Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Brandon Harpster on Cooking Smarter How Technology Changes Everything Overnight Ep 201

Transcript

Brandon Harpster on Cooking Smarter How Technology Changes Everything Overnight Ep 201 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  You know, that's how we can do this is my favorite team to
• 0:03
  throw to show chefs and they never believe it.
• 0:06
  In that very pro, I can make risotto in 15 minutes and I only
• 0:10
  have to stir it three times. Explain.
• 0:11
  Hello, chefs. This is Chefs PSA, and I'm your
• 0:13
  host, Andre Natera. Today's guest is Brandon
• 0:16
  Harpster, certified Executive Chef, national corporate chef
• 0:20
  for Rational USA. Brandon was named Chef of the
• 0:23
  Year by the Nebraska Restaurant Association and currently leads
• 0:27
  culinary training programs nationwide.
• 0:30
  We're going to talk advanced cooking today, cooking with
• 0:32
  connected technology, real world applications with modern cooking
• 0:36
  equipment, how to make stocks, risotto and cook the perfect
• 0:40
  pecking duck. Stay tuned.
• 0:54
  Years ago, it was my first executive chef job and I was.
• 0:59
  What was this at? In Lincoln, NE Lincoln, NE And I
• 1:04
  was a chef at a Country Club. It was my first executive chef
• 1:06
  job. And you know, it's a lot to do.
• 1:09
  And we had the big Mother's Day brunch was coming up right that
• 1:13
  they're not even going to talk about Mother's Day brunch in
• 1:15
  general for the chefs out there, but they all know.
• 1:18
  But we, one of the things we always featured was steamship
• 1:21
  rounds. So we had to have to roast these
• 1:22
  and we roasted them into this old cook and hold type.
• 1:27
  I don't even want to call it the oven, just a cook and hold thing
• 1:30
  right? The big red box or whatever it
• 1:32
  was. Something like that, Yeah, We
• 1:34
  had two of them, the steamship rounds, one in each one.
• 1:37
  And always my concern was when you load it in there, it cooks
• 1:42
  to a certain temp and then it goes into hold.
• 1:43
  And you're always worried that is, it is everything to be OK in
• 1:46
  the morning because you're kind of screwed if you don't have it
• 1:48
  right. Yeah.
• 1:50
  So what happened was my biggest fear.
• 1:52
  And I always wanted to get up in the middle of night and go
• 1:54
  check, like drive out to the club and check it wasn't that
• 1:57
  far from where I live. But I didn't.
• 2:00
  And I walked in and one of the cooking holds, I went down like
• 2:05
  I just, it was just dead meat was spoiled.
• 2:09
  Open it up and it's just horrible.
• 2:10
  I think we probed. The meat is like a 90, you know,
• 2:13
  So we just sat at that temperature all night.
• 2:15
  Just fermenting. Just fermenting.
• 2:17
  Yeah. And so we had another one and it
• 2:23
  was fine in the other one. And then I had a backup one in
• 2:25
  the cooler still because we had another event the next week that
• 2:29
  also had that on the menu. So I start, we get the one we
• 2:33
  have it ready, it's good to go. I start breaking down the second
• 2:37
  my raw 1 into smaller pieces so I can start trying to get it
• 2:40
  cooked for when we need it. And so luckily I've trained as a
• 2:44
  butcher. So I it breaking it down as I
• 2:46
  can do it pretty quick. This whole steamship and I'm
• 2:50
  breaking it down and we're popping it in the convection
• 2:52
  oven trying to get it cooked. You know, it's not, it's and
• 2:55
  it's not the right way to cook it anyways, right, because you
• 2:57
  got to cook that low and slow. And then I next thing I know is
• 3:02
  the food starting to go out to the buffet.
• 3:04
  These pieces, these little chunks of now broken down
• 3:07
  individual muscles of the of the steamship round are cooking And
• 3:13
  what my sous chef comes back and he's just like white and I was
• 3:17
  like, what happened? He's like the steamship that we
• 3:20
  had cooked. He's like, it just fell on the
• 3:22
  ground like so they went to put it on the table and the bottom
• 3:26
  knuckle hadn't been cut off. So it was rounded on there and
• 3:29
  they sat it down standing up like weird what we always do.
• 3:32
  And it rolled right off the table.
• 3:33
  I mean, they're already guests coming in.
• 3:35
  You know, they were already starting to see because they
• 3:37
  always showed up early. So now I'm freaking out.
• 3:40
  So now I'm we're having to serve these pieces that are, you know,
• 3:44
  they're not cooked, You know, it wasn't definitely by far.
• 3:46
  I just like slice it really. It's like the piece that's
• 3:48
  cooked like well done on the outside and like raw on the
• 3:51
  center. Still, yeah.
• 3:52
  So it was just, it was just such a such a nightmare.
• 3:56
  And then so I've told this story to people before and with if I
• 4:01
  had been using one of our our icomvy pros, all right, we can
• 4:06
  have that connected to the Internet, be connected to
• 4:08
  connected cooking. And you could actually real time
• 4:11
  pull it up and look and see what the cooking stage is, where it's
• 4:14
  at, if it's in hold yet or any of those things.
• 4:17
  So I could have been checking and monitoring that, you know,
• 4:19
  in the middle of the night when I was laying awake, hoping that
• 4:21
  they were going to be everything was OK.
• 4:23
  Yeah, that would have solved my problem.
• 4:25
  I could have got it looked at it and saying, oh, something's
• 4:27
  wrong here. I got to, I got to get out
• 4:29
  there, you know, and get this and get this fixed.
• 4:31
  Yeah, the the technology is wild.
• 4:34
  Is there an option to set like an alarm so it'll alert you at
• 4:37
  home if there's a problem on your phone?
• 4:40
  Through some of the settings you can do that.
• 4:43
  It will alert you when it's done.
• 4:45
  So that's usually what I what I recommend for people to do is it
• 4:49
  tells you that it just sends you a note that you can, a push
• 4:52
  notification that says cooking's ended.
• 4:56
  And then you could go look and see if it's on hold or anything,
• 4:59
  you know, and then you could pull it up live and see if it's
• 5:01
  on hold. But you can set it up to get all
• 5:03
  the notifications or you could, it'll tell you, hey, it's time
• 5:07
  to load. If you're preheating, you going
• 5:08
  to the other room, it'll tell you it's time to load.
• 5:10
  You can walk back in, load and it'll tell you when it's done.
• 5:13
  So you can set all that up through your phone.
• 5:16
  Now, I have a lot of chefs. Their first question is how do I
• 5:19
  turn it off? Because they're getting a
• 5:21
  million notifications on their days off as people are cooking
• 5:25
  all day. But it's really easy.
• 5:27
  It's just one button. You go into the app and one
• 5:29
  button to turn it on. Notifications on, notifications
• 5:31
  off, just like any other app. Yeah.
• 5:33
  So it's very, very beneficial that way that you can always
• 5:37
  check and see where your products at and all of those
• 5:40
  things. Yeah, it's it's wild tech.
• 5:43
  I'm, I'm curious what got you into, because your career path
• 5:47
  is something that a lot of chefs are interested in.
• 5:50
  You know, they, they, they, they work the traditional kitchen,
• 5:53
  whether it's a hotel, Country Club or, or a restaurant, which
• 5:57
  you started as you know, working in traditional kitchens.
• 6:00
  And then at what point, how did you end up at rationale?
• 6:03
  Like what was that career transition like?
• 6:06
  Well, it's a little, I always said half of my career I've,
• 6:10
  I've been in the right place at the right time and kind of my
• 6:13
  path to rational was like that as well.
• 6:15
  So years ago I was teaching at a culinary school in, in Lincoln,
• 6:20
  NE and I was, we got, we did a big kitchen renovation of all of
• 6:26
  our spaces and I got in three rationales.
• 6:29
  I didn't know. I knew they were the best.
• 6:32
  And we wanted to, you know, I keep reading and staying up on
• 6:34
  trends of combi ovens are becoming very standard in, in
• 6:39
  kitchens and this use of technology.
• 6:41
  After doing all the research, rational kept popping up as the
• 6:44
  number one. So we got 3 rationals in.
• 6:47
  And when we came to get trained on it, there's a sales manager
• 6:51
  there at the time that said, hey, he needs a freelancer to
• 6:54
  do. We have a large freelance
• 6:55
  network all across the country called Rational certified Chefs.
• 6:59
  And what they do is they when you buy one of our products, you
• 7:02
  get a training with it. A rational certified chef comes
• 7:05
  to your location and does a free training with you and your
• 7:08
  staff. And so he said, hey, I'm looking
• 7:11
  for a he knew I was really, I got because once we got the, the
• 7:14
  rationals and I was like super geeked out on him.
• 7:17
  And he said, Hey, you seem to be really into this.
• 7:18
  Would you be interested in working as a freelancer for us?
• 7:22
  And I said, yeah, I'm always, I always liked the side hustle,
• 7:26
  you know, And so I started, I went to our headquarters just
• 7:31
  outside of Chicago, did the training.
• 7:33
  And then I started doing trainings in Nebraska, Iowa,
• 7:35
  kind of all the Midwest, got very involved with Rational
• 7:39
  state. I'd work like their trade shows
• 7:41
  with them, do anything they would need.
• 7:43
  I was always a yes man. If Rational asked me to do
• 7:44
  something, I said yes because I just like doing it.
• 7:47
  And it's what ended up that they, oh, I did that for about 5
• 7:52
  years and then they had a expansion of their corporate
• 7:57
  chef team. So, and the expansion happened
• 8:00
  to be for the central region and that's the part of the country
• 8:03
  that I lived in. So I applied they obviously I
• 8:06
  was very, I knew, I knew a lot of the people are rational
• 8:10
  already. And so I was lucky enough to get
• 8:12
  the position and then six months later I was we expanded again.
• 8:16
  I was promoted and then moved to Chicago, so.
• 8:18
  Yeah. How many?
• 8:19
  Because I've met some of your team.
• 8:23
  How many people are on the corporate team as chefs?
• 8:27
  As chefs, as. Chefs and and what does that
• 8:29
  look like 'cause you mentioned like I don't know if you called
• 8:31
  them ambassadors or what you just.
• 8:33
  Are rational certified chefs. Yes, rational certified chefs,
• 8:35
  like what does that look like? So how many are are on the
• 8:38
  payroll, I should say, and then how many are kind of on the
• 8:42
  periphery? Kitchens are brutal right now.
• 8:44
  Everyone knows it, fewer people on the line, margins tighter
• 8:47
  than ever, and somehow the expectations keep going up.
• 8:50
  There's just no room to miss anymore.
• 8:52
  I was talking to a chef recently who said the biggest stress
• 8:55
  wasn't the volume, it was the mental load.
• 8:57
  Babysitting, food, timing, everything perfectly, trying to
• 9:01
  be everywhere at once. And that's where equipment
• 9:04
  matters more than people want to admit.
