Cooking With Leeks

I just received an email from Carolyn who asked, “Can I use leeks interchangeably with onions in vegetable soup? I never use leeks. I heard that get slimey. thanks, carol”

My response to Carol is yes you can. Leeks are in the same family as onions and in my humble opinion they are one of the most underrated vegetables readily available. I love leeks and the flavor they add to a dish. In fact, whatever you are making might taste even better than with onions.

Be sure to use only the white and light green parts of the leek. They can be very sandy, so cut off the root end and the tough dark green parts, slice them right down the center longways and then into little half moons.

Break all the layers apart and dunk and swish into cold, deep water in a clean sink. The sand will fall to the bottom of the sink and you will be left with clean leeks. It has not been my experience that leeks get slimy, so you shouldn’t have to worry about that.

Here are a few recipes posted on my site that use leeks:

Beef Stew

Pan Roasted Veal Chops

Sweet Potato Vichyssoise

Recently I received an email from Annelie B. asking, “I was out for dinner - we had tomato soup baked with pastry on top - how do I do that? ”

So I asked my friend Chef Jennifer Field what she would do and her reply is below. I thought it was interesting that she gave the ingredients to me in grams and not ounces. I asked Chef Jenni about this and will offer you her response in an upcoming blog. I have included the conversions to exact measurements but I would round them off if I were making this but we will learn more about that in Chef Jenni’s response.

“Spooning down through a pastry crust to get to the tomato soup underneath–sounds like a winner! And easy to do at home, as well. You can either make a savory pie crust yourself….

Ingredients

420 g (14.82 oz.) all purpose flour
10 g (0.35 oz.) salt
200 g (7.05oz.) butter
4 oz. cold water.

How to Make a Pastry Crust For Tomato Soup

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Mix flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in butter with your fingers until the flour is very mealy and you can’t see individual pieces of butter. Do this quickly–you want to keep things cold so you don’t end up making paste.

Put 2-3 ice cubes in your water, then drizzle in about 1 oz. of water at a time. In between drizzles, toss the flour with the water to evenly distribute it. When you get about 3 1/2 oz. of water incorporated, test it by squeezing a bit of the dough together (it won’t look like dough until you squeeze it). If it’s not staying together, add the rest of the water. If it is staying together, resist the urge to add more water and compress the dough into a disc. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roll between two sheets of parchment to about 1/8 - 1/4 inch thick. Cut to fit over your soup crock, and press the edges down around the crock with hot soup in it. Brush with 1 egg beaten with 2 teaspoons of water.

Bake at 325 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and delicious. For an added treat, sprinkle a layer of cheese on top of the soup before you put on the crust, or grate on some cheese during the last 5 minutes of baking.

…or,if that seems way too much like work, and I wouldn’t much blame you if it does, use frozen ready-made puff pastry, available in the freezer aisle. Thaw it in the fridge overnight, cut to fit and bake according to the package directions.”

Yay, soup!

Interview with Chef Martin Laprise

For those of you who are thinking of opening and running your own restaurant some day will enjoy this bit of advice from Chef Martin Laprise, author of My Daughter Wants to Be A Chef.

Chef Laprise is one of those chefs who has seen it all. He has been employed in 24 of the 39 venues a professional chef can expect to work as described in his book. It is a great read if you or your child is thinking of attending culinary arts school.

Martin, now a professional caterer and personal cooking instructor in Canada participated in my Novice2Pro chef interview that can be seen at Interview with Chef Martin Laprise. This is another great interview for prospective young chefs thinking of cooking school.

At the end of my interview with Chef Martin, I asked him if he had any comments or advice related to managing a restaurant and here is his informative reply.

If you are going to have a restaurant one day, do your homework first. Here’s some advice I passed on to a friend of mine last month about running a successful restaurant.

