Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Chefs Secret! Kitchen Tips and Tricks Ep. 86
Transcript
- 0:00Hello chefs, This is Chef's PSA Podcast.
- 0:01I'm your host, Andre Natera. On today's episode, we're going
- 0:04to talk all about tips and tricks from Chef's PSA that you
- 0:08can incorporate in your kitchen. Stay tuned.
- 0:22So before we get started, if you want to support the show, you
- 0:25know what to do. Make sure you leave five stars.
- 0:28Nothing less than five stars. If you're watching on YouTube,
- 0:30hit the subscribe button, turn on the little bell for
- 0:32notifications, and of course, go to chefspsa.com where you get
- 0:35all the books that I sell, including the free ebooks as
- 0:38well. Culinary Leadership
- 0:39Fundamentals, probably the most important book of all of them,
- 0:42followed by Bad Sue, Good Chef If you're a new Sous Chef, this
- 0:45is your mentorship book that you need.
- 0:47Kitchen, Art of War for the Strategist, Line Cook Survival
- 0:50Manual for all the new Line Cooks, and How Not to Be the
- 0:53Biggest Idiot in the Kitchen. Well, basically for Idiots in
- 0:55the Kitchen. Anyway, we digress.
- 0:57I briefly want to talk about a podcast that I was on recently,
- 0:59one of my friends podcast called Proper Thieves.
- 1:02It's a great podcast. It's about an hour and a half
- 1:05long. I'm going to link it in the show
- 1:06notes, go listen to it or go watch it on YouTube.
- 1:09Proper Thieves podcast. But half of the podcast is chef
- 1:12stuff and the other half of the podcast is just random things.
- 1:15Everything from UFOs to MMA fighting to creative habits to
- 1:20morning routines. It's a great episode.
- 1:22I really enjoyed that interview. Go give them a follow and go
- 1:25listen to that one. I was happy with it.
- 1:26I thought it was pretty good. I found it rather entertaining.
- 1:29I put a couple of clips up on Chef's PSA Instagram so you get
- 1:32an idea of where it's going. Speaking of tips, on today's
- 1:35Chef's PSA Instagram post, I didn't do my typical fortune
- 1:39cookie post. I did something a little bit
- 1:41different. I asked for pro tips from the
- 1:44industry. What are some of those little
- 1:45pro tips that you guys know that everyone should know?
- 1:48And I think it's a pretty good thread.
- 1:50You should go look at it. There's a lot of really good
- 1:51information on there. So all the people that commented
- 1:53on it, thank you so much. Save that for future reference
- 1:57because it's like a little hub of knowledge.
- 1:59So what inspired that is that I knew I was going to record this
- 2:02podcast. I want to give a shout out to
- 2:04Alec Costia who inspired this podcast.
- 2:08We were talking and he wanted me to do an episode on Little Tips
- 2:11and Tricks in the Kitchen, things that I've shown him that
- 2:13he thinks all chefs and cooks should know.
- 2:16So little things sometimes make a big difference in the kitchen.
- 2:20It's all about attention to detail.
- 2:21And so everything I'm going to talk about today, I think are
- 2:25simple things that you could incorporate into your kitchen
- 2:27practice that would make your life a little bit easier, make
- 2:29your food just a little bit nicer, and maybe you know some
- 2:32of them, maybe you don't. I'll do my best to explain them
- 2:35so you understand, but if I gloss over a topic quickly, feel
- 2:40free to comment and I'll try and expand upon it.
- 2:42Let's start with the first one, the cryovac machine.
- 2:44Now, I think the cryovac machine is one of the most important
- 2:48pieces of equipment in any kitchen, but unfortunately most
- 2:50people just use it for cryo vacuum and it could do so much
- 2:53more. The obvious first thing you
- 2:55could use it for a sous video. Cooking, putting things under
- 2:57vacuum, extending the shelf life of your product, minimizing
- 3:01space in the cooler. You know, if things are nice and
- 3:03neatly organized and vacuum packed bags, make sure they're
- 3:05labeled and dated, you could put things away nicely.
- 3:08Now, there are some safety precautions that I think people
- 3:10need to be aware of when vacuum packing things.