• 9:06
  Rationals. Technology comes up a lot in
• 9:08
  those conversations. The Icon B Pro, the Iverio Pro
• 9:11
  overnight roast that don't need to be checked, custom programs
• 9:14
  for all your recipes, Consistency without hovering
• 9:17
  completely automated cleaning, monitoring everything from your
• 9:21
  phone, The list goes on. And what really buys you the
• 9:24
  headspace? Less standing over pans and more
• 9:27
  time to leave the kitchen instead of constantly putting
• 9:29
  out tiny fires when you're down to cook.
• 9:31
  When the prep list is rough, when the production ramps up,
• 9:35
  think rational. So our corporate chef team is
• 9:38
  soon to be 22 people. Wow.
• 9:40
  We're in the interview process for an open position right now.
• 9:43
  Oh, So what are we looking for? I'm serious.
• 9:46
  Like people listening, Like what would you?
• 9:48
  What's the ideal candidate? The ideal candidate for us is we
• 9:51
  want working experienced chefs. So we want people to have a big
• 9:56
  background that can walk into any kitchen or any customer that
• 9:58
  we that we have and help them with buying solutions.
• 10:01
  And to, to know how to do that, you have to be an experience,
• 10:04
  right? If you know, having, you know,
• 10:05
  been in those executive chef roles, CDC roles where you've
• 10:08
  really, you've done that. And also what really helps is
• 10:12
  having a mixed background to, you know, restaurants and hotels
• 10:18
  or country clubs or, you know, school food service or anything
• 10:21
  like that. You know, where you have some a
• 10:23
  very background, not just maybe not just in restaurants or not
• 10:27
  just in a Country Club, but having done a little bit right.
• 10:31
  And that that's what we're kind of looking for for ideal
• 10:33
  candidates. And then somebody that's, that's
• 10:35
  obviously a fan of the product, somebody that's a, a user, we
• 10:39
  want, you know, we want people that come in to already have, be
• 10:42
  able to share their experiences that they've had using it, what
• 10:46
  we call, you know, in the wild in the field.
• 10:48
  So that's what we're always looking for for our candidates.
• 10:50
  A lot of our candidates do like myself and some of the other
• 10:54
  people that you met start off as those freelancers, you know,
• 10:59
  because they're, they're the great feeder for our corporate
• 11:02
  chef team because they've, we've already done, we've already done
• 11:05
  all of their, a lot of their unit training.
• 11:07
  And so they're already super users of the combies anyways or
• 11:11
  the Iberio. So it really helps helps that
• 11:15
  so. Wow.
• 11:16
  So what is what is a day in the life for, for someone that's
• 11:19
  like, I want, I want there's people listen, there's people
• 11:21
  listening right now. They're like, I I want to do
• 11:23
  that. Yeah, your job sounds fun.
• 11:25
  And you know, I'm, I'm, I'm because everyone on the outside
• 11:28
  looking in always think, oh, every, every job that's not mine
• 11:30
  sounds fun. Yeah, you do it right.
• 11:33
  But what? What does a day in the life look
• 11:35
  like for you? Because I'm sure it's so
• 11:38
  different, right? It's so different, you know,
• 11:40
  from when you were chef at a Country Club to being chef at
• 11:44
  rationale. I'm sure your day-to-day looks
• 11:45
  completely different. Yeah.
• 11:47
  And every day is different too. And my role is you is is a
• 11:51
  little bit different. So we have two we have there's a
• 11:53
  few of us that are national corporate chefs that overs that
• 11:56
  are the managers of the of the the corporate chef team and then
• 12:00
  we have our regional corporate chef.
• 12:01
  So in my role, I'm based at our Home Office in just outside of
• 12:05
  Chicago and I handle all of the training that happens for all of
• 12:09
  those freelancers, for all of our employees, for all of our,
• 12:13
  you know, for customers as well. I'm not out in the field as
• 12:17
  much. Now our most of our corporate
• 12:20
  chefs where we call regional corporate chefs and they're
• 12:22
  spread out across the country. We have 6 regions.
• 12:25
  There's two chefs per region. And those chefs, what they're
• 12:29
  doing is their customer support. Most of their role is customer
• 12:34
  facing. And it's it's customers that
• 12:36
  have already bought products, right?
• 12:38
  So it's just going out, helping them train, helping them get the
• 12:41
  maximum benefit out of their out of their products.
• 12:44
  So their day is travel. If you want to live a life on
• 12:49
  the road, that's a that's a good role for you.
• 12:52
  Travel is in those roles is about.
• 12:55
  You did that role. Though I did that role, Yeah, I
• 12:57
  did just for six months. I was in that role.
• 13:01
  And that role is you're, you're usually leaving on a Sunday
• 13:04
  night or Monday morning. You're getting home, you know,
• 13:06
  on the weekends. Do you like that the, the, the,
• 13:09
  the travel? I did it for a while.
• 13:10
  I was a corporate chef for a while and and I I didn't like it
• 13:13
  that that's why I didn't want to do it anymore because I don't
• 13:15
  want the constant room service and.
• 13:19
  It's fun at the beginning, right?
• 13:21
  And some people like it. I did enjoy it, but then I kind
• 13:24
  of had reasons why I wanted to be home more often, right?
• 13:27
  So it was, it was good and bad. You know, I wore the same, I
• 13:32
  said I wore the same clothes for like 3 months straight because I
• 13:35
  would come home, take the clothes down, wash them and put
• 13:38
  them right back in the suitcase to leave, you know, after the
• 13:41
  weekend was over. So they're traveling, but
• 13:43
  they're, you know, hitting a variety of different customers
• 13:46
  and it's customers that, you know, want some additional
• 13:48
  training or want some extra support.
• 13:51
  Sometimes that is sales support of the sales team.
• 13:54
  But most of our most of our role is as a as customer facing and
• 14:00
  helping customers find solutions again and get that maximum
• 14:02
  benefit out of their out of their equipment.
• 14:04
  How much time is involved in doing research and development
• 14:08
  as in in your role and then also in the, in in the, in the
• 14:12
  regional chef's roles? It all kind of varies a little
• 14:15
  bit. Most of the honestly a lot of
• 14:18
  the research and development happens in the US does happen
• 14:21
  with me and my team, but that's not primarily what we do.
• 14:26
  Like I said, we we handle the training, we handle our
• 14:28
  facility. We have a very busy facility.
• 14:31
  We trained over 350 chefs last year came to our facility for
• 14:34
  training and it's multiple days of training, but we do some R&D
• 14:38
  in there. But you know, we're our Home
• 14:42
  Office is based in Germany and we have R&D, large R&D teams
• 14:47
  there in Germany. And then our Iberio is made in
• 14:52
  France. And so they have they have a
• 14:54
  very large R&D team there. I assume that.
• 14:56
  But we're always through connected cooking all of us as
• 15:00
  we cook, you know, we build recipes, we build cooking
• 15:02
  processes and we could put, we put all that on to connect to
• 15:05
  cooking all the time. So R&D is always kind of
• 15:07
  happening, but it just kind of happens maybe more by chance
• 15:12
  than by just now it's time to do R&D.
• 15:15
  It's we have something or somebody gets asked something
• 15:20
  how to do something and we haven't done it.
• 15:22
  That's where we start to work on it.
• 15:23
  We fit that in. As I was driving up to, you
• 15:25
  know, to the to do this podcast, I was talking to one of my
• 15:28
  friends on the phone. I was telling him, you know,
• 15:29
  we're going to talk and and he was saying, oh, yeah, they do
• 15:32
  this great thing. We'll, you know, if you have a
• 15:35
  rationale, they'll fly you up to Chicago and do training with you
• 15:37
  and stuff like that for chefs like, oh, that's what he's like.
• 15:40
  Yeah, ask him about that. And as we were talking about
• 15:42
  that, someone smacked me. I got into a car wreck.
• 15:45
  That's what I was just saying. It'll be.
• 15:46
  I literally got in a car wreck right before we recorded this
• 15:49
  podcast. It's it's crazy and you're
• 15:51
  pretty calm about it. That's what's that's very
• 15:53
  impressive. Yeah.
• 15:54
  But yeah, no, we have what we call a finishing and large
• 15:57
  volume Academy or that's one of the academies that we do that we
• 16:00
  bring chefs for training in, but we do academies all the time all
• 16:05
  over the country and where it's just about learning, it's just
• 16:07
  about. Chefs, is that open to basically
• 16:09
  anyone that that buys your product or?
• 16:11
  Yeah, the academies, we post them online when we have them.
• 16:14
  And then a lot of times it's if it's happening out in the field,
• 16:19
  our sales manager or corporate chefs will, you know, talk to
• 16:22
  customers and let people know that this is this Academy is
• 16:25
  available. You know, there's, there's, we
• 16:28
  only can fit so many people in our kitchens.
• 16:31
  Yeah, but we, we definitely offer that.
• 16:32
  We we're all about education. You know, one thing with
• 16:34
  rational is we want to educate people.
• 16:37
  We want people to use our equipment to the Max and, and
• 16:40
  really get that benefit of how it can, you know, using our
• 16:44
  equipment and using it well can literally change chefs lives and
• 16:48
  how they and how they operate and how they they do things and
• 16:51
  give them time back into their day.
• 16:54
  So I always say we're not trying to replace cooks, we're trying
• 16:57
  to take the cooks that we have and make them more efficient.
• 17:00
  And tell me that's by using technology and not having to to
• 17:04
  monitor everything. Let that let that help you,
• 17:06
  right? So we're all about education.
• 17:08
  So if we do them regionally, we have several demo sites that we
• 17:13
  have all over the country. And then we have the ones where
• 17:15
  they come to Chicago as well. So those are all just through
• 17:17
  the through the connections. Usually at some point during,
• 17:22
  when you after you purchase your rational, you're going to see
• 17:25
  one of our sales managers that they're also very customer
• 17:29
  facing still you're going to see one of our corporate chefs or
• 17:31
  one of our rational certified chefs.
• 17:33
  And that's how people get invited or people know about
• 17:36
  those things that are coming up. For for people that are thinking
• 17:39
  about whether whether it's whether it's rational or another
• 17:44
  similar company and they're looking to become a corporate
• 17:48
  chef or a regional chef. If you were to sell them on it,
• 17:51
  would you say that the you having been a chef in, in the,
• 17:55
  in the field and they're now doing this quality of life
• 17:59
  better, pay better? What are some of the some of the
• 18:01
  perks that are in that role? You know, some of the perks are,
• 18:07
  you know, really some of that quality of life is there, right?
• 18:09
  You travel a lot in in some of the regional roles, but you're
• 18:14
  still home on the weekends. You know, for the most part,
• 18:16
  there's a few weekends, you know, mixed in and out of there.
• 18:18
  But, you know, the company, NRA, it's just coming up.
• 18:22
  That's my Super Bowl. Yeah, I have to oversee all of
• 18:26
  our cooking that happens at that.
• 18:28
  And it's my show. So I organized that one and it's
• 18:33
  coming up and it's, we were talking about it before we came
• 18:35
  in here and I'm already stressed about it.
• 18:37
  But you do when you do those weekends, though, you get those
• 18:41
  days back, you know, So that's, you get a lot more.
• 18:44
  There's a lot more benefits to it, you know, all the insurances
• 18:49
  and all of that stuff, right? 401K, etcetera, etcetera.
