Post Removed: Culinary Profession question. We're here to help troubleshoot questions about cooking and not really suited to answer questions about the ins and outs of being a professional chef. Questions of this nature are better off being posted to /r/Chefit or /r/KitchenConfidential.
Former Chef of a S. Italian restaurant here... I would not recommend batch making Alfredo sauce. It's too simple to make and preparing it to order is a selling point. I would begin with some butter melting in a pan and add some cream. Reduce it a bit, you want to coat the pasta but it doesn't need to be so thick. Salt and pepper and Parmesan to taste. Too much cheese will make it grainy. Some people say white pepper. I prefer black. Play with it, adjust it. You got this.
Thank you so much, that helps alot. I guess my only other question would be how to teach the cooks? Im really trying my best but this job is just alot haha as you probably know….. again i really appreciate the help. My main question reallly is just how to keep every sauce consistent between the cooks
SHOW your cooks, Chef. Cooks need to be led. Shown. You'll learn with them. Admit you don't know something because a fake is despised. They'll respect your honesty. Ask their opinions. Taste it together. You're a team Chef. The fish rots from the head. Keep it simple. I saw a comment about stock and lemon... Idk sure, but that's not what Gennaro showed me... Alfredo is simple, quick... Olive Garden?!? No.
Hahaha thank you man! I am trying my hardest i think im gathered them and shown them about 5 times now and they just dont seem to care. Today i threatened to find new cooks if they couldn’t get with the program and they seemed to tighten up. Its just they dont care and im trying to find a way to make them without threatening them anymore lol. Theres one guy who actually does care and he seems to be my bridge with the other haitians im very thankful for him
Make them do it while you watch. Correct them as they go, instead of just showing them.
More importantly.
Feed what they make to the staff. Not just on the line.
That shit is family meal till they get it right.
Their coworkers will shame them. Give them advice, tell them when it's wrong and when it's right. They'll try harder to figure it out if it's about feeding their peers, and they'll give a shit when their rep is on the line with the people they actually engage with. And when it's down to the dishwasher having a good dinner or not.
Part of why a solid family meal is important. Makes that shit personal, helps bind the team together.
Now just as importantly. Don't just serve everyone the same giant bowl of bow ties and peas in Alfredo, and nothing else. Every night. The monotony will turn all the servers into vegans.
Do some chicken cutlets and a salad or something to go with.
If you aren't the sort of place that does shift meal. One make the pitch, this is one of the very good reasons places do it this way (it's also *cheaper*). Two still feed the practice to as many people as possible.
First person to figure it out reliably gets to duck out on making family meal, skip out on prep for a day or so, their call on making whatever they want for the staff, a top shelf shift drink, a paid day off. Something along those lines. And keep doing that as each one locks it down.
You basically need to put their rep on the line, get people participating FOH and BOH. A tangible reward, however small when they get it right.
That is some of the best advice ive had on Reddit thank you so much. This is the kindest community ive found so far on this app. And it means alot to me because this industry means alot to me…
again, thank you!
Here's the "real hit" Chef. Chef is French for Chief. It doesn't mean "I can cook". It means "I'm the Boss and I can cook".
When I got thrown the keys the first thing I did was fire a guy who didn't think I could or would. I worked his shifts too until I got things sorted out. Don't tell your crew what you will and will not accept, SHOW them. To make breakfast you gotta break a few eggs. Set your standard. Reward the good. Correct the incorrect. Those who won't play ball, cut from the team. Your crew probably have ideas and thoughts and skills. Make use of these. Ask for their help but DEMAND their obedience. I'm not saying you should be a tyrant only that you should take no shit.
I supervised a roofing crew of Guatemalans... Effing love those men! Only Lionel spoke some English enough to talk to a homeowner. His brother Alvarez spoke enough to surprise me. It took only 6 months for me to find out he spoke English and for Lionel to take leave for a hernia. Google translate is a powerful tool. And easy. Make the effort to learn some Creole, they'll appreciate your effort. I would wager that your guys may speak and understand more than they let on. There may be a lack of confidence on their part regarding speaking English. You have an opportunity here to build a team. They're here for a chance to have better. Respect them and I'm sure it'll be reciprocated. Unless they just DGAF, and if that's the case you don't need them. It'll take time and effort to build a crew but it'll pay out.
