Hi everyone, welcome to pot luck food talks. Today we're going to, what are we going to talk about today? What are we going to talk about today? Fuck ups, fuck ups in the kitchen just like we fucked up the intro for the episode. Fuck up situations. Mainly situations that apparently don't have a solution, that you're in the middle of the kitchen and you get to see that a lot. Chefs coming up with this crazy way of solving problems or just freestyling a solution that just out of pressure.
So remember this restaurant where we used to work, the one that we have mentioned so many times at the line? Yeah. Yeah, well I was outside checking my phone and a technician came to repair the vacuum packing machine. And he was like, okay, everybody listen, nobody should touch the machine in the next half an hour. And I didn't listen. So I went straight to the machine and I used it and I broke it. And Chef was like, he needed to pack his fish for service to cook it during service.
And he went completely mad and crazy like, I don't care how you do it, you repair that machine and you vacuum pack the fucking fish and blah, blah, blah. So I went back to the machine and I tried to figure out what was going on. So I checked and the frame, there was this rubber that makes the vacuum work and it had like a little piece missing. And I was like, okay, this just needs something to fill the gap, you know?
So I went to the storage room, checked like for different whatever I could use and I found some matzi pan. And I just stick it in there and like, you know, like in five minutes the thing was repaired. But I remember this was like the situations of extreme pressure where you need to just like solve the impossible, you know?
Yeah, you just do it. Yeah. Like one example of that sort of thing is like, I remember working for the chef who when he got angry during service, he would do things to stitch you up. Right. So you would like turn off your ovens or you would like switch your like your fires around or your pots around. That's a classic, a classic from from an old school bully chef. It's great. And he did this one thing that I know that he learned from his mentor because I know because he told me about it himself.
And one day I was working the Sausage, the fish and meat section and sauces. And he took my, you know, he was having a rant at me. He was like, fuck are you doing? Get your shit together. But then he took my jus. Right. For people who don't know jus is a concentrated meat sauce, like a demi glace. It takes a really, really long time to make really long infusion and reduction of broth of brown stock.
And he just dumps it into the sink. And then we continue service and he keeps calling out orders for dishes that contain jus. So I'm sort of thinking like, well, what the fuck am I supposed to do now? And I know perfectly well that when he asked me, for example, for a meat dish and I don't give him the sauce to the past to plate, he's not going to be like, okay, we're not going to put sauce on because I threw it away.
He's going to give me shit because I don't have sauce, even though he threw it away. Right. Yeah, of course. That's how it works. So like what did I do? Like I straight away we had these like big hot plates. I put like four different pans down on it and I just went into the back and got some like brown stock and I just let the pans get ripping hot and I poured the stock from one pan, which obviously made like a big sort of like straight reduction.
And then it boils down, you pour it into the next hot pan, into the next hot pan, into the next hot pan and then you repeat it until you in a very short time have something sort of resembling a sauce. And I was like a little bit proud of myself in that moment, but at the same time, it's like really frustrating because essentially what you make is nowhere near as good as a sauce that you cook properly.
Yeah. Making a sauce, you put so much care and attention into it. You know, you skim it, you make sure it's the right temperature, you reduce it down, you know, you root all the stuff inside of this, roast it really carefully. But yeah, you know, it's this kind of example where you just you just do what you have to survive really. I have two more stories in mind and these two were like the two most difficult things I ever had to solve in the shortest period.
One was like I was in this small restaurant and like an embassy hired us to do a catering and they wanted to have this empanadas like this. How would you describe an empanada like a Galician empanada? It's like a dough pockets. Like a savory pastry. Yeah. Yeah. So just for this event, we had to buy some like some trays. So I went to the to a Turkish market near the restaurant and found this cheap aluminum trays I could use perfectly for this.
So I do my dough, my stew, everything. I prepare all the empanadas and I start to bake them. And it was like a short deadline. I had to deliver them in one hour. And there was not not a lot of maneuver frame or maneuver space to do anything. So I have everything ready. And OK, let's bake them. I tried to put them in the oven and the oven wouldn't close. This was like a real small restaurant. So these were like similar to house ovens with, you know, like the ones you have under the stove.
It didn't close because the shape of the tray was not compatible. And it was the thing was too big. And they just need like, you know, not much, like one more centimeter to close. But it wouldn't close. So it's impossible to bake something like that. Like it just won't work. And also, I just had like one hour time and this thing was losing temperature. You know, I have to solve this situation like right now.
So like every time I've been like in this kind of cases, it feels like a survival instinct. You know, like I start just looking around to see whatever I see first and how can I use it. And I'm also like super ultra focused. And there's a rush of adrenaline in the whole situation. And in this context, I was looking around and then I see the the rest of the dough that was on the table. And have you seen this medieval recipes where you have a pot and you sear it with dough on the borders like to.
