So, I was watching FoodTV last night. Chopped was on (a 3-course cooking competition), and at one point, one of the chefs cut themselves, and kept prepping a salad. It wasn't a bad cut, but it was noticable. So, as it turns out, the judges refused to try it, due to "safety and health concerns."
I was just wondering how common it is for the food I order to be bloody. I'm not really grossed out, because the vast majority of blood-borne pathogens can't survive outside the body; I'd be more concerned about any bacteria on the skin before I'd worry about blood. I was just curious about kitchen injuries.
That's what bandaids and fingercots are for. If they don't know how to use them properly they shouldn't be professionals.
Fingercots are like those finger condoms, right? I used them when I worked at the bar of my old students club.
Obviously not ECH, but in my experience, the most common kitchen injury are burns. I can only recall two times that someone cut themselves.
I saw that episode. Glad they chopped her for it.
I knew a lot of people who worked in kitchens. Even during bad lunch rushes if you cut yourself, you stop, clean it and bandage it up.
And these were short order cooks and scumbags who would deliberately "do stuff" to certain customers.
Makes no sense, I know.
Also what Cain said there
Quote from: Cain on December 02, 2009, 05:28:39 PM
Obviously not ECH, but in my experience, the most common kitchen injury are burns. I can only recall two times that someone cut themselves.
this, for starters. I might cut myself a couple times a year but I manage to get a 2nd degree burn about once a week. Of course, it helps when you can make the eastern european
slaves student workers use the slicer and chop the onions. Speaking for myself, I would NEVER continue to make anything after I had cut myself without first ensuring that there would be no blood-to-food contact, and I would throw away what I was making and start over if I had even a hint of uncertainty as to whether or not my blood had contaminated it. I suspect that most professional chefs feel the same way, but I also suspect that the highest probability of blood contacting food comes from the prep guys, not the people cooking and plating.
Good to know.
I've seen chefs do the "pinky in the sauce to taste" and the drops of sweat hitting the sautee pan, and even the "oops, replate the spilled food". I was wondering where the line was drawn.
Quote from: LMNO on December 02, 2009, 07:23:22 PM
Good to know.
I've seen chefs do the "pinky in the sauce to taste" and the drops of sweat hitting the sautee pan, and even the "oops, replate the spilled food". I was wondering where the line was drawn.
I do "pinky in the sauce to taste" all the time (unless I'm in an expo kitchen, obviously) and will replate spilled food that hit the counter (not the floor...usually). I wear a bandanna covering my head to keep sweat from getting anywhere but on me. Of course, I'm also religious about washing my hands and keeping my face clean and my hair (both head and beard) out of the food. Not everyone goes to those lengths, and probable more don't than do.
Of course, when my pinky hits that sauce, that sauce is still hot enough to kill anything that might be on my pinky, and on the rare occasions that I do decide to use something I dropped (usually if it's a prohibitively expensive piece of meat). I at least throw it back on the hot part of the grill for a few seconds.
I am, after all, nothing if not courteous.
also some of those things are not really bad per se, except they would lessen one's enjoyment of the food if they knew about it, but if they don't ..
i mean, if I can trust it's hygienic, who cares if the food fell off something? just presentation counts for so much in food, so it's better if you dont know.
and the pinky in the sauce, I can trust a good cook to wash their hands right? and they wouldnt put the just-licked pinky back into the sauce, since saliva enzymes can totally fuck up a sauce, everybody knows that right?
and a drop of sweat ... I wouldnt want to know, but it's not like you'd taste it.
I know a friend of mine who spits into oil to check if it's hot enough (sizzles), says they do it like that in Italy. he never does it (afaik) except for when he cooks for just himself though.
TBH, that's the first I've ever heard about saliva enzymes being able to fuck up a sauce. I'm not sure how that would be possible.
Quote from: Rip City Hustle on December 04, 2009, 12:59:19 AM
TBH, that's the first I've ever heard about saliva enzymes being able to fuck up a sauce. I'm not sure how that would be possible.
Only dairy-based sauces, AFAIK. It's like how it makes yogurt or sour cream separate.
I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that one. Maybe if you dumped a half-cup of spit into the sauce, but there's no way the amount of saliva left on your pinky after tasting a sauce is going to fuck up the emulsion.