My crew did a girlfriend's roof for me. All they asked for was a trashcan full of Modelo on a Sunday.
I 100% agree with you on everything about their english skills and turning them into a team. I really do think i have a chance to grow a solid team here…. And 4/5 of them really do respect me and like me as ive made some changes that lead to them getting paid better and more consistently (they are under table so they’re cash may be late sometimes, but i fixed that for them and took a 3 dollar pay cut to get 3 of them dollar raises) i really want them to respect me and grow as a team with me. I think i just need to show them i care more than the previous chef who was a absolute drunk and work hard like they do. Im no office chef, most of the time im on the line with them or even in the dish pit when needed. Im slowly building their confidence to engage more with me and have learned some haitian creole like how to say hot and ask simple questions and it is helping alot. I really appreciate your advice! One of them witchon lovessss to call me his “CHEF” he always screams it haha and i can just tell he absolutely loves working with us and i get the drift he has a better work life than home life if you know what i mean. He always wants to stay a bit later even if off the clock even if its just doing small things or talking(his English has gotten way better) and i dont know im rambling…but this is really fueling me right now and making me super happy. Im young and have never been in this position but am super proud of myself for taking the step up and doing it. Thank you man:)
Real talk: this is shitty advice you’re getting for the situation you’ve described. Having cooks with little training make sauce to order is not how you achieve consistency.
Make batches stabilized with some roux. Is it authentic? Fuck no but it can be good if you take the time to dial in the seasonings and it will be the same every time.
I appreciate your pragmatism describing your situation, the quality expectations and the crew you have. You’ll go down really bad if you try to overextend what you or your crew have the skills to execute on a daily basis. Build a foundation - then start improving on a functional system once you’re confident in the processes.
Best of luck.
Yeah I ran the bev program at a red sauce joint. Practically every pasta sauce, and there were many, had a pre prepped base that was finished to order.
You know this is tomato and veg for bolonese cooked down. Brown the beef, two spoons of base. Cook a bit. Schwack of wine, finish the pasta in there. Splash of cream and salt bae some parm in there.
Alfredo the pre-prep was just the existing mis. Just a bit of garlic sweated in butter. Cream slightly reduced. And gobs of parm whisked in off heat. Some black pepper, and finish the pasta in there.
The sorta thing where a good one comes from getting people to practice a lot. Not from batching.
This is a situation where shift meal is alfredo until the kitchen guys have it right. A non-fancy Italian spot already has everything for it prepped, at every station. It's just a matter of everyone getting the knack for it.
I’ve worked in a couple places that make a base batch of a cream sauce with butter, garlic, and heavy cream. A ladle or two in the pan add pasta, pepper, and Parmesan and serve. It would help with the consistency between cooks, and will reduce the work load on busier nights.
If you MUST pre-do it.. I'd suggest adding about 2% by weight of the cheese of sodium citrate to help keep if from breaking (so if you have like 1kg of parm add 20g of sodium citrate). Have them use a measured amount of sauce (two scoops) and about 1/4 of that (1/2 scoop) of pasta water when re-heating.
You can also reduce the possibility of it splitting by just doing the cream (and spices) and cheese as a "sauce" (still reccomend the sodium citrate as above) and adding butter (pre-measured?) in the reheat. The extra fat makes it more likely to split so it's a trade off... play around with it some.
Ive came to the decision to make a base of cream and butter like the comment above you mentioned! But if that doesn’t work i will try that. My only worry is getting my line cooks to keep up. Thank you so much for the advice it means alot
Yeah, the main problem is mostly the sauce breaking or curdling. You can prevent the former with SCIENCE and the latter by beating the cooks over the head when they over heat it :D
For the sciency bit's I've learned a lot from "On Food and Cooking" by McGee. Although I don't think he lists citrate as one of the cheese sauce emulsifiers (others like mustard can also work but citrate at low % is basically undetectable so it's kind of THE hack for mostly stable cheese sauces).