- 3:12Make sure everything's nice and clean.
- 3:14Make sure you clean your cryovac machine and make sure it's
- 3:16sanitary. But what are some cool things
- 3:18that you could do with your cryovac machine?
- 3:19One one thing that I do is I compress spinach.
- 3:23Now if you've ever bought bags of spinach, you know how much
- 3:26space they take up on your line. They're huge.
- 3:28But if you toss the spinach with a little bit of olive oil, put
- 3:31it inside the cryovac bag and cryovac it in the machine,
- 3:34obviously you're going to reduce the amount of fluff in the
- 3:37spinach by about 10 times, which will then take up much less
- 3:41space in your reaching or you're walk in or wherever you're
- 3:43storing your spinach. This is assuming that you're
- 3:45going to cook it right. If it's for a spin style,
- 3:47probably bad idea, don't do that.
- 3:49But when the spinach gets compressed, it also kind of
- 3:52gives you an idea of how much spinach you need to grab to
- 3:54saute. Because everyone knows that when
- 3:57you're sauteing spinach, you can start out like with a pan that's
- 4:00overflowing and you end up with like a spoonful.
- 4:02So cryovac in your spinach not only saves space, but also gives
- 4:05you a better gauge on how much spinach you're going to need for
- 4:08a specific dish. You could also cryovac,
- 4:11microgreens, herbs, things like that.
- 4:13What I do is I put them in containers with ice water and
- 4:17then I cryovac and then that sort of quickly opens up the
- 4:20cells. So if you've ever put scallions
- 4:22or bell Peppers or just fresh herbs and ice water, you see how
- 4:25they get crisp and firm up. Well immediately putting them in
- 4:29the cryovac machine will open them up even more and allow you
- 4:32to use them immediately. Now they do take on a little bit
- 4:35of a translucent color as it breaks the cell walls, but the
- 4:38reason I like this so much is because they last way longer.
- 4:42If you've ever had some micro greens on the line, you know
- 4:45that they wilt by the end of service and you got to throw
- 4:47them away. Soup them in ice water will
- 4:49allow them to last. The other thing is if you work
- 4:51in a restaurant with heat lamps and then you garnish with micro
- 4:54greens, what you'll notice is that by the time you're finished
- 4:57garnishing and ready to sell the food the microgreens have
- 4:59wilted. Would you compress them in ice
- 5:01water? They will still remain in the
- 5:03form that you want them, so they'll still have a little bit
- 5:05of structure to them. Game changing tip?
- 5:07Trust me, if you haven't done it before, just try it.
- 5:10Everyone that I've ever showed that to that for some reason is
- 5:13the thing that impressed them the most.
- 5:14So anyway, that's a game changing.
- 5:16Tip kraw back your herbs and ice water.
- 5:18And by the way I don't mean in a bag, I mean in an open
- 5:21container. So for example, you have a 9th
- 5:24pan or a deli container, fill it up with ice water, put in the
- 5:27cryovac machine, and then compress your herbs not in the
- 5:29bag. So I want to make sure that if I
- 5:31wasn't clear about that, we're clear now.
- 5:33Few other things that you could use those cryovac bags for is
- 5:37fermenting. So if you've ever read Noma's
- 5:40book, The Guide to Fermentation, they talk about fermenting and
- 5:43cryovac bags, and then you leave them out of room temperature and
- 5:45you burp them every couple of days and reseal them.
- 5:47Anyway, those cryovac bags come in handy for fermentation.
- 5:50If you're doing like a 2% salt fermentation.
- 5:53Anyway, you can read that book. It goes into it in depth.
- 5:56But again, if you're using your cryovac machine, well, not only
- 5:59can it increase the quality of your food, but it could extend
- 6:02the shelf life of your products through fermentation and
- 6:05pickling. So let's talk about pickling
- 6:06too. I cryovac my Pickles all the
- 6:09time, so sometimes in a bag, sometimes just in an open deli
- 6:12container or a pan without the lid if I need them immediately.
- 6:15But cryobacking your Pickles allows you to use them much
- 6:19quicker, so you don't have to wait 24 hours or 48 hours or
- 6:23whatever your pickling recipe calls for.
