PREPPING PART 3

In the last blog we built a menu up from 'sprinkles' of herbs through to stuffed capsicum. The Bolognese sauce we created that was matched with rice and stffed into a red pepper could have just as easily have transmogrified into Spag Bol, lasagna or a really delicious meat based soup, like old Mr Lazar used to make in his now sadly departed charcoal grill in Johnston St. (It is now an apartment block. All of these dishes are equally yummy so why did we choose to make stuffed peppers?
Remember that Eugenius is a cafe that prides itself on the freshness of its cuisine and you will understand that Spaghetti Bolognese  presents a problem in terms of the cooking of the pasta. As we do not like to precook the noodles because they never taste as good, we can't really do this. Go to Pellegrinis. Lasagna we can do easily but as our patrons are by-and-large weight conscious and often afraid of carbs it's never that popular. I suggest Leo's in Fitzroy Street. As for a meat soup, well that works well in winter, but in summer fahgetaboutit! But even if we could make all three of these dishes and sell them, we wouldn't because it would skew our menu too much into one direction. A well constructed cafe menu covers all bases but doesnt belabour them.    
Stuffed peppers is a retro-futurist dish that is healthy, easy on the eye, easy to keep and reheat, and tastes great. But note that when we designed our menu, we didnt start off thinking of making stuffed peppers. Neither did we scratch our heads after we had made Bolognese sauce and think, what are we going to do with it. Rather, the dish evolved from both directions and its creation was also informed by otehr considerations. When we come to menu design, we will discuss price points, eatability, and other factors that relate to why one dish is chosen over another when a new menu is constructed. happy eating!

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..    

PREPPING

I know a lot of you blogniks out there are excellent cooks but cooking for your family is not the same as cooking professionally. It's not a matter of quantity - at eugenius we often only make a limited amount of something whereas at home you may be cooking for a truckload of family or friends. It's not a matter of presentation - though at our family dinners food rarely makes it to the dining-room table as it is attacked en route. It's not a matter of kitchen appliances - at eugenius we make do with a sandwich press, a convection microwave, a Bamix, a couple of frypans and a camp stove. It's not a matter of cost - though the rule of thumb is the selling price of a meal needs to be at least 5 times the cost of the raw ingredients, at eugenius we use top-shelf materials and as our prices are cheapish we often fall below this rule.
So what is it a matter of?  Consistency for a start. If a customer loved his Breakfast burrito last week when he orders another one this week he expects to get the same thing. So the key is:- have a recipe, source the same raw materials and present the dish the same way each time. Most chefs know this in principle but if you are thinking about opening a restaurant you need to thoroughly bed down your proposed menu items before you commit them to the printed menu. And it is not just the one item you need to get right, you need to consider how each item works with the others. What narrative are you trying to achieve? Is it a type of cuisine, a way of cooking, a style, an emphasis? You need to consider your storage options, your purchasing agenda, your profit margins...
So once youve done all that and you believe the menu item will work, then you open your restaurant and you have to make the thing. And here comes the most important thing...PREPPING.
We'll get onto that next blog

BEEF AND BARLEY SOUP a la Eugenius

Serves 8

olive oil, a shaky pour

500g gravy beef ripped apart

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 teaspoons sweet paprika

3 carrots diced

2 swede, peeled, and diced

2 sticks celery slivered

4 cups chicken stock

4 cups beef stock

1 pack pearl barley soaked overnight

Heat oil in a large, deep saucepan over medium-high heat. Add a third of the beef and brown. Add remaining oil and onion to pan. Cook until tender. Add paprika. Add carrots, swede, celery, stock, red wine, barley and beef. Bring to the boil. Skim scum. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 1 1/2 hours

RUSSIAN SALAD

Originally developed in Moscow in 1863 by a chef call Olivier, his so-called Russian Salad is nothing like ours. Whereas his featured grouse and other expensive game, ours contains no meat at all. And where his was based around diced potatoes, ours is based on diced beetroot. Ours has a lovely purple colour derived from the beetroot and other purple ingredients. Olivier's, mositened by mayonnaise is cream in colour. The beauty of the eugenius' version is not only the taste but teh colour and combination of textures. You get tghe crunch of the corn, combined with the squish of the peas, the slide of the hard-boiled egg, and the snap of celery and raw carrot. The key in making this salad as in all salads is SALAD TOPOLOGY. This is the subject for a separate post (which will come later) but in essence it means that a salad needs to be comprised of elements all of which are roughly the same size and shape. Corn and peas go together for instance, but not corn and julienned carrot, so you would never put corn in a coleslaw, and if you were to combine corn with peas and carrot therefore, the carrot needs to be cubed. By teh same token, if you are making a coleslaw and want to put beetroot in it then slice the beetroot into the same size sticks as your carrot or cabbage.
So basically your Russian salad comprises small balls (corn, peas) and small cubes (carrot, cucumber, potato, beetroot, spring onions) roughly in equal proportions. The dressing melds the ingredients into a homogeneous whole. Ill give away the dressing secrets in my next blog
eugenius

MUFFIN FLAVOURS

So what to put into your muffin? At Eugenius, customers are under the impression that muffins are healthy(wwll, besides the sugar content they do contain quite a lot of yoghurt) so to maintain the illusion we do not use any obviously fattening fillings such as chocolate. Fruit filled muffins are what we are all about and a three fruit combo is the most popular. Hard to say but easy to digest is our current hit - pear, persimmon and pomegranate. Rhubarb, apple and blackcurrant is another popular choice. Use fruit of the season and for mouth pleasure combine crisp textures such as pear with smoother ones such as rhubarb. Don't peel your apples or pears as the skin adds to the visual appeal. Cut hard fruit in small sticks rather than little cubes, and for added visual attraction dot the muffin with seeds such as pomegranate or small berries. happy muffin-making!

MUFFINS

Muffinsa are everywhere and they're pretty horrible usually. Made the day before they weigh down the counter at cafes like lead weights. Eating into them is an unpleasant experience akin to biting into dentist amalgam. Cold, heavy and sickly sweet, most muffins are bricks in fancy dress. On the other hand, a good muffin, moist and full of fruit can be a wonderful experience. Here is the recipe from Eugenius:-
EUGENIUS MUFFIN INGREDIENTS (makes 4 or 5 muffins):
  One cup self-raing flour
  Half cup sugar (or less if you are using jam or marmalade)
  Half cup yoghurt
  One 700g egg
  Three-quarter cup of fruit chopped or stewed - spoon of marmalade or jam optional *
 EUGENIUS MUFFIN DIRECTIONS
 Pre-heat oven to 185C
Mix all ingredients LIGHLTY together
Fork into greased muffin tray. DO NOT PRESS OR PUSH THE MXTURE HARD. Level of mix should be above tray.
 Bake for 20 minutes. remove from oven and let cool before lifting from tray.

* In another blog we'll talk about what fruit combos work well.