• 18:53
  Yeah, you typically in in larger corporate environments, right?
• 18:55
  Exactly, exactly. And you, you know, like most of
• 18:59
  my days are, you know, daytime hours, you know, I'm usually,
• 19:03
  I'm usually leaving the office, you know, between 5:00 and 5:30
• 19:06
  every day. I get there early, but I leave
• 19:08
  early, too. I get to leave early.
• 19:09
  I don't have to stay and work those nights and weekends
• 19:12
  anymore. I get, you know, we get holidays
• 19:14
  off. It still feels weird to sit at
• 19:16
  home on New Year's. Eve Yeah.
• 19:17
  You're not worried about Mother's Day steamship rounds
• 19:19
  anymore? Yeah, I don't have to worry
• 19:20
  about that anymore. And if I do have to cook those,
• 19:22
  which we cook a ton of things overnight, I'm always, I can
• 19:25
  always check it at any time I want to because I can check it
• 19:27
  from, I can roll over and check it from my phone while I'm
• 19:29
  asleep and go back to sleep. Do you?
• 19:30
  Do you miss it the other side? At times, at times, you know,
• 19:36
  you know, I get to be as creative as I want to be still
• 19:40
  and I still get a you know, I get to cook a lot.
• 19:43
  You know, we cook along with our customers a lot.
• 19:46
  But I like to educate. I was in corner education before
• 19:50
  I I took in. It was one of my jobs before I
• 19:52
  came to this one. But yeah, I missed the
• 19:55
  day-to-day sometimes. But I think, I think if I did a,
• 19:58
  you know, a couple couple line shifts, I would say yeah, I.
• 20:01
  You don't miss it that much. You know, it's, you know, this
• 20:04
  I'm, you know, getting a little older now and it's hard.
• 20:07
  You know, this restaurant just is hard on your body, right?
• 20:09
  It beats you up, you know, and and that's also again, another
• 20:13
  thing by looking at equipment is not having to have have it be so
• 20:20
  hard on your body a little more ergonomic.
• 20:22
  You know, I you know, we talked about with our Ivario Pro.
• 20:25
  So for people that don't know what that is, because I I think
• 20:28
  everyone knows when you know, rational is like a it's its own
• 20:33
  word. Everyone said, oh, put in the
• 20:34
  rational. But it it it's not just the
• 20:36
  rational, but people don't say put it in the Ivaria Pro is
• 20:40
  like, that's not the common lexicon.
• 20:42
  Yeah. So what is what is that?
• 20:43
  It's a tilt skillet. It's a tilt skillet,
• 20:45
  essentially. It's a tilt skillet.
• 20:46
  It's got a very unique heating system, so it heats very
• 20:51
  quickly. But it's your, it's a, it's a
• 20:54
  tilt skillet that has rational technology in it, right?
• 20:57
  So it's a product of ours and so it could do it till it could do
• 21:02
  everything a regular Tilt skillet could do.
• 21:04
  And then more because it also uses technology.
• 21:07
  It's got built, it's got a built in drain, It's got a built in
• 21:10
  water inlet. So, you know, I think about all
• 21:12
  those times where I had to lift like those giant pots of
• 21:15
  potatoes or pasta, you know, carry the water over to the
• 21:18
  stove because I never worked at a place that had a pot filler,
• 21:22
  you know, and then you got to carry it off and handle it all.
• 21:24
  We're now we have the, our tilt skillet has settings where you
• 21:28
  can set it to use a basket and it pulls it out when it's done.
• 21:32
  So it's a it, it's a, it can be, it can replace your, your steam
• 21:37
  kettles, your tilt skillets. It can be used as a deep fryer.
• 21:44
  What what's the largest size of this?
• 21:46
  40 gallons, 40 gallons? OK.
• 21:47
  So, so yeah, you can make a good amount of stock in there.
• 21:50
  Or you can make and the stock that comes out of it is, it's
• 21:53
  crazy how the stock comes out of it because it's so clear.
• 21:55
  Yeah. And that's the extended and
• 21:57
  forget a thing, right. We, we put it in before we go,
• 22:00
  it cooks the allotted, however long we set it to cook for.
• 22:04
  And then it is goes into a hole for the next morning, come in,
• 22:07
  open the lid. And then when you start pouring
• 22:10
  the stock out, it's amazing to see just how clear it is.
• 22:12
  Then you have another one correct that has microwave
• 22:15
  technology. Yes, we have the eye hexagon.
• 22:17
  That's our newest product. In in the chef group chat that
• 22:20
  I'm in, they were talking about the I hexagon.
• 22:22
  At the end of the day, they're like, oh, you got to get some
• 22:23
  game changer. It's a, it's, it's a real, real
• 22:26
  cool piece of equipment. So essentially it's a Icon B
• 22:28
  Pro, everything that the Icon B Pro can do, but it has the
• 22:32
  ability to have microwave technology added to it, adaptive
• 22:35
  microwave technology, so. So why would I need that as a
• 22:37
  chef? Just cook faster.
• 22:39
  OK, so it's like. Short ribs or something like
• 22:41
  that. No, yeah, I mean it'll cook them
• 22:44
  faster, but for most part what it's cooking places with high
• 22:49
  throughput. So it's, it's really, it's for
• 22:52
  those, those quick service places, you know, you're, you're
• 22:56
  firing quick sandwiches to order, you know, whatever you
• 22:59
  need. Usually that's more what it's
• 23:00
  geared towards, but you can still cook short ribs in it.
• 23:03
  Right. OK.
• 23:03
  Yeah. I'm just curious what the where
• 23:05
  the benefit of the microwave technology comes in for
• 23:08
  day-to-day applications. It's the speed, it's the speed.
• 23:11
  But the the cool thing is, is you know, there is a lot of
• 23:14
  speed ovens out there, but ours is still still an actual cooking
• 23:19
  system with all the benefits of an icon B pro being able to
• 23:23
  dehumidify the cabinet, add moisture, maintain all of that.
• 23:28
  Plus then now it has the addition to speed.
• 23:29
  So your food quality comes out a lot better.
• 23:31
  So you're getting the benefits of having a combi already, but
• 23:34
  now you have that adaptive microwave technology and it
• 23:37
  cooks it faster with and to give you better quality food in the
• 23:42
  end. So one.
• 23:43
  Of the things that the last episode, I don't know if it's
• 23:46
  the last episode because we're probably on several episodes
• 23:48
  ahead. But I did an episode with Dan
• 23:50
  Kennedy and we were talking about cooking duck and how most
• 23:55
  people don't know how to cook duck because it's it's
• 23:57
  undercooked. I mean it's, it's, it's, you
• 23:59
  know, rare duck is really tough or medium rare duck.
• 24:01
  Sometimes you want to get it closer to medium.
• 24:03
  But one of the things that I know that you've been working on
• 24:08
  this like the Peking duck thing, right?
• 24:10
  Yeah. So for people that wanted like a
• 24:14
  master class on how to use the rationale for for the perfect
• 24:18
  duck, can you walk us through what that process looks like?
• 24:22
  Yeah, You know, it's a, you know, the one that he's picking
• 24:25
  duck is it's got a you got to give it the time that it needs.
• 24:28
  So I have all this and I'm going to actually going to be it's
• 24:30
  going to be available on connected cooking probably by
• 24:33
  the end of the week. So I just got to add a couple
• 24:34
  pictures into it and then I get it, let it go live.
• 24:39
  So the whole process is there and but it's the, you know, the,
• 24:43
  the first step is getting a quality duck really matters.
• 24:48
  And I have a specific brand of duck that I work with and do a
• 24:54
  lot of work with them and their ducks are absolutely phenomenal.
• 24:57
  That's what got me into Peking duck anyways, was they donated a
• 25:00
  bunch of duck to this event and said we'll say we want to see
• 25:03
  Peking duck. I was like, OK, I better figure
• 25:04
  out how to make Peking duck. So we go through, we hang them
• 25:09
  in our cooler and let them dry. I even put an extra fan, a
• 25:12
  little battery powered fan before we get that skin dry.
• 25:14
  I dry them for two days and then it's kind of the, you know, very
• 25:18
  similar to the traditional process of we sew them up, use a
• 25:24
  inject them with the air, the air compressor to blow up the
• 25:27
  skin, release that and then I use our ivory O pro to they all
• 25:34
  get dipped back in boiling water, just tighten that skin
• 25:37
  back up. And then I use our our two one
• 25:40
  of our two pan models and so and the other side, other side, I
• 25:43
  have that glaze going. It's usually, you know, vinegar,
• 25:49
  you know, some kind of sweetener.
• 25:50
  A lot of times maltose. I use maltose and honey.
• 25:54
  So I like the Browning effect of it more and then some water.
• 25:57
  So I glaze them and then they go back in the cooler for a day.
• 26:01
  If you have the ability to have like a dry aging cabinet, that
• 26:03
  speeds that up and really gets really helps that process happen
• 26:07
  a little bit quicker. And then after that one day of,
• 26:11
  you know, drying overnight, it's a really easy process because
• 26:15
  we, we have them hanging and we load them.
• 26:18
  We hit the paking duck button and it tells us when it's
• 26:22
  preheated and we load them and usually they take about an hour.
• 26:26
  Depends on the size of the unit that you're using and then how
• 26:29
  many you have in the cavity. But I've cooked 24 picking ducks
• 26:34
  at one time in our largest unit and they come out, they're just
• 26:39
  perfect. They're perfect.
• 26:41
  I had a chef that was a Chinese chef that came in earlier this
• 26:47
  year and he's been cooking picking duck for 30 years.
• 26:51
  And by the time he was done, he came to the test in the office
• 26:55
  because everything about getting a combi told me they were done.
• 26:57
  He asked me about my process. He's like, what can I have your
• 26:59
  recipe? And so I was like, they're right
• 27:01
  here. So so you still get the glassy
• 27:03
  skin. And oh, yeah, the skin's like a
• 27:06
  cracker. You know, it's just perfect.
• 27:08
  Wow. Yeah, it's a, it's a very, you
• 27:10
  know, and it's very consistent too, because of the the
• 27:14
  technology in the unit. It's going to make adjustments
• 27:17
  to climate, to the temperature, all those things based on the
• 27:21
  readings that it takes of how much product is in there.
• 27:25
  So sometimes at that time might change, but I'm always going to
• 27:29
  get the same result whether I'm cooking 1 duck or 20 ducks, they
• 27:32
  all look the same because the unit will make those adjustments
• 27:36
  for me. So I don't have to do the
• 27:38
  thinking. And I always say it's, you know,
• 27:42
  everybody sometimes is afraid to use our intelligence chefs, you
• 27:45
  know, I know how we are, right? Yeah, yeah.
• 27:47
  Just set it at 3:00. 50 they wanted, well, they want and they
• 27:49
  want to be in control, right? They want to say, I want to, you
• 27:51
  know, set it this long and then change the humidity and do all
• 27:54
  this. And so my answer to that is I
• 27:56
  was like, well, you do you use a a map app when you drive in a
• 28:00
  city? You don't know and everybody
• 28:01
  says yes, It's like, so you don't question when to make a
• 28:03
  turn to you like no, you just turn when it tells you to turn.