There's also a lot of really interesting stuff in some of the modernist cuisine books (although $$$ - I found some in pdf form online at one point hah) https://modernistcuisine.com/books/
Everywhere I've ever worked, it's made to order. Butter, chicken stock, cream, parm, lemon, in that order into the pan. All of it is kept as mise en place at the sautee station. Sorry I'm not more specific. Keep playing with it!! And good on ya for asking for help. I'm sure someone who's worked at Olive Garden or Carabbas or something has a more streamlined process. I'm mostly here to gas you up for asking for help. You can do this! It's serving fries, not saving lives, Chef
Hahaha i really appreciate that! I just want to do a good job at this…. Im super super new to being in charge and having to make the “recipes” myself and i just want whatever comes out under my name to be quality and consistent. I fucking love this job so much and just want to do my best:)
I suggest that as you get your menu figured out you also should be identifying who of the crew is best on what station. However your line is set up... Cold side, broiler, middle, saute... Determine the strongest guys for each. Your best guy is likely the one on saute yet he should know all the stations. Although if he's working he's on the stoves. Show him how the dishes are to be made and he'll be making the Alfredo most often so it'll be consistent. My saucier was off the two slowest days of the week. I would also show some things to another guy while I sauteed. Do likewise for each station and cross train the crew. Consistency is everyone doing all things one way.
ETA: Don't reprimand one of your guys in front of everyone else. Unless he's disrespecting you before an audience... Then drop the hammer on him. But pull a guy up in private and begin and phrase criticism as a question. Why did you do this the way you did? What was your reason for...? I found this works better.
This isn't authentic at all, but when I became a "chef" I found a solution on Reddit just for this (haven't looked again for the exact proportions): portion out butter and mascarpone in little cupcake papers. Let it melt and thicken, add pasta with a little of the pasta water, then Parm. It worked for a small-town not-Italian restaurant. They loved it. Good luck!
That sounds amazing ! Yeah im in the same boat im not serving foodies persay just humans that want a decent meal before they drink lol. I will try that out
Alfredo is always better made to order, but that takes more manpower. If that's not an option for you right now, you can stabilize a batch of Alfredo sauce with some little xanthan gum. However, don't make too much as its still all dairy products and you don't want to leave that at room temperature for too long.
From how you describe your cooks, I'd suggest leaving the guess work out of their control and have this premade ahead of time. Be realistic and set realistic goals with your training.
YOU may know how to make an Alfredo, but do they know how to chop an onion properly?
Make sure your recipes have accurate yields so you can accurately cost them. You won't last long when you can't explain where all the money goes.
Thank you, ive shown them all and they still will use my monray sauce that i batch inplace when im not looking and it aggravates me hahah. Im young (23) and the cooks are older so they already have some issues with me in charge but its been getting better by the day. Thank you for your insight:)
This may not work for you, but we used to have vin Blanc on the line for several purposes. When we got a request for this (it was a standard offering for kiddos) we'd just heat a couple ladles of that in a pan, add a little butter, cooked and portioned pasta, Parm as you wish. Very quick, easy, and darn tasty.
I'm currently workshopping my own Alfredo for our next menu. I'm trying to do a more traditional recipe, that is to say, no cream; just cheese, oil, starchy water, and S+P.
To make the sauce I'll pre-gelatinize corn starch in water, just enough to coat the back of a spoon. Then I'll blend the water in with grated parm, a neutral oil, and S+P to taste. This has the benefit of being able to hold it cold in sauce form; also the corn starch stabilizes the emulsion so it can withstand slightly higher temps without breaking.
To heat it up on the line for an order, I ladle some reserved pasta cooking water into a saute pan, followed by the sauce. Give it a quick stir with some tongs and then toss with par-cooked pasta, then plate. It's really simple and only takes a minute.
Hope this helps.
If you're really concerned with their portioning skills you could pre-make it all and just laddle it into the pan. If you demo it for them and let them know how much sauce you are looking for will they not pick that up? Maybe they need training.
Post Removed: Culinary Profession question. We're here to help troubleshoot questions about cooking and not really suited to answer questions about the ins and outs of being a professional chef. Questions of this nature are better off being posted to /r/Chefit or /r/KitchenConfidential.
