The story of a cook

Chapter 539
The cooking competition is about to begin. The four of them, Zhao Xiaojun, Zhang Zhicheng, Li Haicai and Li Mingjuan, are studying their competition dishes every day.They and the masters who participated in the coarse grains also communicated with each other and communicated with each other. For the first time, the masters of the two shops showed signs of harmony, and they used to compete with each other.

The last time it was a two-store competition, this time it was a six-store competition. The masters participating in the competition will inevitably be under pressure.Wang Haitao said that the vice chairman and a permanent director of the Food and Beverage Association came to serve as judges, which put a lot of pressure on the masters, and they were a little nervous.

In Binhai, Qinghua Pavilion, Culiang, Yanli Restaurant, Marina Bay, Fulinju, and Xindian are all relatively well-known restaurants, and they are among the most famous restaurants in social restaurants.Six restaurants jointly held a culinary competition, which is also a grand event in the Binhai dining circle. Many restaurants knew about it and planned to send contestants to participate. Unfortunately, the old restaurants have limited space and the competition time is limited, so they can only politely refuse.These restaurants can't participate in the competition, and they are going to come to watch and study. This permission cannot be unreasonable.

In the past few days, Mr. Wang has become a very popular figure. Someone always calls him, whether it is the head chef of this restaurant, or the manager of that restaurant, or the boss, asking him about the competition.

This kind of situation was unexpected. The original plan was to compete with the chefs of the six restaurants. I didn't expect it to cause a small sensation, and almost the entire Binhai catering industry knew about it.

President Wang found me.

"Old Tan, quite a few restaurants have called and said they want to watch the competition and study." Mr. Wang said.

"Come on, I can't help but ask someone to come." I said.

"I'm afraid it will affect our business at that time," he said.

"It doesn't affect it, it didn't affect it last time." I said.

"At first I wanted to host it myself, but now I can't see it. All the people who will come will be from the restaurant, and the vice chairman of the catering association will also come. We have to make it better, and we have to ask Zhou Xiaomei to host it." He said.

"It's okay to ask her to host. Last time she hosted it very well." I said, "You have to tell her in advance so that she can be prepared."

"That is, there is still one week before the competition, and there is enough time." He said, "I discussed with Manager Chen. At the beginning, our employees will dance the opening dance to show our corporate culture, and then the host Get on the field and call the game on."

I said: "Okay, it's good. This time there is a cold dish competition. To save time, I arranged it like this. As soon as the competition is announced, the cold dishes will be served here. When the judges give marks to the cold dishes, the kitchen will start making seafood. Let's communicate in time , after the seafood goes up, there is Northeast cuisine, there is no stop in the middle, or there is not enough time, and if it is not good enough, we will go until midnight."

"If it doesn't work, let's start at eight o'clock." He said.

"That's no good. The kitchen is not finished at eight o'clock. It's not good to fix anything if you are in a hurry." I said, "The competition is not the purpose. We have to put the business first. This is our family. It’s not a formal competition held jointly by the hotel, every family has to be open, so we can’t delay the business.”

"Old Tan, you say it's a strange thing. The Food and Beverage Association holds a cooking competition. The scale is bigger than ours, and it's still formal. The TV stations go to interview. I saw that there are not many restaurants participating. Sometimes we have to find restaurants to participate. We This is organized by myself, it is purely a private organization, but many restaurants participated." Mr. Wang said.

I said: "It's normal that no one wants to participate in the culinary competitions held by the public. The commercial nature is too strong. Look at the gold medals. They are all bought with money. How many of them are real talents. The competitions on TV You also saw that the chef took a kitchen knife and used a toulong flower knife to cut a radish and stretched it out. The old man thought it was amazing. It’s even better than his cut. If nothing else, let’s take the annual National Dumpling Contest as an example. I participated in it, and the top three winners are all determined internally. , as long as it’s not too embarrassing, the gold medal is yours if you pay more.”

"Great chefs don't participate in those competitions. They think it's a joke. How about cooking a few dishes if you have the time? Once the commercial nature of the stuff is too strong, the taste will change, and it can't compare with real ingredients. Wang You have also read it. Are the dishes in those competitions practical? Can they be sold at our house? Can ordinary people afford them? Let’s not kill a boatload of people with a hammer. Some competitions are quite good. It’s real kung fu, ordinary ingredients plus simple seasonings, the dishes made with original flavors and mouth-watering fragrance, that’s called real kung fu. But there are too few competitions like this, why? There’s no commercial value.”

"The competitions we hold are not as formal as those competitions, and they are not as grand as those competitions, but we are competing with real skills. The dishes we cook are down-to-earth and practical. After learning, we can directly use them in restaurants. To put it bluntly, we can directly create value. There is no charge, and there is no need for sponsorship. Not only can you learn something, but you can also make friends. Who would not like to participate? Even if you can’t get a ranking, you are willing to, at least you have expanded your network. Anyone who is a chef knows that he can do more. Knowing a few friends with real talents is better than anything else. No one can guarantee that he will not be laid off for the rest of his life. If he is laid off one day, he can call someone to help him find a job. Also, if he behaves well , it is not impossible to be poached by some boss directly."

