PART TWENTYSEVEN: RAW MEAT, SHARP KNIVES AND CONCENTRATION

WATCH YOUR FINGERS

I started to work in the meat section and I was excited about it. This was a new part of my training as a chef apprentice. First I had to learn all the different meats like Beef, Pork, Veal, Lamb, Chicken, Quail, Turkey. Next we had to learn all the different cuts like sirloin, filet, shoulder, leg, belly and all the other cuts. Then we had to learn how to work with liver, kidneys, tongue, beef tripe, hocks, neck, back. 

Learning how to use a proper butchers knife from meat knife to boning knife. How to sharpen the knives and how to use them without cutting my fingers off. 

Concentration was paramount, watching my fingers while using a very sharp knife cutting meat. 

In the beginning, I would get easy jobs like cutting meat strips for stirfry or dicing meats for stews.

Then I had to learn how to bone a chicken. Boning simply means removing the bones from the meat without damaging the meat. Working a boning knife alongside the bones and seperate them as closest to the bone from the meat. Boning a chicken is not hard to learn. What really matters is how to handle a razor sharp boning knife. Where to have your hand and how to hold the chicken while you work the boning knife with the other hand.

 Once I was able to bone a chicken well, I had to go to bigger peaces of meat. Because we did not bone a lot of meat while I was working on the meat section, I was going to work with proper butchers later in the year. 

Portion control, vacum packing and date the meats

I was now about 3 weeks in the meat section. We had a big vacum machine where every piece or should I say every cut of meat like porterhouse steaks, t-bone steaks, eye filet mignons, eye filet steaks, and some of the diced meats where vacum packed. The weight had to be correct with a 5 gm error margin and not more or less. Once the meat was vacum packed, we had to stick the date of packaging on the outside of the vacum packed meat. We called that portion control. It had to match the quantity calculated in the food cost for that dish.

Once all the meat was cut, vacum packed and a date sticker applied on to the bag, the meat went immediately into the cool room. The temperature in that walk in cool room was between 2 to 4 degrees Celsius. 

The chefs from the sattelite kitchens would then pick up some of the portioned meats, checking the dates to make sure that older goes first before the fresh stuff.

The chef in charge of the meat section would keep track which cuts run out and order more for next day to be portioned, packed and dated.

Now I was getting into the portion cut of meats. Every veal schnitzel cut would weight 160 grams. I had to learn to cut schitzels each 160 grams. That was not easy but after a while I got it. Every schnizel I cut wrong could be cut into srips for pan fried dishes with veal. Slowly but surely I would move to other cuts like porterhouse, filet steaks, ribeye steaks, t-bone steaks. 

I worked for about 6 weeks on the meat section with about 3 cuts to my fingers, luckely only little cuts. Later in my apprenticeship I would get the odd day here and there on the meat section. 

Next week I share with you my experience working with blood thirsty butchers for 4 weeks. Till then remember to love life and eat some nice food. 

PART TWENTYSIX: NEVER A DULL MOMENT IN THE HOT SECTION OF THE MAIN KITCHEN

THE MAKE OR BREAK SECTION

Working in the Hot section of a main kitchen can be very demanding. I had to get use to it that everyting we do had to be done fast and good. Working under pressure and the heat was one part of the challenge as an apprentice, working fast and not stuffing up was the other part. I use to call the Hot section the "Make or Break section". 

Working for about a month in the Hot section, the Chef in charge made me responsible for the food going out to the staff canteen. We had to feed about 120 staff for each shift. All the food for the staff canteen came from the Hot section of the Main kitchen. My job was to prepare two hot dishes and side dishes and bring the food to the canteen. I needed also a soup. We had every day a new soup for the restaurant and we made enough for the staff canteen as well. The same applied for dinner.

The job list goes on and on and on...

In a big Hotel Production kitchen all the base work get's done for all the sattelite kitchens, function kitchen and staff canteen. Every section has a list of basic preparation work according to the menues.
The hot section would have the bulk of the preparation work.
Apart from soups and sauces, the hot section is also responsible for some of the meat and fish dishes, especially for functions and the staff canteen. Cooking for large numbers of guests, a regime of sertain jobs are assigned to the hot section. For example:

Meats like steaks, filet steaks are pre- sealed, meaning using a large fry pan, the steaks are sealed on both sides. The the steaks are placed on oven trays and chilled immediately. Before the main course gets served, the Chefs in the function kitchen take the pre-sealed steaks out of the chiller or walk in cool room and place them into a pre-heated oven to finish them off.
The same goes for fish filet steaks like tuna or sword fish.

A similar method of preparation goes for side dishes like vegetables and some potato side dishes.

