Do chefs use other people's Recipes

[rocktrns]

When chefs make up a new food do they use other peoples recipes and find put there own twist on it?
When I cook I use Recipes off of line and put my own twist on the recipe is this considerd creative or do chefs figure out the ingredient amounts them selves .  How can I learn to be a chef and is following recipes off the internet considered amateurish?
BTW I want to go to culinary school once I get Graduate from high school in 2011.

 

[petemccracken]

Travis,

For a "leg up" for culinary school, get a job, even dishwasher, in a restaurant near you, NOT FAST FOOD, but a "real" restaurant, so you can experience first-hand what it is like in th business.

 

[petemccracken]

IMHO, VERY few chefs create new dishes. The majority of the restaurant business is reproducing identical dishes in a fast, efficient manner with an extremely high degree of consistency.

 

[gunnar]

Chefs have been using some of the same recipes and giving them a twist since the dawn of cooking. One caveman made oysters on the clubbed shell..then some innovative caveman added clubbed lemon squeeze.

It's been made or done and forgotten and remade again.......so what? people still have to eat.

if you haven't tried it then it's worth trying (within reason). Taking recipes off the internet is only amatuerish if you can't spot obvious flaws, no binder for doughs in a bread recipe, too much salt or other spice on another dish.

Take Pete's advice and get a real job in a real kitchen, then see if you have the call for culinary school.

 

[nichole]

I agree with our chefs here.  Restaurants usually serve a variation of a dish, so you are right about the "added twist".  Incidentally, I am not a chef but learned how to cook by watching our chefs in action

 

[rocktrns]

ok thanks well I been calling all over for internships ,and they have them at long horn,and outback steak house,and other restaurants,but they keep saying I have to be 18,and i'm only 17.

 

[leeniek]

Can you get in as a bus person or dishwasher?  My daughter is only 14 and she works at the same place as I do busing tables.  One of her friends is the same age as her and she works as a dishwasher at another place in town.   I know you want to be in the kitchen, but if they have the rule that you have to be 18 before they will consider you, then try another way of getting yourself in the door.

 

[gunnar]

Who said anything about an internship? get a JOB. who said Outback? they will teach you to grill and make salads and open sauce packs from the boil-in-a-bag-maker.

Contact Country Clubs, and Restaurants. not cheap chain food places but real Restaurants. Even a small independent can teach you some excellent dishes and cooking techniques.  Look at Yelp to find a good restaurant near you.

 

[eastshores]

To me, I consider a cook/chef to be accomplished when they do have enough experience to create a dish on their own. Since humans have been cooking for thousands of years, there aren't a whole lot of techniques that are really "new", but I suppose that's why the whole molecular gastronomy fad gets some attention, until recently that hadn't been done to the degree it is now, even though cooking has always involved some degree of alchemy.


One of the reasons I fell in love with cooking, was the fact that it is both technical and artistic. You cannot escape the fact that composing a dish is much like composing any other piece of art, striving for balance in textures, flavors, and colors. At the same time, one can imagine beautiful artwork in their mind, and without the technical knowledge of how to execute that vision, nothing will come of it.

Much like an artist must practice their technique, sketching thousands of times, trying new approaches, new paints, new canvas, new types of lenses or film, etc. you must practice. This is to me where a recipe can help, it gives you a framework to start with, but you shouldn't limit yourself at all to that framework. Study a recipe and ask yourself "why is this successful, what techniques are required to make it successful?". Over time, you will have enough knowledge to construct your own frameworks and when you have, your creativity can really be unleashed.

 

[shroomgirl]

When we talk, we typically talk proportions or lists of ingredients or techniques....most cook's recipes for other cooks are short.  It takes into account that you know how to blanch, saute, roast, peel, cool, fold etc....there are typically few descriptions of techniques. 

Seasoning, how you use salt, how you garnish, how you combine ingredients are all individual....if you had 7 different chefs that I'm familiar with I could (probably) in a blind tasting pick out each's dishes. 

If you look at Cape Chef's dishes, Kuans, Nickos, mine, etc they'd be different....the first three were classically trained and have serious tall white hat cred....but they'd all be distinctive to that chef/cook.

