples hands, so be wary, but don't let it scare you away from going out to eat.
The reason I bring this up is the other day at work, I had my helper (whos been working for a good 6 months in the same kitchen as me, and over a year of previous experience) preset some bamboo shoots for the night service. Then before we opened, I smelled something "sour" and knew instantly something had past its prime and needed to be thrown out. So I searched for it and found that the bamboo shoots that he had set were the culprit, and threw it out, and asked why he was going to serve something spoiled, and the response I got was "I didn't know". I thought I did a good job teaching to always check food for spoilage because first off, it is dangerous to the customer, especially young children and the elderly. Second, its utterly embarrassing to have spoiled food leave the kitchen unless its in the trash. So I went back and made sure that everyone who is below me knows how to check for spoiled food, so that this kind of thing does not happen again.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tomato soup
I went out to eat recently, and had a really good soup, which was a simple tomato soup. Normally tomato soup has a vegetable or chicken base, but the soup I had was a dashi base similar to the one I made in a earlier recipe. I want to share a version I've come up with after eating that soup, hope you enjoy it.
You Will Need
1. Add your olive oil to the pan, and heat the pan up.
2. Sweat the vegetables and stir to help keep the vegetables from burning (onions should turn translucent not brown or black)
3. Once the vegetables have been sweated, add the can of tomato paste to the vegetables, and cook together until the tomato paste has a sweet aroma.
4. If the tomato paste is burning, and it hasn't achieved a sweet aroma, you can add some of the dashi, or what ever stock you are using to help keep it from drying out.
5. Once the tomato paste has a sweet aroma, slowly add your stock while stirring.
6. Bring the soup to a boil, and lower to a simmer.
7. Let simmer for about 10 minutes, while you add salt, shoyu, and pepper. Be sure to check the taste while you are adding these seasonings, you can put more or less of all of them to your liking.
8. Dish out, and garnish (I forgot to buy parsley so I didn't)
9. Either serve hot, or chill and serve cold, (its delicious both ways!)
You Will Need
- 2L Dashi (or chicken/vegetable stock)
1lb Mirepoix (2:1:1 ratio of onion, celery, carrot. so 8 oz onion, 4 oz celery and carrot.) - 1 can tomato paste
- 2 Tablespoon Olive oil
- 2 tablespoon salt
- 1/2 cup shoyu
- pepper (I used about 2 turns of my pepper mill, more or less is up to you!)
- Parsley (if you are going to serve this to family or friends it would make a nice garnish!)
1. Add your olive oil to the pan, and heat the pan up.2. Sweat the vegetables and stir to help keep the vegetables from burning (onions should turn translucent not brown or black)
3. Once the vegetables have been sweated, add the can of tomato paste to the vegetables, and cook together until the tomato paste has a sweet aroma.
4. If the tomato paste is burning, and it hasn't achieved a sweet aroma, you can add some of the dashi, or what ever stock you are using to help keep it from drying out.
5. Once the tomato paste has a sweet aroma, slowly add your stock while stirring.
6. Bring the soup to a boil, and lower to a simmer.
7. Let simmer for about 10 minutes, while you add salt, shoyu, and pepper. Be sure to check the taste while you are adding these seasonings, you can put more or less of all of them to your liking.
8. Dish out, and garnish (I forgot to buy parsley so I didn't)9. Either serve hot, or chill and serve cold, (its delicious both ways!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)