That's the image that came to my mind. You know, and it was like, of course, I can sear the frame of the, you know, of the whole oven with dough. And I did the whole thing. It became like a bread, like a crust, you know, around the whole door of the oven. It was beautiful. Yeah. And it was like, like, like if nothing happened, you know, like everything was delivered on time. Nobody noticed anything. There you go. Yeah, it worked.
Like, I love that, you know, and it's like this feeling that you describe where you just kind of you just jump into survival mode, you know. I think that's like a really unique skill that chefs have. I mean, that not like that many other professions have, you know, this instant problem solving. And it's like because you have the pressure, you have the time pressure. You don't have like, oh, something doesn't work. OK, blah, I'm going to know.
It's like I need to get this in right now. And like, I think that's really cool. Yeah, that's a key attitude that I would say from which I distinguish an experienced chef from from a rookie. There's someone who would come and say like, yeah, I couldn't solve it, you know, like just tell them we can do anything. Yeah. I think like most of the times there is for sure something you can do. Absolutely. But and you want to tell another one or should I tell the most difficult one I ever had?
No, you go ahead. Go ahead. Man, this was crazy. And this was really like, OK, what the fuck can I do here? You know, like they hired me as a private chef and this was like a rafting expedition in the Amazonas. And these were like super high profile guests from like a Middle Eastern country monarchy. You know, they were traveling like these two princesses with their bodyguard, their rafting instructor, their private guides. And then there was this whole entourage where I was the private chef.
So they told me like, yeah, whenever we're going to arrive to a village and there you can buy local ingredients and stuff. And then there is like a two hour ride by car to the place where the rafting starts. And then we can. And I remember I was still in the city before traveling like to the rainforest. And I was thinking about this like, yeah, sure. You can buy things in that village. And I was like, no, man, I'm not risking it. I'm buying everything in the city.
I'm just going to be super safe because the thing is we had no refrigeration. So like you put everything like in a cooler with big blocks of ice and that will refrigerate the stuff for the three or four days that you're you're traveling. Right. So they told me, yeah, also, when you arrive to this village, you can buy like a big cube of ice, like, you know, like a kitchen size cube of ice. And I was like, OK, perfect. Well, that didn't happen. We arrived to the village.
First thing I see is like, you know, like like a cow's head with flies flying around and all of this like crappy, bad quality, whatever, like vegetables or stuff like nothing, nothing glamorous, nothing romantic about it. And I was like, OK, good. At least I had like I bought everything I needed, but I don't have any ice. I mean, there wasn't even gasoline in this village because it was smuggled because it was like it's a basic ingredient for cocaine production.
So it was illegal to have gasoline. Imagine that. So we arrived to this place where the thing would start like the trip would be like a four or five days trip. And I'm waiting, waiting, waiting until the because they would come after me. And when I arrived, there were like 20 people, you know, like building like this, whatever stuff like a grill and a place just to spend one night there.
You know, like but it was like this high profile trip. I'm waiting for the ice and the guides, they arrive and I ask them, OK, well, where's the ice? And he opens this cooler with just like a pool of water and three pieces of ice swimming on it. Amazing. And I look at him like, dude, and he was like, what? And he was like, what should we do? And I was like, cancel the trip. We're going to run out of food like on the third day for sure.
Like there is not enough food like for the four days without refrigeration or I mean, it's very risky. So I that that was like that survival mode. You were saying like the only thing you're thinking about is how to solve this. I was just thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking until I remember this was not something like that.
That took like five minutes. This was something like I realized the next morning when I woke up, I was like, of course, if we get living birds, we don't need to refrigerate them. So I asked someone, hey, there are some farmers there. There was like a house with a farmer and he was like grating chickens and ducks. And I was like, buy every bird he has, pay them whatever they ask for. And we bring them alive.
They will survive three days for sure before we kill them and and we cook them, you know, like they produce like the birds inside like a bag, you know, like, oh, here are the birds. It's crazy. Yeah. And so it was just before sailing, you know, just on the raft. It was like a rough trip and it was like, OK, perfect. Now we have food for the next few days. Then a few days later, I also asked the guides to fish stuff for me.
It was like a super crazy trip. Also, since I'm already telling this story, man, I had never killed an animal before. And it was like a super messy experience. I remember once reading, I think it was Magnus Nilsson. He had this story that he would teach his chefs how to kill a bird and blah, blah, blah. And yeah, I thought like as a chef, we eat birds and animals.
I think it's important to go through that experience at least once and understand what you're doing and that these things that they don't grow in the fridge, you know. And this was also like a super mess. There was this guy, like the one who told me how to do it. He was like, yeah, you take like the whole thing, like legs and wings, everything like in one bunch. So you have like the whole two legs and two wings and your fist, so to say. And you need to grab them really hard.