The vegetables are blanched off, in other words; vegetables are placed into boiling water and depending on the vegetable, cooked for a short time. We are talking 2 to 3 minutes. The vegetables are then removed out of the hot water and placed into ice water. Using ice water prevents the vegetable to cook further and the colors are preserved. Especially green vegetables can go gray if not cooled fast in ice water. Once the vegetables are cooled down, they get removed out of the water to prevent them soaking up water. Again, before the main course gets served, the function chefs reheat the vegetables in the steamer and finish them in the pan with butter or served steamed.

Stews, curries and other sauce meat dishes are generally prepared in the hot section as well. Those dishes are served for some functions and also for the staff canteen.

Pasta and rice was also cooked in the hot section. A white long grain rice was cooked in boiling water and then strained and cooled down. The chefs from the sattelite kitchens would then portion the rice. The same with pasta like spaghetti, penne and other shaped pasta was cooked and portioned by the chefs from the sattelite kitchens.

Myself as one of the apprentices was spending a lot of time cutting vegetables and learning everything in the hot section. Everything we learned to cook we had to keep a recipe. It was a requirement to have a hand written recipe folder. At trade school we received a folder with sheets formatted for recipes. We had to use those sheets to write the recipes and put them into the folder. The executive chef would check our folders and we had to present them at trade school every six months. I ended up with a collection of over 800 recipes. Those recipe folders where presented at the final tests before we became qualified junior chefs. The reason I say junior chefs is for the reason that a chef was qualified after 10 years in the trade in Switzerland and not before. That was back in the 1970-80's.

Next week we visit the meat section of the main kitchen. Enjoy your week, love life and enjoy great food. 

PART TWENTYFIVE: IT IS HOT AND STEAM EVERY WHERE, THE HOT SECTION

STOCKS, SOUPS AND SAUCES

I was well into my apprenticeship, in my second year. I really liked working in the hot section of the main kitchen. The chef in charge was a fantastic chef, great sense of humor and a hard worker. I knew that I had to work just as hard to get his respect. I knew that I will learn to cook all the stocks, soups and sauces, a important part of cooking.
In the beginning, I had to learn again the basics. In the morning, we started with the function sheets, then put together a job list of items to cook and prepare. Part of that preparation list was all the stocks, sauces and soups for the satellite kitchens. Here is a list for some of the basic sauces and stocks. Using in house recipes, we had to make sure that the end result was always the same.

Fish stock, a base stock for fish soups, seafood soups and also to make a fish veluté, a base sauce for fish sauces served with grilled or poached fish. Fumé de poison: a fumé de poison is a fish stock with a stronger fish flavor. Instead of placing the raw fish bones in cold water and with diced vegetables for a slow cook, you sauté the fishbones before adding cold water and the vegetables and slow cook until you have a clear stock. Also used as a base for seafood chowder or a creamy or clear fish soup.

Lobster bisque: a red lobster sauce made from lobster shells or can be used for lobster soup.

Beef bouillon: made from beef bones, beef marrow bones, large diced vegetables, onion halves blackened, bayleaves, cloves, salt, peppercorns. All ingredients are placed in a large stockpot, filled with cold water and slowly bring to the light simmering point. The simmering time will take several hours, the longer the more flavor. We would simmer the lot for about 8 to 12 hours. Once finished, we would strain the stock using a cloth and a chinoise (Chinese hat shaped strainer). Bouillon can be served as a clear soup with fine diced vegetables or with small vermicelli noodles.
Beef bouillon in the making, see photo.

Consommé: using a mix of beef mince mixed with egg whites and ice cubes, A stockpot filled with cold buillon, we mix in the beef mince mix with a whisk. Then we heat the bouillon very slowly but not bringing the bouillon to the boil, just before simmering point. The mince mix will slowly work itself to the top until it forms a cake like surface. This process will take again at least 3 hours. After you strain the consommé very carefully through a cloth and strainer without disturbing the mix on top of the bouillon to much. Consommé is a clear strong beef soup served with bone marrow or other like consomme with julienne of vegetable, see photo

.

Cream sauce: This sauce we made was 95% made from full cream with a fat content of 35%. We would make 50 liters of cream sauce using 50 liters of cream, seasoning like salt, pepper and nutmeg and thicken the heated cream with a roux. A roux is a mix of melted butter and white flour made to a thick paste. Roux is used as a thickening ingredient for soups and sauces. The trouble with this sauce is that you have to stir it all the time. I once burned 50 liters of cream sauce and I got yelled at by the Executive Chef. The cost of that sauce was SFR 460.00 or about USD 490.00. It was my fault becauce I left the sauce and did not stir it all the time.
This sauce was used for cream sauces like mushroom sauce, white wine sauce and some dishes cooked in the satellite kitchens.

