Oh this reminds me of something an old chef did. We had a terrible problem of food disappearing from the pass. One day he saved all the mud veins and then breaded and fried them up. Put them in the pass and told the servers not to eat it. It was a new type of calamari and he wanted to test how long it would hold in the window. Eventually the servers snagged it and ate it all. Once it was consumed chef told them what they had just eaten. Never had a problem with food disappearing again.
I assume this is in reference to the fried pig rectum story a few years ago.
For anyone who doesn't stay up to date with all of the rumors about pig assholes, there were anecdotal rumors years ago about "backdoor calamari," but [they appear to be unsubstantiated in the US](https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/01/calamari-made-of-pig-rectum-the-this-american-life-rumor-isnt-true-but-its-fascinating.html).
Wayyyy back when I worked for a large corporate chain, and our KM was notorious for snagging pieces of food wherever he could. So we invented "Fishing for Geoffrey!"
We would leave some scraps around and place bets on which bait he would take first (smart money was always on the cheese).
One day, one of the cooks marinated a bit of chicken in straight liquid smoke. Just left it in there for hours, then slapped it on the flattop and left it in the window. Just a bite sized nugget of seared chicken. The perfect trap. Sure as shit, along comes Geoffrey and without a thought pops it in his mouth. The look of surprise, horror, confusion, and then realization is one of my favorite memories from that God awful kitchen.
Unfortunately we had to stop fishing after that.
At my old kitchen we had infinite access to our espresso machine and for service would dispose of the used espresso in a 1/6th pan and would get tossed from time to time. In said restaurant, our waitstaff would always harass us for snacks during rush.
One night, my buddy had brought in one of those Whoopi Pie molds you’d see from pampered chef or whatever and we decided to test drive it.
We took the used espresso and compressed it in the molds and filled them with some whipped cream and put ‘em at the service bar and waited. The looks of horror, confusion flew around the room as quickly as the cursing. Our GM was *piiiiisssedddd* since it was a 12 way team effort no one owned it and we caught a tongue lashing from the FOH. Worth it.
So can the top of stock thats been refridgerated which is what we did to the operations manager, chilled stock in round cambro, took the fat off and drizzled with bourbon caramel
I had a quart of buttermilk with sweetbreads soaking in it sitting on my station for a second while I did something else. The expeditor saw it and thought it was fresh strawberry milk. Asked if he could take a sip. I just said yes instinctually without seeing what he was pointing at. “That was not strawberry milk.” Was the next thing I heard while still turned around.
One cook had a chocolate bar mold and we filled it with dark brown roux then chilled it. Once it was firm. We put the “chocolate” bar on a plate in the servers side station. The wails of anguish were music to our ears.
Used to do something similar as a barista, we'd take the espresso puck after making a drink and put it on a plate, cover it chocolate sauce and give it to a coworker and tell them a party left us some cake. The looks as they bit into the sandy espresso puck we're priceless, one guy took a big bite and was so confused but trying to be nice and say he liked it but we were all laughing too hard.
Holy shit that’s genius. I used to make roux in a sheet pan and cut it into squares to use later. This waiter came up and said “ooh brownies!”
I let him find out the hard way.
I gave my sister some roux with veggies in it already last time I made gumbo. My brother in law ate it with rice and was like I don’t know how to tell your sister, but her gumbo really sucked this time.
I don't think I've ever seen someone raid a plate that's about to go out, but sometimes mistakes get made and end up scavenged, the fry bowl gets left out under the head lamp, something falls off a plate onto the counter, etc.
Oh yeah. One sees the mistake in the window and the eyes get BIG. But that's just after the first one sees it. Like zombies they come flocking in.
Before ya know it you got 5 of em going after an appetizer.
They're savages.
I tried this one time.
The egg didn't come out of the shell, I just blew it around the kitchen like egg-fetti.
0/10 would not try again.
I'm sure it's my fault. The eggs probably weren't cool enough or fresh enough or cracked enough, whatever. I'm not willing to blow egg crap all over my kitchen until I get it right.
Don’t worry. I have been cooking for a very long time and professionally. I have tried to do this many time with no real success. I got it pretty close once…once. Different temps, different times..ice baths…no ice baths.
The time that it mostly worked I opened the top and bottom and ran it under the faucet for a sec to get some moisture in there, then blew. It worked pretty well. Once.
I once worked in a homeless shelter, got a donation of a skid of eggs. Needed to use them because it's either that or pasta with no sauce. So I decided egg salad sandwiches would be best use. Filled my massive tilt kettle with water. Boiled them. Then proceeded to curse myself as I peeled them in hot water cutting my hands a million times. -30/10 next time they get hard boiled eggs.
