Food Production and Culinary Basics
This domain tests kitchen organisation and the technical foundations - stocks, mother sauces, cooking methods, cuts and food safety - rather than long recipes.
Kitchen brigade (after Escoffier)
Executive chef → sous chef → chef de partie (saucier, poissonnier, rôtisseur, entremetier, garde manger, pâtissier, tournant) → commis.
Foundations
- Stocks: white (bones not roasted), brown (bones roasted), fish, vegetable.
- Mother sauces: béchamel (milk + white roux), velouté (white stock + roux), espagnole (brown stock + brown roux + tomato), hollandaise (egg yolk + clarified butter emulsion), sauce tomate.
- Methods: moist (boiling, poaching, steaming, stewing), dry (roasting, grilling, baking), fat (shallow and deep frying).
- Cuts: julienne, brunoise, mirepoix, chiffonade, jardinière.
Worked example
A hollandaise splits. Reasoning: it is an emulsion of butterfat in egg yolk; overheating coagulates the yolk and the emulsion breaks. Remedy: begin with a fresh yolk and whisk the split sauce in drop by drop. Prevention: keep the bowl warm, never hot, and add clarified butter slowly.
Traps that cost marks
- Using stock instead of milk in béchamel.
- Calling mirepoix a garnish dice - it is a rough cut of carrot, onion and celery.
- Ignoring the danger zone of 5–60°C for cooked food.
- Describing HACCP as a laboratory test; it is a preventive control system.