After listening to me, Mr. Wang said: "Old Tan, what you said makes sense."

"Chef cooking is like practicing martial arts. Martial arts practitioners will encounter bottlenecks when they have practiced martial arts to a certain level, and it is difficult to go further. At this time, they will continue to find others to learn from each other and improve themselves in the process of learning. Bottleneck It’s just a layer of window paper. If you don’t pierce it, you won’t be able to improve. Only after you pierce it will you feel, wow, that’s how it is. I understand a lot of things that I didn’t understand before and troubled me, and my martial arts have improved a lot. , or to raise a level. Chefs are doing the same thing. I feel confused while cooking, and I can’t improve it, as if there is something blocking it. Don’t mention the discomfort. I feel like I can’t cook It seems."

"In fact, we have encountered a bottleneck. At this time, we need an opportunity. It is not a famous teacher's advice, nor is it inspired by watching other people's cooking, and we will break through at once. If this opportunity is not encountered in a lifetime, it may be like this forever. We also I have seen many such situations. Some of them have been cooks all their lives, and their cooking is mediocre, neither good nor bad, but in short, it is not bad, it can be eaten, and they only earn 2000-[-] yuan in their lifetime. Some young people, I haven't been a chef for a few years, but I have a good understanding, can make breakthroughs, make continuous progress, cook better and better dishes, and earn more money."

"Look, after this competition, there must be a few masters in our family who have greatly improved their cooking skills, and their cooking skills have greatly improved."

Mr. Wang said: "According to your point of view, that is a breakthrough."

"It's about the same." I said, "The chefs in other restaurants also have the same idea when they come to watch the competition. One is that the dishes we cook in the competition are practical. They have learned to take them back and serve them in their own restaurants. When other chefs were inspired to cook, their brains suddenly flashed, wow, it turns out that the raw materials can be processed in this way, why didn’t I think of it? It’s also possible to do this, just add some fuel consumption. I’m so stupid, why didn’t I think of adding Fuel consumption———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————.

"That's the case." Mr. Wang nodded and asked me, "Old Tan, do you have such an experience?"

I said: "Yes, indeed there is, otherwise I wouldn't be able to say it, and I wouldn't be talking about this culinary competition." This is an old saying, and it is true. When it comes to the number one scholar, everyone thinks of those people who are well-educated, talented and full of knowledge, and think that they are the number one scholar. What about going to university? I also thought about it, and I would completely turn into a serf and sing after I was admitted to university, and my future would be bright. I never dreamed that I could be a cook."

"I started talking about it when I met my master. When I met my master, I didn't know that he was a famous chef in our province. I thought he was an old man who knew how to cook, and he was better than ordinary chefs. Later Gradually, I realized that the old man was very powerful, very famous, and very prestigious. Do you know what I was thinking at that time? I’m not afraid of your jokes when I say it. What I thought was that being a chef can make a fortune. Because my master’s family conditions are very good , I have two houses, and I still have money. At that time, I started to enjoy myself at home without going to work. In addition to playing mahjong every day, I just went fishing and leisurely. Life? Master is not a college student, and his life of cooking a lifetime of cooking is no worse than that of a college student, and even many college students can’t live like that. If a college student is a champion, isn’t Master also a champion? 360 lines, you can be a champion.”

"I don't think we should be the number one in writing, but the number one in cooking. Anyway, we have the same purpose-to live a good life. So I began to sink my heart and learn the craft. I also encountered bottlenecks in the process of cooking. Every time I touched When I arrived, I felt very uncomfortable, and I felt that I couldn’t even fry the dishes. How should I put it? They say that there are three thousand ways, and cooking is like enlightenment. Cooking. Sometimes it is very interesting. When making a dish, if you want to make this dish well, it is not just a matter of cooking techniques. You should start with the raw materials that make up the dish, what raw materials are used, and why Use this raw material, what effect does it play? What effect do you want to achieve? All of these have to be thought out in advance.”

"The raw materials are available, but they can't be used whole. I started to think about what knife to use for shaping. For example, carrots can't be used whole. They have to be cut into slices, into segments, or shredded. It depends on what kind of dishes you make, and you can cut them into whatever you need. In fact, the same is true in management. If you hire a chef to cook, you have to arrange what dishes he cooks according to his cooking characteristics. He obviously cooks green vegetables well, you have to call If he cooks meat dishes, then he guarantees that he can't do it well. If he can't do it well, you will get angry and say that his cooking skills are low, no. In fact, it's not that he can't do it, but we used him in the wrong place."

