Is Cooking Efficiently Gorse?

Friday, May 9, 2008

A short time back I did a "Food Rookie" on making stocks and broths. As it turns out a few people thought the idea of saving the tidbits of vegetables was disgusting. Truth be told, all those packaged soups you buy are made of scraps. Restaurants and dinners employ the same method too.

Just today I came across an article in the Culinary Review on being an efficient chef. One of the guidelines was saving the scraps for stock. I worked in a very nice three star restaurant when I was a younger. The first thing you learn in a kitchen is that nothing goes to waist. The food industry is a 100% return business. That means you need to make up 100% of the cost on each ingredient purchase in order to make a profit.

As you can imagine, that would mean taking simple shortcuts like making stock and broth from scraps. Saving yesterdays bread for today's garlic bread and croutons, and yes many places reuse unopened packages of condiments. If you want some more incite to the things an efficient cook saves check out my article on stocks and broths and this article on the Culinary Review.


Are You a Super Efficient Cook? - The Culinary Review
Food Rookie: Stock and Broth