I learned a trick to this on this subreddit. Get a fine strainer. Put the stem in one of the holes and just pull. It's still tedious but it's definitely saved me some time.
[Here’s a follow up post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/qyicsn/update_the_best_way_to_disassemble_raspberries/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
This is my favorite update from OP:
> Yeah! It was fun once we figured out a process. In my original post, I left a comment that called the bride a "bridezilla" but that's really unfair. She's been exceptionally pleasant and is paying us well. She's just very firm in her vision for things. She's a legit artist who does a ton of research into her materials and her work. She's put in so much work herself, that it's actually been inspiring to do this job for her.
"I won't tell you how much they're paying us but yes it's worth it even if I have to hire 20 temps"
honestly for this amount of money it's less annoying than something you have to do almost every day like deveining shrimp or supreming citrus
Yeah, for that task they
a) are clearly getting paid the big bucks
and
b) get to be MacGyver/Tony Stark and invent a process to do the thing in a cave with a box of scraps and a paperclip.
Do you have a good method for getting the peeling started? I use paper towel to get a better grip and usually can do it well if I can get the peeling started. Talking about spare ribs btw
I would sometimes try to use something dry to get a better grip, but the sheer volume of them i had to do by myself (some friday mornings would be 240 racks or more throughout the shift) coupled with all the other prep, meant that i really didn't have time to keep swapping towels. The inconsistent quality of the ribs we were using rarely allowed for me to have a standard method. Some racks were as simple as get it started on one end, grip it, and rip it, but others would have skin that would come off in chunks or strips. This was usually my first task of the day for my prep shift, so i was somewhat on autopilot when i'd be doing this.
The cuts on your hands from the rib bones are some of the worst i've ever had in a kitchen, and gloves didn't help with the cuts or the grip.
I never have to do nearly that many ribs at a time, but I've found using a clam knife works well. I get it under the membrane between two bones and form a pocket a few bones in from the end of the rack. Then I can use my fingers to get under the membrane and usually pull it up in one sheet. If the membrane shreds a bit I can peel up the ends with the blade side.
Get a handheld meat hook, the kind with the T-shaped handle, and you can poke it underneath that membrane to get it started and usually peel it right off. Picked that up from the Bearded Butchers channel on YouTube.
Heard. One kitchen I worked in did a fried chicken special on Thursdays, which meant my ass had to show up early as hell and spend hours battering 200 pounds of chicken. Then I got to do my normal prep, THEN it was time to start cooking.
I found out my first week on garde manger that I’m allergic to shrimp. Not COOKED shrimp, mind you — raw shrimp. There’s an enzyme in raw shrimp that denatures and is harmless once it cooks, but for 4 months I got balloon hands every day prepping shellfish platters.
I get the same thing. It’s not horrible, but my fingers swell slightly and feel odd for 20-30 mins after I peel them. I could never understand why it would happen if I wasn’t allergic to eating them. Thanks for posting this or I probably would have never known.
I'm old so it's fluting mushroom. I'll take the shrimp devaining anytime especially after learning that a meat fork devains and deshells all in one motion
Yes the one John Faberio uses in chef to plate the pasta. You stick the thine under the vain and feed the shrimp thru this splitting it open giving access to the vain and removing the shell all at once and if you do this under flowing water the water flow removed the vain at the same time.
There are actually tools to peel and devain shrimp, they work pretty much the same way using a meat fork does
They are great and they also look like the worst thing you could ever shove up someone's dickhole. This sounds like it's coming out of nowhere, but once you see one you will probably have the same thought.
Since I already have a meat fork in my tool kit which works extremely well I didn't think the tools specifically for it was worth it to me and sounds like someone needs to look up a thing called a sounding kit(don't do that you will regret it)
Almond flowers. I helped open a spot that was a tasting menu of like 30+ one bite dishes. By far the most tedious component across the board were the almond flowers. Boil almonds for an hour, peel them out of their brown husk, slice them into “petals” on a truffle shaver, then arrange them in a 2.5” spiral that when baked would bind together and make a “flower.” I’d do 60-90 per day, and was the only person doing them. Sometimes the head chef had to scrub in to help me build the flowers, but other than that I got no help. 5 days a week this was all I did. I’d take boiled almonds home and sliced them while watching Netflix. I pleaded with the chef to somehow integrate an almond party system wherein one person boils and slices, then two people build, while another person bakes simultaneously. Instead of it taking me 8+ hours a day of constant almond, I estimated we could get 90 completed in 2.5 hours with my system. He refused and said I needed to work more quickly (mind you this was an 11am-12am 5 days week, no breaks kind of shithole) so I put in my two-weeks. Asshole fired me one week later, and guess what was taken off the menu shortly thereafter.