1. Train and coach your staff well so when you its your day off they still perform accordingly. NO RESTAURATOR can do it alone.
2. Although this is your own unique concept, as soon as you open your restaurant, create your business as if someone else would take over one day. Think like a franchise.  That way when you want to slowdown and have a life with your child, you have a system and rules for everything. OR if you want to sell the business and travel the world, it’s easier once you have system in place. Think TURN KEY.
3. Empower all your employees to make decisions and not rely on you every times. Do not discourage them if they screw up, try to explain to them the best you can.
4. Reward your cooks by letting them create a special of the day and/or create an item for the new menu. Everyone likes to be part of things. A cook who feels part of something will stay longer. Ask for their opinions once in while so they will feel important and happy to work for you.
5. The schedule is the BEST tool you have in the kitchen or in the front. It’s a great reward to give a flexible schedule to your staff so that they can have a life or a hubby. Employees are there to help you realize your goal. Figure out what is best for everyone.  4 days a week for 10 hours for someone may not be suitable for someone else. Talk to everyone and make the schedule that best fits everyone’s needs. Example; young cooks like to party, where old cook like to be with their spouse on special occasions. ADJUST!
6. You are now a restaurant owner, wow, BUT don’t forget to think about when you were an employee and how it made you feel when the boss did not listen to any of your advices. Listen to your staff; NO REALLY listen to all of your staff, including dishwashers. They see things that you don’t. You only have two hands and two eyes! Create a system and environment that promote opinion sharing. Like a meal between lunch and dinner service with all the staff so everyone can talk about ideas and how to improve. This will create a great TEAM environment and cost very little long term. 
7.  The front of the house servers will benefit from having educational wine tasting once in while and enjoy the experience AND stay longer.
8. Don’t make one person work 60 hours a week when you can hire one and half workers instead. I know that the labor market is toughf, but it can be done. People that are over worked don’t perform well and may cost you some future clients. You ultimately control who works and how much! Even if someone wants to work overtime, don’t do it. For cost and for the employee.
9. Follow up is the most important action in any business. Example; when you say to an employee I will talk to you tomorrow, talk about it the very next day. When you say we will talk about a raise in two months, don’t avoid it. Make sure to have a talk two months to the day even if it is to say I can’t talk right now for X or Y reasons
10. If you give direction to any employees, you absolutely need to follow up to see if it was done right or done at all. If an employee who knows that you don’t follow up is more likely to screw up.
11. Customer service is extremely important. If you know that a table has waited a bit too long, send a glass of something to the table. A few dollars is much cheaper than a bad review from a client. Find a drink or food that is your signature to offer when things get busy. 
12.  All recipes, food or drink, should be written down and standard every time. 
13.  Since you are in the middle of wine country, if I were you, I would do wine tasting once a month. Something like the second Wednesday of each month. Stick with it and one day it will be packed. Have wine maker as guest! 
14. Press releases are simple. Tell your story about how you got there and you should get free press. Don’t ever sell your restaurant, sell you journey to media.
15. Press releases are very powerful! Wait until you are ready to handle lots of people. Make sure to send it to all media nationwide, not just local media.
16. Don’t cut down on quality ever and dessert is extremely important, as this is the last thing the client sees before the bad news/the bill.
17. No matter how much I like to cook duck, if the local market does not want to eat duck I have to accept that I will cook something else to make a living.
18. Hire people for who they are, not what they know. You can teach someone to be a better cook or server, BUT you can’t teach someone to be a better well adjusted human being. Choose people for their personality and teach them what you want.
19. Reward your employees for doing a good job.
20. Support your small community by giving out dinners to charity, you will get free press for it and feel good too.
21. An employee will never have the same commitment as you, period… This is your life, and it’s only a job for your best employee. Eventually, to make someone assistant manager is a smart move that will allow you to have a life of your own. 

If you are interested in reading more about running your own restaurant, I have found 3 ebooks on the subject that might be helpful. I have not read these ebooks yet because I am not thinking of opening my own restaurant but they might be something to check out if you are.

Top Secrets to Successful Restaurant Operations

Restaurant Management Toolkit 

How to Improve Dining Room Service 

and then there is this Restaurant News Service you can subscribe to called Restaurant News