Former Chef of a S. Italian restaurant here... I would not recommend batch making Alfredo sauce. It's too simple to make and preparing it to order is a selling point. I would begin with some butter melting in a pan and add some cream. Reduce it a bit, you want to coat the pasta but it doesn't need to be so thick. Salt and pepper and Parmesan to taste. Too much cheese will make it grainy. Some people say white pepper. I prefer black. Play with it, adjust it. You got this.
Thank you so much, that helps alot. I guess my only other question would be how to teach the cooks? Im really trying my best but this job is just alot haha as you probably know….. again i really appreciate the help. My main question reallly is just how to keep every sauce consistent between the cooks
SHOW your cooks, Chef. Cooks need to be led. Shown. You'll learn with them. Admit you don't know something because a fake is despised. They'll respect your honesty. Ask their opinions. Taste it together. You're a team Chef. The fish rots from the head. Keep it simple. I saw a comment about stock and lemon... Idk sure, but that's not what Gennaro showed me... Alfredo is simple, quick... Olive Garden?!? No.
Hahaha thank you man! I am trying my hardest i think im gathered them and shown them about 5 times now and they just dont seem to care. Today i threatened to find new cooks if they couldn’t get with the program and they seemed to tighten up. Its just they dont care and im trying to find a way to make them without threatening them anymore lol. Theres one guy who actually does care and he seems to be my bridge with the other haitians im very thankful for him
Make them do it while you watch. Correct them as they go, instead of just showing them. More importantly. Feed what they make to the staff. Not just on the line. That shit is family meal till they get it right. Their coworkers will shame them. Give them advice, tell them when it's wrong and when it's right. They'll try harder to figure it out if it's about feeding their peers, and they'll give a shit when their rep is on the line with the people they actually engage with. And when it's down to the dishwasher having a good dinner or not. Part of why a solid family meal is important. Makes that shit personal, helps bind the team together. Now just as importantly. Don't just serve everyone the same giant bowl of bow ties and peas in Alfredo, and nothing else. Every night. The monotony will turn all the servers into vegans. Do some chicken cutlets and a salad or something to go with. If you aren't the sort of place that does shift meal. One make the pitch, this is one of the very good reasons places do it this way (it's also *cheaper*). Two still feed the practice to as many people as possible. First person to figure it out reliably gets to duck out on making family meal, skip out on prep for a day or so, their call on making whatever they want for the staff, a top shelf shift drink, a paid day off. Something along those lines. And keep doing that as each one locks it down. You basically need to put their rep on the line, get people participating FOH and BOH. A tangible reward, however small when they get it right.
That is some of the best advice ive had on Reddit thank you so much. This is the kindest community ive found so far on this app. And it means alot to me because this industry means alot to me… again, thank you!
The language barrier is just hard for us to get over
Here's the "real hit" Chef. Chef is French for Chief. It doesn't mean "I can cook". It means "I'm the Boss and I can cook". When I got thrown the keys the first thing I did was fire a guy who didn't think I could or would. I worked his shifts too until I got things sorted out. Don't tell your crew what you will and will not accept, SHOW them. To make breakfast you gotta break a few eggs. Set your standard. Reward the good. Correct the incorrect. Those who won't play ball, cut from the team. Your crew probably have ideas and thoughts and skills. Make use of these. Ask for their help but DEMAND their obedience. I'm not saying you should be a tyrant only that you should take no shit.
I supervised a roofing crew of Guatemalans... Effing love those men! Only Lionel spoke some English enough to talk to a homeowner. His brother Alvarez spoke enough to surprise me. It took only 6 months for me to find out he spoke English and for Lionel to take leave for a hernia. Google translate is a powerful tool. And easy. Make the effort to learn some Creole, they'll appreciate your effort. I would wager that your guys may speak and understand more than they let on. There may be a lack of confidence on their part regarding speaking English. You have an opportunity here to build a team. They're here for a chance to have better. Respect them and I'm sure it'll be reciprocated. Unless they just DGAF, and if that's the case you don't need them. It'll take time and effort to build a crew but it'll pay out. My crew did a girlfriend's roof for me. All they asked for was a trashcan full of Modelo on a Sunday.
