Tag Archives: cooking

April 5, 2013 · 11:04 am

Crowding The Pan

Foodie Friday Fun time.  Today I want to talk about the Maillard reaction.  No, it has nothing to do with ducks – those are Mallards.  This is something that goes on in cooking when heat causes the natural sugar in food to change.  You can think of it as browning although it’s a lot more complex than that.  The process creates lots of flavors and why we sear off meats before roasting or we will cook vegetables in a recipe to bring out flavors before adding other ingredients.

 

Quails browning

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

The thing about bringing out this reaction is that you can’t crowd things in the pan.  It’s why we’re often told to brown meat in batches.  You’ve probably tried to brown some ground meat and noticed that rather than browning it sort of steams in its own liquid.  It’s not brown – it’s kind of grey.  The same problem occurs in baking – too many cookies on the sheet and they don’t cook properly.

 

The fix is pretty simple:  give everything a little space and take a bit more time as you plan out your cooking time. Give your food plenty of room to move around in the pan, and let it cook in a single layer.  Which is, of course, the business point as well.

 

We often crowd people with too many tasks and a multitude of instructions   As businesses we often put too many things into our figurative pan.  Rather than getting the reactions we want (nice even browning with a lovely fond on the bottom of the pan) we get a soggy grey mess or soggy, limp vegetables that don’t have a lot of flavor.  We need to take a few things out of people’s’ pans or focus or business on fewer things. Give everything a little more space and allow time for things to develop properly.  Of course, there are those cooks who think they can skip the searing altogether.  That’s a big mistake which you recognize once you’ve done that and tasted the results.  Business takes time and there are certain steps that you can’t omit if you want a great product.

 

We’re all under a lot of pressure for results, both in the office and in the kitchen.  Overcrowding the pan in either place might get us where we want to go more rapidly but the results are inferior.  No one wants “OK” as a response, not when “WOW” is sitting there waiting.

 

How full is your pan?

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

1 Comment

Filed under food, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , , ,

February 1, 2013 · 11:24 am

Chefs And Cooks

Ah, Foodie Friday!  The gateway to the weekend.  One of the things I like most about the weekend is that I can spend time in the kitchen and not feel as if I’m neglecting work.  I suppose for those folks for whom the kitchen is work – on both an amateur and professional basis – that’s not such a treat but it is to me.  There are, of course, an awful lot of differences between what I do in the kitchen and what a professional does.  The biggest difference, aside from the skill level, is that I’m usually there working by myself as both chef and cook.  If you’re not clear as to what the main difference is, read on – there’s a business point in it as well.

English: White House chefs, directed by Execut...

.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Running a business is similar to running a kitchen.  The key in both cases is for the person in charge – the chef – not to get too caught up in doing the grunt work but instead in spending their time and energy supervising and helping the line cooks.  Any great chef will tell you that the hardest part of their work isn’t  creating the dishes they serve.  Instead, it’s in taking those menu items  and putting them into a system that will work efficiently.  You must produce each dish in a timely manner and at a consistent level of quality.  Managing a business staff is the same – the art is in creating a system that produces consistent work in a timely, efficient manner.

Another point to consider is the complexity of those dishes or the projects you assign to your staff.  I used to play music with a lot of extremely talented musicians.  However, there were a few pieces that were just too difficult for us to pull off and in the interest of our audience we didn’t try to play them publicly.  Knowing the limitations of a staff or your business to produce something is an important part of the management mix and the creative process.

Most chefs have no problem stepping into a station on the line if need be.  Most great managers can step in and help with the grunt work as well.  The ones who aren’t worthy of their titles are the ones who think it’s beneath them or who don’t have the focus on the customer’s immediate need for the work.  Which are you – a chef or a cook?  Which role should you be playing?

Enhanced by Zemanta

2 Comments

Filed under food, Helpful Hints

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 4, 2013 · 10:55 am

The Equipment

For our first Foodie Friday post of the year let’s talk about kitchen equipment.

VIKING STOVE

(Photo credit: CRYROLFE)

I’m very fortunate to cook in a kitchen that’s equipped with just about every tool for which a cook can ask. Some of these things are designed for a specific purpose (boning knife), some are improvements over an existing tool (a Microplane vs. a box grater) and some are just silly (cherry pitter).  The appliances are the highest grade of equipment available to a home cook.  When friends or family come over I can usually serve them something which they enjoy and of which I’m proud.

Sometimes, however, I cook elsewhere.  The stove is usually electric, the oven temp is often off, the knives may be dull or only serrated and small, the pans might be flimsy.  The expectation from those folks whom I’ve served before and for whom I’m cooking now is that they’ll get the same sort of meal they received from my own kitchen.  Frankly, that’s the expectation I have too.  Which is the business point.

We can’t blame the equipment.  How many writers don’t write because they lack screenplay software?  How many times have you heard a budding director say they’ll make their movie when they get better equipment?  Can’t exercise because there’s no gym?  What about in business – would you accept a subordinate’s excuse that they couldn’t complete an assignment because their computer failed?  As a consumer, are you mollified when a restaurant fails to honor your reservation because “the system is down?”

Part of being good at what we do in business is accepting responsibility and not allowing impediments to become excuses.  I’m embarrassed when I serve what I deem to be less than my best meal even if I’m cooking in a strange kitchen with rudimentary tools.  I’m sure most of you feel the same way.  Yet we often don’t translate that into our business lives nor enforce it as a standard on our teams.  We can’t blame the equipment – we play the hand we’re dealt.  The test is to see who can produce consistently great work in any environment.  Even if it lacks a cherry pitter!

You with me on this?

Enhanced by Zemanta

Leave a comment

Filed under food, Reality checks

Tagged as , , , , , ,