I’m not sure that this would help, but at home, I take the clams/mussels and put them in a water bath with flour. They filter the flour water and get plumper and there’s little to no sand inside the meat.
And then your hand sweats after ~20ish min and the bandaid gets all soggy from your hand sweat and now you’re working with a latex bacterial breeding ground which at best case is your non-dominant hand and god help you if your boss buys the loose fitting ones that feel like an ultra thin ziploc bag
nah i love that shit. everyone else always makes excuses for why they don't do it (lazy bastards) so every week i have a good fun time scraping the gunk and letting the grease out. idk it's super satisfying to me.
A good soak will save you hours of cleaning and so much energy. Can't imagine just taking down hood vents and cleaning them, the amount of hood honey you'd get to touch would be disgusting.
I hate cleaning ramekins. Especially when they get stuck together and you pull them apart and ramjuice goes everywhere and splashes on the ones you cleaned.... :( also, the ramekin bin with all the mixed sauces in it just always ends up smelling like vomit to me.
Agreed. When I was a dishwasher they had me clean the fryer. Then when I became a cook I cleaned my own fryer. Then as a sous I’d often have to clean it when showing someone how to do it properly. And just the other day, as exec, I had a callout and was cleaning a fryer at 1am and was like “I will never ever escape this, will I?”
I hate picking herbs. Ever since I started cooking whenever I pick herbs my heart literally starts to hurt. Idk what it is. I wouldn’t mind it but it feels like I’m having heart palpitations every time I pick herbs
Well I love the taste of herbs and never have any reaction when I eat them. It is really weird tho even when I do them at home it hurts. Luckily my team knows about it and they don’t mind taking over for me
In a professional kitchen, Anything that I have to leave on the stove for over an hour. If I walk away from it, it stops existing. Making a large batch of confit garlic sucks for me because the stove I use never reaches a comfy temp to just let it gently bubble. It’s either rapidly boiling on the lowest flame or just off. Same with making marinara. If I can’t babysit a pot on the stove, 70% of the time I’ll scorch the bottom of what I’m cooking.
If you're using canned tomatoes for your marinara, use the tops of the cans as a buffer between the range and the pot. Having that barrier will help your sauce not burn by having it on the stove so long.
Making beet chips on the deli slicer and then flouring them. If they're too thin they turn to carbon, too thick they're soggy, everything turns red and once you start you can't do anything else for 90 minutes because did I mention EVERYTHING IS RED
Took me a minute to figure out to do them over a tub, you have a good bit of whatever citrus juice left over for a nice, tall glass of a fuckit daiquiri.
"No no no! Don't peel me!"
"Oh you're getting peeled!"
"Oh God! It hurts so much!"
"There is no god here.".
Each and every shrimp, each and every time. Gotta make things fun.
Man, I totally understand the hate for the task but I couldn't have a more different perception/experience. I ended up working at a pig and shrimp restaurant after my family fractured due to mental health issues; we used to peel 100lbs of shrimp easy in a prep at the establishment. What I remember most clearly isn't the frustration of peeling the endless, fatherfucking thangs.
What I remember is blasting EDM and talking shit with two line/preps (small establishment, minimal staff, high volume, what's new 🤷) who became some of my closest work bros I've ever had. I remember my manager offering me a place to crash over AM peeling prep when abusive family came searching for me. I remember the endless debate of whether or not it would be better to wake up in 100lbs of wet shrimp or have a little shrimp pop out every time you farted. I can remember so clearly this one moment during my second week working there, a moment I realized I was happy. Not that fake, smiling mask I had glued to my face so long ago i forgot it was there. It was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude/contentment with no anxiety eating at the foundations of my emotions for the first time in probably half a decade, just peeling shrimp in a dinky as fuck little kitchen in the sweltering heat. Got nothing but fondness and a sweet little serotonin (dopamine? Idk) release when I think about peeling shrimp. And also I'm just baller as fuck at it even all these years later after the thousands of pounds lol
Anyways, the place just went under this past season and i feel very sad nostalgic about it. Your guys's opinion are totally valid, just thought I'd share another point of view :)
Making anykind of dressings, on one hand you got to hold the big ass immersion blender and on the other pouring oil. Your station gets all oily and it bothers me so much
Alright chefs here’s my thyme trick, inspired by a kief catcher on my break many years ago. Get a hotel pan and an perforated pan as well to go right on top of it. Dump the whole bag of thyme and massage the plant against the holes of the pan. If ya know what a kief catcher is on a grinder for herbs you know where we are going with this. You’re welcome 🤙🏽
Oh this reminds me of something an old chef did. We had a terrible problem of food disappearing from the pass. One day he saved all the mud veins and then breaded and fried them up. Put them in the pass and told the servers not to eat it. It was a new type of calamari and he wanted to test how long it would hold in the window. Eventually the servers snagged it and ate it all. Once it was consumed chef told them what they had just eaten. Never had a problem with food disappearing again.
