Food Preparation and Recipe Production
The recipe as a document
A professional recipe states yield, portion size, ingredients with exact weights, method, equipment, critical temperatures and a cost sheet. Standardised recipes guarantee consistency across shifts and cooks. Questions often ask what is missing from a recipe or how to adjust it.
Preparation techniques
Mise en place covers all advance preparation: weighing, cutting, marinating, par-cooking, stock-making, sauce bases. Marinades add flavour and tenderise (acid and enzymes); they also need refrigeration. Brining adds moisture and seasoning through osmosis. Emulsions - mayonnaise, hollandaise, vinaigrette - combine fat and water with an emulsifier such as lecithin in egg yolk; a broken emulsion is rescued by starting a fresh yolk and whisking the split mixture in slowly.
Stocks and sauces
Stocks use bones, mirepoix, aromatics and cold water; bring to a simmer and skim. White stock uses unroasted bones, brown stock roasted bones. The five mother sauces are béchamel (milk plus white roux), velouté (white stock plus roux), espagnole (brown stock plus roux), hollandaise (emulsified butter and yolk) and tomato. Their derivatives are small sauces.
Pastry and bakery basics
Know gluten development, the creaming method, rubbing-in method, whisking method and the melting method; each suits a different product. Overworking pastry makes it tough.
Worked example
Hollandaise splits because the butter was added too fast or the heat was too high. Restart with a fresh yolk and a spoonful of warm water, then whisk the split sauce in drop by drop. Keep the bowl over warm, not hot, water.
Traps
Confusing mother sauces with derivatives; forgetting that stock should never boil hard; assuming marinades make food safe - they do not, and used marinade must be boiled before reuse.