Chefs Dish It Out

The Hot Pepper

The Hot Pepper

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Are you a chef? Cooking with heat? Dish it out! Tell us your stories (good and bad), menu creations, etc.

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(This was created so TB could tell us about his new job. But all chefs, please chime in!)
 
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I started my first food service job as a dishwasher when I was 13 years old. Technically before I should have been legal to work in a restaurant. It was only two weeks and then I had the work permit..... off and running.....


I don't have a whole lot of stories but here's a couple of classics--

In the little mom-n-pop cafe where I started, the old owner (Clarence was late 60's when I started there) liked to smoke cigars. There was an ashtray perched on a switch box right next to the exhaust fan over the fryers. Stoogies always on the burn there. The waitresses would have an ashtray perched on the ledge right above the dirty dish area where I was working. They'd take two puffs...then leave the ciggy smoldering right in my face. It's amazing how "accurate" a dishwasher can be when "splashing" about in the scullery sink.

I worked at Northern State "Multi-Service Center" for a while. In it's heyday, Northern State Hospital was one of the industry leading facilites for medical science. Anyone who wanted to learn the proper procedure for how to do a lobotomy came to observe at Northern State. They'd moth-balled the lobotomies by the time I went to work there, but all the tunnels and sugery rooms were still there. The campus housed 3 different programs, a Job Corp, a court-committed drug and alcohol recovery program and a low-risk mental patient program. We served 500-600 people per meal between the different programs. We kitchen workers always said it was a thin line from one side of the serving line to the other.

One incident---I know, I'm a horrible person for having this kind of a twisted sense of humor...but here's how the converstion went...
Wally was one of the mental clients. Timid, sweet, and always wanting to help and please, he worked hard at his kitchen cleaning job. He was so courtious and did not want to make trouble for anything. Well, one day..trouble happened....

Wally had his plate of food on his generic food service tray and went over to the drinks island. Don't know how it happened, but on this day... Wally's glass of milk got spilled onto his tray with his food plate. Wally came up to the serving counter, very upset, with tears on his face, so upset about the whole milk situation.....

and it was all I could do to not say...."well, there's no use crying over spilt milk".....


I just took him over to the dish room and got him a fresh tray...Wally was OK .........



One of our older kitchen ladies was lifting a case of canned peaches off a cart and commented "OOFFF That weighs a lot!" I looked at the case package and told her- "No Wonder. It's 'Peaches in Extra-heavy Syrup' "

What can I say, I love a good pun...


One former waitress did the Heimlich Procedure on a customer choking on steak. She'd gotten the training while working at my cafe. That was pretty cool.

One other nasty story is when a customer pulled a Bandaid out of their soup. EEEEWWWW!!!!!!!!

Ok enough feeble restaurant stories.





TB- looking for more info on your new gig. I'm sure others know more as I don't follow all the threads. Kick Them Young Twerps Collective Asses!!!!
 
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Well y'all after over a week of getting up close n' persnel' with a 24" flat grill I must say its like falling in love all over again.

The other day after getting home I took a few tics to go on Craigslist and see if I could find a used one for cheapness.

Oh they are out there.

Cheapest one I found was $600 for a 24" but the back splash was missing, and the burners needed replacement.

Man oh man could I whoop out some kick ass sliders and tacos on that 'thang.

The hot side of the one I'm currently working with puts out an awesome maillard crust even on a 1/3 pound ground chuck beef patty.

But I know of one joint that really gets me off.

This right here is my kinda' slider style and only achieved with a flat grill/griddle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC-6RSjPOBE
 
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I have a chili cookoff at work next week, and I was hoping someone would put up some pics and ingredients for a killer hot chili. I have some ideas, but just looking at what other people are doing help to give me even more ideas of how to torture judges who think that Frank's hot sauce is nasty.
 
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Alabama Jack's post his recipe for AJ's Red chili which is supposed to be legendary. Recipe's around here somewhere.
 
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The reason I despise the flattop is chefs get lazy and use it for everything (mostly at diners) when they should be using pans. Omelets come out flat and browned and should only be made in an omelet pan. An omelet can't be made on a flattop but try to tell that to a diner. Pancakes taste like hamburgers from cooking burgers next to them or not cleaning it. I've had pancakes with garlic in them. If I had a restaurant there would be 12-16 burners and multiple pans. No flattop. If it was a burger joint, and used for burgers and onions only, okay then.
 
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Half of the flattop is used only for pancakes and pancakes ONLY!

The other day I was asked to brown off a bunch of ground beef for the owner. When I went to grab a pan he said "whoa there, we do it right on the flattop." I said " sure we can do that, but the 10 pounds of cold ground beef is going to cool that griddle right down." He said "oh no, that griddle runs hot, it'll be fine."

After more or less poaching the beef in its own water and fat on the flattop, if finally came back up to a decent temp after 45 minutes.

They like to use lemon pepper.

I think the stuff is Satan.

A friend of theirs picked a 1/2 a bushel of fresh lemons off of some trees and gave it to them as a freebie. Tomorrow Ima show 'em how to make white wine lemon butter sauce. I have a spare box of hobo chardonnay I'll donate.

Saturday, Ima show 'em how to spruce up their boring omelette's and frozen potatos with queso.

I'll introduce them to Mr. Ro-Tel and Mrs. Velveeta.

Too scary to show them how to make queso with a roux, cream, and cheese.

I'm in a Twilight Zone episode here and each day is filled with non stop weird-sheeit-o-meter goin's on.

Can't get them to understand that you don't have to write out Chicken Fried Steak on a ticket.

The entire country knows it as CFS but it might as well be martian to them.