- 6:24Sometimes you can use them immediately.
- 6:26On top of that, compressing fruits and vegetables, infusing
- 6:29flavors, and the list goes on and on.
- 6:31I guess the point is if you have a cryobac machine, use it for
- 6:35more than just sucking the air out of bags.
- 6:38If you're making a fluid gel you might want to take the bubbles
- 6:40out. Another little tip, sorry I
- 6:42could I could talk about cryovac machines a lot.
- 6:44The next thing is something I call swanier water.
- 6:46So when I'm setting up my line, if I was a saute cook or even
- 6:50sometimes just if I'm working the past, I always have a little
- 6:52squeeze bottle of clean water, distilled filtered water.
- 6:57Just something simple and the reason I have that is throughout
- 7:00service things tend to split. Emulsions tend to break, fat
- 7:04starts to be released, so adding a little bit of water to things
- 7:08helps bring them back. So let's just use the
- 7:09hollandaise sauce as an example. If your hollandaise on the line
- 7:12is starting to split, you add a little bit of water and you
- 7:14continue to whisk, it'll bring it back together.
- 7:16If you're holding a very buttery pom puree on the line and you're
- 7:21starting to get a little grease ring around it, you could put it
- 7:23back in a pan out, a little bit of water, And again, I mean a
- 7:25little bit of water and stir it back up and it re emulsifies the
- 7:29fat back into it. Another thing I like to use that
- 7:31water for is if maybe you're making a pan sauce or maybe
- 7:34you're making a sauce for pasta and maybe it's split.
- 7:38You can add a little bit of water if it got too thick.
- 7:40Or if you need to re emulsify that pasta water and butter,
- 7:43olive or whatever the case might be.
- 7:45Maybe you left your little sauce pot of sauce and it reduced a
- 7:49little too much or it's a little bit too thick.
- 7:51Just adding a squeeze of water in there could hopefully bring
- 7:54it back to life. So having a little squeeze
- 7:56bottle of water goes a long way. I call it swanier water.
- 7:59I don't know what you call it. Maybe you just call it water.
- 8:02Anyway, that's a good little tip that I have in the kitchen.
- 8:05Have a squeeze bottle of Swanee Water on your station and use it
- 8:08for everything. Trust me, once you start using
- 8:11it, you'll you'll wonder why you never did that before.
- 8:14The next one. I want to give a shout out to
- 8:17the team at the French Laundry and Per SE because I got this
- 8:19idea from them chefs. Thomas Keller, David Breeda, the
- 8:22whole team at those restaurants in the book, The French Laundry
- 8:25per SE. There's a chapter in there on
- 8:27thickening agents and they talk about pre hydrated xanthan gum.
- 8:31Now this idea I had heard years ago, I think I read about it in
- 8:35David Chang's Lucky Peach magazine where someone was
- 8:37making xanthan water to help glaze vegetables.
- 8:41I think it was Laurent Gras at L2O at the time.
- 8:43I think my memory might be escaping me, but I think I read
- 8:45that Laurent Gras, when he was the chef at L2O3 Michelin Stars
- 8:49at that time, was putting a little bit of xanthan gum and
- 8:51water and making xanthan water, keeping it a squeeze bottle and
- 8:54helping it glaze vegetables. Adding a little squeeze to the
- 8:57saute pan gave it a nice Sheen to the vegetable.
- 9:00So anyway, in the French Laundry per SE book, the new one, they
- 9:02go over creating xanthan water. So the way that it's explained
- 9:06in the book, it's at 2%, so 2% for all-purpose xanthan water.
- 9:11So 1000 grams of water, 20 grams of xanthan gum.
- 9:15Put the water in the blender, turn it on, shear in the xanthan
- 9:19gum and you'll have this pre hydrated xanthan come that kind
- 9:23of looks goopy what they advise in the book and this is what I
- 9:25do. Also I took the advice is you
- 9:26put in the cryo vac machine to bring the bubbles out which I
- 9:29talked about earlier or something that you could do.
- 9:30What you end up with is a very clear liquid almost looks like
- 9:34it almost has the look of glucose syrup.