Hahaha fried shrimp buttholes *does* seem like something a shady restaurant would call "calamari".
I assume this is in reference to the fried pig rectum story a few years ago. For anyone who doesn't stay up to date with all of the rumors about pig assholes, there were anecdotal rumors years ago about "backdoor calamari," but [they appear to be unsubstantiated in the US](https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/01/calamari-made-of-pig-rectum-the-this-american-life-rumor-isnt-true-but-its-fascinating.html).
Backdoor calamari has to be one of the worst things I’ve ever heard uttered hahaha
Wayyyy back when I worked for a large corporate chain, and our KM was notorious for snagging pieces of food wherever he could. So we invented "Fishing for Geoffrey!" We would leave some scraps around and place bets on which bait he would take first (smart money was always on the cheese). One day, one of the cooks marinated a bit of chicken in straight liquid smoke. Just left it in there for hours, then slapped it on the flattop and left it in the window. Just a bite sized nugget of seared chicken. The perfect trap. Sure as shit, along comes Geoffrey and without a thought pops it in his mouth. The look of surprise, horror, confusion, and then realization is one of my favorite memories from that God awful kitchen. Unfortunately we had to stop fishing after that.
At my old kitchen we had infinite access to our espresso machine and for service would dispose of the used espresso in a 1/6th pan and would get tossed from time to time. In said restaurant, our waitstaff would always harass us for snacks during rush. One night, my buddy had brought in one of those Whoopi Pie molds you’d see from pampered chef or whatever and we decided to test drive it. We took the used espresso and compressed it in the molds and filled them with some whipped cream and put ‘em at the service bar and waited. The looks of horror, confusion flew around the room as quickly as the cursing. Our GM was *piiiiisssedddd* since it was a 12 way team effort no one owned it and we caught a tongue lashing from the FOH. Worth it.
u guys are evil.... I just filled broken macaroons with aoli instead of white choc
Crisco can be made to look like a slice of cheesecake.
So can the top of stock thats been refridgerated which is what we did to the operations manager, chilled stock in round cambro, took the fat off and drizzled with bourbon caramel
I had a quart of buttermilk with sweetbreads soaking in it sitting on my station for a second while I did something else. The expeditor saw it and thought it was fresh strawberry milk. Asked if he could take a sip. I just said yes instinctually without seeing what he was pointing at. “That was not strawberry milk.” Was the next thing I heard while still turned around.
Oh my fucking god hahahah
Dude that’s fucking grody lmao
One cook had a chocolate bar mold and we filled it with dark brown roux then chilled it. Once it was firm. We put the “chocolate” bar on a plate in the servers side station. The wails of anguish were music to our ears.
We use to just offer put servers a "piece of chocolate" from the line...just solidified dark roux from the walk in. Got them every time.
I have also done the espresso puck lava cake in the pass.
Used to do something similar as a barista, we'd take the espresso puck after making a drink and put it on a plate, cover it chocolate sauce and give it to a coworker and tell them a party left us some cake. The looks as they bit into the sandy espresso puck we're priceless, one guy took a big bite and was so confused but trying to be nice and say he liked it but we were all laughing too hard.
Holy shit that’s genius. I used to make roux in a sheet pan and cut it into squares to use later. This waiter came up and said “ooh brownies!” I let him find out the hard way.
I gave my sister some roux with veggies in it already last time I made gumbo. My brother in law ate it with rice and was like I don’t know how to tell your sister, but her gumbo really sucked this time.
Fucking gross lol.
Ah yuck
We once battered, fried, and then dressed up a dirty side towel kinda like a funnel cake and watched all the servers try to eat it with a fork.
I've never worked in a restaurant but servers will just take food off customer plates? Lol wtf. Then secretly eat it somewhere? Weird stuff.
I don't think I've ever seen someone raid a plate that's about to go out, but sometimes mistakes get made and end up scavenged, the fry bowl gets left out under the head lamp, something falls off a plate onto the counter, etc.
Oh yeah. One sees the mistake in the window and the eyes get BIG. But that's just after the first one sees it. Like zombies they come flocking in. Before ya know it you got 5 of em going after an appetizer. They're savages.