"Take the new chopping board as an example. At the beginning, we must make sure that it is raw with our dishes. We must give him a time to get used to it. After he is familiar with it, we will see what dishes he is interested in, and then arrange what dishes he will serve with. I don’t want to leave when I’m doing what I like, and the more I do, the better. The cooking materials and medicines are used just right, and the management personnel must also use them just right. Only when the ingredients are used correctly can the dishes be fragrant and delicious, and the people use them correctly. Only by working can we achieve standards and get twice the result with half the effort. If you think about it, the truth is the same, and everything is like this.”

"My master said something to me. He said, Xiao Tanzi, if you can manage one dish well, you can manage the whole kitchen well. I didn't understand what it meant at the time, but now that I think about it, it's really the same thing. Take For a dish, when the raw materials are available, it needs to be shaped by a knife, and then the first-cooked treatment, followed by the matching of auxiliary materials, and cooking techniques are selected for production. Whether you are roasting, stewing, or stewing, start to operate. In the process of operation Add a variety of seasonings to make the dishes delicious, and at the same time have to master the heat. This is the same as managing the kitchen. If there are employees, they are all good employees. The reason why there are naughty things is our very first The knife skills are not right. The small tree is repaired, and so are the people. If the knife skills are correct, they are all good employees. The first ripe treatment of raw materials is the same as the training of employees. A green raw material is first ripened. It’s cooked, you can cook, and so do the employees. At first it’s a piece of iron. If you want to turn it into a piece of good steel, you have to throw it into the furnace and forge it. Take a sledgehammer and smash it. If you remove impurities, isn’t it a piece of good steel? gone."

"After years of management, I haven't found any suitable employees for your restaurant. They are excellent employees in other restaurants, but they may not be in yours. If you want him to be an excellent employee, you have to arrange him Find the right position, and then train and train him to become an excellent employee. So good food is made, and good employees are trained, not recruited directly.”

"What role do seasonings play when cooking? Basic seasoning, increase aroma, and make dishes more delicious. Motivating and encouraging employees and adding seasonings to dishes is the same thing. Chefs can't compete with dishes when they cook. It doesn’t taste good while I’m doing it, and when I get angry, I add a piece of stinky tofu, it’s even more delicious. The same is true for management. Seeing employees make mistakes in their work, they can’t immediately criticize and reprimand them loudly. Correct it, what’s the difference between loudly reprimanding and adding stinky tofu to the dish? Good employees are motivated, not criticized, reprimanded, or yelled out.”

President Wang looked at me and nodded approvingly.

As soon as he talked about his profession, he couldn’t hold back his mouth, and then said: “People are a process of gaining, experiencing, and understanding the Tao. The chef’s profession is also a process. If you study it thoroughly, you can also gain the Tao if you do it well. , the common people say that you should be the champion. Sometimes you can understand the management well if you understand the food well, and you can improve the cooking skills if you understand the management well. Chef, I don’t care what I cook every day. At that time, as long as the dishes I made were popular, the customers gave them very high evaluation. Like 'Maoxuewang' and 'Shuizhu Beef', they seem to be old dishes, nothing to do , Ask a master to do it. Tell him to do it, and see if he can make it taste like me?"

"I've eaten our 'Maoxuewang' and 'Boiled Beef'. It's different from other people's. Ours has just the right amount of spiciness, and the more you eat, the more delicious it becomes." Wang said. always say.

"To put it bluntly, I have put in the best work and researched it with my heart, otherwise it would not be delicious." I said, "As the old saying goes, do as the Romans do, and cooking is the same. What is authentic? Only when customers accept it is authentic. The same is true for management. I used to be a head chef in the provincial capital. The management was not very good, but it was not bad. As a head chef in our family, you can’t apply the previous management methods mechanically to our house. It doesn't apply to the place, and it has to be adapted to local conditions, just like the dishes."

"After I became a head chef, I didn't study dishes much, but I can feel that the cooking skills have improved compared to before when I cook on the stove. Some dishes were not ideal before, but now I feel very satisfied with the cooking. To sum up, this is Doing management for a period of time opened up the pattern, and when I understood some things that I couldn’t understand, it seemed that the layer of window paper was opened, and it suddenly became clear, my eyes were bright, and my skills improved.”

"Old Tan, you have attained the Tao." Mr. Wang said with a smile.

"It's far from the truth, it's far away, it's a high-level person, we're just ordinary people, we can't be compared." I said.

"Old Tan, you have a really good attitude, chatting with you to gain knowledge."

I smiled and said, "You're flattering me."

"No, Manager Chen admires you very much, and now I start to admire you too."

"Mr. Wang, it's boring to talk like this." I said, and then turned to the business: "Don't come to study too much on the day of the competition. There are three or five families that can be recruited. There are too many and we can't fit in the kitchen."

"I know that, I know it well," he said.

(End of this chapter)