I mean, if it would, I can't imagine I wouldn't know about it. I'm trained in French Cuisine, and I've made zillions of cream sauces, bechamels, newburgs, and veloutes and that has NEVER happened to me, not once, not ever. Nor has it ever happened to anyone I've ever know.
Now, I'm not saying it's utterly impossible, just that a whole lot of experiential first-hand evidence says otherwise.
Quote from: Rip City Hustle on December 04, 2009, 01:39:10 AM
I'm gonna have to call bullshit on that one. Maybe if you dumped a half-cup of spit into the sauce, but there's no way the amount of saliva left on your pinky after tasting a sauce is going to fuck up the emulsion.
I mean, if it would, I can't imagine I wouldn't know about it. I'm trained in French Cuisine, and I've made zillions of cream sauces, bechamels, newburgs, and veloutes and that has NEVER happened to me, not once, not ever. Nor has it ever happened to anyone I've ever know.
Now, I'm not saying it's utterly impossible, just that a whole lot of experiential first-hand evidence says otherwise.
I've had it happen dozens of times. Possibly hundreds. For it to happen, the sauce has to be cool enough to not decommission the enzymes. Cooler than the boiling point, but I'm not sure how much cooler. Enzymes in saliva essentially work to start "digesting" starchy or creamy sauces, making them curdled or watery over time.
I've pinky-double-dipped cream sauces at every stage of temperature between 34 degrees (our walk-in temp) and whatever the boiling point of cream is, too many times to count.
again, it has NEVER happened to me or anyone I've ever worked with or anyone I've ever known (aside from you). Perhaps I just have special saliva?
as far as starchy sauces, again, never happened to me but if it's a problem for you try using a roux instead of just the starch by itself. The change in the starch's molecular properties after being cooked with fat should keep that from happening.
it's starchy sauces yeah. I haven't had it happen to myself either, not that I try though, I also rinse off a spoon before I put it in a sauce again. But I read about it in many places.
But yes it probably depends on the saliva, how wet your finger is afterwards, and how hot the sauce is, cause the enzymes will probably break down at some point.
I could see that, I've never had it happen to me personally but I usually wash my hands/spoon before I check something a second time. Although I did discover that nasty bit about saliva and dairy products. At one point I was thirsty, craved milk, didn't want a whole glass, so I just drank some out of the jug. Then it expired several days before it should have. Lesson learned, there. And I understand why people bitch about people who drink out of the jug, aside from the implications of backwash.
what, exactly, are the "implications" of backwash?
also, there are lots of reasons for milk to expire before it's date. being kept in the door/front of the fridge and having been bought from Wal-Mart are the two most common.
and perhaps this would be a phenomenon I would notice if I kept cream sauces on hand in the fridge for several days but honestly, who makes a huge batch of bechamel to keep in the fridge? most people make what's needed for the meal they intend the sauce to be served with.
anyway, until someone can produce a scientific citation, I'm still calling bullshit.
I'm working without direct citation, but I'm thinking this may be a correlation/causation thing.
Yeah, I'm thinking along those lines too. There are ALOT of reasons why a cream sauce emulsion can break, and many of those reasons don't even boil down (no pun intended) to operator error.
Starchy sauces breaking usually does boil down to operator error, but it's a melange of exceedingly common errors.
and when you get into veloutes and bechamels (which are both dairy AND starch based), well, you're exponentially increasing the chances for any little thing to fuck up.
to increase chances for success, try these tips:
1) whisk faster. No, faster than that, even.
2) for cream sauces, make sure the cream (or milk or whatever) is at room temperature first. I cannot stress enough how important this is. Add the heated liquid TO THE CREAM off of any heat source a little at a time and slowly whisk it in. This tempers the cream and allows you to re-add the mixture to the rest of the heated liquid without breaking or curdling the cream.
3) for starchy sauces, you're still not whisking fast enough.
4) use a roux, as cooked as you can get away with given the nature of the sauce (dark sauces should get dark roux). Or, if you're serving all of the sauce right then and there, consider using a cornstarch slurry. This will settle out eventually but it will not "break". Xanthan gum works amazingly well, but it has a distinctive and not always pleasant flavor if you add too much, and "too much" can be as little as a quarter-teaspoon, so play with it first to get a feel for it before you use it to thicken the gravy at christmas dinner. (note: xanthan gum is absolutely invaluable for people with wheat or gluten allergies)
5) whether you're adding the liquid to the roux in the pan or adding the roux to the liquid in the pot, add a little at a time and make sure it's whisked in completely and smoothly before you add more.
