A day in the life of a Chef - Part 4

shallots

Continuing on with the Carbonara pizza. I have spread the bases with the Parmesan white sauce and will dice up 16 rashers of middle bacon and flash them through the oven for 10 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius to make sure that they are cooked but not crunchy when the pizza is cooked. I slice up mushrooms to top the pizzas and chopped the shallots. I will then top the pizzas with the mushrooms and shallots as well as the now cooked diced bacon. To finish off the pizza I will top with a generous quantity of mozzarella cheese. Pizzas are now cling wrapped and put into the coolroom until it is time for them to cook in a 185 oven for 13 minutes tuning tray after 8.

Moving on. Through out the morning deliveries with need to be checked and signed for as well at put away. Monday is a busy day for deliveries with vegetables, usually a box of tomatoes, a box of cauliflower and zucchini, broccoli and 15 kg of carrots as well as a kilogram of baby spinach, some iceberg lettuce and 2 or 3 kilograms of mesclun or mixed lettuce are some of the items that may be arriving. Under normal circumstances we receive vegetables 3 days a week on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Also, on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday we receive our dry, refrigerated and frozen goods from another supplier. These are packed away by myself and the manager. These deliveries are placed the working day prior and delivery is made around 8 o'clock in the morning. This delivery includes a box of frozen chips 15 kg, pasta 10 kg dry usually penne or spaghetti or frozen 1 kg ravioli, rice 10 kg bags, grated and sliced cheeses, 15 doz eggs in a box, 2.5 kg packets of bacon averaged out to approximately 1 pack a day and much more.

Monday is also meat delivery day for the week, so all the red meat I need for Tuesday to Thursdays menus arrives at around 11 am. The includes 20 to 25 kilograms of meat for Thursday's roast which rotates between Beef, Lamb, Chicken and Pork. If I have chicken on Tuesday's menu then a chicken delivery will also arrive Monday morning.

Moving back to lunch preparation , next on the agenda is the sauce for the Spinach and ricotta ravioli which is a simple Mushroom, sun-dried tomato, and pesto cream sauce. I would dice onions and rough chop the mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes. The mushrooms I like to chop in largish sizes so that they don't completely breakdown and disintegrate during cooking. The large pot is heated for about a minute before adding oil from the sun-dried tomato jar and the onions are simmered for 4 or 5 minutes to get some flavour into them. Then I add the mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes, a good spoon of crushed garlic and cook until browned and ready to add some white wine ( a cup or two) to bring out the flavours. After the wine reduces I add in half a kilo of crushed tomatoes and 2 large kitchen spoons of jarred pesto sauce. Give it a good stir with the spoon to stop the ingredients catching on the sides, season with salt and pepper, and add around 4 litres of thickened cream. From this stage I just need to keep an eye on it whilst it simmers away and reduces and I move on with my next job.

And speaking of that job, it is the making of a roast zucchini and haloumi salad. I have somewhat standardised my salads of late by building a base of a large handful of mesclun, half a dozen tomatoes, 3 large cucumbers, a red and a green capsicum, a Spanish onion, and a grated carrot of 2. On top of this base I add the main ingredients of the salad, in this case Zucchini and Haloumi cheese.

Time to grab a morning coffee, this is to be continued. Happy eating and stay safe!!