- 9:35Anyway you put that in a squeeze bottle or a container how
- 9:38whatever you use it for in the kitchen and it becomes an
- 9:40all-purpose thickening agent for a lot of things.
- 9:43So what do I use it for? I put it in purees to help them
- 9:46from splitting. So if you've made vegetable
- 9:48purees, fruit purees, you know that sometimes when you put it
- 9:52on the plate it leaves a very thin water ring around it if it
- 9:55sits for too long. So putting a little bit of that
- 9:57pre hydrated xanthan gum in there will help the water from
- 10:00leaching out. It adds a little bit of
- 10:02structure to your purees. It helps emulsify things.
- 10:05It could help with stabilizing foams if you're putting things
- 10:08in an ISI canister or Izzy. I don't know Izzy or is it ISI?
- 10:11I've heard, I've heard chefs call it both things.
- 10:14They don't sponsor the show, so maybe if they did I would know
- 10:16how I would know what the name is.
- 10:18But anyway, Pre High, as it's called in the book coined by the
- 10:21French Laundry team, is basically pre hydrated xanthib
- 10:23gum at 2% Goes a long way. Full credit to those guys when I
- 10:28read it, I definitely incorporated it into my kitchen
- 10:31repertoire when I was a chef. It is a game changer.
- 10:34It's one of those things, like I said, the bottle of water bottle
- 10:37of Pre High goes a long way. It'll change the game.
- 10:41It'll make your sauces shinier, smoother with a more beautiful
- 10:45texture, assuming that you're using a nice Vita mix blender to
- 10:48make sure everything's nice and smooth.
- 10:49Anyway, we digress. And by the way, there's a lot of
- 10:52really good tips in that French Laundry Per SE book.
- 10:55One of the things that they talk about is the 211 Pickles SO2
- 10:59parts water, one part vinegar, one part sugar, and they make
- 11:02the pickling brine and they use it for pretty much everything.
- 11:04So I I love that idea. I love simple ratios in the
- 11:06kitchen, things that it doesn't matter what it is.
- 11:09The 211 is the ratio. Got it.
- 11:11So we could change the arrow mats that are in there.
- 11:13We could flavor it differently, but that becomes the all-purpose
- 11:15Pickling brine for a kitchen. So what I do if I'm the chef is
- 11:19I will make 10 gallons or five gallons of all-purpose pickling
- 11:23brine. And then as we're making
- 11:24Pickles, we might just infuse it with some different arrow mats
- 11:27depending on what we're doing. But the pickling brine remains
- 11:30the same for pretty much everything.
- 11:31So again, ratios are a good thing to know. 2112 parts water,
- 11:36one part vinegar, one part sugar.
- 11:38That's the French Laundry per SE recipe in that book, which I
- 11:40love. They also get into their vet
- 11:43Blanc, which is a combination of so ascorbic acid, sugar and
- 11:47salt. And then they rehydrate it with
- 11:49water at 6% and they use it as an all-purpose croissant for
- 11:53everything that they're cooking. Maybe it's vegetables, maybe
- 11:56it's you're cleaning artichokes and the artichokes are going in
- 11:58there so they don't oxidize. Maybe it's simply for
- 12:01compressing some lettuces or some cucumbers before you put
- 12:04them on a crudite or something like that.
- 12:06Anyway, endless possibilities with that, but I love those
- 12:09ratios and those little things are great tips.
- 12:11So shout out to those guys. Like I said, full credit to
- 12:13them. It's something that I read and
- 12:14then I incorporated into my kitchen.
- 12:16I think they're good ideas and I think you should incorporate
- 12:18them too. Next tip I have for chefs and
- 12:21cooks is to have a finishing station.
- 12:23And what I mean by that is just you just have a couple of things
- 12:26on your station that are intended to finish the dish.
- 12:29So what do I have on my finishing station?
- 12:30I'll talk about it. I always have some sort of acid
- 12:33and that acid comes in different forms.
- 12:35It might be a good quality Sherry vinegar or a baniels
- 12:38vinegar or a champagne vinegar or something like that.
- 12:41It might be simply just some lemon cheeks.
