line cook

Chicken a la kiev

Chicken a la kiev is a dish I found a recipe to in the old cookbook. We will do some slight changes here is what you will need.
Chicken breasts (skinless and boneless)
Egg for breading
Breadcrumbs for breading
Seasoning for the breadcrumbs
I use a combination of parmesan cheese and old bay to season my breading

Compound butter –
A compound butter is a butter mixed with other things to add more flavor and has been used in kitchens as a form of sauce. In this recipe my compound butter was made with an addition of crushed garlic, green onion, and honey mustard with a splash of lemon juice.

After mixing it all together you want to put your butter in the freezer. If you like everything a certain shape you can fill up an ice tray half full so you get little squares of butter already setting up.

Butterfly your chicken and after the butter has frozen stuff in the middle of the chicken before breading it up and dumping it in a frypot already heated up. Let it cool and dress as you see fit. If you do not feel comfortable putting frozen butter in raw chicken then you can put the butter on top before plating. The butter will melt to form a sauce to match the chicken.

After plating garnish with what you want. I use a small little piece of muenster cheese to work with the small amount of butter.

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Some of the hardest people to cook for

 In a kitchen there are two major problems. One is you find out that you have a table of food critics and the other is you have a table of true cooks. Not those that announce that they have been cooks for years because often times those that do that in a restaurant are about as good in a kitchen as a critic. I am talking the old school been there thirty years and have forgotten more about food then most people know.

One can utter a word based out of stupidity and the business dies the other can tell exactly what you are doing by the plate. So you have to be on your “A” game because your little tricks will be on full display to them.

What is surprising is critics often have no culinary experience to draw from and that is the norm. You want the best food then you go ask a cook. This article may seem a bit harsh, but I do agree with the point.

http://gawker.com/5913046/food-critics-are-worthless

Food critics to be food critics are just not that good you can either go to sites where you can get a wider range of experiences or you can just ask a cook where he would go to get some good grub. If in a city a cook is impressed enough to respect the food he is given then that is the highest show of respect.

What is sad is that it is a very rare moment where a food critic that gets respected in the writing circles has actual kitchen experience. The same is true for health inspectors. Often times you do not need any experience to become one. You could see though how past experience in a kitchen would help when you need to grade it because if you know all the tricks then you know where to look.

Cooks can really be useful in a lot of different aspects if you think hard enough, but that is true in nearly any job.

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