So You Want To Be a Chef

In the time that I've been a professional cook, the culinary world has blown up. Every time you turn around, there is a new "celebrity" chef or a hot new cooking show. It seems like every community college has added a culinary program and they are turning out fresh young "chefs" into the industry at an alarming rate. Armed with a diploma and a dream, they set out to turn the culinary world upside down only to find the reality of the food service industry far less glamorous than Bobbie Flay or Wolfgang Puck led them to believe.

Usually, working in the culinary world is like living in a photographic negative of the real world. Cooks work nights. Cooks work weekends. Cooks work holidays. While the rest of the world is enjoying their leisure time, cooks are busting ass to feed everyone. Cooks are under-paid and under-appreciated. Most restaurants laugh at the idea of benefits. It's a hard industry, and to become successful in it takes an extreme level of sacrifice. It takes its toll on individuals and usually takes a bigger toll on their families. The industry has a reputation of being a haven for people with drug and alcohol problems. The industry either attracts this type of individual or, in equal measure, creates them. Often cooks move from restaurant to restaurant following a mirage that looks like opportunity only to find themselves in the same wasteland they have been in for years.

This point of this grim assessment is only to show that this industry isn't what many people perceive and it definitely isn't for everyone. It's a career that in order to succeed you must be very passionate, extremely dedicated, and possibly a little bit more than a little bit crazy. You have to thrive under pressure, live for fast paced, be willing to work as many hours as it takes to get the job done. For some people it's the only life they can imagine living. For others it will break them before they ever truly get started.

 I am very lucky. I spent 20 years in the grind of the restaurant world. I walked away from it swearing that I wouldn't work with food again only to find I found no joy in anything else. I somehow found my way into a job as a chef in health care. I still work a lot. There is still a lot of pressure. It's still hectic. But I somehow manage to work Monday through Friday. I'm home by 5 pm almost every day. I take holidays off. I get all the things that I always loved about the job in an environment that allows me to have a high level of normalcy in my life. I have somehow found the best of both world and literally feel like I should pinch myself some days. It's like a dream.

I'll give some version of this description to anyone talking about going into a career in the culinary world. Not to discourage them but to hopefully help them understand the reality and the gravity of the choice they are making. I tell them that if you love food and cooking, don't let that be your only reason behind going into it as a career. Anyone can love food and cooking and still enjoy it every day without making the sacrifices that being a professional chef demands. We can all enjoy the beauty and opportunities for creativity that food affords us.

Phở

I was born and raised in Billings. I left when I was 23 to live in the Seattle area. I spent 15 years there. I moved back to Billings 3 years ago to be closer to family and to explore different career options. I love Billings but there are many things I sorely miss about living in a large, culturally vibrant metropolis. The thing I miss most is the food, particularly the variety and accessibility of ethnic foods. There is one dish in particular that Molly and I missed, Phở.  Phở and phở restaurants have a special personal history for us.

One of the most popular dishes all over the west coast or anywhere there is a significant Vietnamese population now is phở, Vietnamese noodle soup (pronounced correctly it rhymes with "duh?"). There are small Vietnamese restaurants, usually in strip malls, all over the place solely dedicated to this amazing soup. I would find myself eating phở at least once a week in Seattle. When I moved back to Billings, Molly and I were going through major phở withdrawals. After a couple months I couldn't take it anymore and decided I had no other choice but to learn to make it myself.

Between researching different recipes, finding all the ingredients, and actually making the soup, it was a 3 day project, the cost of the meal was excessive, and the final product was mediocre at best. I didn't let that deter me. I just couldn't deal with living in a world with no phở. My affection for this soup is that severe. Every few months I attempted another batch. Each time, the production got a little smoother and the soup a little better. The soup I make now is as good as any I have had in any family owned Vietnamese restaurant.

Most phở restaurants deal in high volume and make their broth in very large batches. This is how they manage to make it and sell it so cheaply. Making this at home is a big project and the initial investment in all the ingredients can be costly but the results are fantastic.

To make 4 large bowls of soup... 

 

Here is what you need

For the Broth

4-5 lbs Beef marrow bones (I add in 1 lb of oxtails for extra flavor and the yummy meat that comes off)
2 medium onions
4 oz. fresh whole ginger root
6 whole cloves
6 whole star anise
2 cinnamon sticks
1/4 tsp. cardamom seed
1 tsp whole coriander seed
2 oz yellow rock sugar (white sugar if not available)
1/2 cup fish sauce
Salt to taste

For the Soup

1 lb lean steak (sirloin or round steak)
1 package Bahn phở (rice flour noodles)
1 bunch green onion                       sliced thin
Fresh cilantro                                  finely chopped

The Extras

1 lime cut into wedges
Thai chili peppers (use jalapeno if unavailable)     slice thin
1/2 lb bean sprouts
Fresh Thai basil (sweet basil if unavailable)
Sriracha sauce
Hoisin sauce

Here is what you do

Char your onions and ginger

Slice the ginger legth-wise and your onion in half across the grain leaving the outside peel on both. You can either char under the broiler in your oven or on your outdoor gas grill. Char both sides of the onion and ginger thoroughly. Set aside. Remove excessively burnt areas before adding to the broth.

