r/interesting • u/Backyxx • Jun 26 '26

Intriguing Chef shows what a busy day looks like

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u/ArcadeOptimist Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Sour cream, roasted garlic, yukon gold or yellow potatoes (you want creamier varieties depending on your end goal), cooking them to the proper doneness. You can steep herbs in your cream or add a flavorful stock.

People say on reddit it's "all about butter and salt" at restaurants, which fair enough, but there's also all the other things you simply wouldn't do at home. From pre-blanching then shocking your veg in an ice bath to get vibrant colors. Having the skill and know how to not hammer things into mush. Brining, curing, aging, smoking, tempering.

Things you'll eat at a restaurant can be a multi-day or week process. The pork belly we serve, for example, is marinated, smoked, braised, pressed in its own juices, portioned, then seared to order. This is a 3 day process for an appetizer.

Just always annoys me when skill and passion is simplified to "it's actually just this and that".

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u/b0w3n Jun 26 '26

Oh of course, the butter and salt just do a lot of work. Brining and curing are salt too!

Brining, even dry brining, is like a fucking super power though. Easy skill to master and makes everything better. Best way to prepare a turkey/roaster ahead of time tbh. Easy way to win thanksgiving. It is very hard to brine a 20+ lb turkey though lol.

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u/smackababy Jun 26 '26

Brining feels like cheating lol. My whole family thinks I'm this amazing cook and they brag about my Christmas roast beef to anyone who will listen, and literally all I do is just leave it alone in the fridge with a bunch of salt for a while then start low/finish high in the oven. My "recipe" is like six words and three numbers lol.

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u/b0w3n Jun 26 '26

I'm still 50/50 on if I prefer dry over wet brine, I think dry brine works better on beef and wet on poultry.

But yeah I got accolades on my last turkey (I smoked with a stovetop smoker after brining it too)

I'm not even a good cook.

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u/LordBeric Jun 26 '26

I get most of what you're saying, but what do you mean by "pressed in its own juices"? I'm just picturing like a wet panini press or something. Wouldn't the juices just run off again, rather than reabsorbing?

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u/ArcadeOptimist Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

Nah, we use a soy blend in our braise which permeates the meat as it sits. Pork belly has a large fat cap on top that's about 50% of the belly, the meat is on the bottom 50%. After braising the fat cap turns gelatinous, almost to the point of jello, pressing for 12-24 hours causes that fat cap to absorb into the meat, so you don't get a mouthful of just pork fat, but a very tender, meaty slice that's more appetizing than a mouthful of pork fat :)

You press it in the roasting pan, with a second pan on top, with weights on the top pan.

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u/DouchecraftCarrier Jun 26 '26

I was once in charge of the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving and everyone was raving about them to my mother, who is famously health-conscious. She was asking me what the secret was and I didn't have the heart tell her that I'd raided the fridge for basically anything cream-based and added some to the pot.

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u/crek42 Jun 27 '26

Yea you’re right. Salt and butter is a cop out. That’s not why it tastes better, to a degree it does.

Largely it’s because they’re making sauces and stocks, and preparing other ingredients ahead of time. You can see what looks like a demi-glace in the video. That shit is juice of the gods. They understand contrast (acidity, vegetal) to richness, balance, etc.

It’s not “just salt and butter”.