Prep speed norms of the pros?

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LifeByA1000Cuts

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OK,

I have a question that I suspect a lot of people that can't quite lose the thought of someday going pro -and want practice targets not pipe dreams- have on their mental back burner:

Are there standards in the pro world as to what is considered inadequate, adequate, excellent prep speed (as in x onions, y hokkaido squashes, z bell peppers an hour)? What is considered acceptable/inacceptable waste to exchange for speed (using vs not using bell pepper tops and bottoms, wasting or not wasting root end of onion etc)? How much more efficient can one assume a pro environment to be, compared to a home kitchen, wrt waste and rinse water management, clean-dirty hands management, storage, prep bowl management (I noticed these things actually are significant time sinks at home, also and especially when working clean-as-you-go)?

I am aware that sounds like an exam question, but it is actually the things that keep me wondering in recent times...
 
In a well run pro kitchen there isn't much waste . The root end of onions and carrots and such are made into soup stock. I have know idea how many onion per your because everything is done pounds or quarts or or gallons. in an hour 200lbs of onions wouldn't be hard. I have never been in a kitchen were you had to manage water. Dishwasher take care of dirty dishes so you don't really send time there. The more organized the kitchen is the more efficient it will be
 
100 kilos in an hour... holy... that leaves you with maybe 5 seconds per onion... impressive even if you set up your station entirely optimal to the task of processing boatloads of onions... I guess anything that would need paring out bad spots, proves hard to peel, gets cut wrong... flies in the soup stock or even waste bin in a high arc?
 
If your thinking about being a pro these are the wrong questions to ask yourself. The reality is you're gonna be slow at first. Really slow. The questions you should concern yourself with is can I actually do the job. Can I work the long, odd hours? Can I take the relentless heat and tickets? Can I accept low wages? Can I show up every day, even if I have a sniffle? All the rest will come with time and repetition if your dedeicated. IMO
 
Joshsy81 nailed it. Those are the questions you need to ask yourself and also you can kiss your holidays goodbye.
 
I assumed given that my interest would be in a somewhat alternative scene (some might have guessed from other posts) that it implies starting in smaller places, smaller teams but with more responsibility for not getting in your own way from the start...
 
The speed metric is, get your sh*t done before service, next day prep gotta be done before end of your shift as well.
What does alternative scene mean? Smaller the place just means fewer staff which equates to even more work required.

There's more to the industry, you'll also be scrubbing/mopping floors, washing mats, taking out 50gallon trash cans, deep cleaning equipment maybe even including the ventilation hoods (awful task). Unclogging drains, etc it's a dirty job
 
@panda in Europe at least, vegetarian/vegan-oriented cafes aren't exactly a shrinking thing, and likely won't be for a while... and it seems that cafes are comparatively easy entry (non-pro acquaintances have been offered positions) but indeed a small-team, brutal-responsibility affair...
 
nothing wrong with a grab n go shop (except for the vegan part haha), but that's BEYOND different from a pro line cook environment. you'll see maybe 5% of what goes on in an actual kitchen.
 
Is there less of a culture of cafes with lunch and sometimes dinner service (seated, not that much takeaway happening), often quite good but keeping the menu trim and varied, and often catering to work lunchers in the neighborhood, around in the US? That is more the environment I was looking at, and it certainly is professional (as in, people make it their job). Is it the wrong environment to try and start in if one loves recipe design, physically active work, and a fair amount of responsibility?
 
As far as knife work goes, if you have the basic technique down and are safe and comfortable with it, speed will come quickly. It is all about muscle memory. How many pounds of onions does a home cook go through in a year? Imagine doing that quantity each day or every few days in a commercial kitchen. Breaking down whole chickens, once you do 30 or more at a single time you wont ever forget how to do it quickly (like riding a bicycle).

You have to have a passion for cooking to want to step into it. There are a lot of aspects of the job that I really love but it is physically demanding with often fairly low pay.

