1. ProStart
Obj. 4.0
Kitchen Essentials: Part 1— Professionalism

2. Top 10 Qualities of a Great Culinary Professional
Charlie Trotter
Creativity
Willing to try something new
Passion
For food and cooking
Selecting, preparing, and creating menus
Charlie Trotter_Passion for Food
Business Sense
Kitchen produces quality food but is also cost-effective and efficient
Attention to Detail
Team Player
Everyone must work together to ensure the timely production of quality foods
Practice
A great chef never stops perfecting his technique
Multitasker
Handle many tasks at once
Commitment to Quality
Ingredients and final product
Quick Decisions
Handle Criticism
Not everyone will always like what a chef prepares, and a good chef knows no to take poor reviews personally.

3. What Does It Mean To Be a Culinary Professional?
To be professional is to be courteous, honest, and responsible in your dealings with customers and coworkers.
A culinarian is one who has studied and continues to study the art of cooking.
The attributes of a culinary professional include:
Knowledge: A professional culinary program provides the culinary student with a basic knowledge of foods, food styles, and the methods used to prepare foods.
Skill: Culinary schooling alone cannot make a culinary professional.
Practice and hands-on experience provide the skills necessary to produce quality foods or organize, train, motivate, and supervise a staff.
4.1
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

4. What Does It Mean To Be a Culinary Professional?
Flavor, aroma, taste: Culinary professionals must produce foods that taste great, or the customer will not return.
5 basic tastes
Salt, bitter, sweet, sour, and umami (savory)
Judgment: Culinary professionals must use discretion and appropriate behavior with coworkers, supervisors, and employees.

5. What Does It Mean To Be a Culinary Professional? (cont.)
Dedication: Becoming a culinary professional is hard work.
Working conditions
Hours
Pride: It is important to have a sense of pride about a job well done. Pride extends to personal appearance and behavior in and around the kitchen.
Chef’s uniform
A Professional Chef Uniform
4.1
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

6. What Does It Mean To Be a Culinary Professional? (cont.)
Respect: Respect is having consideration for oneself and others. In order to respect others, a person must first respect himself or herself.
Respecting ingredients
Respecting guests
"No Reservations" Trailer
Respecting co-workers
Hell’s Kitchen
What would you do? Review
Personal responsibility: Personal responsibility means that a person is responsible for the choices he or she makes.
accepts accountability and is in control.
Doing the work without excuses
Taking responsibility for your mistakes and willingness to correct them
Asking for help
Being punctual for work
Going the extra mile
Education and the culinary professional: Employers value a formal culinary education.
Hands-on-training
On-the-job-training
Degrees
Associates
Bachelors

7. Workstations A work area in the kitchen dedicated to a particular task
Ratatouille scene
Workstations using the same or similar equipment for related tasks are grouped together into a work section.
Budget and space determine workstations
Good kitchen design maximizes the flow of goods and staff from one area to the next and within each area itself.
Creates efficient work environment, keeps food safe, and helps reduce preparation and service time
Bakeshop and hot food section
Share ovens
4.1
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

8. Workstations
A kitchen-brigade system is a method for staffing a kitchen so that each worker is assigned a set of specific tasks.
Developed by Escoffier
Brigade Matching game
Most kitchens use a simplified version of his system
A dining-room brigade
led by the dining room manager (maître d) who generally trains all service personnel, oversees wine selections, works with the chef to develop the menu, organizes the seating chart, and seats the guests.

9. Kitchen Brigade System Example

10. Stop!
4.1
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

11. Business Math
Math influences every decision that a manager makes in an operation. It is the foundation of the kitchen and the back office.
Math skills are extremely important in foodservice settings.
Managers are expected to have a basic understanding of math and know how to apply mathematical principles to business situations.
Chefs and managers need to know how to determine
recipe yields,
convert recipes from customary to metric measure, and
change the yields of recipes.
Culinary professionals need to understand the concepts of fraction, decimals, and percentages.
They need to know how to use and apply these math functions in the kitchen.
Examples
4.2
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

12. U.S. and Metric Measurement Systems
The most commonly used system of measurement in the United States is based on customary units.
Cup
Tbsp, tsp
Gallon
Pound, oz.
Cooking and baking require exact weighing and measuring of ingredients to ensure consistent quality and minimal waste.
Chemistry
Scientific formula
Equivalencies
4.2
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

13. U.S. and Metric Measurement Systems
The metric system is the standard system used in many other parts of the world.
Metric units are based on multiples of 10 and include
milliliters,
liters,
milligrams,
grams, and
kilograms.
When a recipe is written using metric units, use metric measuring tools.
Thermometers measure degrees of temperature in either
Fahrenheit (°F), which is the customary measure, or
Celsius (°C), which is the metric measure.