 

[chefbillyb]

No, I invented, meatloaf, Lasagna, beef stroganoff, Hamburgers, Tacos, fried chicken, and many, many, other items......................Ok, I lied, I stole them from the diner across town, darn, the cat is out of the bag.............Chef Bill

---

 

[brudie1]

I have never heard of proffesional chefs stealing each others recipes' I have been in the trade for nearly 40 years. retired 4 years, but keep my hand in

 

[foodpump]

whoa! What a blast from the past--2010 or thereabouts, eh?

 

[chefross]

I have never heard of proffesional chefs stealing each others recipes' I have been in the trade for nearly 40 years. retired 4 years, but keep my hand in

Hey Brudie1 and welcome to Cheftalk.

40 years and NEVER heard of Chefs stealing recipes eh?
You must have been working on another planet then. It happens all the time.

 

[retiredbaker]

We never used recipes, we knew how to cook.
Baking was completely different, always rigorous attention to measurements.

 

[foodpump]

We never used recipes, we knew how to cook.

No profitable well run kitchen can use that advice.

In terms of consistency ( and staff interchangeability) you need to measure put your ingredients- regardless if for a tartar sauce, a leek and potato soup, or a braised pork shoulder.

By measuring I mean scaling out--using a scale, since all of your ingredients are sold by weight anyway. A profitable, well run kitchen will cost out each and every recipie before being implimented.

 

[retiredbaker]

Every French restaurant I was in worked like that.
If every last ounce must be accounted for its because they're doing something impractical somewhere else. Sometimes its not the kitchen its too many managers.

 

[foodpump]

Ounces in French restaurants???
You do know that Napoleon caused the system to be developed, right?
And after it was developed, anyone who didn’t use it got to “ experience” the guillotine firsthand....

No, recipies are written with weights for ingredients for two reasons, and both of them have nothing to do with “ impracticality” or “ too many managers”.

The first reason is consistency. With ingredients given in weight there is no excuse for ten different cooks to execute the same recipie with little to no variation in taste or consistency.

The second reason is that a well run kitchen should be able to effectively cost out a sauce or dish.

The only way to do this is to calculate a cost per kg. for each ingredient purchased and then multiply this number by the weight of said ingredient used in the recipie. So, for instance, Gruyere cheese is purchased in 2 kg [email protected] $40.00 which means that it costs $20.00/ kg, and the recipie uses 150 grams, so the cost for Gruyere is $3.00, and now on to the next ingredient.
You can’t cost out “ by feel”, everything has to be weighed out, but ESPECIALLY MEATS/PROTEINS.

Sorry about the caps.....

 

[foodpump]

Umm... Napoleon caused the METRIC system to be developed...

 

[retiredbaker]

Ounces in French restaurants???
You do know that Napoleon caused the system to be developed, right?
And after it was developed, anyone who didn’t use it got to “ experience” the guillotine firsthand....

No, recipies are written with weights for ingredients for two reasons, and both of them have nothing to do with “ impracticality” or “ too many managers”.

The first reason is consistency. With ingredients given in weight there is no excuse for ten different cooks to execute the same recipie with little to no variation in taste or consistency.

The second reason is that a well run kitchen should be able to effectively cost out a sauce or dish.

The only way to do this is to calculate a cost per kg. for each ingredient purchased and then multiply this number by the weight of said ingredient used in the recipie. So, for instance, Gruyere cheese is purchased in 2 kg [email protected] $40.00 which means that it costs $20.00/ kg, and the recipie uses 150 grams, so the cost for Gruyere is $3.00, and now on to the next ingredient.
You can’t cost out “ by feel”, everything has to be weighed out, but ESPECIALLY MEATS/PROTEINS.

Sorry about the caps.....

yeh I worked as pastry chef in a place like that before I retired, modern American cuisine.
Sky restaurant, norwood ma. Closed permanently due to covid now.
The cooks couldn't actually cook, they followed directions, they did that well but the food was overly fussy, over reaching, ambitiously convoluted but impractical.
They were selling food vs selling the skill of the chef.
I liked the chef, very productive but he couldn't make pate, didn't know what a panade was.
I've seen a lot of that.