6) when thickening with starches, boiling liquid is not your friend. Simmering liquid or hot liquid that is no longer boiling is your friend. ESPECIALLY if the sauce involves a combination of starch and dairy.
7) when reducing a cream sauce, you want it boiling but not boiling as rapidly as humanly possible. you also want to keep a close eye on it because there is a very fine line between "reduced enough to coat a spoon" and "reduced into a broken, greasy, oily mess", and that line is not always apparent until it's already too late. REMEMBER: even after you turn off the burner, whatever you're heating is going to continue to cook for a little while until it cools off.
regardless of the saliva thing, that is some great advice right there, thanks RCH!
My pleasure! At risk of sounding arrogant, I am a muthafuckin sauce wizard, yo.
RCH,
can make a hollandaise with his eyes closed and no double-boiler.
Nice advice! When I was talking about the implications of Backwash I was referring to people being squicky about drinking after other people. And it could very well have been bad timing, not sure. I never trust Wal-Mart for most of my shit anyway. Doubly so after I worked there.
I've got a question about sauces, well, kind of. It's more gravy related, but if a recipe tells you to add X amount of flour for Y amount of grease how do you determine the amount of grease without pouring it out of the pan, or should you? 'Cause most of the time with the recipes I've done it's been with the meat staying in the pan with the gravy.
I love cooking but I'm kind of retarded in some regards because I learned from watching/helping my Grandma and my own experimentation.
fortunately for you, what you are doing when you make pan gravy is essentialy making a roux out of flour and the meat fat that's in the pan, and though in general you want a 1:1 ration, with rouxs it doesn't have to be exact. A good rule of thumb would be to add flour slowly and whisk it intensely until you've got a nice thick uniform paste. If you're gonna screw up one way or the other, you're better off adding a little too much flour than you are adding too little. Too little flour won't give the excess fat anything to bind to so your gravy will turn out greasy. Too much flour would have a negative effect on the emulsion if you were storing it for a week or more, but let's face it, if your pan gravy is any good it's not going to last that long.
Amylase is the enzyme that breaks down starches:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amylase
An anecdote about small amounts of amylase:
http://iso9001manual.com/blog/tag/yogurt/
There are a number of other enzymes in our digestive systems, including our saliva, that break down various components of our food, which is why saliva-contaminated food spoils faster.
http://www.beta-glucan-info.com/digestive_enzyme_facts.htm
I am guessing that you are more careful about saliva contamination than you think you are, possibly due to years of training and basic sanitation consciousness.
the science is certainly solid and I'm not debating that human saliva jump-starts the digestion process (that's what it's there for, right?)
I'm just saying that if you drool in your gravy or use a half-cup of spit to make your cornstarch flurry, you might have a problem. There's nothing there that says the tiny amount of saliva on your pinky (that's probably mostly dried up since you usually taste it every minute or 2 after you make your adjustments and stir and, again, unless you're slobbering on yourself 60 seconds will air-dry most of the saliva from your finger) will curdle your cream sauce sauce in a few days. The linked article was about yogurt, which makes sense since yogurt contains active cultures. I'm guessing that the amylase will have a greater effect quicker than it would in a heat-pasteurized cream sauce, though it's also worth noting that in the linked article the separation of the yogurt still took weeks and their problem was related to amylase-contaminated sugar which was, presumably (and hopefully) a much more prominent ingredient in their recipe than human saliva was.
so yeah, I still don't think double-dipping with the pinky is likely to be a real problem in the average person's every-day culinary life.
Quote from: Rip City Hustle on December 05, 2009, 12:21:27 AM
the science is certainly solid and I'm not debating that human saliva jump-starts the digestion process (that's what it's there for, right?)
I'm just saying that if you drool in your gravy or use a half-cup of spit to make your cornstarch flurry, you might have a problem. There's nothing there that says the tiny amount of saliva on your pinky (that's probably mostly dried up since you usually taste it every minute or 2 after you make your adjustments and stir and, again, unless you're slobbering on yourself 60 seconds will air-dry most of the saliva from your finger) will curdle your cream sauce sauce in a few days. The linked article was about yogurt, which makes sense since yogurt contains active cultures. I'm guessing that the amylase will have a greater effect quicker than it would in a heat-pasteurized cream sauce, though it's also worth noting that in the linked article the separation of the yogurt still took weeks and their problem was related to amylase-contaminated sugar which was, presumably (and hopefully) a much more prominent ingredient in their recipe than human saliva was.
so yeah, I still don't think double-dipping with the pinky is likely to be a real problem in the average person's every-day culinary life.