• 28:06
  So basically it's the same thing in the combi.
• 28:08
  I want to tell it, I'm going to tell it using the intelligence
• 28:11
  what I want it to be in the end, and then the unit's going to
• 28:14
  take it from there. And for people that have never
• 28:16
  worked with one day, there's a lot of pre presets that come
• 28:20
  with it. So roasted chicken or eggs or
• 28:23
  whatever, right? Roasting a prime rib, for
• 28:25
  example. Yeah, it's all, it's all going
• 28:27
  to be. You're going to have a button
• 28:29
  for it, right? Yeah, for it, you know, it might
• 28:31
  not say, it's not going to say prime rib per SE, but it has
• 28:36
  those options in there. Yeah.
• 28:38
  So it comes pre loaded with the the icon V Pro and the Ivario
• 28:42
  pro and the I hexagon all come with preloaded cooking processes
• 28:46
  in those. And you can during those
• 28:48
  processes, you can make adjustments to it.
• 28:50
  If you want a little darker, you want a little browner, you want
• 28:52
  this temperature or that temperature have done this and
• 28:55
  then you can save it, name it, you know, Brandon's prime rib
• 29:00
  and you can put that in there. So then I'll next time I don't
• 29:02
  have to think about that. I can just hit I need to go to
• 29:04
  prime rib and and put it in there.
• 29:06
  And then every time you get that same even result, you know, for
• 29:10
  people that are using our equipment, like I said, all
• 29:14
  those processes come pre built in there.
• 29:17
  And if somebody needs to know what's the best process for
• 29:19
  that, we also have we talked about education.
• 29:22
  We have a chef line that you can call A-663-O6 chef.
• 29:25
  We said all the time, right, you can call us and it rings to our
• 29:28
  corporate chef team. And then we can, we can say,
• 29:30
  Hey, this is the best cooking path for that, that direction.
• 29:34
  And that's a that's a, the service is always there.
• 29:38
  We have people signed on the nights and weekends.
• 29:41
  So you can call and ask what's that?
• 29:42
  You know, simply like for the prime rib, for example, let's
• 29:45
  say prime rib, but it says low temperature roasting, right?
• 29:48
  Where that goes into a cook and then it goes into a hold if you
• 29:50
  wanted to. So we can, you know, tell people
• 29:53
  that that might be the best, best setting to use for this
• 29:56
  same thing in the Iberio Pro, you know, whether it they want
• 29:59
  to do a braise or a sauce, we can tell them how to do that.
• 30:02
  And a lot of times it's even got a search function.
• 30:05
  It's got a help button all right there on the screen.
• 30:08
  And that can can kind of send you in the right direction of
• 30:11
  what you need. Plus we're going to be there for
• 30:13
  training and all that. So that all comes pre built into
• 30:16
  the unit already. So you can it has so much
• 30:20
  capability already there, even to the point where you can set
• 30:25
  your rationals worldwide. So we have offices like we do
• 30:31
  here all over the country, all over the world.
• 30:34
  So we have a lot of what we call secondary.
• 30:36
  You can set a secondary cuisine on it.
• 30:37
  So I can add Chinese cuisine, but it still reads in English.
• 30:43
  And then I get extra settings aloud.
• 30:45
  You know, somebody asked me about can I cook sushi rice in
• 30:48
  there? So of course, like, what's the
• 30:50
  setting for it? It's sushi rice, but you got to
• 30:53
  bake Japan as the secondary cuisine.
• 30:55
  And then sushi rice pops up. You know, I like to do char soup
• 31:01
  pork. Same same thing you but then I
• 31:04
  just save it and then it's always in my in my save.
• 31:07
  You say char soup pork. I was doing an event in Dallas
• 31:09
  when I was a chef and char soup pork is one of these things that
• 31:14
  I'll, I can't eat to this day really, because I was doing an
• 31:17
  event for like 500 people and I was serving char soup pork.
• 31:21
  And I had an SUV at the time and I had all the char soup pork
• 31:25
  stacked up in the back and it sloshed everywhere.
• 31:27
  So all the sauce from the char sou and it's sticky, right, and
• 31:32
  soaked into the carpet of my, of my car.
• 31:34
  And so, you know, I don't know how long I kept the car, but
• 31:36
  let's just say for the next four years, every day, no matter how
• 31:40
  many times I cleaned it, every day was char suit pork in my car
• 31:44
  on my hour drive to and from from.
• 31:46
  Work. Don't even smell it.
• 31:48
  Actually, just just talking about it, I can smell char suit
• 31:51
  pork. I bet, I bet.
• 31:53
  But I, I think what's interesting about, you know, for
• 31:55
  a lot of chefs that are listening right now, there's so
• 31:57
  much that you could do, but there's a lot that I want to ask
• 32:02
  you to kind of geek out a little bit for, for my own
• 32:05
  understanding, but also for the audience like I have, I have
• 32:09
  chef questions. And I would say, OK, so if you
• 32:11
  don't mind, I'm going to put you on the spot like, like these are
• 32:13
  some questions I have. So if I had duck and you know,
• 32:16
  we were talking about cooking duck properly, One of the
• 32:18
  challenges that a lot of chefs have is they want a dry aged
• 32:21
  duck, right? For, for a lot of reasons.
• 32:23
  One, you're going to get that, that funk on the on on on it,
• 32:26
  but also you're going to dry out the skin, which is going to lead
• 32:28
  to a nicer, crispier skin. Now, I'm sure there's probably
• 32:35
  not a specific setting for that particular instance, but I'm
• 32:38
  sure there's a way that maybe you could, you probably can't
• 32:42
  get the funk, but you could probably activate the dry aging
• 32:44
  process in, in, in the, in the rational right.
• 32:47
  Like to, to dry out the skin a little bit before you hit the
• 32:50
  roast. Yeah, on the crown.
• 32:51
  I'm just saying crown, not not legs.
• 32:53
  Yeah. You know, and the easiest way to
• 32:55
  probably do that is when you're ready to do that.
• 32:58
  One thing that we've done is, I mean, we're not, we don't
• 33:01
  refrigerate, so we can only go so cold, right.
• 33:04
  And so the unit has the lowest setting in the combi of 86°.
• 33:10
  Usually it's lower than that, but it's just that's all that's
• 33:13
  the lowest it reads What I do with that, and I'll do the same
• 33:18
  thing with for chicken as well, is I you know, I know I'm ready
• 33:22
  to cook it. So I'm going to put it in and
• 33:24
  I'm going to put it on dehydrate, you know, for 1520
• 33:28
  minutes. And what that does that's
• 33:30
  pulling out all that moisture and it starts to dry out that
• 33:33
  skin a little bit. So you get a crisp like we.
• 33:35
  Used to stand there with a blow dryer right to blow dry the
• 33:38
  chicken or to or to blow dry the the dock or whatever because we
• 33:41
  didn't have enough time to dry it in the cooler.
• 33:43
  So for the people that don't have the ability to dry edge
• 33:47
  their ducks or whatever, and they have it on the menu and
• 33:49
  maybe it's a popular item and they, I heard an interview with
• 33:52
  Mario Carbone the other day on one of these podcasts where he
• 33:55
  was saying that he was dry aging ducks.
• 33:57
  Well, I think it was ducks across the street or something
• 34:00
  like that, or it was something that he was dry aging.
• 34:02
  But like maybe you don't have the ability to dry aged.
• 34:05
  So you turn on that setting that dehydrate.
• 34:07
  Yep, just for a quick fit. And then you want to go right in
• 34:09
  the cook afterwards, right? Yeah.
• 34:11
  So what we do is, is we'll do that.
• 34:13
  It'll be 1520 minutes. It dehydrates, it really pulls
• 34:16
  out all that excess moisture right off top of that skin.
• 34:19
  Pull it out, then go into your cooking process.
• 34:22
  Once it's preheated, put it back in and you're going to get a
• 34:24
  much crispier, much crispier skin.
• 34:26
  So you. Probably won't get the funk that
• 34:28
  you're looking for, but you'll get the crispiness of the of the
• 34:30
  dryer skin. Yeah, that.
• 34:32
  I mean, the funk's going to happen, you know, for dry agent.
• 34:34
  I just, you need time for that. There's no there's no way, no
• 34:37
  way around that one. But yeah, so it's a you can get
• 34:41
  that crispier skin. And I think that's kind of the,
• 34:44
  you know, that's like one of the best parts about cooking duck,
• 34:45
  right? It's like crispy skin is the
• 34:48
  best part. I, I love me too, but the skin
• 34:50
  is always like, that's what you got to have that.
• 34:53
  And I've even got it down where I tested enough duck breast for
• 34:59
  I know how to cook a breast out of the package.
• 35:01
  You know, where it comes out. It's perfectly done.
• 35:04
  I got the right setting for it. Skin is crispy every time.
• 35:08
  Another one that comes up often is like what I call Delta
• 35:12
  cooking. I'm not sure if that's the.
• 35:13
  Correct T. Delta T right.
• 35:15
  So I'm just going to use a a prime rib as an example and you
• 35:19
  want, you know, the temperatures going up while the temperatures
• 35:22
  coming down at the same time. So eventually it meets in the
• 35:24
  middle. So you get that perfect end to
• 35:26
  end medium rare, medium or whatever it is, whatever
• 35:29
  temperature you're trying to go for.
• 35:31
  But I'm sure that's probably more advanced because I'm
• 35:33
  thinking when I was learning this, it was 10 years ago.
• 35:36
  So I'm sure the I'm sure the delta T is much more efficient
• 35:40
  now. Yeah, you know, and delta T is a
• 35:42
  is a tricky subject. Usually people start asking me a
• 35:46
  lot about it, if they want to do it manually and they want to
• 35:49
  choose what the delta is. I say you got to do some
• 35:53
  research because if you say you're delta wrong, you run that
• 35:55
  risk of having to hang out in the temperature danger zone too
• 35:57
  long and you're going to get spoilage.
• 36:00
  But all of our low temperature kind of long cook time processes
• 36:05
  that we already have have a the automatic built in delta.
• 36:10
  So you don't even have to think about it again, it's going to
• 36:12
  make that decision and even that out.
• 36:15
  So that's why when I we cook prime rib a lot, because it's
• 36:18
  just so popular for so many of our customers, we pull it out,
• 36:22
  it's evenly cooked end to end because you can, you know, we
• 36:26
  look at the Hass of data that's on the the unit you can pull off
• 36:29
  through connected cooking or onto a USB stick just to see
• 36:32
  when it finishes cooking. But you could start to see that
• 36:34
  happen where it starts to come down so that they meet.
• 36:37
  So the cabinet temperature, I usually set mine to 131 cuz I
• 36:41
  want to even pink all the way across.
• 36:43
  And you can see that, you know, this goes up a degree.
• 36:46
  This comes down a degree. And they meet right at 1:31 and
• 36:49
  it's just like perfectly cooked, a much, much higher yield.
• 36:54
  You know, it's, it's money in your pocket.
