09.20.07
Posted in 1. The Story at 8:50 pm by Chef Matt
I wrote before about how I was lucky enough to have been tapped (no pun intended) to make root beer for the restaurant. It has been an exciting series of tests so far, and I had come up with two options for how to get bubbles into the final product.
The first was bottle fermenting. It is a lengthy process that takes about 2 weeks to achieve the right consistency, and after about 2.5 weeks, the product starts going downhill.
A skill from a bygone era. Was I about to revive it at Rustico?… |
My second idea was making the syrup, and then like a soda jerk, combining it with the syrup right there on the spot. The problem here was making sure the dilution ratio was right on the money.
I was refining both methods and yielding some great results. I would randomly give people samples of my latest tests, and I could see people getting more and more excited about the prospect that we were really going to be making homemade root beer in house. In short, it was becoming good enough to sell to the public, and that was exciting.
But there were SO MANY variables involved with what I was testing. For the bottle fermenting method there was how much yeast to put in the solution, the dilution ratio, the time spent at room temperature fermentation, the time spent in cold fermentation, and which water to use - just to name a few. With the soda-jerk style there were variables like should the syrup ferment before mixing, and for how long, and again which water should be used to add bubbles? These were the tests I ran over and over with the people in the restaurant, but the problem was we all liked all the results. It was too hard to make comparisons between them, so I had to set up a blind taste test.
Everyone in the kitchen agreed: Hires is still better than any of the three root beers I placed in front of them. |
I took three pint glasses from the bar and lined up three glasses of root beer. One bottle fermented for two weeks, one soda-jerked with club soda and one experimental version I was working on that had a fermented syrup that was then bottle fermented for only one week (an attempt to do a faster bottle fermentation). I brought everyone in the kitchen over to taste all three and tell me which one was the best (without telling them which was which.)
The long, slow bottle fermented won unanimously. Sure, the bubbles in there are an indicator of alcohol forming, but there was no question that the complexity and depth of flavors were richer, the quality of the bubbles were better and the overall taste was more like root beer than any of the others.
In short, I now have taken one of my major variables out of the equation. I know now which method I have to proceed with, so now it is just a question of fine-tuning the recipe. But with about 15 ingredients in my recipe - and one or two others out there I want to try and add in at some point - we can hardly say I have it all figured out.
Back to the drawing board.
Chef Matt
Permalink
09.18.07
Posted in 1. The Story at 1:34 pm by Chef Matt
So other than just scaring co-workers, we did actually have a reason for bringing pig heads into our restaurant. Indeed one of the other sous chefs, Andrew, wanted to make a pork terrine from them. (That is our more palatable way of saying “head cheese”.)
I actually sold head cheese back in high school when I was working at the Heidelberg Pastry Shoppe in Arlington. In fact, we sold two kinds, regular and spicy. Didn’t much matter which you chose, they were both nasty. So with those troubling childhood memories in my mind, I had to admit I was mildly trepidacious before venturing down this road of boiling pigs’ heads in our kitchen.
Warning: The following story goes into some details involving pigs’ heads, saws, brains and other dissecting things you may find kinda gross. If that’s not your bag, stop reading now, and instead watch something seriously funny instead.
Oh good, the warning didn’t scare you off. So apparently the first step when making head cheese is to scoop out the brains of the pig, as they don’t add much to the resulting stock. (You can still leave if you want to…) The problem is that the brains of the pig - as is the case with most mammals - are surrounded by a lot of skull. Andrew had forgotten to ask the butchers to saw the heads in half when he ordered them so that this would not have been a problem. But even though this oversight of his allowed me to pull off my great prank (would not have been nearly as scary with only half a pig head…) it did place us in a bit of a pickle. How would we saw through a pig’s head? Yes our knives are sharp - but not THAT sharp.
So Andrew found a hacksaw in our toolbox at the restaurant, but a few seconds of that clearly showed that this was not going to work anytime soon as the blade was pretty old. We were thinking about calling some local butchers to see if we could bring them these heads for cutting, when suddenly it dawned on me that there was a maintenance man in the house repairing some lights and fans…
“Look, I know you’re busy and I don’t want to break your concentration or anything, but can the saws on your truck go through flesh and bone?…” |
“Excuse me sir,” I called to him at the top of his ladder. “We have a pair of pig heads that we have to saw in half… would you happen to have a reciprocating saw in your truck?”