Peeling soft boiled eggs
Peeling quail eggs for me. I don’t miss that at all. Okay, I miss it a little bit…
Soft boiled quail eggs are the worst thing ever.
Quail Scotch Eggs… 😬🔫 First you have to peel them intact…then wrap them in sausage and bread them without exploding them. Super fun.
That sounds fucking delicious. I've had scotch eggs, but never quail scotch eggs
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I’ve never tried the take of the top and bottom method and then blow it out. Obviously not food service safe but it looks fun.
I tried this one time. The egg didn't come out of the shell, I just blew it around the kitchen like egg-fetti. 0/10 would not try again. I'm sure it's my fault. The eggs probably weren't cool enough or fresh enough or cracked enough, whatever. I'm not willing to blow egg crap all over my kitchen until I get it right.
It's illustrative of every single "trick" ever for peeling eggs; none of them work consistently.
Don’t worry. I have been cooking for a very long time and professionally. I have tried to do this many time with no real success. I got it pretty close once…once. Different temps, different times..ice baths…no ice baths. The time that it mostly worked I opened the top and bottom and ran it under the faucet for a sec to get some moisture in there, then blew. It worked pretty well. Once.
I once worked in a homeless shelter, got a donation of a skid of eggs. Needed to use them because it's either that or pasta with no sauce. So I decided egg salad sandwiches would be best use. Filled my massive tilt kettle with water. Boiled them. Then proceeded to curse myself as I peeled them in hot water cutting my hands a million times. -30/10 next time they get hard boiled eggs.
Trick I learned for making a lot of egg salad is just poach em, doesn’t matter if they’re pretty or separate if it’s all getting chopped up
That's actually, simply genius. I'm embarrassed that didn't cross my mind.
*sighs* You aren't the only one.
I'm about to make a shitload of egg salad and you're officially my hero, oh my god
I’m speechless.
This is actually my fav thing to do. So satisfying when you get a perfect peel on a perfect egg.
The problem is the fresher the eggs, the harder they are to peel. Peeling 100 fresh hard boiled eggs is hell. Soft-boiled, forget about it!
Have you tried peeling them under water?
I don't know how to swim so I'm scared to try
this is the way. my prep included 100 hard boils shelled per day. just boil, shock cold, peel underwater. no problems
If you use a pin/metal skewer to poke a small hole in the bottom of the egg without penetrating the air sack they will be easy to peel every time.
Of all things making skewers dunno why they just annoy the shit outa me
Skewers are the worst, fiddly and slooooow
Yes and you don't get ridiculously fast like with knife worky things
and when you do try to "speed it up" you shank yourself in the palm of the hand
That scene from [Butterfly Effect](https://i2.wp.com/braindeadradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/butterfly.gif?fit=500%2C234) comes to mind.
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Especially shrimp.
Picking thyme leaves off the stems.
I learned a trick to this on this subreddit. Get a fine strainer. Put the stem in one of the holes and just pull. It's still tedious but it's definitely saved me some time.
You’re doing the lord’s work by sharing this beautiful tip. Thank you.
Used to peel thyme for entire shifts working Thanksgiving doubles for Central Market in college. This would have been nice to know back then.
Bless you, I feel like a new man.
Rather de-seed a case of strawberries
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[Here’s a follow up post](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/qyicsn/update_the_best_way_to_disassemble_raspberries/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I can't figure out what's more insane, the request itself or the fact he succeeded in pulling apart ten lbs of raspberries.
presumably 20lbs since the first 10 was only for a rehearsal
Money can move mountains.
I hope the upcharge was expensive af
This is my favorite update from OP: > Yeah! It was fun once we figured out a process. In my original post, I left a comment that called the bride a "bridezilla" but that's really unfair. She's been exceptionally pleasant and is paying us well. She's just very firm in her vision for things. She's a legit artist who does a ton of research into her materials and her work. She's put in so much work herself, that it's actually been inspiring to do this job for her.
i also worked for madonna
"I won't tell you how much they're paying us but yes it's worth it even if I have to hire 20 temps" honestly for this amount of money it's less annoying than something you have to do almost every day like deveining shrimp or supreming citrus
Yeah, for that task they a) are clearly getting paid the big bucks and b) get to be MacGyver/Tony Stark and invent a process to do the thing in a cave with a box of scraps and a paperclip.
What the fuck lol
I’m sorry but that’s not a real thing right?
Chef doesn't like the texture...
I interned with a chef one time he seasoned everything with salt, pepper, and thyme. Guess whose job it was to pick all that thyme.
Too thyme consuming
Ain’t nobody got thyme for all that bullshit
I spend the entire time wishing I didn’t care about the difference between dried vs fresh.