And then with a knife, you would cut the throat off and this thing would start bleeding and moving. And you should hold it, you know, while it's moving and your hand and shaking and going crazy, like for one minute. It takes a lot longer, you know. And he did it first. And then I was next. And while I did it, I did like the common beginner's mistake, like the wings got liberated. So I started like, you know, moving their wings like crazy and splattering blood all over the place.
It was super traumatic, man. And I remember also, you know, like, OK, you never do that with a bird, you know. But this was the situation. We need to take the feathers out and to cook it right away, you know. Like, and it was so, so strange to have like a kitchen and a chicken breast warm because it was still warm, you know. Of course, yeah. You usually associate this kind of thing with cold ingredients, you know.
And yeah, there are more stories from that trip, but I guess that's enough for this episode. Man, that sounds absolutely crazy. What an experience. That's like, I mean, that sounds like a trip where you have to solve like intense problems just the whole way through, you know. All the time. Yeah. I remember then when I got back to the city, they asked me, like, the place I was working, like, yeah, should we make a business out of this?
Like, should we, you know, like once in a while, send like a chef to the party to take care of this kind of thing? And I was like, man, it was one of the things where I was most challenged in my career, like problem solving wise. Like you said, like, man, you're in the job. You're super high profile clients and you need to solve three meals a day, you know. Sounds like you, I mean, like you found a solution, you know, like in the last moment. Yeah, those two were really epic.
What about your Mayo story and what was it like in a Japanese restaurant you were working in? Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that was less problem solving. That was more like a showcase of like the sort of no questions asked mindset that you develop. I was in a Japanese restaurant in London and I had just come from a very high profile restaurant. A very high profile Michelin star restaurant in Spain that's like very well known for unusual techniques and like creative approaches.
And it was a big jump because the restaurant in London, it was like much more casual. Right. And so like the chefs were also much more casual. They're great chefs, really, really good. But they like the vibe was very different. And I remember we had a really busy day and one of the chefs came to me and he was sort of like, hey, we still need to make some mayonnaise for service. And I was like, ah, and he was like, can you can you take care of it?
At that point, I was like a chef to party, you know, and I was like, oh, yeah, like I was super busy. But I was like, okay, come on, like I'll take care of it. And he was like, all right, I'll give you a recipe. And he gave me this recipe for this Japanese style mayo. And I was like, okay, so I'm getting everything together.
And so this guy comes to me and he's sort of like, oh, but by the way, the head chef, he wants us to do the mayonnaise with chopsticks because he says he likes the texture better. And I didn't even question it. You know, I just said to myself, all I was thinking is sort of like, well, that's it is what it is.
You know, and so I took these chopsticks like I clamped them between like my fingers, took them in like a sturdy grip and just started beating the shit out of the egg, you know, just like back, back, back, back, back, back. And I was like, I didn't have a lot of time, you know, it was like right before service. And I started most of the time the oil into this egg, like holding the bowl like on the angle with like a towel and just sort of like clamping these chopsticks in my hand and beating.
And I'm like halfway done when I look over and I see like the chefs like looking at me, just kind of like half like eyes open, half laughing. And I realized it was like a prank, you know, that they were sort of like, ah, but the funny thing was about the situation is that it was a prank because it's pretty impossible to do a mayonnaise with chopsticks, you know.
But I didn't question it. And I was just like, man, just fucking get on with it, you know, like just just get it done, just make it happen. And I did, you know, they were actually very like even though it was a it was a friendly jest, but they were in the end, they were actually very impressed that I managed to pull it off, you know. You remind me of another story that also involves whisking. But in this case was the whipped cream.
So there is this guy like super enthusiastic and he needed to whisk some cream for dessert. You know, these typical strawberries and cream dessert. And he he started like, you know, like making a real mess, like with the bowl and the whisk and plaka, plaka, plaka, plaka, plaka, plaka and spattering all around with cream. And the chef is like it was a sous chef, like, hey, what are you doing?
Like to that in the sink, and what he means is go with the whole thing, you know, like the bowl and the whisk in the sink and do it there. do it there so when it splashes it would be you know in a controlled environment.
And at that moment the guy was talking to me directly and as he's talking we started listening to the thing that he was doing like paka paka paka paka paka now was like plaka plaka plaka and the sound we just recognized that he had poured the whole cream on the sink and was you know like making this big square whisking technique right. Yeah I was laughing like for for hours man it was so funny. Oh my god that's hilarious.
That's so hilarious I can just see it I can hear the sound also like it's my imagination. Plaka plaka plaka. Ah yeah that's really funny. That's it for this week's episode of potluck food talks. If you like what we're doing make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Instagram and Tik Tok as potluck food talks. The show airs every Monday.