• 36:56
  You know, we were talking with customers about doing Porchetta
• 36:59
  and I was telling them that I was like, he'll get a 15% higher
• 37:02
  yield by using that process and getting that that pre built
• 37:08
  delta. Know that you don't have to
• 37:09
  worry about it's going to it's going to know after it uses the
• 37:13
  temp internal temperature and the cabbage tips risk going to
• 37:16
  make that adjustment so that it gets that perfect result over.
• 37:19
  Time. And does it also factor in a
• 37:20
  resting period for for larger meat or let's say rack a lamb or
• 37:24
  something like that? Does it factor in a resting
• 37:26
  period so it's going to be more tender when it's time to carve
• 37:28
  it? Yeah.
• 37:29
  I mean it's, you know, usually when it when you're using those
• 37:31
  intelligent processes, it goes into a product where it's called
• 37:34
  maturing. I mean, that's essentially like
• 37:37
  the resting period. And by the way, for the
• 37:39
  audience, listen, I know some of this shit.
• 37:40
  I'm just playing for dumb for you.
• 37:43
  I'm asking the questions. Yeah, no, you're, I know all
• 37:46
  this stuff. Yeah, exactly.
• 37:47
  Of course, but no, so that it comes out rested, that maturing
• 37:50
  stage is the is essentially the resting period where it's making
• 37:53
  it more tender. And that's the other thing I
• 37:55
  like about it. It's ready to go when it's done,
• 37:58
  which tells you it's in hold. You can pull it out and start
• 38:00
  cutting right away. You don't have to, you know,
• 38:02
  whether and that be whether it's a, a brisket or a piece of prime
• 38:05
  rib or you know, any, anything that's been cooked overnight,
• 38:08
  it's ready to, it's ready to go. I had Jess Priles on.
• 38:11
  She's a, she's a meat scientist basically.
• 38:14
  And, and shoot, we, we had a good conversation about brisket.
• 38:16
  And like what's, what's really interesting about brisket is
• 38:20
  that the majority of the really interesting stuff, and you know,
• 38:23
  I'm paraphrasing what she said, the really interesting stuff is
• 38:25
  actually happening in the rest. But that's what people are not
• 38:29
  really factoring. And everyone's so concerned
• 38:30
  about the cook of the brisket, but everyone's kind of not
• 38:32
  discussing the resting part, which is probably doing more for
• 38:36
  the brisket. And in terms of a qualitative
• 38:38
  difference, separating some of the best briskets in the world
• 38:41
  from others, if that makes exactly Yeah.
• 38:42
  Exactly. And you know, we have the
• 38:45
  ability to smoke in our, in our units.
• 38:47
  It's an accessory that you can buy to add to your unit.
• 38:50
  It goes to almost all of our combis.
• 38:55
  And it's I, I press people a lot with some of the brisket that we
• 38:59
  pull out out of it. And I used to be a partner in a
• 39:02
  BBQ restaurant. So I've cooked my fair share of
• 39:04
  briskets over the years and it's pretty impressive how it how it
• 39:09
  comes out in the texture of it. And, you know, it's, it has
• 39:12
  those things, but it's never been wrapped.
• 39:14
  You know, you don't have to do all those extra steps.
• 39:17
  You know, you don't have to have somebody.
• 39:19
  I always say for, you know, first, you don't have to find
• 39:22
  that person to work overnight, you know, to make sure
• 39:24
  everything's, you know, that the fires are still going, you know,
• 39:29
  and, and that's the thing too is it's even if you want to have,
• 39:31
  you know, I'm never going to take say, you know, I'm sitting
• 39:34
  here in Texas right now and I'm never going to say you're a wood
• 39:37
  burning pit is, you know, don't use that offset smoker because
• 39:40
  that's what I started on, you know, just a stick burner.
• 39:45
  But there's always that point where you wrap the brisket,
• 39:48
  right? You're going to wrap it in the
• 39:50
  butcher paper because when people wrap it in foil, you
• 39:52
  know, whichever your preference is.
• 39:53
  And I don't judge anybody on what they what they wrap in.
• 39:56
  But having that once you, once you do the wrap and you put it
• 40:00
  back in the smoker, you're not getting any benefit of the
• 40:02
  smoker anymore. It's just cooking.
• 40:04
  You're not getting any more of that.
• 40:06
  Smoke flavor. So what I recommend for those
• 40:10
  places to do instead of having to the cost of burning the wood
• 40:13
  is when you're at that wrapping stage, you finish it in the
• 40:15
  combi, you know, take it off, finish it in there.
• 40:18
  You got all your smoke flavor on there, but then that's going to
• 40:20
  do that stage. You don't have to take the time
• 40:22
  to wrap. You don't have to take the time
• 40:24
  to do any of the rest because it's going to finish cooking and
• 40:27
  then go right into the rest. You know, that's what that's
• 40:30
  right, it you know, that's how we that's how we did it at our
• 40:33
  steakhouse that we also served brisket at was we finished them
• 40:38
  all and we smoked them on the the pit and then finished them
• 40:41
  all in the combi. But I can get a really good, you
• 40:44
  know, my my brisket. You can you open that door, You
• 40:46
  smell the smoke when it when I come in in the morning and I put
• 40:49
  that in and I go home like that's the last thing I do and
• 40:52
  it just cooks overnight and it's ready, waiting for me, ready to
• 40:55
  carve, you know, so I don't have to wait for that resting period
• 40:57
  either. It's just it's ready to, it's
• 40:59
  ready to sell and ready to eat so.
• 41:01
  So in most of the larger meat roasting formats, is that
• 41:04
  maturing phase already? Built.
• 41:07
  In interesting, one of the other things that's that's on my mind
• 41:13
  when it comes to using the rational is sous video cooking.
• 41:17
  So everyone right now, you know, sets up their their immersion
• 41:20
  circulator, they bag it, you know, they waste too much
• 41:23
  plastic. And that immersion circulator is
• 41:25
  great, but you know, it goes in a plastic like sand that's too
• 41:28
  small, especially when you're a busy restaurant and then the
• 41:31
  temperature drops because you have too much, too many pork
• 41:34
  chops in there or whatever the case.
• 41:35
  May be uneven cooking because it doesn't get it takes too long to
• 41:37
  get back out of here, yeah. Right, right, right, right.
• 41:40
  But that process can be simplified in the rational.
• 41:43
  And I, and I think a lot of people don't understand that it
• 41:45
  was one of those things that, you know, had this big
• 41:47
  beautiful, I was the chef of this place and we had this big,
• 41:49
  beautiful, rational. And I remember next to it, I'd
• 41:52
  have my circulator set up. And then one day someone said,
• 41:54
  why don't you just circulated? And there's like, wait, you
• 41:56
  could do that. Like, I don't know why.
• 41:58
  Too intuitive. Yeah, it didn't.
• 42:00
  Click Same thing for me. It didn't click, but yeah, just
• 42:02
  you could, you could do the same thing, right?
• 42:04
  You could, you could load up the whole, the entire, the entire
• 42:07
  rational. And Chef David Breeden was on
• 42:10
  here and he was talking about how he does, you know, his whole
• 42:14
  thing is time, precision time and temperature cooking, you
• 42:19
  know, at the at the perfect temperature for the right amount
• 42:21
  of time that you're going to get the perfect result.
• 42:23
  And then you're just going to go through the Browning process.
• 42:25
  But you could do that. You could, I mean, you could
• 42:27
  literally load up your your rational with lamb racks, steam
• 42:33
  it right, Eliminate the bags. You don't, you could eliminate
• 42:36
  that labor step and set it for that precise amount of time for
• 42:42
  and temperature. Are those settings already built
• 42:44
  in? A lot of that A.
• 42:46
  Lot of those are already built in there in, you know, and
• 42:49
  sometimes the settings are that's where I, I mentioned the
• 42:53
  chef line is give us a call because like when we do beans,
• 42:56
  we do them and using a meat setting, like we take dried
• 43:01
  beans out of water to them, put them in the combi, set the
• 43:03
  setting and go home. They're perfect the next day.
• 43:06
  But you know, for that case, for the, the proteins, yes, it's
• 43:10
  there, you know, there, it's going to be in there somewhere.
• 43:13
  And I use steamed fish for that one because I could use the
• 43:17
  probe and got great results because I listened to that
• 43:20
  episode and I had never thought about that of trying that, that
• 43:25
  technique where you you low temperature steam it and then
• 43:29
  pull it out, caramelize and sell.
• 43:32
  So it gives great results. You know, and if people still
• 43:36
  want to sous video, you know, traditionally with in a bag
• 43:39
  because maybe they want to put herbs or, you know, other
• 43:42
  flavorings that they want to infuse some of that flavor in
• 43:43
  there, then yeah, you can just put it right on right in the
• 43:47
  combi. That's the other thing with our
• 43:49
  Ivario Pro also, as you can use that as a sous video, it has the
• 43:52
  heating elements on the bottom, so it has a rack that gets
• 43:54
  inserted and you just pop your bags in there.
• 43:56
  It's got sous video settings already.
• 43:58
  Built into it so you could take the Ivario Pro, set the temp to
• 44:02
  I'm just making this up 135 Fahrenheit and then just just
• 44:05
  throw it in there and it's going to just keep that water
• 44:07
  temperature exactly the same for how?
• 44:09
  For extended period of time yeah.
• 44:10
  And it still, you know, some people.
• 44:12
  Talk about that and they're worried about, well, there's no
• 44:15
  water movement, right? And it there's water movement
• 44:20
  there, you just can't see it because the way our heating
• 44:21
  system works, it's got heating tiles in there and those all act
• 44:26
  independently from each other. So it almost kind of creates a
• 44:29
  wave effect. You know, that's how we can do
• 44:32
  this is my favorite thing to throw to show chefs and they
• 44:36
  never believe me. In the Ivaria Pro, I can make
• 44:38
  risotto in 15 minutes and I only have to stir it three times.
• 44:42
  Explain. You know, explain this
• 44:43
  blasphemy, right? Now I know, I know.
• 44:45
  I hope David Chang's not listening.
• 44:49
  Yeah, I had to explain this to two Italian chefs late last year
• 44:55
  and I got I got them to to believe.
• 44:58
  But also it has that we have a process in there.
• 45:00
  It's the risotto button, right? Could you use the intelligent
• 45:03
  process for risotto? And this, it starts off very
• 45:06
  similarly, right? You toast your, if you're having
• 45:09
  shallows of garlic or whatever your any vegetables in there.
• 45:11
  And then you're toasting your rice and with the ivory pro
• 45:14
  cooks with you along the way. So it's at there's a little
• 45:17
  question mark. It's saying are you fully
• 45:19
  seared? Which means are you fully
• 45:20
  toasted? You hit yes, it prompts you to
• 45:22
  deglaze. So then you deglaze.
• 45:24
  Yes, I've yes, I've deglazed. Then you Add all of your stock
• 45:29
  cold. That's what throws people off
• 45:31
  1st when they see me dump all the stock and they're cold.
• 45:34
  Put the core temperature probe in there so it has a second
• 45:36
  sensor to monitor it. And then you walk away and then
• 45:40
  it will start beeping and you come over there and you give it
• 45:42
  a stir. You walk away and it'll beep
• 45:46
  again and you usually stir it. And then the last stir is also
• 45:50
  when you calls refine, which is when you add your butter, cheese
• 45:53
  or any of your other things that you're added to at the end.