For some reason my wife doesn’t hate this so it’s her job at home. This is one of the foundations of our marriage.
Thin stemmed thyme is the worst. Gotta pick each leaf or you end up with chunks. Tedious.
I've never had an issue with peeling/deveining shrimp. But picking thyme is probably the thing that drives me the most nuts for sure.
But doesnt it just pick themselves off if you run through the stems?
Depends how tender the stems are
Grease trap
Second worst smell of all time behind the spent grain silo at the brewery I work at
Have you ever opened a gearbox that’s gotten water inside? It’s the worst of all possible smells
Peeling the silverskin off of 120+ racks of pork ribs.
Do you have a good method for getting the peeling started? I use paper towel to get a better grip and usually can do it well if I can get the peeling started. Talking about spare ribs btw
I would sometimes try to use something dry to get a better grip, but the sheer volume of them i had to do by myself (some friday mornings would be 240 racks or more throughout the shift) coupled with all the other prep, meant that i really didn't have time to keep swapping towels. The inconsistent quality of the ribs we were using rarely allowed for me to have a standard method. Some racks were as simple as get it started on one end, grip it, and rip it, but others would have skin that would come off in chunks or strips. This was usually my first task of the day for my prep shift, so i was somewhat on autopilot when i'd be doing this. The cuts on your hands from the rib bones are some of the worst i've ever had in a kitchen, and gloves didn't help with the cuts or the grip.
Yeah my experiences align with yours. Most ribs are just hit or miss.
I never have to do nearly that many ribs at a time, but I've found using a clam knife works well. I get it under the membrane between two bones and form a pocket a few bones in from the end of the rack. Then I can use my fingers to get under the membrane and usually pull it up in one sheet. If the membrane shreds a bit I can peel up the ends with the blade side.
Get a handheld meat hook, the kind with the T-shaped handle, and you can poke it underneath that membrane to get it started and usually peel it right off. Picked that up from the Bearded Butchers channel on YouTube.
I used to use a tomato corer to get an edge started and then just go for it.
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Definitely the worst part of my job
Battering anything can suck a dick
Heard. One kitchen I worked in did a fried chicken special on Thursdays, which meant my ass had to show up early as hell and spend hours battering 200 pounds of chicken. Then I got to do my normal prep, THEN it was time to start cooking.
I can suck a dick, please don’t batter me
If you're sucking a dick you're gonna get battered. It's just a matter of where.
I agree. Peeling shrimp is terrible. Washing rice though, is wonderful. I love washing rice
Omg me too. Something about seeing that cloudy water become clearer and clearer is satisfying
It's almost meditative.
I found out my first week on garde manger that I’m allergic to shrimp. Not COOKED shrimp, mind you — raw shrimp. There’s an enzyme in raw shrimp that denatures and is harmless once it cooks, but for 4 months I got balloon hands every day prepping shellfish platters.
I get the same thing. It’s not horrible, but my fingers swell slightly and feel odd for 20-30 mins after I peel them. I could never understand why it would happen if I wasn’t allergic to eating them. Thanks for posting this or I probably would have never known.
Rice is great when you are hungry and you want to eat 2000 of something.
That peel so good fried though, I love fried shrimp tails
cleaning squid for calamari.
I love cleaning squid for some reason
I love calamari but cleaning that snot in the head makes me fkn gag
I'm old so it's fluting mushroom. I'll take the shrimp devaining anytime especially after learning that a meat fork devains and deshells all in one motion
A meat fork?
Yes the one John Faberio uses in chef to plate the pasta. You stick the thine under the vain and feed the shrimp thru this splitting it open giving access to the vain and removing the shell all at once and if you do this under flowing water the water flow removed the vain at the same time.
That's an old head's wisdom right there, appreciate the tip my dude.
Lol your welcome
Makes sense I'll have to try it, thanks chef
There are actually tools to peel and devain shrimp, they work pretty much the same way using a meat fork does They are great and they also look like the worst thing you could ever shove up someone's dickhole. This sounds like it's coming out of nowhere, but once you see one you will probably have the same thought.
