Redditor CessnaBlackBelt wanted to get some thoughts on the culinary process out of chefs, so they asked for cooks to chat:
"What's your most gatekeeping culinary opinion?"
I've always been told to focus on the cleanliness of the kitchen.
Hope that helps.
Changes
Dan Levy Comedy GIF by CBCGiphy"If you change a recipe when you make it, you’re not allowed to rate it in the reviews without making the original. Nothing worse than someone rambling about the 14 changes they made to a recipe, and then giving it a 3 star."
Slickness81
Big Secret
"Anthony Bourdain was right: butter is the secret ingredient."
Redditforgoit'
"Butter makes it better' is the first rule of cooking, followed closely by 'an ounce of good sauce hides a pound of mistakes."
TheArmchairSkeptic
"My dad was a chef. He taught me earlier on the the secret to tasty food is to use as much butter as possible and never let anyone know. That’s how why it’s a secret."
str4ngerc4t
Safety First
"I think EVERYONE (both food service workers and general public) should take a food safety course."
ADryMuffin
"Yes please! The way my mother treats a fridge as a general purpose container with uncovered raw meat touching the sides of other things and keeping vegetables straight on the shelves with no containers or even some bowls... it hurts."
MapedMod
"100% agree. Worked in food service a lot when I was younger, even if it's boring it's really informative. Learning food safety also helps you recognize quickly when you go to a restaurant and it's not following safety procedures."
"My biggest pet peeve is still glasses and takeout boxes facing the wrong way."
otakuoccultist
Sabra?
"If your middle eastern/Mediterranean place serves bad or bland hummus I’m not even going to bother with the rest of your menu. If you can’t get the basics right don’t waste my time."
Anduinnn
"Love the episode where Gordon Ramsay has the store owner try his hummus and she agrees that it’s better, then he reveals it was just a Sabra brand he bought from the store. Timestamped link to the episode: https://youtu.be/t3WVCKwZry4?t=1952"
homeboi808
Lighten Up
long island smile GIF by Brimstone (The Grindhouse Radio, Hound Comics)Giphy"Burning stuff doesn’t make it Cajun."
HanMaBoogie
"Oh I have another one just because it's spicy doesn't make it Cajun you crap bag chip companies."
tyedrain
Burning isn't a thing. I've tried to pass that off before.
Be Sharp
Animated GIFGiphy"Most people's knives are so dull as to be next to useless."
Nbjaj2576
"I got a sharpening stone a couple of year ago after getting a really good knife for Xmas. It makes a huge difference. There's nothing more tedious and demotivating than trying to cut vegetables and meat with a blunt kitchen knife."
punky67
Too White
"If you don't allow chicken to brown when you're pan frying it, just don't."
TwoLittleNeedleMarks
"I have to take over for my mother when she cooks chicken and I’m around. Granted, she has to make a lot, but she crowds the pan so much that the temperature drops and many pieces aren’t touching the pan, so they all come out milky white."
homeboi808
"My mother in law cooks chicken in the microwave. I have to leave the house."
give_me_two
'calibrate'
"You cannot trust your oven thermometer. Get a separate one and use it to 'calibrate' your oven. Mine will tell me it's hot about 100 degrees before it's actually at temp. Very annoying."
AttackOfTheThumbs
"When my family moved into our new house we didn't know this was a thing."
"We didn't realize what was happening until we baked half a bowl of cookie dough, only for them to need several minutes more than the directions said, then we baked the second half of the bowl for that long and they were nearly burnt by the time we pulled them out."
SconiGrower
Idenity
"I'm of the opinion that you can do whatever the heck you want with food but if you fundamentally change a dish you have to change its name."
"It's all about expectations."
"If I go into a restaurant and order a carbonara, then when it arrives they say 'oh we make it with pepperoni snack sausages and cream cheese', then it's no longer a freaking carbonara... it's not necessarily gatekeeping but things are called things for a reason. Imagine the chaos if we just abandon this... come on people."
broom-handle
Opposites
So Good Julia GIF by HBO MaxGiphy"LEMON and LIME have two very different flavors. My entire family seems to think that they taste the same and will substitute one for another."
Hack-A-Byte
Well now I feel ready to get into the kitchen.
Food is for survival. That was the plan. But over the years it has become somewhat of a way of life. Some of the most annoying people are foodies. They get so uppity about the preferences of others. Like, let me just enjoy what I enjoy.
