PREPPING PART TWO

So we have established that cooking for paid customers requires more discipline than when cooking for family. By discipline, I mean to say that there needs to be consistency, timeliness, attractiveness and reliabilty. At a cafe, you never know how many people are going to show up, when, and what they are going to eat. Ok, some family members can be toey if their dinner is not served on time but in general they don't walk out as can happen in a restaurant. Customers can't be expected to hang around indefinitely for their meals. On the other hand, a cafe can't turn a  profit if there is a surfeit of staff. Also, storage space both for ingredients and prepared meals is an issue especially at a small place like ours.  So flexibilty and adaptability is of the utmost importance.

Eugenius has quite a substantial menu but I'll let you in on a little secret - a lot of the dishes we serve are made from the same basic elements combined in different ways.

In order to provide consistent meals in a timely manner, prepping is very important. I dont mean half-cooking the risotto - I never order risotto in restaurants for this time-saving shortcut to bad cooking. Neither am I referring to blasting in the microwave or having a soup boiling away. By prepping I mean preparing building blocks from which various meals may be constructed. It's the culinary equivalent of a macro. Once these building blocks have been made, they can be used straight away or else stored for periods of time, either in the fridge or freezer. having easy access to them,  frees the chef to be able to consummate tasks that require his or her more immediate attention. I'll give you a short example here to illustrate what I mean. More substantial expositions will feature in forthcoming blogs.

SPRINKLES TO STUFFED PEPPERS
SPRINKLES: Chop up fresh herbs eg., parsely, coriander, dill, rosemary. Use these sprinkles on scrambled eggs, salads, food on display in the fridge, to add that restaurant pizzaz.
PARIS BUTTER: Add sprinkles to a blender together with a dollop  of garlic, sesame oil, ginger, mustard, lemon rind, hoprseradish, whisky, soy sauce, ketchup, chilli powder, tabasco and a block of butter.  Mix till the butter is evenly speckled. Put what you dont need of the Paris Butter in small containers in the freezer. Use Paris Butter when scrambling eggs, frying mushrooms, grilling a steak - it has a thousand uses. Put it out with the bread to show your clients what you are made of!
PEPPERONATA: Fry onion, red pepper and fresh tomato in Paris Butter. Pepperonata is delicious by itself or as a relish. It's fantastic on toasted polenta.
NAPOLI: Stew Pepperonata in tomato paste, a dash of white wine and some more Paris Butter. Napoli forms the base for many dishes, from saltimbocca alla Romana, to delicious tomato-based soups.
BOLOGNAISE: Fry minced meat in Paris Butter, add Napoli sauce and a zeffrito of carrots, tomato and onion, chuck in a splash of red wine (drink teh balance yourself) and Luigi's your uncle.
STUUFED CAPSICUM: Cook some basmati rice in your rice cooker and add it to your Bolognaise (same amount of rice as sauce) and feed it into a cooked capsicum. Simple, eh!
So you can see how one thing leads to another. There's another secret for you..