If it has a chance to dry off in between, if the recipe is near enough to boiling, or if some time has passed, I would suspect there would be no problem. But, in gravies and sauces that were finished cooking, I have had thinning and separation issues when someone has tasted from a spoon and put it directly back into the sauce, usually within about 20 minutes... this can be a problem when you're serving a large meal in courses. It's also strictly an amateur mistake... experienced cooks aren't going to contaminate a fully-cooked recipe with fresh saliva.
It's especially foul when someone has gotten saliva (usually from an eating utensil) into yogurt, pudding, or a cold dairy-based sauce like tzatziki.
from now on, if I end up at a party at someone's house that's a douche, I'm gonna secretly lick the yogurt and/or sour cream in their fridge.
what does 60C translate into in Freedomheit(tm)?
140 ish
well, that explains why I've never heard of it. By the time a sauce cools to 140, it's already done and all taste adjustments have been made while the sauce was still at a temperature (above 140F) that denatures amylase.
and since hot food should ALWAYS be served at 140F or above, this explains why it's more likely to happen to yogurt or pudding that's already chilled and set.
Quote from: Rip City Hustle on December 05, 2009, 12:35:09 AM
from now on, if I end up at a party at someone's house that's a douche, I'm gonna secretly lick the yogurt and/or sour cream in their fridge.
:lulz: How is it that I've never thought of this?
I cut off the tip of my thumb today at work.
...with the fucking bread knife.
:x
That's not a question.
Quote from: Rip City Hustle on December 05, 2009, 06:20:16 AM
That's not a question.
i have a question. i have no culinary talent, but i remember hearing something one time about how if you have a recipe for, say, some kind of stew that makes, say, a gallon and calls for X amount of, say, salt - but if you want to make, say, four gallons of the same kind of stew, you don't necessarily just use 4 times as much salt. usually it is less. what's up with that?
(sorry about all the "say's" in there, just sayin)
Quote from: Rip City Hustle on December 05, 2009, 12:35:55 AM
what does 60C translate into in Freedomheit(tm)?
"Freedomheit" :lol:
anyway, just wanted to say that Google got a built-in extra-smart calculator that is really good at doing conversions like this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=60+C+in+F
http://www.google.com/search?q=5+euros+per+gram+in+dollars+per+1/8+oz
http://www.google.com/search?q=1.29+euro+per+liter+in+dollars+per+gallon
bonus points if you figure out what the last two conversions are about :-)
Quote from: Triple Zero on December 05, 2009, 09:50:14 AM
Quote from: Rip City Hustle on December 05, 2009, 12:35:55 AM
what does 60C translate into in Freedomheit(tm)?
"Freedomheit" :lol:
anyway, just wanted to say that Google got a built-in extra-smart calculator that is really good at doing conversions like this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=60+C+in+F
http://www.google.com/search?q=5+euros+per+gram+in+dollars+per+1/8+oz
http://www.google.com/search?q=1.29+euro+per+liter+in+dollars+per+gallon
bonus points if you figure out what the last two conversions are about :-)
reminded me of an old physics homework problem:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS346&q=c+in+furlongs+per+fortnight&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
Quote from: Triple Zero on December 05, 2009, 09:50:14 AM
Quote from: Rip City Hustle on December 05, 2009, 12:35:55 AM
what does 60C translate into in Freedomheit(tm)?
"Freedomheit" :lol:
anyway, just wanted to say that Google got a built-in extra-smart calculator that is really good at doing conversions like this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=60+C+in+F
http://www.google.com/search?q=5+euros+per+gram+in+dollars+per+1/8+oz
http://www.google.com/search?q=1.29+euro+per+liter+in+dollars+per+gallon
bonus points if you figure out what the last two conversions are about :-)
without clicking the links, I'm guessing that the 2nd link is about converting the price of a bag of pot and the 3rd link is either for gasoline or whiskey.
and rong, soups and stews have a liquid content that evaporates while salt does not evaporate, meaning that your soup/stew will get saltier the longer it cooks. Always a good idea to leave the salt out until the end, at which time you can adjust for taste without worrying about that.