Mom No!
Mom Smile GIFGiphy"I don't like my mom's cooking."
"Livestock have refused to eat my mother's cooking. She's a terror in the kitchen."
Take them OUT!!
"I hate walnuts in baked goods. It tastes like wood shavings and completely ruins the flavor."
"I love walnuts but I feel this way about raisins in baked goods, raisins are fine by themselves but not in sweets, I once ordered cinnamon rolls at Hardee's and bit into it and found out there were raisins in it, and I was grossed out and didn't want to eat it. At least freakin' McDonald's serves real cinnamon rolls without freakn' raisins!"
The Fart Ingredient
"I don't like kidney beans except in chili."
"I don't even really like them in chili. I'd rather have pintos in everything."
Oh thew Crunch...
"Pickles and onion make the best sandwich. I make most of my own pickles from stuff I grow or get from local farms in the fall, but I responded to another comment with two different heinous concoctions I enjoy. Crunchy, salty, sour. I really like pickles and onions to begin with."
"I use more than pickled cucumber though. Like the last one I made, I used garlic naan, mayo, red onion, scallions, pickled garlic, green olives, Kalamata olives, garlic dill cucumber, and green beans. Shallot, sour pickled onion, sweet pickled cucumbers, and sushi ginger on sprouted 14 grain bread is also also a favorite of mine."
People Break Down The Best Loophole They've Ever Exploited
No Sizzle
bacon GIFGiphy"I do not like bacon."
"I've been learning this over the years. If I'm gonna do bacon I much prefer the maple bacon since it's sweeter and doesn't overpower with saltiness."
- truije15
Who doesn't like bacon? That seems like a sacrilege. Right? But to each their own. Though I will never understand not loving walnuts in comfort food. Y'all need more self love.
Love the Big M
"Fast food tastes amazing, yeah its unhealthy as hell but don't you sit there and lie and say it tastes bad."
"Pisses me off when people act like they're better then McDonald's. What the hell? McDonald's is incredible and billions of people buy their food still. The same can't be said for other restaurants."
Blasphemy!
golden girls flirting GIF by HULUGiphy"Cheesecake is disgusting."
"I don't find cheese cake disgusting. It looks good. Smell delicious. Has ingredients in it that I love. But i can not eat more than one bite. It is too rich. One bite and i feel sick."
Too Many Legs
"Lobsters and crabs are giant insects."
"I don't really think that's that controversial, in my area of the world we even call this creature a 'Moreton Bay Bug' even though some fisheries try to give it the more appealing name of 'flathead lobster'."
bad bones
"Boneless wings are vastly superior to bone-in wings. I think bone-in wings are a ripoff because when you get half a pound of them, part of that half-pound is inedible. It's like if you ordered a quarter-pound cheeseburger, but the restaurant considers the weight of the plate to be part of that quarter-pound and you end up with just a slider. Just give me some damn meat."
The Slime
man oyster GIFGiphy"Oysters are truly disgusting and absurdly overpriced for quarter sized pieces of snot that tastes like salt water and hot sauce."
- C_23_s
Side Dish Bad
"Cheese fries = ruined fries. I don't have a lot of texture issues, but I refuse to eat limp, soggy french fries. No cheese fries, no chili fries, no poutine."
Bad Carbs
"I don't care for pasta. Around a decade ago, I lost a ton of weight by cutting out carbs (except beer) and after not eating bread or pasta for 3 or 4 years, I still liked some breads but to this day don't like the squishiness of pasta."
- mrsc00b
"I realized a few years back that pasta tastes like poverty to me. It's what my mother used to base dinner off of when we didn't have much grocery money."
Apples?
pineapples GIF by gifnewsGiphy"I do not like pineapple. Period. Not on pizza, not cooked, not by itself, not in juice form. I just do not like pineapple."
Hey Red
"Tomatoes can screw off."
"I don't mind raw tomatoes, for things like salads or sliced in sandwiches. But cooked tomatoes? Get them the fuck away from me. I hate canned tomatoes in, for example, a vegetable soup. When my family fires up our grill, we skewer a bunch of different vegetables. Mushrooms, zucchini, bell peppers..."
"And cherry tomatoes. While all the other veggies get combined onto the same skewers, the tomatoes usually get a skewer of their own just for my sake."
Yucky!
"You could not pay me to eat a banana. The texture, the smell, just everything about it. Won't even drink a smoothie that has a little bit of banana in it—that's all I'd taste."