I am willing to bet I am the first person who ever posed that question to him with that premise. The look on his face and follow–up question confirmed this belief.
“Did you say ‘pig heads’?”
“Yessir, we need to cut them in half, and we don’t have a saw that can do it in house.”
“Well hell yeah I got one that’ll go through metal!”
As I expected he was thrilled with the concept of getting a chance to do something so outlandish. We pulled in his saw, sterilized the blade and he made quick work of the jaw bones (to separate the lower jaw from the rest of the head) and then a cut through the inch-thick skull. Unfortunately he also made quick work of our cutting board as well. (We set it aside as one to use for future such projects…)
The repair man went back to work with the biggest smile on his face I have ever seen, and set back into the task at hand. The brains of the pig were liberated, and the pig heads were soon cooking in broth.
I put a lot of effort into the images I make for you people. Here is how the pig head slicing went down… |
A few hours later, we strained the broth, and it was time to pull the meat from the skulls. This was fascinating as I learned where all the meat on a pig’s face (there is a lot of it) is located. The jowls - which we had bisected with the reciprocating saw - were the biggest surprise as I was almost ready to throw out the skull when I found that huge pocket of meat near the eye socket.
And in the end, it is experiences like this - not just combining power tools and meat, which I have previously mentioned is awesome - where I can learn to make something totally new and different that keep me coming back day after day to work. Sure, it’s not everyone who looks forward to the odd chance to make head cheese, but if you could have tasted the end result, you would come back for more - it was fabulous!
Chef Matt
Permalink
09.13.07
Posted in 1. The Story at 11:14 pm by Chef Matt
I guess I could be writing about all the cool recipes I’m working on, or how I see myself advancing in the kitchen, or how we are seeing a great increase in business with the onslaught of football season, but really, I know what my readers want. You want to hear about even more stupid jokes and pranks that are pulled in the kitchen. Some of the previous stories I have shared can be found here and here.
And as luck would have it, stupid jokes seem to happen around me all the time. Especially because I like to pull them.
So some of our recent special menus have had us bringing in a collection of seemingly odd - I guess I could say “less conventional” - ingredients. Lamb tongues, pig ears and quail eggs are all items I have had to place orders for as of late. I am not saying these are bad things - they all can be made into really neat food items actually, it’s just that most people will sort of take a step back for a second when they first hear that the salad in front of them is garnished with pig’s feet.
Yeah, they’re not that much prettier in a bag… |
This morning the meat delivery man arrived and he had with him his usual order of hanger steak, ground beef and other assorted goodies, and in a separate box he had something wrapped tightly in an opaque plastic bag. It’s my job to check in the orders in the morning, so I dove into the bag expecting there to be chicken breasts or maybe some pork bellies. Staring back at me were a pair of pig heads. Even though the eyes were removed (thankfully I might add) this was a touch of a shock to my system at 8:30 in the morning. I checked the invoice, and noticed that this order was placed after the order I had placed, so it was in fact legit. What a nasty surprise from my chefs. I guess they want to make head cheese.
However, the fact that my heart skipped a beat gave me an idea. Why should I be the only one to be surprised by these heads? I noticed that my jack-of-all-trades, Alemo, was not in the kitchen, so he had no idea there were pig heads in house. I started to poke around the restaurant to see where he was, and with luck, I found he was in one of the bathrooms.
Yeah, like this, only there was no way I was touching the pig head to my head… |
I called over an accomplice - Oscar - to call to him in Spanish to get him to come out completely unassuming. With everyone gathered around, I placed the pig head in front of my face and screaming I charged him as he came out of the bathroom. With a loud “Holy shit!” he quickly ran back into the bathroom, and the running joke for the rest of the day was that it was good he was going back into a bathroom considering what he probably did in his shorts.