Demi glaze: made from beef and veal bones roaste in a large commercial frypan or oven with roasted onions, carrots, celeriac, garlic, parsnips, with tomato paste and flour until thick roasted paste, add water and redwine, bayleaves, cloves and peppercorns and cook for about5 to 6 hours. Keep topping up the liquid until finished. The lot gets strained and you end up with a thick brown base sauce. This base sauce is used for making all kinds of different brown sauces and stews, goulash and steak sauces.

Meat glaze: we used raw meat scraps from our butchery, mainly beef scraps, roast them with diced vegetables like the Demi glaze and add red wine and Demi glaze and reduce it down about 50%. Strain the sauce and you end up with a very thick meat glaze. Used  mainly for different sauces or as a meat glaze over a nice steak.

Napoletana Sauce: Again a basic sauce made from tomatoes we used to make different tomato based sauces and as a topping for pizza's. The importance of a good Napoletana sauce is that the sauce is not watery. To test that, we took a flat plate, placed a small amount of sauce into the middle of the plate and waited to see if any water runs of the edges of the sauce onto the plate. If there was no water along the edges of the sauce, the Napoletana sauce was ready. The secret was to cook the sauce for at least 3 to 5 hours.

Curry Sauce: The curry sauce we cooked was a Indian type fruit curry sauce, very tasty. Not spicy with a slight sweet taste, that curry sauce was used a lot in the sattelite kitchens for Riz Casimir a classic Swiss curry dish with rice and chicken and also other dishes. We made that sauce where you fry off onions, garlic, carrots, celery, leek, pineapple, bananas and mango chutney and then added the indian curry powder, coconut flakes and vegetable stock. Cooked for a couple of hours and then blended until very fine and strained.

Next week I talk about what else goes on on the Hot Section of the Hotel Main kitchen. Until then, keep well, enjoy life and great foods.

PART TWENTYFOUR: LEARNING TO WORK IN A RESTAURANT

From BIG to small

I did my apprenticeship in a big International Hotel called Holiday Inn. I learned the ins and outs of a large hotel operation but had no idea what it is like to work in a restaurant. In order to prepare us for the future in the Chefs trade, the Executive Chef organised for us apprentices to go and work for a month or two in a restaurant. Good for us to learn how different it is to work in a restaurant. In our second year of apprenticeship each one of us had to go for about 2 months to a restaurant near Zürich called "Al Dente". That restaurant was part of the TMC ZÜRICH (Textil und Mode Centrum)(Textile and fashion center). One of Europes largest trading center for textiles and fashion, had a restaurant attached to the center. All the fashion designers, textile business people and all the pretty girls showing off all the new designed dresses. Real eye candy for us boys, I can assure you. Here is a photo of the TMC in Zürich.

I started in the restaurant which had a small kitchen brigade. The kitchen was a lot smaller and everything was made in that small kitchen. It was a lot different to work in that restaurant and the pace was very fast. The TMC had a lot of textile and fashion events and was visited by a lot of people from near and far. 

The foods served was of very high quality due to the clientele and it was also expensive. The restaurant was open all day until about 10 pm. Personally, I did not really like working in a small kitchen crowded with chefs but I had no other option. On top of that, our head chef of that restaurant was a real smart arse and treated us apprentices not really well. It was a character forming exercise. I felt a few times to smack him but I had to keep my temper in control. After all I was a apprentice, meaning to shut up, keep smiling and say YES CHEF. 

Here is a picture of the restaurant with outdoor seating.

I remember a incident where that head chef was pushing his luck to the maximum with me. 

We where very busy and we had a couple of functions coming up. I just got word, that my dear auntie passed away and we would go to her funeral. I went to the head chef and ask him for permission to go to her funeral. He's reply was: They can bury her without you been there. We are to busy and you can not go. I lost my shit, took of the apron and left the kitchen. I went home, told my mum and she got very angry. She called that head chef and complained to him. I went to see my Executive Chef at the Holiday Inn and reported to him what happened. 

At the end, I could not go to the funeral, but the head chef had to go to management and after applogize to me in front of every one. Since that day, I did not wanted to work there any longer, but I stayed for a couple more weeks. Luckely I was back at the hotel afterwards and I did not had go go back. I was not interested to work in restaurants anyway, I was quite happy to work only in hotels.  

Here is one more photo of the restaurant from close up.

Valuable lesson learned

Always keep your temper. Get even, take the right action. If you know that you have a point, especially if it comes to a family matter with your boss, go to management. As a chef, one has to develop a thick skin. Like in every other trade, you will get to meet some arseholes with no people or management skills. Look at the situation, keep cool, and act accordingly. A character forming exercise.

Next week I talk about the hot section of the main kitchen and my experience working with a fantastic chef. Have a great week, love life and enjoy great food.