Information about the Korean Menu Days 4+5

Hi, everyone. Here's the heads up for typical questions and common problems for the first day of the Korean menu. Read all of the recipes, watch all of the videos, make a bunch of notes, distill them down into a few questions and post them here. PLEASE feel free to try to help each other answer questions and give advice. If it's inaccurate, I'll chime in between 8-9 and let you know. I will be with you on Tuesday, Day 5, and expect you all to be ready to follow the menu as shown in the website.

Sous chefs:

Spicy Beef Soup - broth should already made and beef already cooked. Make sure we have enough for 2 days - we make the same soup both days this menu, talk to me if you don't have enough broth or meat.

Rice - Medium Grain rice. The tracking schedule says to make 12 cups, but you should make 16. This needs to be soaked for one hour before cooking, other wise, treat it like the Chinese rice. The result will be a lot more sticky than the Chinese rice - so don't freak out when you see it. You still have to fluff it and rest it.

Salads/Kimchi - This will be a 6" round plate like we used for the Dim Sum, with small portions of each item on the plate - a "sampler".

Sous Chefs should make the daikon salad and delegate the spinach salad and soy bean sprout salad to teams 2+4 = 1x the recipe for each salad. Team 5 should make the scallion salad - 3x the recipe with the expectation that 1/2 will go on the salad/kimchi plate and the other 1/2 will be served with their grilled beef.

The Kimchi is already made and in the cooler. Last class made it for you and you'll make it for the next class. There should be cucumber, radish, and cabbage kimchi in the cooler. The teams assigned to "set" the kimchis will take some out, allow me to show them how to cut/prep it for service/ All salads and Kimchis should be in individual 1/6th pans, together on one sheet tray, ready to plate by 10:30. The station set up for plating should look like this:

From Korean Menu Day 4

and the finished plate should look like this:

From Korean Menu Day 4

Sous chefs will only need to draw a diagram for the salad/kimchi station and the steam table. The steam table set up will be minimal - only the Rice, the Stir Fried Noodles, and the Braised Short Ribs will go there. All other items will be plated from the stations producing them. Steam table looks like this:

From Korean Menu Day 4

Station 2 - Half of the short ribs coming from the meat room are for you and the other half for team 5. Let T5 have the most meaty ones. the recipe on this dish works well, all you need from is a demo on how to cut them - it varies from week to week, depending on the ribs, so ask first thing in the morning. "Set KimChi" just means that you take the kimchi out of the cooler, get a knife, board, gloves, and 1/6th pan and ask chef what to do. See Kimchi set-up photo above.Do this early.
Miso pickles - the recipe is in the Japanese section, if you don't have time on Day 4, it can be done on Day 5 - BUT IT MUST BE DONE. There may be Miso Pickles in the cooler from last block. If so, they will be good next week, but you should still make a batch for practice and also for the following block.

Station 3 - Be prepared to make both the trout and the glass noodles. You take care of ALL MEP for the trout and be ready to plate from the fry area, cooking the fish ala minute during service. Make sure to watch the video on fish fabrication and to draw a complete and detailed physical diagram of how your fry station will be set up. Show where everything will be in place and label each item. The trout is served on an oval plate, the noodles served from the steam table in a deep noodle bowl. Set the noodle MEP up in 4 batches to fire as needed.

Station 4 - You will get 6 small Cornish hens. Make your liquid early, make sure it's very flavorful, if you have liquid left over after service, bag and chill and use on Tuesday for Day 5. Choose the right sized pan to cook them in - a rondo just big enough to fit the hens. Hens must be poached between 165-180F - no boiling! Make the liquid-par cook the rice, cool and mix with other ingredients, stuff and truss hens, start cooking them by 9:30. While hens are cooking, make poached garlic heads and other garnishes. It works best to poach the hens on top of the regular range and, when they hit 165F internal temp, hold them in a water bath in a wok of hot water. You can set up your plates, utensils, and garnishes nest to that wok and plate from there. "Set KimChi" just means that you take the kimchi out of the cooler, get a knife, board, gloves, and 1/6th pan and ask me what to do. Do this early. Pickled ginger recipe is in the Japanese section - check thinnss of ginger slcies with chef before you go too far along. Make it on either Day 4 OR Day 5 - but make sure it gets made.

Station 5- You will be sharing the grill with Station 6, space will be tight. You will be grilling thin pieces of marinated beef and plating them ala minute onto 12" round plates with rice, a small ramekin of Korean pepper sauce, scallion salad, and placing 3 pieces of beef onto leaves of cabbage lined with shiso leaves. Here's what ONE set looks like, you'll need 3 per plate.

From Korea

Since you'll be plating from the grill station, set up a chaffing dish to hold your rice. You can share this chaffing dish with station 6 -1/2 hotel pan for your rice - 1/2 hotel pan for their "mixed grains". Station set-up will be important, draw a diagram of what your station will look like - where everything will be, be as detailed as possible with you drawing - label everything so you know what goes where BEFORE you start setting up. "Set KimChi" just means that you take the kimchi out of the cooler, get a knife, board, gloves, and 1/6th pan and cut to the size/shape shown in the photos above. Do this early.

Station 6 - You will be plating from your station. the recipes are all pretty detailed and the videos are accurate, except, when making the pancakes, you will use a flat griddle set over the left side of the grill instead of the cast iron pan shown in the video. Since you'll be plating from your station, set up a chaffing dish to hold your "mixed grains". You can share this chaffing dish with station 5 -1/2 hotel pan for your grains - 1/2 hotel pan for their rice.For Day 5 Tasting, the try should look like this

From Korea