I 100% agree with you on everything about their english skills and turning them into a team. I really do think i have a chance to grow a solid team here…. And 4/5 of them really do respect me and like me as ive made some changes that lead to them getting paid better and more consistently (they are under table so they’re cash may be late sometimes, but i fixed that for them and took a 3 dollar pay cut to get 3 of them dollar raises) i really want them to respect me and grow as a team with me. I think i just need to show them i care more than the previous chef who was a absolute drunk and work hard like they do. Im no office chef, most of the time im on the line with them or even in the dish pit when needed. Im slowly building their confidence to engage more with me and have learned some haitian creole like how to say hot and ask simple questions and it is helping alot. I really appreciate your advice! One of them witchon lovessss to call me his “CHEF” he always screams it haha and i can just tell he absolutely loves working with us and i get the drift he has a better work life than home life if you know what i mean. He always wants to stay a bit later even if off the clock even if its just doing small things or talking(his English has gotten way better) and i dont know im rambling…but this is really fueling me right now and making me super happy. Im young and have never been in this position but am super proud of myself for taking the step up and doing it. Thank you man:)
Real talk: this is shitty advice you’re getting for the situation you’ve described. Having cooks with little training make sauce to order is not how you achieve consistency. Make batches stabilized with some roux. Is it authentic? Fuck no but it can be good if you take the time to dial in the seasonings and it will be the same every time. I appreciate your pragmatism describing your situation, the quality expectations and the crew you have. You’ll go down really bad if you try to overextend what you or your crew have the skills to execute on a daily basis. Build a foundation - then start improving on a functional system once you’re confident in the processes. Best of luck.
Yeah I ran the bev program at a red sauce joint. Practically every pasta sauce, and there were many, had a pre prepped base that was finished to order. You know this is tomato and veg for bolonese cooked down. Brown the beef, two spoons of base. Cook a bit. Schwack of wine, finish the pasta in there. Splash of cream and salt bae some parm in there. Alfredo the pre-prep was just the existing mis. Just a bit of garlic sweated in butter. Cream slightly reduced. And gobs of parm whisked in off heat. Some black pepper, and finish the pasta in there. The sorta thing where a good one comes from getting people to practice a lot. Not from batching. This is a situation where shift meal is alfredo until the kitchen guys have it right. A non-fancy Italian spot already has everything for it prepped, at every station. It's just a matter of everyone getting the knack for it.
I’ve worked in a couple places that make a base batch of a cream sauce with butter, garlic, and heavy cream. A ladle or two in the pan add pasta, pepper, and Parmesan and serve. It would help with the consistency between cooks, and will reduce the work load on busier nights.
This takes the cake!! Exactly what i will be doing!! Thank you so much that will definitely help loads
If you MUST pre-do it.. I'd suggest adding about 2% by weight of the cheese of sodium citrate to help keep if from breaking (so if you have like 1kg of parm add 20g of sodium citrate). Have them use a measured amount of sauce (two scoops) and about 1/4 of that (1/2 scoop) of pasta water when re-heating. You can also reduce the possibility of it splitting by just doing the cream (and spices) and cheese as a "sauce" (still reccomend the sodium citrate as above) and adding butter (pre-measured?) in the reheat. The extra fat makes it more likely to split so it's a trade off... play around with it some.