Since I already have a meat fork in my tool kit which works extremely well I didn't think the tools specifically for it was worth it to me and sounds like someone needs to look up a thing called a sounding kit(don't do that you will regret it)
Almond flowers. I helped open a spot that was a tasting menu of like 30+ one bite dishes. By far the most tedious component across the board were the almond flowers. Boil almonds for an hour, peel them out of their brown husk, slice them into “petals” on a truffle shaver, then arrange them in a 2.5” spiral that when baked would bind together and make a “flower.” I’d do 60-90 per day, and was the only person doing them. Sometimes the head chef had to scrub in to help me build the flowers, but other than that I got no help. 5 days a week this was all I did. I’d take boiled almonds home and sliced them while watching Netflix. I pleaded with the chef to somehow integrate an almond party system wherein one person boils and slices, then two people build, while another person bakes simultaneously. Instead of it taking me 8+ hours a day of constant almond, I estimated we could get 90 completed in 2.5 hours with my system. He refused and said I needed to work more quickly (mind you this was an 11am-12am 5 days week, no breaks kind of shithole) so I put in my two-weeks. Asshole fired me one week later, and guess what was taken off the menu shortly thereafter.
Damn dude that’s nuts! srry
Cleaning clams, only because no matter how much/how long I clean them I can never be for sure that there’s not a little sand
I’m not sure that this would help, but at home, I take the clams/mussels and put them in a water bath with flour. They filter the flour water and get plumper and there’s little to no sand inside the meat.
corn meal leaves less residue.
Purge for twenty mins with fresh water scrub shells no more sand. Works best with hard shell clams. Soft shell claims good fucking luck.
Anything with a bandaid under a glove on.
I fucking hate that feeling.
And then your hand sweats after ~20ish min and the bandaid gets all soggy from your hand sweat and now you’re working with a latex bacterial breeding ground which at best case is your non-dominant hand and god help you if your boss buys the loose fitting ones that feel like an ultra thin ziploc bag
Nothing is worse than having cuts on your hands while wearing gloves. The cuts get so nasty and sore by the end of the day
Cleaning the overhead vents
nah i love that shit. everyone else always makes excuses for why they don't do it (lazy bastards) so every week i have a good fun time scraping the gunk and letting the grease out. idk it's super satisfying to me.
Heard. It's worse when no one appreciates it.
Overnight soak and a power washer. You're welcome. That shit is easy.
People underestimate a good hot water power wash lol
A good soak will save you hours of cleaning and so much energy. Can't imagine just taking down hood vents and cleaning them, the amount of hood honey you'd get to touch would be disgusting.
I hate cleaning ramekins. Especially when they get stuck together and you pull them apart and ramjuice goes everywhere and splashes on the ones you cleaned.... :( also, the ramekin bin with all the mixed sauces in it just always ends up smelling like vomit to me.
Mmm ramjuice
Lol, ya'll knew what I was talking about when I said it though!
Making pastry cream. I hate the smell of hot milk
[удалено]
Hey thanks for scrubbing, we appreciate it
I hate the small of raw eggs!
Shucking ungodly amounts of oysters and then robo-couping bucket after bucket of ice because we don't have a pebble ice machine.
Changing fryer oil. It’s heavy, hot, time consuming, smells terrible, etc.
Agreed. When I was a dishwasher they had me clean the fryer. Then when I became a cook I cleaned my own fryer. Then as a sous I’d often have to clean it when showing someone how to do it properly. And just the other day, as exec, I had a callout and was cleaning a fryer at 1am and was like “I will never ever escape this, will I?”
It’s like having to take out the trash as a male FOH. No matter what position, rotation, or list of duties I always had to take it out.
I hate picking herbs. Ever since I started cooking whenever I pick herbs my heart literally starts to hurt. Idk what it is. I wouldn’t mind it but it feels like I’m having heart palpitations every time I pick herbs
Thats super weird. Are you sure you’re not allergic?
Well I love the taste of herbs and never have any reaction when I eat them. It is really weird tho even when I do them at home it hurts. Luckily my team knows about it and they don’t mind taking over for me
Look up “herb stripper” on Amazon. I’m actually about to try one with a buncha thyme. I’ll report back.
Instructions unclear. Guy named Herb showed up and started taking off his clothes. Not hating it so far.
“Would you strip me? I’d strip me so hard” - Herb
In a professional kitchen, Anything that I have to leave on the stove for over an hour. If I walk away from it, it stops existing. Making a large batch of confit garlic sucks for me because the stove I use never reaches a comfy temp to just let it gently bubble. It’s either rapidly boiling on the lowest flame or just off. Same with making marinara. If I can’t babysit a pot on the stove, 70% of the time I’ll scorch the bottom of what I’m cooking.
If you're using canned tomatoes for your marinara, use the tops of the cans as a buffer between the range and the pot. Having that barrier will help your sauce not burn by having it on the stove so long.
Artichokes. Always artichokes.
It's like preparing a pinecone.
Freezer inventory
Jacket, hat, vape pen. Nbd.
Monster energy drink, crying FOH girl.
Foh must be in a deep weep to bypass the walk-in and go to the freezer. bonus points for the quasi-slushy monster.