Cheers and best of luck,
rj
 
In big kitchen you needs to be fast for delivery a big amount of food, less attention in the details.
Small kitchen are more focus in the waist of food and in the precision of the final product.
Anyway you have always to be fast, clean, smart, strong 💪, creative and accept **** salary and many times willing to work with dick face that believe are the best chefs.

We delivery food at the end of the day. That it!!
 
If you're talking about cut throat line cooking in a small place it takes thinking to succeed each day. Speed helps but knowing how much prep to produce on a daily to get you not over the current days service but into the next day. How long can one sauce go? Which garnishes hold up best over time? Where can you cheat, and which dish/items are most important to your chef to keep you out of the prying eye during station check.

Small kitchen=you might do all your prep

Large kitchen = you might only do about 1/2 the prep as you have a day time prep/sauce person(s) in which case it's really just how fast you can cook on the line and keep up with tickets

Honestly knife work is only about 25% of it unless you are that AM prep cook, in which case it's like 75% of your life. Pro line cooking is all about service. Tickets and sautée pans and heat.
 
@skewed safe? yes. But that is because I am too darn measured and second guessy, often envious of these that seem to be able to just thrash their edge at something at a speed where it seems impossible to stop the thrashing in time if something unexpected happens... So one could think of the speed in pro as a parallel dimension to the safe agility one gets with serious home cooking? Feeling so dog slow with often taking an hour total prep (clean counter to clean counter with a mise en place on it) for even a 12 inch wok full of a non-trivial braised dish (step-cooked of course, not crowding the pan :). And it seems that a more of that time is spent dealing with garlic skins, mushroom gills, chili seeds, broccoli dust, washwater ... on the board than using a knife... and cleaning a big board just takes... thanks for helping me think, one problem probably identified, out to get a board scraper and wide flat container tomorrow :)
 
Proper left hand technique is where safe speed comes from. It's a shame that the Japanese Knife Society negi video isn't still up, it showed how to guide the knife very well. If your left hand technique is good and your knife is sharp you can go pretty damn fast without hurting product, your fingers, or your edge.

As far as getting up to speed before going into a busy professional environment, it is realistically not going to happen. You can't reasonably cut enough stuff at your house, a busy lunch spot with 60 seats could reasonably serve 165+ people in one service.

You will for sure be physically active, and will be held responsible for having your station completely stocked, staying ahead on preparing bases/sauces/other prep items without getting too far ahead and losing product, cleanliness, and organization, executing menu items quickly and uniformly every single time (even if you are hungry because you were too busy to eat,(I consider your physical wellbeing to be part of your mise, be ready with a snack for when your blood sugar crashes 3/4 of the way through services So you don't lose focus,there are still people to feed), tired because you went out drinking, or have to pee because you forgot, you would be shocked how many grown adults regularly forget to pee before service and start asking to get off the line as the orders begin to pile up) and for thinking about the rest of the week and working out cycles of activity so you stay ahead (a good sous or cdc helps teach you this).

As for recipe development, it is important to strike a balance between being a line cook and stretching your creativity. It is a sign of a good cook that they think about food, have creative ideas, and have input towards the menu that they are cooking. You have to remember that you are being paid to cook, first and foremost. Until you are pulling your weight within the team let the job tell you what to cook. Your time will come later. Keep working on stuff at home and bounce ideas off your coworkers and management so when you have made some progress you have a backlog of dishes to lay out. Having that backlog allows you to fake it till you make it on coming up with dishes on the fly. At the restaurant I cook at we accommodate vegetarian and vegan dietary restrictions by having our senior cooks come up with dishes, the good ones squirrel away components so they don't have to leave the line, the bad ones panic and go blank. I guess what I am trying to say is that a first time line cook should spend more time focusing on learning the building blocks to being a successful professional, and that there will be lots of time for getting cheffy later in your career.
 
Also after rereading your last post about mising a stir fry, it sounds like an organizational problem than a speed problem. Cut the first batch of veg, then as it cooks bang out the next quickly, cleaning as you go. Determining a reasonable order of operations is much more important than quick knife work.
 