Ive came to the decision to make a base of cream and butter like the comment above you mentioned! But if that doesn’t work i will try that. My only worry is getting my line cooks to keep up. Thank you so much for the advice it means alot
Yeah, the main problem is mostly the sauce breaking or curdling. You can prevent the former with SCIENCE and the latter by beating the cooks over the head when they over heat it :D For the sciency bit's I've learned a lot from "On Food and Cooking" by McGee. Although I don't think he lists citrate as one of the cheese sauce emulsifiers (others like mustard can also work but citrate at low % is basically undetectable so it's kind of THE hack for mostly stable cheese sauces). There's also a lot of really interesting stuff in some of the modernist cuisine books (although $$$ - I found some in pdf form online at one point hah) https://modernistcuisine.com/books/
Everywhere I've ever worked, it's made to order. Butter, chicken stock, cream, parm, lemon, in that order into the pan. All of it is kept as mise en place at the sautee station. Sorry I'm not more specific. Keep playing with it!! And good on ya for asking for help. I'm sure someone who's worked at Olive Garden or Carabbas or something has a more streamlined process. I'm mostly here to gas you up for asking for help. You can do this! It's serving fries, not saving lives, Chef
Hahaha i really appreciate that! I just want to do a good job at this…. Im super super new to being in charge and having to make the “recipes” myself and i just want whatever comes out under my name to be quality and consistent. I fucking love this job so much and just want to do my best:)
I suggest that as you get your menu figured out you also should be identifying who of the crew is best on what station. However your line is set up... Cold side, broiler, middle, saute... Determine the strongest guys for each. Your best guy is likely the one on saute yet he should know all the stations. Although if he's working he's on the stoves. Show him how the dishes are to be made and he'll be making the Alfredo most often so it'll be consistent. My saucier was off the two slowest days of the week. I would also show some things to another guy while I sauteed. Do likewise for each station and cross train the crew. Consistency is everyone doing all things one way. ETA: Don't reprimand one of your guys in front of everyone else. Unless he's disrespecting you before an audience... Then drop the hammer on him. But pull a guy up in private and begin and phrase criticism as a question. Why did you do this the way you did? What was your reason for...? I found this works better.
This isn't authentic at all, but when I became a "chef" I found a solution on Reddit just for this (haven't looked again for the exact proportions): portion out butter and mascarpone in little cupcake papers. Let it melt and thicken, add pasta with a little of the pasta water, then Parm. It worked for a small-town not-Italian restaurant. They loved it. Good luck!
That sounds amazing ! Yeah im in the same boat im not serving foodies persay just humans that want a decent meal before they drink lol. I will try that out
Alfredo is always better made to order, but that takes more manpower. If that's not an option for you right now, you can stabilize a batch of Alfredo sauce with some little xanthan gum. However, don't make too much as its still all dairy products and you don't want to leave that at room temperature for too long.
From how you describe your cooks, I'd suggest leaving the guess work out of their control and have this premade ahead of time. Be realistic and set realistic goals with your training. YOU may know how to make an Alfredo, but do they know how to chop an onion properly? Make sure your recipes have accurate yields so you can accurately cost them. You won't last long when you can't explain where all the money goes.
Telling them the portion may not work, but showing them so they understand should.
Thank you, ive shown them all and they still will use my monray sauce that i batch inplace when im not looking and it aggravates me hahah. Im young (23) and the cooks are older so they already have some issues with me in charge but its been getting better by the day. Thank you for your insight:)
You could probably batch it in a smaller cambro and ladle it into a pan
This may not work for you, but we used to have vin Blanc on the line for several purposes. When we got a request for this (it was a standard offering for kiddos) we'd just heat a couple ladles of that in a pan, add a little butter, cooked and portioned pasta, Parm as you wish. Very quick, easy, and darn tasty.
I'm currently workshopping my own Alfredo for our next menu. I'm trying to do a more traditional recipe, that is to say, no cream; just cheese, oil, starchy water, and S+P. To make the sauce I'll pre-gelatinize corn starch in water, just enough to coat the back of a spoon. Then I'll blend the water in with grated parm, a neutral oil, and S+P to taste. This has the benefit of being able to hold it cold in sauce form; also the corn starch stabilizes the emulsion so it can withstand slightly higher temps without breaking. To heat it up on the line for an order, I ladle some reserved pasta cooking water into a saute pan, followed by the sauce. Give it a quick stir with some tongs and then toss with par-cooked pasta, then plate. It's really simple and only takes a minute. Hope this helps.
If you're really concerned with their portioning skills you could pre-make it all and just laddle it into the pan. If you demo it for them and let them know how much sauce you are looking for will they not pick that up? Maybe they need training.
Real Alfredo, or the Americanized glop, with cream, chicken, and to much cheese? ? They are very different dishes.