Cooking Professionally

Food for Every Day carries different meanings for different readers.  Today I'm starting a series of entries that discusses everyday stuff from the point of view of a professional cook.

When you cook for a living, especially on the dinner crew of a successful restaurant, your work hours are the complete opposite of everyone else's.  This is what I do.  I have noticed recently that most normal working folk with Mon-Fri 9-5 schedules have a hard time wrapping their heads around this idea. (No disrespect intended, as this is very understandable.)  However, since I recently started this career path, I've heard evidence of this from all angles. One particular conversation I had sums it up.

My work day starts at 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  I once mentioned this in front of an acquaintance who is an accountant by profession (Mon-Fri, 9-5), and she rather snarkily replied, "Huh!  You have the life! I wish I could start my workday at 2:00!" Maybe she would rethink if she realized a few facts about my daily schedule.

Sure, it's nice being able to sleep late every morning, as I am really not a morning person.  In fact, one of the things I hated about working a corporate job was having to be out of the house by 7 every morning.  So going in at 2pm sounds pretty cushy, right?    It would if my workday ended at 5:00 like hers.   Fact is, my workday barely starts by 5:00.  I get there at 2 some days, 3 other days.  I have 2-3 hours to set up my station and help cook dinner for the entire restaurant staff (usually this task is done by 2 of us).   Forty-five minutes to 1 hour to make dinner for about 30 employees.  And then the prep for whatever station I'm working that day.  It may include sauces, soups, stocks, hauling heavy equipment up and down stairs, cutting and sauteing pounds and pounds of vegetables, rolling and forming hand-made pasta, butchering chickens, cleaning and portioning fish, cutting steaks, making flatbread dough, etc.  All before 5pm.  From 5pm on, it's urgently cooking on the line, a la minute, for every table that sits in the dining room.  Depending on the night of the week, closing time is 9:30 or 11:00.  Around this time we all wrap, label and store unused food, carry trays of food and equipment downstairs to store in the walk-in fridges and/or freezer, break down our stations and scrub them with soap and metal scouring pads.  After this, we clean the walk-ins, moving food to appropriate locations, organizing, condensing and labeling food, sweeping and mopping the floors.  And then I get to go home.  I arrive home anywhere between 10:30 and midnight.

See, I may "sleep in" compared to most people.  But that doesn't mean that I'm a loafer, or that I choose to work part time.  I work 5 days a week, at least 8 hours a day like all other full time workers.

Christmas Ham

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

The center of this year's Christmas dinner was ham.  A nice, big, fresh ham we purchased at the local Amish Market.  For those who may not be familiar, a fresh ham is not cured, smoked or boiled, like the "ham" you  see on Grandma's Easter table or in deli sandwiches.  A fresh ham is a large, bone-in, skin-on pork roast cut from the leg of the pig. 

In the oven - I peeked.  Can't resist!

Our Christmas ham was a thing of beauty.  16lbs for 8 people.  Sounds like a lot, but when buying you have to consider that about 1/3 of that weight is bone, skin and fat.  Oh, oh!  I said the eff-word!  Trust me - any huge chunk of pig that is going to roast away in the oven all day needs a hearty layer of fat.  That fat will render and pour down the sides continually basting your roast, without you having to open the oven door once.  And long, slow cooking (325 degrees F for about 4 hours) achieved this, as well as slowly crisping and browning the thick layer of skin on top.  Were it not for the fat and skin (say, if this was a lean, mean pork loin) a pork roast cooked for that long would just dry and shrivel up into shoe-leather.

Done, rested and ready to carve!

A word about prepping our ham.  To achieve optimal flavor, moistness and seasoning I brined it.  If you have never tried brining, start now!  A brine is a water and salt solution, about 6 parts water to 1 part salt. You can go with just salt and water, or you can add other flavors like garlic, herbs, spices, sweets (honey, brown sugar).  To prepare the brine mix the salt, water and other flavoring agents in a large pot.  Bring to a boil just long enough to dissolve the salt completely.  Then cool the brine completely to room temperature.  Place the raw meat in the brine, cover, and store in the refrigerator until ready to cook.  Brining time depends on the thickness of the meat being treated.  I brined this ham for 2 days.  If you are brining a thinner cut of meat like a pork chop or chicken breast, 2-3 hours is probably sufficient.  When ready to cook, remove from the brine, pat dry and cook as you normally would.  It's not necessary to season with more salt, since all that seasoning has already diffused throughout the meat.  I promise that although the brine itself is exceptionally salty, the meat comes out not too salty, but well-seasoned. And ironically, brining preserves moisture in the meat throughout the dry cooking process. 

I roasted the ham slowly to an internal temperature of 135 degrees F.  Yes, you need an instant read thermometer for this.  After removing from the oven it has to rest for at least a half hour before carving.  During the cooking process all of the juices are pushed out to the edges.  Resting allows 2 things - it lets the roast complete cooking fully due to the heat it contains, and it lets the juices redistribute throughout the meat.  I always time the cooking so I'm removing it from the oven shortly before my guests arrive.  It rests while we're greeting everyone, exchanging gifts, nibbling on apps and getting all the side dishes ready for the table. 

Mmmm - the side dishes!  Coming soon. Another post for another day.

Holiday Fun

Again, it's been awhile.  A long while.  2 years.  Really??  What's wrong with me?  I know, last time I made it sound like I'd be writing again.

I had left the food biz for a while.  Went back to a corporate desk job.  Hated it.  The people were nice to work with and all, but the commuting, office politics, email, corporate culture, etc were outright sucking the life out of me.  Worst of all, no time to cook.

But I'm back in it.  Been working for a year at a restaurant on NJ's top 25 list. Living the food life again.  Pretty awesome.  The only downside is that I miss every social event going on in my personal life.  This can be tough, especially during Christmas time.

To compensate for my repeated absence, I send my husband to the parties with treats for our friends. This year's treat of choice is Christmas tree cupcakes.  Light chocolate cake topped with a silky layer of chocolate ganache and a mint Swiss buttercream Christmas tree.  How cute are these!  All natural, too.  You wouldn't believe how I got them green if I told you!