- 12:43So if I just need a squeeze of lemon on top to to bring some
- 12:47acidity or some brightness to the dish.
- 12:48But there is some finishing acid on my station to adjust the
- 12:52seasoning of whatever it is that I happen to be serving at the
- 12:54moment. There's also a high quality
- 12:57olive oil, something extra virgin, something flavorful,
- 13:00something that I know is high quality.
- 13:01I'm not talking about the stuff that you typically saute with.
- 13:03I'm talking about spending a little bit of money getting a
- 13:06good quality olive oil, having a nice little squeeze bottle on
- 13:09your station, and maybe you're using it to brighten things up
- 13:12before it goes out. You're drizzling it on some
- 13:14steak, on some pasta, it adds a little bit of Sheen, it adds a
- 13:17little bit of fat, and obviously if it tastes good, it adds a ton
- 13:19of flavor. Maybe olive oil is not your
- 13:21thing, but a finishing oil on the line goes a long way to
- 13:25brighten up your dishes. The next thing I have on my
- 13:27finishing station is some sort of salt.
- 13:30Typically I use like a Maldon flaky salt or something like
- 13:33that. A little goes a long way to add
- 13:35some crunch. I enjoy finishing meat with it.
- 13:38Sprinkling a little bit of Maldon salt on a sliced steak or
- 13:41a piece of duck breast or something like that goes a long
- 13:43way. It enhances the flavor.
- 13:45It adds a little bit of texture when you get into that crunch.
- 13:47And then of course freshly ground black pepper.
- 13:49About every dish needs pepper, but for those dishes that do
- 13:52need pepper, freshly ground goes a long way.
- 13:55I use a pujo pepper mill because I'm a pepper mill snob.
- 13:57You use whatever you want, but I'm a big believer in the
- 14:01freshly ground black pepper, not to the stuff that comes in a
- 14:04container. That's table grind, and the
- 14:07reason I I'm not a big believer in that is because I think you
- 14:09lose some of the flavor. In my experience, some of the
- 14:11essential oils get lost. You don't know how long that's
- 14:14been sitting on the shelf. So I like grinding my pepper for
- 14:18finishing right out of the pepper mill on the steak or the
- 14:20chicken or the duck or the meat or salad, whatever it is, I like
- 14:23to finish my food with that. So that's on my finishing
- 14:25station. Some sort of acid, vinegar,
- 14:27lemons, olive oil, finishing salt, pepper, and then obviously
- 14:30plate wipes, which, while we're on the subject of plate wipes,
- 14:33everyone does their plate wipes differently.
- 14:35I like mine made out of torque towels or chick towels.
- 14:38Some people use a, you know, big cloth.
- 14:40Other people I've seen get sponges and cut them up.
- 14:44I soak mine, typically in vodka. Some people like to use vinegar.
- 14:47Some people just use water. Whatever it is, use a plate wipe
- 14:50because dirty plates are gross. Roll them up nice and tight.
- 14:53Don't serve food on a dirty plate.
- 14:55Chefs, come on, you know better. My next little tip is everyone
- 14:59should have a caviar key on their keychain one because it's
- 15:03badass. I have a caviar key on my key
- 15:05chain. You never know when you need it.
- 15:07Doesn't take up much space. But when you do need it and
- 15:09someone says who has a caviar key and you pull it out and you
- 15:12have one on your key, it's like, that's badass.
- 15:14I don't really know if it's badass, but it sounds badass.
- 15:16But anyway, if you're in a restaurant that use a lot of
- 15:18caviar, whoever you're buying your caviar from, most likely
- 15:20they could give you a little caviar key for your key chain.
- 15:22It's a good thing to have because nothing's worse than
- 15:24struggling to open up a tenant caviar when you need it.
- 15:26Having that caviar key on your key chain makes things easy.
- 15:29Smooth. Pop it open, no fuss.
- 15:31Makes it easy. Nice and smooth.
- 15:33Get yourself a caviar key on your keychain.
- 15:36You'll thank me later. Even if it only comes in handy
- 15:38once in your life. You'll thank me the next tip.