Certainly starting to understand the emphasis on buying very fresh with the pros when thinking of all the 10 minute slots spent on sorting out and paring down produce that had gone "50% is still great, 50% is not"...
 
@life ... One thing i learned when moving from a "good" restaurant to a "great" one is that in the better kitchens you're scolded for having food waste on your board and having a dirty board. Putting parchment paper down over your board and then peeling all your onion scrap onto that and then discarding the whole lot of scrap and parchment is one fell swoop is much cleaner and efficient. Then you proceed to choppy chop on a nice clean board. While this isn't very financially reasonable in the household these are the sort of tricks we can do to be faster.
 
You can use pie tins or quarter sheets in place of parchment if you don't want to waste paper.
 
Dardeau said:
Proper left hand technique is where safe speed comes from. It's a shame that the Japanese Knife Society negi video isn't still up, it showed how to guide the knife very well. If your left hand technique is good and your knife is sharp you can go pretty damn fast without hurting product, your fingers, or your edge.

As far as getting up to speed before going into a busy professional environment, it is realistically not going to happen. You can't reasonably cut enough stuff at your house, a busy lunch spot with 60 seats could reasonably serve 165+ people in one service.

You will for sure be physically active, and will be held responsible for having your station completely stocked, staying ahead on preparing bases/sauces/other prep items without getting too far ahead and losing product, cleanliness, and organization, executing menu items quickly and uniformly every single time (even if you are hungry because you were too busy to eat,(I consider your physical wellbeing to be part of your mise, be ready with a snack for when your blood sugar crashes 3/4 of the way through services So you don't lose focus,there are still people to feed), tired because you went out drinking, or have to pee because you forgot, you would be shocked how many grown adults regularly forget to pee before service and start asking to get off the line as the orders begin to pile up) and for thinking about the rest of the week and working out cycles of activity so you stay ahead (a good sous or cdc helps teach you this).

As for recipe development, it is important to strike a balance between being a line cook and stretching your creativity. It is a sign of a good cook that they think about food, have creative ideas, and have input towards the menu that they are cooking. You have to remember that you are being paid to cook, first and foremost. Until you are pulling your weight within the team let the job tell you what to cook. Your time will come later. Keep working on stuff at home and bounce ideas off your coworkers and management so when you have made some progress you have a backlog of dishes to lay out. Having that backlog allows you to fake it till you make it on coming up with dishes on the fly. At the restaurant I cook at we accommodate vegetarian and vegan dietary restrictions by having our senior cooks come up with dishes, the good ones squirrel away components so they don't have to leave the line, the bad ones panic and go blank. I guess what I am trying to say is that a first time line cook should spend more time focusing on learning the building blocks to being a successful professional, and that there will be lots of time for getting cheffy later in your career.
Click to expand...


Dardeau, thank you for this insight and wisdom into the complexities of managing the BOH at the ten thousand foot level. This may be the most insightful post I've read all year. It's enough of an outline to write a book. Makes me ponder a ticket for two to New Orleans. That will happen sooner or later BTW. This is Oracle level knowledge.
 
Reading my own post again, I said the bad ones panic and blank. That should be not well trained. The bad ones don't get to senior spots, hopefully. And the ones that do, and have a hard time need help and training. The actual bad ones just don't care.
 
Also, I'm not that good at my job yet, note my other post on patience and not being an orifice.
 
Dude. I have the smallest bladder known to man. I REGULARLY peed before service, then danced from 7 on.

I once tried to go to the bathroom a half dozen times on a busy night, but it was always full of customers. Finally got in and then (after peeing) tweeted from the restaurant's account that, "I control the bathroom." and would open the door for money. A couple customers began slipping cash under the door.
 
fimbulvetr said:
Dude. I have the smallest bladder known to man. I REGULARLY peed before service, then danced from 7 on.

I once tried to go to the bathroom a half dozen times on a busy night, but it was always full of customers. Finally got in and then (after peeing) tweeted from the restaurant's account that, "I control the bathroom." and would open the door for money. A couple customers began slipping cash under the door.
Click to expand...

I'm the same way. Bladder the size of Trump's brain.
 
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