• 45:56
  But because of our heating system and those tiles acting
• 45:58
  independently, they almost create like a wave effect that
• 46:01
  pulls out the starch of the from the arboreal rice and gives it
• 46:05
  that creaminess. Like it's 100%.
• 46:08
  And you know, if anybody's ever tried to do risotto and volume,
• 46:13
  you know, it's, it's horrible to do in volume because you got all
• 46:15
  these rondos or whatever you however you're trying to cook it
• 46:18
  on. And this one, I get the same
• 46:20
  result every time. And I can do it, you know,
• 46:22
  depending on what size of model I have depends on how much I can
• 46:25
  make. But you can do it so easily,
• 46:28
  right? And consistently every time.
• 46:30
  Because you know, if I'm standing here making risotto and
• 46:33
  you're standing there making risotto next to me, ours are
• 46:34
  probably going to look a little bit different in hand.
• 46:36
  You know, how much we added, how quickly we had our stock,
• 46:39
  etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. We're now you can get it the
• 46:43
  same every single time because it's not it's it's cooking with
• 46:46
  you and interesting. So a lot of restaurants.
• 46:49
  Will take the risotto, let's say 8090% and then chill it and then
• 46:54
  put it in kits and on on the pickup.
• 46:56
  You know they're just they're just adding it, finishing it
• 46:58
  with whatever they choose to finish it with cheese, butter,
• 47:00
  whatever whatever is the is the ability with the Ivario pro.
• 47:05
  You could still do that. You can take to the 80% without
• 47:07
  it becoming too without it becoming too starchy where it's
• 47:11
  still going to pick up nicely. Yeah, yeah.
• 47:13
  You know it's a, it's a time based.
• 47:15
  Setting so it you, you could cook for as long as you tell it
• 47:20
  to. So yeah, all you'd have to do to
• 47:22
  do it that way would be cook it a little bit less time wise.
• 47:25
  And then also, you know, adjust if you're worried about the, you
• 47:30
  know, too much charge coming out of her.
• 47:32
  And I just maybe your your liquid ratio a little bit.
• 47:35
  So yeah, that can definitely been done.
• 47:37
  We've had customers do that. You know, the Ivario is it's one
• 47:42
  of the most versatile piece of equipment I've ever seen because
• 47:46
  it can just do so many different things.
• 47:48
  And it's all these solutions that you didn't think you had.
• 47:50
  I worked at a. It'll still burn shit, right?
• 47:54
  If you wanted to, yeah. Yeah, if you wanted to, you
• 47:56
  could. Burn Oh yeah, of course, but you
• 47:58
  know we had a customer that makes works for an athletic
• 48:01
  dining and made queso right that was a big pot.
• 48:04
  They made a big batches of queso all the time.
• 48:06
  They'd always burn half because they were using it in a manual
• 48:09
  function, just turning it on to pan fry and going.
• 48:13
  And I said use the sauce button and then check back in and how
• 48:17
  is the best case we've ever made didn't have any burn, you know,
• 48:19
  so using those processes because yeah, you can turn it into a
• 48:22
  what we call a flamethrower if you want to and you can burn
• 48:24
  anything. But if you use it correctly when
• 48:28
  it how it's designed to be used, you're not going to have that.
• 48:30
  You're not going to have that waste.
• 48:31
  And then it is a hell of a lot easier to clean up too, you
• 48:35
  know, are the way it heats in because it's not a non stick
• 48:37
  bottom, but because of how precise the heat is.
• 48:43
  You don't have that that stickiness scorching, that
• 48:45
  scalding when you it's amazing to dump, you know, however many
• 48:50
  pounds of beef in there for beef Stew and that sear stays the
• 48:53
  same the whole time or usually it dips down, right.
• 48:57
  We have always had power on demand.
• 48:58
  So you put that meat in there as senses that tile senses that is
• 49:01
  cold and kicks up the heat, right, right.
• 49:04
  You know, you could, even if you're making a reducing a stock
• 49:08
  down for a Demi, you can even turn off some of those tiles so
• 49:11
  that all your impurities go to that corner and they're really
• 49:14
  easy to scoop out. You know, that's because you
• 49:17
  could turn it to set it in different zones so you can do up
• 49:20
  to 4 zones. You don't have to put the pot a
• 49:22
  little bit off. Off the off the burner anymore
• 49:24
  That's that's exactly what you're you're doing or.
• 49:26
  I can turn off the back burner or the back burner, the back
• 49:30
  tiles. And if I am, you know,
• 49:33
  rendering, you know, like when I make like clam chowder, I always
• 49:37
  render some pork product in there, right?
• 49:39
  And you always got to take that out while you.
• 49:41
  Saute all the other. Ingredients.
• 49:43
  Well, now I can just push that bacon to the back.
• 49:45
  It's that heats not on and I could just keep cooking in the
• 49:50
  front. But they do the same thing with
• 49:52
  jambalaya. You could see if you divide it,
• 49:55
  you know the pans by however many towels it has depend on the
• 49:58
  size. If I know where the line is,
• 49:59
  like on this table, if I crack an egg right on that line where
• 50:02
  those two towels meet and this tiles on this towels off, only
• 50:04
  this half of the egg is really going to cook.
• 50:07
  This one will get a little bit of residual heat, but it's
• 50:09
  pretty much a raw egg. So it's very, very precise.
• 50:12
  And that's what makes it so much different than all the other
• 50:16
  tilt skillets on the market because you're getting that,
• 50:18
  that technology in there. Interesting one one of the other
• 50:21
  questions I have. It's it's one of my least
• 50:23
  favorite subjects is brunch or I don't I, you know, I haven't met
• 50:28
  too many. Chefs that say, oh, I love
• 50:29
  cooked brunch, by the way, It's a good business model, like I
• 50:31
  understand. Why people do?
• 50:33
  I understand why people do brunch.
• 50:35
  My problem with brunch stems from the fact that you're
• 50:37
  usually cooking dinner and then opening and cooking brunch if
• 50:39
  you have two separate teams. Yeah, right.
• 50:43
  Do all the brunch you want. Oh, it's exactly, exactly nobody
• 50:46
  nobody wants. To be there doing brunch, right?
• 50:48
  And it's just, and you know, it's on Sunday and usually
• 50:50
  everybody had a good time on Saturday, right, right, right,
• 50:53
  right. But but if you have an AM.
• 50:54
  Team that's strictly focused on AM services.
• 50:56
  Hey, more power to you set up your business.
• 50:58
  I like brunch. I just.
• 50:59
  Yeah, yeah, I love it. I love it as long as I'm off.
• 51:01
  Right. Yeah, exactly.
• 51:02
  But one of the, one of the, the frustrating things with brunch
• 51:04
  is in, in most places, you know they have a ton of poachers,
• 51:06
  right? So it's the, it's the, it's the
• 51:08
  salmon Benedict, it's the spinach Benedict, it's the, the
• 51:11
  smoked with, with eggs on top or whatever.
• 51:15
  And I know, you know, places that I've run before, we would
• 51:18
  circulate the eggs in an immersion circulator and then,
• 51:22
  you know, get that, that, that, that onsen egg texture.
• 51:26
  And then we just crack it, firm up the white and some, you know,
• 51:29
  dip it really quickly into poaching water and then serve
• 51:31
  it. But I don't know why I never
• 51:33
  thought, well, can't you just do it in the in the rational?
• 51:36
  Yeah, you can't. You know, it's just.
• 51:38
  It's, it's, we have a, there's a poached egg setting on there and
• 51:41
  essentially that's what it's designed for is to give you that
• 51:45
  getting that egg to that texture where you're going to, you can
• 51:48
  take it out, chill it and it'll be perfect on pickup and you can
• 51:52
  do that. We just run it a lot of times we
• 51:54
  crack it through a spoon in case there's any of that little bit
• 51:56
  uncooked, kind of whitish, you know, on the outside.
• 52:01
  Or a lot of times what we're doing, if we're doing it more a
• 52:03
  la carte style because we have both products sitting there is
• 52:08
  we just finished the eggs right in the Berio really quick just
• 52:11
  to dip them because we have you can, and one of our, our two
• 52:15
  smaller 2 band models we have you can have Porsche baskets in
• 52:17
  it. So you can dump it in there real
• 52:21
  quick and go. So someone could could set the
• 52:23
  poach. Setting on the rationale keep
• 52:26
  the eggs in the shell, right? So we're not, we're not removing
• 52:28
  them from the shell. We're, we're putting them in the
• 52:30
  shell. You're, you're cooking them for
• 52:32
  the required amount of time that comes out.
• 52:34
  You're chilling them if necessary.
• 52:35
  And then for service, all you're doing is cracking that egg,
• 52:37
  firming the white, selling it. Exactly, exactly.
• 52:40
  Or some people will even just dip.
• 52:41
  The whole egg in the shell still in there to firm up from that,
• 52:44
  up a little bit, pull it out and go, you know, so there's, you
• 52:46
  know, everybody has their own techniques for it.
• 52:48
  But, you know, that was always the thing, yeah.
• 52:50
  Getting, you know, poaching an egg, you don't think it's that
• 52:52
  hard, but when you got to do it 200 times, right, you're going
• 52:56
  to screw up some eggs and you have to change the water and all
• 52:59
  of that. And I saw, you know, I've seen
• 53:01
  videos of people poaching all these eggs on the stove and
• 53:04
  there's a rational comedy tonight there, you know, where
• 53:06
  they can be doing that. Yeah.
• 53:07
  Yeah. Well, it's one of these things
• 53:08
  that's like. You have this, this impressive
• 53:12
  technology and and you just don't know everything that it
• 53:14
  can do. And so so we just say, yeah,
• 53:17
  we'll just poach it this way because I know how to do that.
• 53:19
  Yeah, right. Exactly.
• 53:20
  But we don't ever think like, oh, we have this.
• 53:22
  Yeah. And that's what we're always
• 53:23
  trying to share and we're always trying to.
• 53:24
  Tell like let us let let this up.
• 53:27
  It's just getting people the, you know, you guys need to start
• 53:29
  like a rational TikTok page where.
• 53:31
  You just do little. Well, we have a.
• 53:33
  We have a a. Content page that's coming.
• 53:35
  Actually, it's not. It's actually live now.
• 53:38
  As soon as gets aren't promoted real quickly where we have
• 53:40
  content. Yeah, do like here's 100 of
• 53:42
  things you didn't know. The rational could do, and
• 53:44
  that's through we have actually. We have a training app for that.
• 53:48
  Yeah, we do have. It's called Rational Global.
• 53:50
  If you type in rational into your search system, no matter
• 53:52
  what you're on, you're going to get two things connected cooking
• 53:54
  and you're going to get the training app.
• 53:58
  And that training app takes you, it pulls up literally the
• 54:00
  screen, the display, and you push on it and you push on that
• 54:03
  button. It takes you to a video that
• 54:05
  shows best practices for that on how to use it and or it explains
• 54:09
  the settings kind of in a format.
• 54:11
  So there's lots of options for that.
• 54:14
  And it's just it's getting people to think differently.