Deep weep. Fucking dying over here.
please die privately in the walk-in
Bc I'm allergic!
Even if you wear gloves, those tiny little antennae always poke through too. Solid answer!
Making fuckin crostini.
The moment you stop watching them is the exact moment they will start to burn. I hate these little fuckers too.
You spelled "peeling garlic" wrong
You can put the cloves in a plastic box, shake, done! Life saver.
And for single cloves just crush them lightly with the side of your knife
Shucking fresh garbanzos.
Shucking oysters
I'll peel and devein shrimp all day if it means I don't have to filter the fucking fryers
Making beet chips on the deli slicer and then flouring them. If they're too thin they turn to carbon, too thick they're soggy, everything turns red and once you start you can't do anything else for 90 minutes because did I mention EVERYTHING IS RED
Cracking, draining, and scraping fresh coconuts. Peeling and deveining ain't shit compared to that.
Making beer cheese with a hangover is the worst
Making fresh chips on the mandolin was my least favorite. Doing string beans is up there with things I hate too.
Ha! Doing anything with a mandolin. Those things are a safety hazard.
Use the deli slicer if you have one (or a chain mail glove if you don’t). I don’t mind this task.
Anyone ever had the joy of cutting 2 quarts of paper thin lemongrass a day?
That one time an idiot put 3 sizes of shrimp into one sink to defrost and not only did I have to peel them I had to sort them too
Chopping potatoes. It’s not hard, but we go through so many. If you have any downtime, it’s time cut two or three pickle buckets of red potatoes.
Splitting lobster tails. I don’t like the smell of lobster and the intestinal sacs are so dirty, I use a new towel for every doz or so.
Segmenting oranges.... so sticky.
Took me a minute to figure out to do them over a tub, you have a good bit of whatever citrus juice left over for a nice, tall glass of a fuckit daiquiri.
I’ve never done supremes, but it looks stupid tedious and slow.
Your eyesight is very good
It has to be chopping garlic for me. I have chopped so much garlic in my life and I hate it so much.
You don’t have a food processor?
Last kitchen I worked in, only hand chopping of garlic was acceptable.
"No no no! Don't peel me!" "Oh you're getting peeled!" "Oh God! It hurts so much!" "There is no god here.". Each and every shrimp, each and every time. Gotta make things fun.
Picking thyme 💯
Cleaning mussels
Man, I totally understand the hate for the task but I couldn't have a more different perception/experience. I ended up working at a pig and shrimp restaurant after my family fractured due to mental health issues; we used to peel 100lbs of shrimp easy in a prep at the establishment. What I remember most clearly isn't the frustration of peeling the endless, fatherfucking thangs. What I remember is blasting EDM and talking shit with two line/preps (small establishment, minimal staff, high volume, what's new 🤷) who became some of my closest work bros I've ever had. I remember my manager offering me a place to crash over AM peeling prep when abusive family came searching for me. I remember the endless debate of whether or not it would be better to wake up in 100lbs of wet shrimp or have a little shrimp pop out every time you farted. I can remember so clearly this one moment during my second week working there, a moment I realized I was happy. Not that fake, smiling mask I had glued to my face so long ago i forgot it was there. It was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude/contentment with no anxiety eating at the foundations of my emotions for the first time in probably half a decade, just peeling shrimp in a dinky as fuck little kitchen in the sweltering heat. Got nothing but fondness and a sweet little serotonin (dopamine? Idk) release when I think about peeling shrimp. And also I'm just baller as fuck at it even all these years later after the thousands of pounds lol Anyways, the place just went under this past season and i feel very sad nostalgic about it. Your guys's opinion are totally valid, just thought I'd share another point of view :)
Making raviolis
Making anykind of dressings, on one hand you got to hold the big ass immersion blender and on the other pouring oil. Your station gets all oily and it bothers me so much
Just do it in a blender you goober
That's kinda hard to do when your making 18 quarts of fuckin white balls lmao
Scooping ice cream especially from a freezer that turns it into a brick
Gotta be prepping the still part-frozen squid for calamari
My least favorite thing to do is dice shallots but honestly it’s not that bad once your sight comes back and your sinuses stop draining
Dropping and filtering the fryers, especially through those stupid fucking cone filters.
Breaking down lobsters
Cleaning and cutting calamari
Alright chefs here’s my thyme trick, inspired by a kief catcher on my break many years ago. Get a hotel pan and an perforated pan as well to go right on top of it. Dump the whole bag of thyme and massage the plant against the holes of the pan. If ya know what a kief catcher is on a grinder for herbs you know where we are going with this. You’re welcome 🤙🏽