Warm the spices

Put the cloves, star anise, coriander, cardamon seed, and cinnamon in a small saute pan and heat over medium heat until they become slightly toasted and aromatic. Set aside.

Parboil the bones

The bones are the most important ingredient. Finding good marrow bones can sometimes be difficult and can require trips to several different grocery stores and butcher shops. I look for good bones every time I go to the store now and save them in the freezer. When I have found enough, I know it's time to make phở again. The more exposed marrow in the bones the better. Marrow = flavor.

Par-boil the bones: Place your bones in a large stock pot and cover with cold water. Heat to a boil and allow the bones to boil for 3-5 minutes. Pour the bones into a colander, rinse the bones and the stock pot and return the bones to the pot. This process will remove the majority of impurities from the bones. Don't worry about losing flavor in this process. It's takes hours of simmering to get the real flavor from the bones.

Prepare the stock

Add the charred onion and ginger, along with the bones, to the stock pot. Cover with fresh water (approx. 1 gallon) place over high heat and bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. In the first 15 minutes of cooking you will see a greyish foamy scum form at the surface. As this develops remove the scum with a ladle. When the scum stops forming add the spices, the yellow rock sugar, and the fish sauce. Allow the broth to simmer for 1 hr and adjust taste with additional sugar, fish sauce, and salt as needed. Allow broth to simmer for additional 2 hrs. After 3 hours you will have removed all the flavor from the bones. Strain the broth through a colander into large container to remove the bones and other ingredients. Remove any usable meat from the bones and oxtail if you used them. Pour the broth through a fine mesh sieve. You may want to do this several times. You want the broth to be as clear and clean as possible. Return to heat.

Slice the Meat

Wrap your fresh raw beef in plastic wrap and place in freezer until it is partially frozen. This will make it easier to slice very thin. Remove plastic wrap and slice across the grain as thin as possible. Set aside.

Many other types of meat can and are used in phở. Flank. Tendon. Well-done brisket. Tripe. Special meatballs (I've never made them but you can find them at a good Asian market and they are magical). Today I'm actually adding some beef from some tenderloin chains that I found leftover in my freezer in addition to the raw sirloin and the oxtail. 

Cook the noodles

Place bahn phở noodles in a large bowl and cover with hot tap water. Soak for 15 minutes. Drain. Submerge pre-soaked noodles in boiling water for 30 seconds. Strain and transfer noodles immediately to prepared soup bowls.

Prepare the bowls

You will need large Asian soup bowl. Put hot water in the bowls to heat them and then remove water before adding noodles, broth, and other ingredients. A cold soup bowl will steal precious heat from the soup. We will be adding a lot of goodies to the soup and we need it as hot as possible.

Add noodles, green onions, fresh cilantro, both well-done and thin slice raw beef. Pour boiling hot broth over all of it. The hot broth will cook the raw beef.

Customize your bowl with fresh lime, peppers, bean sprouts, and Thai basil. A lot of people like to add the hoisin and sriracha directly to the soup. I personally like to add a little sriracha to the soup for heat and leave the hoisin on the side to dip my meaty bits into. I've spent all day crafting an amazing broth and I don't want to mask it.

 Grab your spoon and chop sticks and enjoy! (Forks are lame!!!)

 

Just Another Food Blog

My name is Paul and I'm a cook. I love to cook. I've been doing it professionally since I was 17 years old. I'm 40 now and running the kitchen at Billings Clinic hospital in my hometown, Billings, MT. I love kitchens. I love the things that make a kitchen a kitchen: the stoves; the grills; the steamers; the mixers; the utensils; the knives; the pots and pans; the people; and of course the food.

This blog is my attempt to share my experiences in the world of food, both professionally and personally.  We'll be spending a lot of time in my favorite kitchen (the one in my home) with my favorite cook (my sweet wife, Molly). We'll share some recipes we love and our attempts at new dishes. Also, I'll try to give solid useful advice for making the home kitchen more functional for the average cook.

I'll take you to the hospital kitchen and see what happens in a large, high volume, institutional kitchen. We feed patients, visitors, doctors, nurses, and all the other people that make a hospital run. It's a huge operation that is full of challenges everyday. We'll meet some of the cooks and others that make it all come together.

We'll explore the food culture Billings. We'll take a look at which restaurants are doing it right and which aren't. We'll look at the local markets and where you can find the hard to find stuff. It isn't always easy finding everything you want in Billings, but it is growing and changing all the time.


Hopefully some people will find this blog useful and possibly entertaining.