• 54:16
  Yeah, You know, like I said, chefs gets it in their ways.
• 54:18
  And it's just like, it's differently.
• 54:20
  It's efficient. It's efficient like in today's.
• 54:22
  Day and age where where everyone's complaining that they
• 54:25
  don't have enough staff, they don't have enough cooks, you
• 54:29
  know, and it's like, hey, you have this piece of technology
• 54:32
  that can alleviate a lot of stress from your day-to-day.
• 54:34
  Yeah, it's use it exactly. We had one of my favorite
• 54:37
  stories. Speaking of brunch again.
• 54:38
  My, our vice president of culinary was working with the
• 54:43
  customer and I showed them how we do our breakfast and he says
• 54:48
  I can get, I can get rid of 2 cooks on my, on my for, for
• 54:53
  brunch. And he's like, hey, we're not
• 54:55
  trying to take anybody's job. He's like, no, they don't want
• 54:56
  to be there anyways, you know, so it's just like that, right?
• 54:58
  You're taking it you don't have enough people anymore.
• 55:01
  You're reallocating your resources, right?
• 55:03
  So you. Say, hey, you don't need them to
• 55:05
  sit there in front of the eggs anymore.
• 55:06
  You can now put on the poach setting and now they could be
• 55:08
  doing some of the other things that are more important that are
• 55:10
  going to really affect, you know, your outcome in the
• 55:14
  restaurant. One last question I have when it
• 55:17
  comes to cooking because I think this is an important one and
• 55:20
  it's something that I heard recently but I haven't seen.
• 55:23
  But when I heard, I was like, OK, that's interesting.
• 55:25
  Someone said that they no longer make their stocks the
• 55:31
  traditional way in a pot. They only do it in the overnight
• 55:34
  in the combi oven. And I was like, OK, explain this
• 55:38
  black magic because I really don't get it.
• 55:40
  Yeah, it's, you know, it's. It's bulletproof right now.
• 55:46
  I always say, people ask me what's the best way to cook
• 55:48
  stock. I say which piece of equipment
• 55:49
  do you have? Because they both do the same.
• 55:50
  They both can make great stocks. But in the combi and there's a
• 55:53
  lot of combis out there, right? A lot of our combis we push, we
• 55:57
  put a lot about a lot of them in the market every year.
• 55:59
  But yeah, we have a setting that we use.
• 56:02
  It does, it's not called stock, it's called soft cooking.
• 56:06
  But yeah, it basically gets the so people are just putting like
• 56:10
  everything in a hotel. Pan basically, yeah, I used to
• 56:13
  do that where I would. You know, and this was even
• 56:16
  this, I was like, stock was one of my turning points because I,
• 56:19
  you know, it was very trained, very classically, right by a
• 56:23
  couple really good chefs that knew all the classical
• 56:25
  techniques and all that stuff. And you know, the day I started
• 56:28
  cooking, the first time I cook stock in a in a combi, I thought
• 56:31
  this is OK, This is my world's changed now because I never
• 56:34
  thought if you'd asked me two years ago if I was going to make
• 56:36
  stock in a combat. I told you you're crazy.
• 56:39
  This is like 8 years ago now. But yeah, I didn't even do my
• 56:43
  brown stocks in there. I do it all in the same pan.
• 56:45
  I would start off by roasting the bones and then I would add
• 56:48
  the vegetables and roast those longer, caramelize those it
• 56:51
  caramelize my tomato paste and then just add the water and my
• 56:54
  aromatics to it, cover the bones and put them back in there on
• 56:58
  that setting and wait, we'll go home, come in the next day.
• 57:01
  My stock is done. And it's so clear because what
• 57:04
  it does is it gets to whatever temperature you tell it you want
• 57:08
  to get to, and then it holds at that temperature.
• 57:10
  So if I want my stock to get to 206 and hold it, that
• 57:14
  temperature, now I'm like, it's like steeping tea in there.
• 57:17
  So you're just extracting all that flavor and you just get
• 57:21
  amazing results. And I even, I always brown the
• 57:24
  bones in those hotel pans because then I get all the,
• 57:27
  yeah, all the fond, all the fond in there as well.
• 57:29
  So you're not losing any of that.
• 57:32
  So, yeah. So it's, it's a it's a crazy way
• 57:34
  to do it. And it was something that I
• 57:36
  never thought I would could be done.
• 57:38
  And and you get a much more clear product.
• 57:40
  Much more clear. Flavor significantly more
• 57:42
  intense. Yeah.
• 57:44
  I mean, I don't know necessarily more intense.
• 57:46
  It depends on how good you were. Make a stock before.
• 57:48
  Yeah, you get like, I don't notice any, like it's lacking
• 57:53
  any flavor. Some people will take them and
• 57:55
  cook them down just a little bit afterwards because the only
• 57:57
  thing that happens is you don't have any loss.
• 58:00
  Same amount of water that was in there at the beginning is going
• 58:02
  to be in there at the end. Some people account for that,
• 58:06
  right, right. That little bit of evaporation.
• 58:10
  But I always like if you, especially if you're doing it in
• 58:14
  the Ivario Pro, there's a boil down button so you can cook it
• 58:16
  down just a little bit if you wanted to, to strengthen that
• 58:19
  back up cuz you don't have the loss.
• 58:20
  So your yield's much better. And my thing was I always had in
• 58:25
  the restaurants, you know, we, you only have so much range
• 58:29
  space. So like 1 restaurant is only on
• 58:31
  the line. So we'd every night we'd have to
• 58:33
  put up these big pots of stock on at the end after service.
• 58:37
  Are you putting the whole stock pot in there or you putting no?
• 58:39
  Are you putting hotel fence? Yeah.
• 58:41
  But I, you know, I think of the how many times I walked in and
• 58:44
  we had a big pot of water on there and the cooks either
• 58:46
  turned it down too much or turned it or forgot to turn it
• 58:48
  down. And I'm coming in at the
• 58:50
  restaurant smells like carbon because it's basically what's
• 58:53
  left or the stock smells like a swamp, you know, because it's
• 58:56
  just, it didn't ever really cook.
• 58:58
  So I don't have that loss anymore either.
• 59:00
  So again, it's about making it be more efficient.
• 59:03
  So that, and also you're going to have less waste.
• 59:06
  And you know, I know, I said. You talk about the the swamp and
• 59:11
  the smell of, of sometimes with sous video you got that too.
• 59:14
  Like when you put like, you know, protein or whatever and
• 59:17
  it's not seared or anything. It's and you're going a very low
• 59:20
  temperature for a very low long time.
• 59:22
  So short ribs is a good example. You're doing a 48 hour short rib
• 59:25
  or something like that. And then when you finally open
• 59:27
  it up, yeah, it's cooked right. But it has a smell to it.
• 59:29
  Yeah, it has a little. Funk to it.
• 59:32
  I've talked to chefs that, you know, they'll blast it with an
• 59:37
  initial high heat to, to, to sanitize it, to pasteurize it.
• 59:42
  So that way when they do open it up, it doesn't have that, that,
• 59:46
  that funk. So, you know, maybe the 1st 5
• 59:47
  minutes of the, of the, of the long temperature cooking is at,
• 59:53
  you know, 190 or 212 or whatever, right?
• 59:55
  So you're killing any bacteria on the surface.
• 59:57
  So when you do open up the bag, you're not going to have that
• 1:00:00
  smell, that purge, right? Yeah.
• 1:00:02
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 1:00:04
  And you could you could program that.
• 1:00:05
  But we have a brace setting in the in the icon V.
• 1:00:07
  Pro where it, it basically does that.
• 1:00:10
  You put your short ribs in a pan and it's the first step is
• 1:00:14
  searing them. So it's cleaning off all the
• 1:00:15
  bacteria. It sears them for our you know,
• 1:00:17
  you set how dark you want that sear to go and it tells you when
• 1:00:21
  to add your liquids. You add your liquids and then
• 1:00:23
  shut the door and it goes from there.
• 1:00:26
  You know, and that's, we always get those it goes over.
• 1:00:28
  We always recommend doing that overnight, and the only reason
• 1:00:31
  we say go overnight is because let your third shift do the work
• 1:00:34
  for you, right? We call the overnight cooking
• 1:00:35
  the 3rd shift because then you have the equipment for available
• 1:00:39
  use the rest of the day. You know, you can come in, take
• 1:00:42
  those short ribs out, do whatever you need with them, and
• 1:00:44
  then you have the combi still active the rest of the day.
• 1:00:46
  Or you could be cooking so many other things instead of having
• 1:00:48
  to be wrapped up just cooking one product all day.
• 1:00:52
  Yeah. I mean, I mean a smart operation
• 1:00:54
  one. Of the smartest operations that
• 1:00:55
  I've ever popped into you know they had a that a time schedule
• 1:00:58
  on their combi like OK from 3:00 to 5:00 at this soon as 5:00
• 1:01:02
  opens up five to seven it's this and every every for the entire
• 1:01:06
  week their prep schedule was in front of the combi so they knew
• 1:01:09
  OK so it's 5:00 we got to we got to jump into you know eggs or
• 1:01:12
  whatever the case may be it's like it was just always always
• 1:01:16
  going yeah if you deep dive into it you can actually.
• 1:01:18
  Program all that in now, Yeah, it's called a plan and you can
• 1:01:24
  program that all in there. And this is where usually when
• 1:01:27
  you want to do something at that level, that's where it's really
• 1:01:30
  great to reach out to our corporate chef team, you know,
• 1:01:31
  because we can come help you with that.
• 1:01:33
  And you can have that plan where it tells you at this time you
• 1:01:36
  want to start cooking this thing, it's going to alert you
• 1:01:38
  that it's going to start. It'll be preheated and ready for
• 1:01:40
  you to go at that time, you know, so you could build all
• 1:01:42
  that in there. You know, the schedule way works
• 1:01:45
  really well too. A lot of people have to do that.
• 1:01:48
  I found people have to do that with the combi because they it's
• 1:01:52
  in such high demand. You know, that was, I got asked
• 1:01:54
  a question one time. I was doing a presentation and
• 1:01:57
  this was when I was still a freelancer or rational certified
• 1:02:00
  chef. I would do sales presentations
• 1:02:02
  too and for them as a contractor and they would ask me like,
• 1:02:07
  what's your problem with your copy?
• 1:02:08
  I was like, the only problem I have is I only have one.
• 1:02:10
  That's my problem. Because we had people waiting
• 1:02:13
  like because we started using it so much that was always seem
• 1:02:17
  like somebody, somebody's jostling to get into it to get
• 1:02:21
  their work done. It's funny because.
• 1:02:23
  One of my very first experiences with a with a rational were for
• 1:02:27
  wreath. I know you don't like the term
• 1:02:29
  wreath there. What do you?
• 1:02:30
  What do you? This is what we call it for ours
• 1:02:32
  is. Finishing, finishing, that's our
• 1:02:33
  our term for we would do large banquets.
• 1:02:35
  So you know, we can do. 1000 people, I don't remember what
• 1:02:38
  the time was. I think it was like every 8
• 1:02:39
  minutes you could put a whole rack in and out of of plates and
• 1:02:43
  then it's just sauce garnish and go.