- 15:40This is my green oil tip so everyone has a different way to
- 15:43make green oil. Some people will tell you got to
- 15:45cook it. Other people will tell you you
- 15:47have to blanch it, whatever it is that you do.
- 15:49Here's my secret. I go 212 parts oil, one part
- 15:55green. So for example, if you have 500
- 15:58grams of the green chives, basil, spinach, whatever it is
- 16:02that you're making the green oil out of, you will have 1000 grams
- 16:04of oil, grapeseed, olive oil, whatever it is that you're
- 16:07making your green oil out of. So two to 1/2 parts oil, one
- 16:10part green. Don't forget that.
- 16:11That's the ratio. Put it in the Vitamix, turn it
- 16:14on high, set the timer for 5 minutes.
- 16:16It gets hot. When the 5 minutes are done,
- 16:18stop the beeping, turn off the blender, strain it through a
- 16:22coffee filter, cheesecloth. Something to make sure that you
- 16:24get all the impurities out. And what you'll notice is that
- 16:28the heat from the blender cooks the oil and it makes it super
- 16:31green. So that's my tip, 2 to one, 5
- 16:34minutes super green oil, strain it and then some people like to
- 16:37hang their green oil up in a in a pastry bag so the water
- 16:40collects in the corner. That's up to you, depending on
- 16:42if you have the time or not. Another thing you can do if you
- 16:44make a lot of green oil is you could freeze them in cryovac
- 16:47bags when they cool down so that way they're ready to go in the
- 16:50freezer. So again, that cryovac machine
- 16:52comes in handy again, but that's my tip.
- 16:54Super green oil if you use that method, tag me.
- 16:57It's something that I learned from a chef that I had worked
- 16:59with years ago. Shout out to Alice Gonzalez, who
- 17:02taught me that recipe and it's stuck with me ever since.
- 17:05The next one is if you're making stock and you're roasting bones,
- 17:08and if you have a rationale oven or a combi oven of some sort.
- 17:12A good tip is after you put your bones in the stock pot, you want
- 17:16to save that fond that's on the pan, and sometimes it's very
- 17:19difficult to scrape the fond off.
- 17:20So if you have a combi oven, put your pans in the combi oven on
- 17:26steam and what you'll end up doing is it'll soften the fond.
- 17:29So then it makes it very easy to scrape off and put into the
- 17:32stock so you don't lose the fond.
- 17:33So if you got a rationale, shout out to rationale or an
- 17:36Electrolux or an Alto sham, whatever you got.
- 17:39As long as you have a combi oven, turn it on, steam scrape
- 17:42the pans. It'll go a long way, it'll save
- 17:43you some time and you won't lose that fond.
- 17:45The next tip is around my favorite vegetable, the
- 17:48artichoke. By the way, artichokes are like
- 17:50the final boss of vegetables because they're so difficult to
- 17:53clean. Talked about this before.
- 17:55When I give cooking interviews for chefs, I always give them an
- 17:57artichoke because most chefs, it's like their Achilles heel.
- 18:01They've avoided artichokes or they bought them in the can
- 18:03because they're difficult. And if you're not used to
- 18:06cleaning artichokes, it's one of those vegetables that you don't
- 18:08have a frame of reference, really.
- 18:10With any other vegetables, you can't.
- 18:12You could like, cut a lot of potatoes and then understand how
- 18:14to cut other things that are shaped like that, but there's
- 18:16nothing else like an artichoke. It's so unique that knowing how
- 18:19to cut an artichoke, you have to know how to cut an artichoke.
- 18:21There's no way around it. So here's a tip that I like for
- 18:24artichokes when you have to do a lot of them, and what I mean a
- 18:26lot of them. Like I worked in a place where
- 18:28you had to do like 500 a day and you had other shit to do, so you
- 18:31had to get them done quick. And artichokes are difficult to
- 18:33clean. So what I like to do, and it
- 18:35doesn't yield to the best artichoke, but it does yield a
- 18:39quicker product is if you're not going to go the traditional
- 18:41method of cleaning them, putting them in acidulated water or veg
- 18:45Blanc like we talked about earlier and cooking them in some
- 18:47sort of cooking medium with acid or maybe making bar goal or
- 18:51whatever. If you need them done right
- 18:55away, you could cook them in advance in that same acidulated
- 18:58water whole. And the reason you cook them
- 19:00whole is they are much easier to clean after they're cooked.
