Catholic Outreach Soup Kitchen, Doin' St. Paddy's

So it happened that the third Saturday of March is St. Patrick's Day.
Since my Saturday to volunteer chef services at
Grand
Junction's Grand Valley Catholic Outreach Soup Kitchen is always the
third Saturday, I will be doing St. Paddy's day.



A surprise when I get into the kitchen at the normal 7 AM to start my
prep. for the day's noon meal. Usually they hold all the strange stuff
for me. They know whatever is in the walk-in reefer I will turn into a
meal. But today will be different as a retired Irish Priest has donated
corn beef and the cabbage for the meal.








So for the first time at the soup kitchen I will be working with food
that was not served first somewhere else! This is great! It being spring
break here I have no idea if my normal crew of high school students will
be showing up. So I hammer into the meal prep full speed expecting a lot
of them not to show up.



First I fire up the hoods, ovens, and the tilt skillet! Then start to
pull the corn beef from the packages. They are all point cuts.
Immediately I realize that I will have to carve in advance for the
service line. In the ten years I have been with Zane, I have cut a lot
of beef brisket. Cut correctly it is a wonderful delight, watch someone
cut it wrong and serve it, and it is an absolute nightmare to chew. So
how will I prep? Salt, black pepper, bay, thyme, mustard, and four types
of whole peppercorns, including white, yellow, pink and some type of
gray one I don't really recognize.



Searing the meat first is a must as I will be roasting the meat
separately so I can finish it and slice it whilst the cabbage and taters
are "doing their thing" in the tilt skillet.







This is a fairly large piece of equipment, so I will be doing case and a
half at a time till I get through the 120 pounds of beef. I know I have
mentioned it in the past, but this is one handy piece of equipment.



After I sear the meat I have elected to pan in 4 inch hotels for the
final roasting to temp in our convection oven. Now 8 am and only one
volunteer has arrived. Going to be a tight one today if I don't have my
normal crew. But I am only expecting 188 people based on the last two
days service counts. So not really a problem if I can just get two
others to show up. In the hotel pans I have placed all the beef for
maximum exposure to the heat. Minimizing overlap will help everything
cook at the same rate of temperature gain.








After searing is complete I am going to deglaze the tilt skillet and
bring up an au jus to baste the brisket in for the roasting.








A little water and a balancing of the salt level pulls together a decent
glaze for the brisket in its roasting phase.








Flip the switch and bring the tilt in the air, catch the magic solution
with a large handled sauce pot and we are ready to baste for the oven.








After I get the baste evenly across all five pans they are into the
convection at 350 F till I see 144 F. Then pull for carry over.








Then just as I was about to make a couple phone calls to pull in some
favors for volunteers a husband and wife show up looking to help. Ah 4
of us now, 188 and three hours to service, piece of cake.



Chef thought:



I get asked a lot what makes a chef a chef and a cook a cook and how do
you tell them apart. While the title Chef can be claimed by anyone that
cooks in the USA, I separate the two at the level of total kitchen
management. A Chef, can look at a situation, survey the equipment,
survey the meal, and decide in their head on the fly what needs to be
done, how to get it done, with what equipment, and in what order to
ensure that equipment is fully utilized, all while applying the labor
available, to the tasks that require completion, in the proper order and
places to accomplish the complete mission.



Get to an Executive Sous, Chef de Cuisine or Executive Chef and they can
perform all the above plus also solve problems, understand the costs,
develop the menus with profit margin in mind. Generally, to me, all the
management titled level chefs have a handle on costs in the kitchen,
plus the above skills. They are mindful of the kitchens equipment and
know when it is not acting correctly.



Professional cooks can be relied on to accomplish the production of the
specified menu with minimum supervision. But generally concentrate on
their specific cooking tasks. If you want to work on the Chef skills
volunteer at a soup kitchen, you get to look at the big picture, do the
menus, arrange all of the above and then some. Tons and Tons of fun! At
least for me.



The best position? To me it has to be Chef de Cuisine, all the fun, all
the management, all the menu and food stuff, without the nasty
paperwork, ordering, billing, etc. Chef de Cuisine is about the kitchen
producing professional food and that is the focus you bring to bore on
the days production. At least in the catering kitchen!



Chef thoughts closed!



As the chef, when volunteers start showing up I have things for them to
do, it is all in my head and I am constantly filling in info, where are
you with that?, etc etc. Now in a soup kitchen you don't get a lot of
culinary trained people. So other chefs are rare, professional cooks
even rarer, you do however get some great home cooks, while not at the
level of a professional cook, they can, with a little guidance put out
some amazing things. This couple loves to build and eat salads at home,
and so it would be that they achieve for the day the title "cooks
ensalada!" After a lot of years of cheffing and managing you get used to
doing your tasks and watching over everything else that needs to come
together. Correcting, teaching and/or helping when necessary.








While I turn them to the salads, I hammer out the cabbage. I had my
first volunteer quartering potatoes while I seared the meat. This is all
going to come together so cool! And yes, you really feel that in your
mind, at one point you know everything is on schedule and moving and you
realize, "this is so cool!" Or not, maybe for everyone, but I love what
I do and I love doing it so to me I still get the elation from
realizing, yep hammering this thing out of the park again!













After this potato layer another cabbage layer on top, and all the left
over marinade is then poured over the cabbage. Tilt skillet to 375 F and
lid shut. Let steam do its wonderful magic.








Meanwhile back to the beef. Pull the pans, flip the brisket.








A little further maillard reaction for the other side of the meat. The
searing does most of it, but the roasting adds to it as well.



Definition:



The complex reaction between reducing sugars and the amine groups of
amino acids along with proteins is called the Maillard reaction. This is
named after the French chemist who discovered it in about 1912. It is
recognized as an important factor in determining the color, aroma, as
well as the nutritional value of many foods. The reaction causes the
condensation of a reducing group of "a carbohydrate and an amino group"
from a protein or amino acid results ultimately in a compound of low
solubility. The double bonds of the products of this reaction (really an
intense series of reactions) account for their brown or yellowish color.
Hey now ya know why steak is brown when seared!



When I first go into the place I noticed no cakes or desserts were in
the donor pantry. So I had to come up with a dessert. What kind of green
dessert? Looking around I found some pistachio pudding. My wife has this
pistachio cake she makes that I love, I call it "the green cake" and it
is just the thing for St. Paddy's day. So while the beef was roasting I
had the early volunteer prep some cake, telling him the instructions
while chopping cabbage. Then had my second volunteers make a nice green
powder sugar and Crisco icing for it. (hey you don't do butter cream at
a soup kitchen, ain't in the budget!)



You can see the plated cakes on the line. This is my line for the day.








Just as I was figuring on some longer clean up, the two main dishwasher
volunteers show up and start to clean everything in sight! I was very
happy to see the dish washers show up. Takes a while to do that end of
it, so they could work on the pots and pans, while I cleaned my cooking
equipment. Tilt skillets are fairly easy to clean, but I like the thing
polished!



My first guest would be non other than our benefactor for the day. I
very nice retired priest who wished not to be named, but was happy to
come taste what we created and watch everyone enjoy the meal!








Thank you Father for the donation, it was great to cook for these people
again. And even better that they too could celebrate a little bit of the
Irish, maybe the year will bring them the luck of the Irish as well and
they will find themselves in a better place as the year progresses.



'Til we talk again, find some time to volunteer, the rewards are
excellent. If your a professional chef or cook, you will find your
skills highly valued and you can have the time of your life teaching
people to make good food. Hey they're volunteers, they want to be with
you!



Chef Bob Ballantyne

The Cowboy and The Rose Catering

Grand Junction, Colorado, USA