Student Blog- Sebastian Week 2: Hygiene Safety and the First Dish

Since I had dawdled a bit, I wanted to make up for the lost time and was, rightly, slowed down. The deepening in personal hygiene with disease symptoms and transmission routes is not taken lightly.  At the latest after the second failed attempt, you go through the lesson again thoroughly and make extensive notes.  I finally made it in the third attempt. The lesson is comparable to the instruction by the health authority in Germany and is not one of my personal highlights.     It’s definitely important, especially when cooking shows show chefs   stripping hair out of their faces  or  scratching their noses and then continuing to work,   the topic cannot be dealt with often enough.

Attention – dangerous and sharp
The handling of hazardous substances, especially cleaning agents and pest control are also discussed.  Both important topics that require some attention and where the subsequent test  must  be passed.

Then the knife is finally sharpened, in the truest sense of the word. How to grind   and hold the knife correctly, which knife is suitable for which application.
Knives are among the most important tools of chefs and anyone who has ever had the “pleasure” of cutting an onion with a blunt vegetable knife knows how important  it is to  have a suitable and sharp knife at hand.
Filleting knives, paring knives and chef’s knives all have their justification and should be used and maintained accordingly.

The first dish: Minestrone

Surprised me, makes sense on closer inspection, because a lot can be shown in the example.
In addition to an extensive mise en place and various cutting techniques, the example explains the calculation in more detail, an important topic that is often neglected.   If a chef does not work economically, the restaurant  cannot survive in the long term.

I will publish a recipe for Milanese-style  minestrone  from the   Silver Spoon, the standard work of Italian cuisine,  in the coming days.

More information about the training can be found on the homepage of the International Culinary Studio.