- 19:04So then the leaves just come right off.
- 19:05It's easy to trim up the choke and the Copa on the bottom and
- 19:09you end up with a nice looking artichoke.
- 19:11So again, that's not A1 size fits all answer.
- 19:14Sometimes you don't want to do that, but if you're in a place
- 19:17that has to do a lot of artichokes, that's a good little
- 19:19trick is to cook them before you clean them and it makes cleaning
- 19:22them much easier. The next one I want to talk
- 19:24about is a simple trick. But when I show people, their
- 19:28mind seems to be blown, and that's how to properly use a
- 19:31scale. So I'm talking about the larger
- 19:33scales, not the small personal scales that a lot of cooks have.
- 19:36But in a lot of kitchens, you have larger digital scales and
- 19:39you use them to weigh things. So you're weighing lots of
- 19:41different portions. So let's just use this as an
- 19:43example. You're portioning individual
- 19:45kits of tomatoes, let's say in little deli cups, and each one
- 19:49needs to be 3 oz or whatever, right?
- 19:52150 grams. What I see a lot of cooks do is
- 19:55they put one thing on, they put the tomatoes in and then they
- 19:57take it off done. And then they put the next one
- 19:59on. They put the tomatoes in, they
- 20:01they take it off, done. A faster way to do that is put a
- 20:03tray on the scale, tear it so it goes to zero, and then put all
- 20:07your deli cups. So let's just say you're using a
- 20:09half sheet pan. Maybe you get AI, don't know. 10
- 20:12deli cups on there, 10 portion cups.
- 20:14And then instead of taking one off every single time, you just
- 20:18three oz, 3 oz, 3 oz, 3 oz, 3 oz, 3 oz.
- 20:21And you minimize the amount of steps of going back and forth
- 20:24and resetting every single time. So I don't know why people think
- 20:28they have to do one thing at a time.
- 20:29But if you're if you're busy and you need to work efficiently,
- 20:32weigh multiple things at once, Just put a sheet pan, put a lot
- 20:35of deli cups on there and just add 3 oz or add 150 or whatever
- 20:38the case may be. Or if you have time, hit the
- 20:40tear button every single time you do that.
- 20:41But no sense in taking it on and off every single time.
- 20:43So anyway, that's a little tip that'll save you time if you're
- 20:46working in a kitchen that has to weigh things on a scale and
- 20:49portion them out for kids. All right, this is the last tip
- 20:52I'm going to talk about today. But if you have a meat grinder
- 20:54in your kitchen, it can be used for things other than meat.
- 20:57And one thing I like to use meat grinders for is vegetables.
- 21:01So you could put your Maripois through the meat grinder to
- 21:04grind your onions, your carrots, your celery.
- 21:06If you're making a bolognese and you need that ground up very
- 21:09fine, so it basically disintegrates in the sauce.
- 21:11If you're making a consomme and you need to grind up your
- 21:14Maripois, same same thing applies.
- 21:16You could grind it right through the meat grinder if you're
- 21:18making a mushroom stock. One thing that I like to do is
- 21:21put the mushrooms through the meat grinder so it releases the
- 21:24flavor in the liquid much quicker.
- 21:25So that's a very quick way to make a vegetable stock.
- 21:28Put all your vegetables through the meat grinder, cover it in
- 21:31water, put a cartouche on top. Let it simmer.
- 21:33It'll extract the flavor much more rapidly than if you chop
- 21:37everything up and just throw it in a pot.
- 21:39So that's a little pro tip. Grind your vegetables in advance
- 21:42before you use it for sauce or stocks or something like that.
- 21:45Like I said, you make mushroom stock that way you can make
- 21:48vegetable stock, That way you can make the grind for your
- 21:50bolognese that way much faster. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed those
- 21:54kitchen tips and tricks pro tips.
- 21:57Just the tips. If I forgot something, make sure
- 21:59you leave a comment below. Tell us what you're doing in
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