Yes, a kitchen has no end to the humorous adventures it provides. Again, I’m just living in fear of the day when it is “my turn”…
Chef Matt
Permalink
09.05.07
Posted in 1. The Story at 10:33 pm by Chef Matt
Wow, it has been a hell of a long time since I last wrote. It has been a busy time to say the least, so first, some quick updates:
Mmmm… root beer. |
1. The root beer recipe I originally worked with was no good. I have come up with one of my own, and have had my first successful bottle fermentation test as well. I am also working on some tests for carbonating a syrup on the spot with club soda, so there are a lot of tests and so forth I am working on. When I have it all together, and a final recipe, I will share my knowledge with you all.
2. The cooking class in Bedford went amazingly well. So much so, that I was invited back to do it all over again since they had so many people on the waiting list. I just enjoy the time in my parents’ cabin alone. That is the real reward for me.
3. The reasons for my being away involve a crappy network here in my house, my working on a website (yes, I still do some web design and building for extra cash) and the fact that I was in Chicago last weekend to see my best friend from elementary school get married. (Congrats again Phil!)
So with all that out of the way, allow me to get on with today’s story.
I came back from being off for three days to the expected combined messes of both the state of my walk-in and the state of the ordering invoices. Both were a disaster. Add to this that I have to work a station on Wednesdays (pizza station - loads of fun) and the result is a serious work load to welcome me back to the kitchen.
It’s my kind of town. |
But my three day sojourn to the Windy City had revived me somewhat, so I was ready to tackle the combined problems. I was soon throwing together garlic confit, cold soups and prepping my pizza station with ease while booting up the computer to calculate out the numbers for last week’s food cost report. In short, things were humming along at a great pace. (Does anyone else sense the imposing doom?…)
While seated at the office computer (yes, singular…amazing how we all get our combined work done) one of my line cooks came in to tell me that Emilio was in.
“Emilio?,” I asked.
“Si.”
“Aqui?”
“Si.”
“Por que?”
“No se.”
Since this conversation had proved not to be enlightening, and had also taxed about all of my Spanish language skills, I decided to get up and see what was going on.
I found Emilio in the bar, and I asked him what was going on. He looked down at his shoes, and mumbled something in Spanish. This was not productive of course, so I brought him over to Oscar - my line cook who is most proficient in English - and asked him to tell me what Emilio was saying.
Simply put… |
They exchanged a few lines in Spanish with all the employees gathered around, and after a few moments where I was the only person in the kitchen who did not understand what was going on, Oscar turned to me and said, “He is not working here any more.”
Oh great, I had just let Emilio quit in front of my whole kitchen. I ushered Emilio and Oscar aside, and found out why he was quitting - he said because he was moving, though I’m not sure I buy that - and I wished him well. The one thing that bothered me was that he was scheduled to work tonight, and now I was down one man. He said though that he had a friend who needed work, and I told him to have his friend come by after lunch. He said he would, and he walked out the door.
It’s amazing to me how someone who you share so many work shifts with can just simply walk away like that. Emilio and I have worked side by side to open Rustico on many a Sunday morning. And as he walked out the door this morning, I’m sure that is the last time I’ll ever see him in my life.
Anyway, shortly after Emilio left, Alemo - my morning “gopher” - told me that he too had a friend who would like some work. I gave him the same story - have his friend show up after lunch.
As amazing as it may seem, within 10 minutes of one guy quitting, I had two prospective applicants for the job lined up to come in that afternoon.
Also simply put, and in animated form… |
And come they did. One showed up at 3:05, the other at 3:07. I gave the job to the one who arrived first - Alemo’s friend. I showed him the schedule, told him the pay, and said I would see him tomorrow at four. He seemed happy with all this, and said he would be there. Emilio’s friend was sad that we didn’t have a job for him, but understood, and was happy to leave his name and number with us just in case.
So in the course of just today I lost a dishwasher, and gained one as well. Sure, I was down a man for tonight, but we were slow, so I am sure Miguel could make it for one night. And tomorrow he will have a new man by his side to train at the job.
One out, one in. Life in the kitchen continues as it always has.
Chef Matt
Permalink