Prep Night

Hello from the office....my work office that is. I'm sitting at my desk finishing off a plate of corned beef, topped with melted white cheddar cheese and grilled sauerkraut and a caesar salad on the side. The guys in the kitchen must think I'm pretty crazy, but the actual set for the dish is a corned beef sandwich (bread of course) and fries, which goes against my eating plan. So thankfully they are a pretty good group of guys all in all and they are willing to put up with my weird modifications to the menu items (especially since I produce their paychecks).

But getting down to what I wanted to share with you, I've started taking some tips from this great group of people in our kitchen. 

Have you ever wondered how a restaurant kitchen manages to prepare six different entrees for a table of guests in a reasonable amount of time? Well it all comes down to preparation. They have ingredient list for each entree that is on the menu, each menu item is assigned to be prepared at a specific station on the line depending on if it is a cold dish, or if the main ingredients need to be grilled, broiled, or cooked in a pan on the stove. For our lunch service alone, we have three different stations performing these tasks and dinner it is even more. 

At each station, you will find containers of prepared ingredients that all go into each dish. Just the "sandwich" I had today, the cook has a bin of meat that has been cooked off and thinly slices, a bin with sliced cheese and a tub of sauerkraut, a squeeze bottle of 1000 Island dressing and on the shelf above his station is a loaf of marbled rye bread. When a ticket is printed for a table wanting this sandwich the cook take a portion of sliced meat and places it in a container of hot broth he keeps on the stove to heat the meat, at the same time a portion of kraut is placed on the flat top to grill, he will pull two slices of bread and applies the appropriate amount of sauce to bread, return to his flat top, place the hot meat on the flat top to brown,  and turn the browning kraut. He will collect the sliced cheese needed, turn the meat, place the cheese on top to melt, add the kraut to the top of the stack and then artfully scoop the yummy pile up and place it on the prepared bread. Add the remaining additions to the plate and it is ready to serve. Some where in the dance, he drops a basket of fries into the fryer and at the perfect moment removes them from their oil bath, places them in a bowl to be tossed with salt and herbs before delivering them to the side of the sandwich and out the a table of expectant guests. 

Well all of this work does not happen without the skillful hands of another group of people working in the back of the kitchen, preparing all those bins and containers of food that the cook will rely on to prepare your food. People who are doing things as simple as boiling large batches of boiled eggs for the salad station and deviled eggs for the happy hour. They prepare the many layers of potatoes that make up the gratin that is served with the steaks each night, or preparing the twice baked potatoes. There are people who's main job is to create the individual portions of fish and steaks, so when the menu says a 6 or 10 ounce filet, you get a 6 or 10 oz steak. There are many moving parts in the back of the kitchen that are vital to the operations in the kitchen.

So how can you learn from the dance of a professional kitchen? What I'm going to share with you may not have you turning out multi course meals in record time to your eager family, but it may lead you to a less hectic process when you have 30 minutes to put dinner on the table before you have jump in the car with the kids to run off to dance class or swim lessons.

The key to this time saving tip, is in that group of people in the back of the kitchen, putting in the time to prep vegetables and meat so you have everything you need when you are ready to prepare you meal. 

I established a habit weeks ago that each week when I head for the grocery store, I always buy some staple items that allow me to build my meals from. Before I began eating a Keto based diet, meals were built around the starches I used to stretch meals for a large family which raged from potatoes to pastas and rice. Now my staple items include a weekly head of cauliflower, a head of cabbage and bag of zucchini. Mixed with an assortment of other vegetables that are in lots of my dishes, things like yellow onions green onions and bell peppers. But all these foods take a fair amount of time to cut and prepare before I can start cooking a meal. 

This is where we take our cues from the restaurant kitchen, from the people working in the back of the kitchen. Preparation is the key to speed when we prepare our meals, that is why when you watch the celebrity chef's on TV,  all of their ingredients are pre-cut, pre-measured and placed in little bowls awaiting their use. 

How do we do this you ask? Starting with a cheap purchase at the restaurant supply store of quart containers and lids, I had a portion control to work with, but you could use any containers that you have on hand, for me, these nesting  container the restaurant supply provided made sense to me after seeing them in use everyday at work. After returning home with my bags full of staples and other ingredients I thought about the meals I might be preparing for the week, a batch of cauliflower hash, spaghetti with shredded cabbage, cauliflower rice with something, I didn't have a set menu, but like my past of meal stretching, I knew I would need those basics to build from. 

With my food processor out and mandolin on hand I started prepping for the week. I regularly like to toss together a hash with whatever leftover meat I have in the frig, so having chunked up cauliflower ready to go is a big time saver, so two quarts cut and up in the frig. Well I like peppers and onions in there too, so I have a quart of sliced onions and one of mixed colored bell peppers chunked up, off to frig they go. If I want to have rice during the week, two quarts of riced cauliflower chopped up in the food processor, and we like that with green onion, so I also sliced up a couple of bunches of green onion into a pint container. and we can use part of the peppers already in the frig go with that.  Next step is 3 quarts of shredded cabbage, sliced on the mandolin and I'm ready for a batch of cabbage and onions (yes I sliced up a quart of those too and yes, I cried). I didn't try making my zucchini noodle, I'm afraid they may spoil a little to quickly, but I may give it a try soon too.

  

Now, regardless of what I decide on for my meals this week, I have my basics covered. I've spent a little over an hour chopping and slicing a mixture of vegetable that I can now utilize in many combinations to pull together a meal. I've spent part of one evening, I've dirtied my kitchen appliances, cutting boards and knives once and then cleaned it all up when I was done. Now when I'm ready to cook, I only have to measure out what I need and I don't trash the kitchen chopping and prepping with each meal. Dirty it all once, clean it all up once and look at the time savings.

 

When you walk into the big refrigerators at the restaurant you see rows of these containers with all sorts of prepared food, ready to go out on the cook line and be prepared for the guests. Its very important to avoid waste, so dating the container is part of the process and as crazy as it seems a roll of blue painters tape and a sharpie does the trick. You can date it, list what it is, and even how much is in the container, then it peels right off without leaving a sticky mess behind, and you just do it  all over again with your next batch. This way, just like the restaurant, you can see easily what you need to use first, and what needs restocking. It also makes it really easy to know what you have.

This process can be used with virtually everything, you can portion out meat portions (but never mix raw meats with vegetables unless you are interested in some very unpleasant trips to the bathroom or much worse), pre make sauces or dressing, anything you might need for you week. I'm going to try my hand at making mayonnaise and its time to stock up on fresh salad dressings.  

One of the containers I prepped was breakfast all in one. I had precooked sausage in the bottom, chunked cauliflower, peppers and green onions at the top. This was a container I took to work with me, all I needed was a fry pan, a little butter and a couple of eggs to scramble with the contents of the container once it was cooked through. So these can even become a meal to go.

I know this was a long one, (no I didn't this all done at lunch, I've finished it up at after dinner tonight) but I hope this has been useful for you. I feel like this will be a practice I will keep up for a long time. Give it a try and let me how it's working for you!