"Thank you! One of the only foods on this planet I will not eat are bananas."
"I am NOT a picky eater, love every single vegetable and fruits and a huge variety of food. Cannot. Stand. Bananas. They make me gag to even think of them. I truly cannot believe that people actually find bananas edible or even enjoyable to eat. I hate them so much I think everyone is lying about liking them."
Evil
"Nutella on pancakes is just plain abomination."
"It's something about hot Nutella that makes it disgusting. Slapping some Nutella on a piece of white bread is euphoric."
Sick 'n Nasty
"Licorice is absolutely disgusting."
"Yeah it is. I don't understand what child hating sicko decided to invent a candy as superficially inviting as Good n Plenty, knowing that it would contain that rancid excrement on the inside. When I was young and getting a dollar to buy the candy of my choice was a huge deal to me, I once made the mistake of wasting my cash on a box of those rabbit turds."
"I think I remember crying when I bit into a handful of them, because idk what exactly I was expecting... but it wasn't freaking licorice."
Poached
GIF by markoGiphy"Poached eggs are infinitely inferior to fried or scrambled eggs. I don't want my food or plate contaminated with gross eggy water and I want some crispy variation in the texture."
- cewumu
A Whole Meal Mess
"I may like my steaks medium rare and with nothing but a bit of butter and garlic, but if you want your steak well-done and slathered in ketchup, cool, you do you. Some people prefer different tastes and freak snobs who think if your grilled cheese is American on Wonderbread and isn't made with Asiago and Romano on freshly baked bread, toasted via fireplace, you're not doing it right. Sometimes I like my food how mom used to make... and mom was a crappy cook."
Dairy No
"Food is so much better without cheese. Cheese drowns out all of the other flavors. Take a sandwich for instance. You can really taste the vegetables on a sandwich without cheese. You taste mostly cheese when you add cheese."
"Cheese is the bane of my existence. EVERYTHING comes with cheese when you are at a restaurant these days. I have a very limited number of cheeses I can eat. Things like cheddar, a very popular cheese, give me killer migraines. Stop putting cheese on everything people!"
Ok, I'm trying to stay calm. I don't want to judge. But some of these opinions... are leaving me shook. Except the oysters. That is that work of the devil. Look away...
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What's the sign of a great restaurant? Well, the most likely to know are the professionals. Reddit user ballinlikemyname wanted to know how the rest of us home cooks should select our next dinner date location.
ballinlikemyname asked:
"Chefs, what do you look for when you select a restaurant to dine at?
Not only did people share their red flags, but also how they know a restaurant is going to be good.
Here's some helpful hints from professional chefs and food industry workers to help you pick your next meal.
Every chef has that one item on the menu that they can't stand making. Wanna know what they are? Keep reading!
u/ShylocksBloodyBond asked: Chefs of reddit, what is that one dish on the menu you absolutely hate making?
Depending on which restaurant you go to, there are times when what may seem like the easiest dishes, are actually much more annoying than they look.
Eggs can be tricky.
Former chef, it's some of the simplest dishes that are the most annoying. I always hated working breakfast rushes, people are very particular about eggs, and it is very easy to accidentally break a yolk.
Outside of that, while pastry and desserts were some of my favorite things to make, working with phyllo dough is a major test of patience
Also f*ck cleaning mussels.
A lot goes into those tasty soufflés.
Animated GIFGiphySoufflés. We make the creme pate in advance but when it's ordered the process is: Warm creme pate over a double boiler, while that is warming you need to hand whip a fresh meringue. Once the creme pate is warm, you have about 3 minutes to fold in the whites, fill your molds to make sure you don't touch the edges(as it makes them rise crooked). Into the oven for 3 minutes, open oven and rotate for 2 minutes. In those 5 minutes you have to plate the rest of the tables desserts, which all have 8-10 components. Soufflé comes out to a waiting waiter, has to go to the table immediately or deflates.
While it's not the most difficult thing in the world, when you're busy and have 4-6 on order and each one needs to pass a 3 finger test(height above rim of mold or it gets sent back and you need to restart), it can get quite hard and demoralizing when they don't work.
And then you send out 4 at once and someone at the table gets up to go to the bathroom or have a cigarette and the tray comes back and you start again and cry inside.
Gross.
Slightly different take, but I was a chef at a nursing home and anything puréed for people who are on that dietary restriction was gross to me. I literally had to take whatever meal I made, throw in a blender and put it in a bowl. I always felt so bad.