I couldn't make this sheeit up y'all!

And I'm having a helluva good time too!
 
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Commercial use? I thought you said you wanted one for your home because you liked working with one at work. I guess I misunderstood.
 
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I think he thought you were talking about the beef cooling the one he uses at work down THP.

I'm happy to hear you're having a good time there TB.
The minute it aint fun no mo, scrap it! as I'm sure you would.

What kina self spectin joint you workin at tho?
They got zagna and PoBoys on the menu and spell out Chicken Fried Steak? :rofl:

That don't sound like the Texas I've seen on TV.
 
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The Hot Pepper said:
Commercial use? I thought you said you wanted one for your home because you liked working with one at work. I guess I misunderstood.
Click to expand...

I should have clarified that I was looking at restaurant grade commercial gas fired flat tops.

Anything down from there and I would rather use a big cast iron pan with a gas burner.

Now I also know that there ARE commercial electric griddles but those are either big institutional types used aboard cruise ships, USN vessels, hospitals, etc. or any facility that cannot use gas, or they are cheap table top electric griddles not much more useful than a George Forman grill.

When we were kids, pop had an electric cast iron table top griddle he used for bacon and pancakes and it was quite efficient at cooking some fine meals but a damn awful mess to clean up, especially when cooking bacon or other meats. Grease a 'flyin' ever wheres.

If I had a 24" gas flattop, man oh man I'd use the hell out of it.


Scoville DeVille said:
I think he thought you were talking about the beef cooling the one he uses at work down THP.

I'm happy to hear you're having a good time there TB.
The minute it aint fun no mo, scrap it! as I'm sure you would.

What kina self spectin joint you workin at tho?
They got zagna and PoBoys on the menu and spell out Chicken Fried Steak? :rofl:

That don't sound like the Texas I've seen on TV.
Click to expand...

Them folks came from NOLA after Katrina.

They's be good people n' all but they ain't Texans.

That's why I have to 'splain them about queso and why the term CFS is a mystery to them.

Its all cool and the gang.

Day before turkey day, dude has 8 propane burners and pots for frying turkeys.

Last count I heard was around 55-60 birds we'll be doing and for me will be a first time affair being involved with the frying.

Could be all kinda' awesome!
 
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TB, thanks for sharing your newest culinary adventure with us.

I'll have to google what an omelet pan is, prolly a 12" non-stick, Our flat tops rocked the fresh potato hash browns right next to the omelets. Tri-folds....one flip.....awesome....

no garlic leaching...... and we also did hashbrowns totaly dry for our vegan customers...


sounds like TB has an EPIC pre-turkeyday coming up. You'll Rock it outa da park. no ? !!!!!
 
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The reason you can't make an omelet (omelette) on a flattop is the eggs spread too thin, and omelets don't do that. You need the proper pan and technique. Best technique I ever saw was by Julia Child, and she showed how to practice with dried beans in the pan. The pan size depends on the size of the eggs and how many. Here's some: http://potshopofbost...OmelettePan.htm

Here is an example of omelette technique and pans: http://www.randomhou...ild/recipe.html

Some vid:


:D

Sorry, but I hate flattop omelets. A proper omelet looks like more like a burrito than a quesadilla. The pan is needed for the depth and fluffiness.
 
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well, all I know is the little Mom-n-Pop cafe where I first worked served 3-egg omlets (sic but it's spelled as a waitress would have spelt it. [yes, more SIC, I know] ) all day long made on the flat top. And their hashbrowns were from real fresh pototoes, and I chopped up 5 quarts of slimy oysters for the Wednesday oyster stew every week..



and that was WAAAAAAAYYYYY before Food Network..........


so they may have been doing it "wrong", but they were darn sure doing something right to have been in business for 30+ years before I started working there....

How many restaurants can say they serve real fresh shredded potatoes for their hash browns? I don't know of any in our valley that serve non-FSA hash browns. Scovie/CJ, If you know of a place that does, please let me know.
 
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Food Network scmetwork, Julia Child is old school. And she cooked old French recipes. But I'd try that omelet. Just here, they come out flat like pancakes and browned. Best I ever had were from a pan. Yellow, fluffy, more round than flat. The fillings more in the center than all Incorporated. When flat, browned, and fillings incorporated, that's a frittata. And I do like those. But not when I order an omelet :P
 
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I've made pan omlets also.

What do you mean, or please explain further, "flat, browned, fillings incorporated"-

Our flat top omlets were never brown, and they were like burritos. The pan omlets didn't have the ingredients incorporated (I'm reading "mixed in") to the eggs and they were folded in half. so still had the stuffing in the middle.

edit- the pan omlets were at a different place.
 
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SL, the diners just suck here I guess. Or maybe they water down the eggs so they run flat, and they brown (instead of being yellow/fluffy).

By flat and browned I mean... looks like someone made scrambled eggs with fillings... never stirred them and left them flat to brown on the flat top, flipped them once, and did the same on the other side. That's our omelets here at diners. At bistros or better joints, real omelets.

Next time I'll take a pic, and you too will say "that ain't no omelet."
 
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Place1- We scrambled 3 eggs in a bowl, slopped a little oil on the griddle, poured out the eggs, layered the fillings onto the gently bubbling eggs , folded it up like a burrito, cheese on top and cover it for a few on the cool side of the grill...


Place 2- put 3 scrambled eggs into a large (10" ) skillet, let the eggs cook to set point, add the fillings to one side oneside of the pan, and then simultaniously pour out and flip 1/2 over to make a half-moon shape.

neither were browned.

Bummer that your cafes cook like that.
 
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