14. Standardized Recipes
A recipe is a written record of the ingredients and preparation steps needed to make a particular dish.
Standardized recipes, must follow a format that is clear to anyone who uses them.
Lists the ingredients first, in the order they are to be used,
assembly directions or the method for putting the ingredients together.
A standardized recipe includes:
Temperature, time, and equipment
Step-by-step directions
Nutrition information
4.2
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

15. Standardized Recipes
In commercial recipes, weight is generally the preferred method for measuring.
More accurate
4# apples vs. 4 large apples
Mise en place
“to put in place”
Preparation and assembly of ingredients, pans, utensils, and equipment

16. Converting Recipes
The conversion of the recipe affects…
the cost of the recipe,
but not necessarily the cost of the portion.
When properly converted and prepared, the quality of the product produced from the recipe should not vary from the original, no matter how many portions it yields.
Sometimes you must change (or convert) a recipe if the yield is not the amount you need.
Using basic math skills, it’s easy to increase or decrease many recipes.
Table 4.9 (p. 247)
Convert a recipe when the yield of the recipe (the amount it provides) is not the same as the amount of product needed.
4.2
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

17. Converting Measurements
As long as the correct measuring equipment is available, it is not necessary to convert measurements from one system to the other.
But, it is a skill that you need to know!
Examples
Practice

18. Measuring Volume is the amount of space an ingredient takes up.
Measurement refers to how much of something is being used in a recipe.
Volume is the amount of space an ingredient takes up.
Often used for amounts of dry ingredients such as herbs that are too small to be weighed
Volume measurement is best used for liquids. (fluid ounce)
Dry ingredients are measured by leveling them off evenly at the rim of the spoon or cup using a straightedge.
A typical set of measuring cups includes 1/4 cup, 1/3 cup, 1/2 cup, and 1 cup measures.
Liquid measuring cups are see-through and have measurement markings on the side.
Measuring spoons generally come in a set of four or five.
Most customary sets include these sizes: 1/4 tsp, 1/2 tsp, 1 tsp, and 1 tbsp.
4.2
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

19. Measuring (cont.)
Weight is the measurement of an item’s resistance to gravity. Weight is expressed in ounces and pounds.
A food scale is helpful for measuring ingredients by weight.
4.2
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

20. Measuring Fat can be measured in several ways.
Stick method: Used for fat that comes in 1/4-pound sticks, such as butter or margarine.
The wrapper is marked in tablespoons and in fractions of a cup. Simply cut off the amount needed.
Dry measuring cup method: Pack the fat down into the cup. Level off the top.
When adding to the recipe, use a rubber scraper to empty as much of the fat as possible from the cup.
Water displacement method: This method involves combining fat with water in a liquid measuring cup.
Demo
Measuring Lab

21. EP/ AP Amounts
Most veggies have to be trimmed and cut before being used in recipes.
Must know…
EP (Edible Portion)
AP (As Purchased Portion)
Book of Yields
p. 255 (Table 4.10)

22. EP/AP Amounts
To determine how much of an item is needed to yield an AP (as purchased ) amount,
Simply divide the edible portion amount needed by the yield percentage.
Example: Pasta Salad Recipe
Need 4# cauliflower
Conversion chart shows that cauliflower has a 55% yield
4# cauliflower ÷0.55 = 7.27# untrimmed
So to get 4# trimmed cauliflower, the chef needs to purchase 7.27# untrimmed.
Example: Chicken for Chili
4.2
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

23. EP/AP Amounts
To determine the AP quantity needed to result in a given EP (edible portion) quantity,
It is also important to know the cooking loss for the item.
Can have a major effect on the operation’s food cost percentage

24. EP/AP Amounts
A conversion chart is a list of food items showing the expected, or average, shrinkage from AP amount to EP amount.
A butcher test is used to measure the amount of shrinkage that occurs during the trimming of a meat product.
A cooking loss test is a way to measure the amount of product shrinkage during the cooking or roasting process.

25. EP/ AP Amounts Products today can be purchased “as edible portion”
Usually known as convenience foods
Purchased already trimmed and cut
Precut fries
Higher price but prep time and labor cost may ultimately be lower
Group Activity
EP/ AP Amounts

26. Costing Recipes
Costing recipes can be complicated, but the profitability of a restaurant or foodservice operation depends on balancing costs and prices.
Standard recipe cost and cost per serving, or standard portion cost, are key success factors in quantity food production operations.
4.2
Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

27. Costing Recipes
To find the total cost of a standard recipe, a manager must know both the ingredient amounts needed and the market price of each one.
Many operations price out all recipes and then check them every six months to see if they are still accurate, while others compare standard recipe costs to the national price index twice a year.
Practice!