Fancy dishes are even worse. If everything isn’t just right, it may be at risk for starting all over again, making for some very impatient customers.
Please don’t order this ten minutes before close.
Our German Apple pancake.
First you sauté Granny Smiths in clarified butter.
Then add three ladles of our German batter into sauté pan.
Throw in oven for 15 minutes.
Remove from oven and add clarified butter and cinnamon sugar.
Flip delicate pancake with spatula and a dash of learning curve.
Return to oven and cook 5 more minutes.
Flip pancake onto plate and insure it makes it to the table in less than a minute as it deflates rapidly.
Bonus points for when it's ordered 10 minutes before we close.
Edit: those who are apologizing for ordering it, don't it's our job. Kitchen staff are gluttons for punishment.
Some customizations are actually impossible.
Seinfeld Soup GIFGiphyCustomizing the soups. I used to work at a Michelin star restaurant. WE ALREADY HAVE THE SOUPS PREPARED BEFORE YOU WALK IN. I can't just take out the shrimp taste of a paella soup that I prepped before you walked in here.
I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like a nightmare.
Not working in a traditional restaurant anymore but the f*cking ringmold stacked beet salad. It took like 3 minutes to make just one and if a table of four all ordered them it slowed down the entire salad line.
Even the chain restaurants have their own sets of issues when it comes to their dishes.
Don’t underestimate the fruit boxes.
I used to work at a grocery store and I was the person who made all those pre-cut fruit boxes. I didn't particularly mind any of them all that much except clementines. We had to peel clementines and put them in a box. First, it was a huge waste because no one ever bought them (why would you pay $5 for 6 peeled clementines when you could buy a whole bag unpeeled for the same price) except for old people who couldn't peel the fruit themselves, and secondly because the acid would eat through our gloves and then destroy our nails and leave orange smell on your fingers for days.
The only other thing I hated making was 5 mix. We have a mixture called "six mix" which is just 6 different kinds of fruit together, but this one guy would come in and ask for six mix without the cantaloupe in it. We actually started calling him 5 mix. When he walked in someone from a different department would ring us and let us know 5 mix was there and to start making some 5 mix. I hated it because when he asked we'd have to go get a whole watermelon, a whole honeydew, and 3 other fruits and cut them all up just so he could have like 5 cut up pieces of each instead of just eating around the cantaloupe. And he always showed up right as our department was starting to close down for the night too. So we had to them rewatch all our surfaces after five mix came in.
Microwaved McDonald’s is no bueno.
Food Drink Mac GIFGiphyI used to work at McDonalds. Years ago we had this promotional burger we called the 'lean beef burger'. It was aimed at people who wanted to be more healthy.
Normally the meat patties are cooked on the grill, but this one was nuked in the microwave. When it was heated, it looked grey, and it smelled so putrid no one wanted to work near the microwave so they wouldn't have to smell it.
Subway can be a tough gig.
Not a chef but I worked at Subway, whenever people wanted guacamole, we always spread it on one side of the bread before adding the rest of the veggies but the way the counter was designed the avocado was the last ingredient so people would always add all their veggies and then want avocado on top. This was a nightmare to spread across the uneven veggie surface and would generally just stick in clumps.
Some vegetarian customers also wanted us to change our gloves to serve them but everytime we change gloves we have to wash our hands which makes the gloves near impossible to wear - this would grind our whole production line to a halt while all staff members struggled to change their gloves. I mean I'm vegetarian too so I kinda understand but like if you're so strict about it you want fresh gloves then you shouldn't work at subway because the "contaminated" gloves from before still went in all the veggie boxes.
Peanut butter is tricky.
Worked in a sandwich shop for a bit in college. Not fine dining by any stretch of the imagination, but a couple steps above Subway.
Every time someone ordered a PB&J off the kids menu we had to clear off both lines, change our gloves, wipe down every surface the peanut butter got close to, and wash the knife we used to cut it. Like, I get it. But having to treat peanut butter like nuclear waste in the middle of a lunch rush was never fun.
Plus, the peanut butter was too thick for the bread we used for the PB&J, so the bread ended up tearing half the time.
Most of these chefs have made clear- it is 100% ok to order these items off the menu. But it doesn't make them any less of a pain in the butt.
Show appreciation for the chefs at the restaurants you go to! They work even harder than non-food service workers would expect