• 1:02:46
  And it was just a major labor savings, time savings, stress
• 1:02:51
  savings. It was always cooked perfect.
• 1:02:52
  Plates were always hot. Put in the Pizza Hut bag
• 1:02:54
  afterwards, right? Yeah, over the over thermal
• 1:02:57
  cover goes on thermal cover to to make sure everything stays
• 1:02:59
  hot. But yeah, it's, it's a game
• 1:03:01
  changer. It's it's separating your
• 1:03:04
  production from. Service, right, and you can do
• 1:03:06
  the the work when you have time to do it instead of and you know
• 1:03:10
  those big plate UPS like that and you're pulling, you know,
• 1:03:13
  the valet drivers and the front desk people and none of them
• 1:03:15
  want to be doing that right. So the place they start to look
• 1:03:18
  kind of sloppy really quick and so, you know, and then you don't
• 1:03:23
  have to sit in the hot box either because you know it.
• 1:03:25
  And and not only that, but you don't have to like wait around.
• 1:03:27
  Hey, they the the contact said to give it another hour.
• 1:03:30
  They're still doing more speeches.
• 1:03:31
  And it's like exactly exactly. You know, so there's lots of
• 1:03:35
  options for too. You know, the other thing is, is
• 1:03:37
  too is I don't have food that's, you know, plated.
• 1:03:40
  I don't have a, you know, a wedding party for 400 people and
• 1:03:43
  only 300 people show up, you know, So if I'm, you know,
• 1:03:46
  you're talking to your banquet captain and they're saying, hey,
• 1:03:49
  they don't have near as many people here.
• 1:03:50
  You pull some plates back. That food is still perfect.
• 1:03:53
  There's nothing wrong with it, right?
• 1:03:54
  And you can reuse it for something else, right?
• 1:03:56
  Instead of it going into the hot box to die and you know, because
• 1:04:00
  then at the end of the night, nobody wants to eat it because
• 1:04:02
  it's been sitting in a hot box for two hours.
• 1:04:03
  You know, you can still serve it for staff and you can still do
• 1:04:05
  whatever you want to it, but it's still perfectly good
• 1:04:07
  because it's been properly cooked and chilled.
• 1:04:09
  It just wasn't finished yet. So it's a great system.
• 1:04:12
  So wrapping up, I. I want to ask you this question.
• 1:04:16
  So if if this is your chefy question, if you had four chefs
• 1:04:20
  that should be on Mount Rushmore for you.
• 1:04:21
  OK, who are those 4 chefs that that you think are the are the
• 1:04:25
  are the top four that influenced you as a chef?
• 1:04:27
  OK, so including me. Never really.
• 1:04:31
  Worked with any of these people, but these are the ones that I.
• 1:04:33
  Always think had a big impact and that were ones that kind of
• 1:04:35
  changed my the way I thought. One was Fergus Henderson from
• 1:04:40
  St. John's Inn.
• 1:04:42
  Most a tail pioneer, right? Yep, and once.
• 1:04:44
  I read a article that was. On him in some magazine and then
• 1:04:48
  just took this deep dive in the way he thinks in his
• 1:04:50
  philosophies and all that was just so different, right.
• 1:04:55
  And so then I started testing all of those bits and pieces and
• 1:04:58
  found that I love to cook that cook those products.
• 1:05:01
  So he's one probably Elaine Pasard, you know, just his
• 1:05:08
  again, like reading his books and, you know, researching him
• 1:05:12
  and seeing everything that he's done.
• 1:05:13
  And, you know, I'm a a meat guy and for like, I just was shocked
• 1:05:18
  at his restaurant, you know, and he took vegetables, right and
• 1:05:20
  made it all about that. I have to say Marco pure white
• 1:05:24
  because when I chef I was working for brought in a copy of
• 1:05:27
  white heat and I was like, this looks like us.
• 1:05:29
  You know, this is this is in the 90s, you know, and it was just
• 1:05:34
  that book was also really again, just had a big a big influence
• 1:05:38
  me and the way I thought. And then probably a standard
• 1:05:42
  answer for my area would be Thomas Keller.
• 1:05:44
  You know, when I first really got into this, he was setting
• 1:05:48
  this new standard, you know, in the US for first chefs and how
• 1:05:52
  restaurants could be. And, you know, I like the story,
• 1:05:56
  you know, because he had, he ended up creating this, you
• 1:05:59
  know, Landmark restaurant, but failed first, you know, but
• 1:06:02
  stuck with it. And so I always thought that was
• 1:06:06
  a great a great influence as well, You know, and everybody
• 1:06:09
  has that book. You know, we went to we've been
• 1:06:11
  visiting some restaurants around Austin and everybody has their
• 1:06:13
  books out on their shelves. And you see that one and every,
• 1:06:15
  everyone, everyone. And if you don't, you should.
• 1:06:18
  Like exactly. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:06:19
  Get the French Laundry Cookbook. What's wrong with you the new?
• 1:06:21
  One's really good. The French Laundry, per SE.
• 1:06:23
  I don't know if you've seen that.
• 1:06:24
  I haven't. I've I've given that one to a
• 1:06:25
  gift. To somebody, but I haven't
• 1:06:27
  gotten it my myself. It's just I buy a lot of books
• 1:06:31
  and I have a book storage problem right now so I haven't
• 1:06:35
  bought that one. That one I would say is probably
• 1:06:37
  my. It's, it's basically, I mean, it
• 1:06:41
  obviously literally, right. I'm, I'm going to sound stupid
• 1:06:43
  saying this, but it's basically the French Laundry version of
• 1:06:45
  today, right? Because they've updated so much
• 1:06:48
  of, you know, the, the, the big pot blanching and, you know, the
• 1:06:50
  way that they're, you know, the way that they're brining fish
• 1:06:54
  now or whatever the case may be. Like all all the things that you
• 1:06:56
  were doing in French Laundry, you know, 2000 are now like, OK,
• 1:07:01
  now we have the, the updated version and the new way that
• 1:07:03
  we're doing things. So it's a great book.
• 1:07:05
  I highly. Yeah, no, it's, it's great.
• 1:07:06
  He's a A. Great guy and in all of his
• 1:07:09
  kitchens guess what he uses for instead of ovens all of our
• 1:07:13
  equipment so is a good we have a good relationship with with
• 1:07:17
  history yeah last. Question if, if there's
• 1:07:23
  something like if if you had like the the one secret that
• 1:07:28
  everyone should know, like the one secret setting or the one
• 1:07:30
  thing that not everyone thinks about that that you could cook
• 1:07:32
  in the rationale that would blow people's mind.
• 1:07:36
  What is it that is a that's that's a tough?
• 1:07:38
  One, I'm going to give you a minute to think I could cut out.
• 1:07:40
  I was thinking it's a. You know, there's so many
• 1:07:43
  there's. So many different things for
• 1:07:44
  that and a lot of it's pretty, you know, pretty simple.
• 1:07:49
  But the things that throw people the most are simple things like
• 1:07:53
  the octopus that we just put in there and don't have to check.
• 1:07:55
  And it's comes out perfect texture every time.
• 1:07:59
  But what's what's your octopus is is I guess it's an.
• 1:08:02
  Octopus setting, right? Yeah, it's called Octopus.
• 1:08:04
  It takes. It takes.
• 1:08:05
  It through you pull it out, you chill it, carve it sear it and
• 1:08:08
  it's you get that great char on it it's great.
• 1:08:13
  You know, a lot of times mine is the is the simple things like
• 1:08:16
  that blow people away are the we talked about earlier, braising
• 1:08:22
  the all of those type of things that people don't think it's
• 1:08:25
  going to turn out. Probably a crazy one that I
• 1:08:27
  didn't think was going to work when I first heard about it.
• 1:08:31
  And this is really this was the go to for for family meal at
• 1:08:35
  places was we have a setting called pasta in sauce.
• 1:08:38
  And this one throws you both people away where you put in
• 1:08:40
  dried pasta water and your sauce and you stir it all together.
• 1:08:43
  And it's one of the two things that has to get covered in the
• 1:08:45
  combi. And you put the probe in, put
• 1:08:48
  the lid on and put it in there and set it for the amount of
• 1:08:51
  time that the pasta is supposed to cook for.
• 1:08:52
  And it comes out and you stir it and you have this ready to go
• 1:08:57
  pasta. And I, I was like, there's no
• 1:08:59
  way this is going to work when I, I was in my initial training.
• 1:09:02
  Yeah, it's great. You know, it's, it's perfect for
• 1:09:04
  that, you know, for the, for the buffets, for the family meals,
• 1:09:09
  You know, I, we show school food service as a big customer of
• 1:09:12
  ours, right. And it's great for Mac and
• 1:09:14
  cheese, right? Your Mac and cheese goes in and
• 1:09:15
  you don't have to stir it, you know, So things along that all
• 1:09:20
  you have to do is just take a little bit of R&D because every
• 1:09:22
  sauce is different every, you know, to get your pasta and your
• 1:09:24
  ratios figured out. But that's one thing that blows.
• 1:09:27
  It shocked me when it came out, and it shocks a lot of people
• 1:09:32
  because nobody ever thinks it's going to work.
• 1:09:33
  Yeah, yeah, I got to see this in action.
• 1:09:34
  As long as you do the ratios. Correct.
• 1:09:36
  Yeah, and the, you know, people. Like how do I find out the
• 1:09:37
  ratios? And it's like if you're on that
• 1:09:39
  setting, hit the question mark and it tells you those ratios
• 1:09:41
  right there. I want, I want you to send me.
• 1:09:44
  The the social media page with all the 101.
• 1:09:46
  I I want to see the pasta on there soon.
• 1:09:49
  I like prove it. Prove it.
• 1:09:50
  Yeah. Well, chef, if people want to
• 1:09:52
  find you, where can they follow? Follow along and give you a
• 1:09:54
  follow and see what you're up to.
• 1:09:57
  Typically Instagram, which is my name.
• 1:09:58
  Brandon dot Harpster And then it's, you know, rational USA is
• 1:10:04
  the on on social media is where we put all of our a lot of our
• 1:10:09
  content for for the US and then yeah, those are that's the best
• 1:10:14
  place to the best place to find me.
• 1:10:16
  Let's let's, let's, let's go cook some pasta, chef.
• 1:10:18
  Let's do it. I'm always down.
• 1:10:20
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:10:21
  All right, that's the show. If you liked it, make sure you
• 1:10:23
  leave. Five stars.
• 1:10:24
  Nothing less than five stars. If you want more chef's PSA, go
• 1:10:27
  to chefspsa.com. Get yourself some books.
• 1:10:30
  Get yourself some merch including Culinary Leadership
• 1:10:32
  Fundamentals and the Line Cook Survival Manual.
• 1:10:34
  If you want early access to episodes, you can get them on
• 1:10:37
  Spotify and Sub Stack by becoming a paid member.
• 1:10:39
  The link is in the notes. We'll see you next week.
• 1:10:41
  Hit the porno Music in the Kitchen mix.
• 1:10:45
  It drop the chef Dallas no fiction stirring up the beats
• 1:10:48
  heat enough the session listen close classes in session.