1. Chapter 4
Kitchen Essentials: Part 1— Professionalism

2. What Does It Mean To Be a Culinary Professional?
To be professional is to be courteous, honest, and responsible in your dealings with customers and coworkers.
A culinarian is one who has studied and the art of cooking. The attributes of a culinary professional include:
Knowledge: culinary programs provides a basic knowledge of foods and methods used to prepare foods.
Skill: Practice and hands-on experience provide the skills necessary to produce quality foods
Flavor, aroma, taste: 5 basic tastes: salt, sour, bitter, sweet and umami (savory). The tongue can also taste fattiness, calcium, metal, spicy-hot, minty-cool, and temperature.
Judgment: Culinary professionals must use discretion and appropriate behavior with coworkers, supervisors, and employees.
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Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

3. What Does It Mean To Be a Culinary Professional? (cont.)
Respect: Respect ingredients (limit waste), guests and coworkers
Personal responsibility: Doing the work without making excuses
Education and the culinary professional: Employers value a formal culinary education.
May become a Chef de Cuisine: handles all daily operations in a professional kitchen
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Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

4. Workstations
A workstation is a work area in the kitchen dedicated to a particular task (ex. Garde-manger: station where cold items are prepared)
kitchen-brigade system: staffing a kitchen so that each worker is assigned a set of specific tasks.
Executive chef: responsible for all kitchen operations
Sous chef: accepts orders and relays to various stations
Station chef: Ex. pantry chef (Garde Manger),
bread baker (Boulanger)
A dining-room brigade: led by the dining room manager (maître d - who generally trains all service personnel,
captain: explains the menu to guests and takes their orders
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Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

5. Business Math
Math influences every decision that a manager makes in an operation. It is the foundation of the kitchen and the back office.
Managers are expected to have a basic understanding of math and know how to apply mathematical principles to business situations.
Chefs and managers need to know how to determine recipe yields, convert recipes, and change the yields of recipes.
Culinary professionals need to understand the concepts of fraction, decimals, and percentages (parts per 100). See page 240
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6. U.S. and Metric Measurement Systems
The most commonly used system of measurement in the United States is based on customary units (measuring equivalents sheet and formula)
The metric system is used in many other parts of the world. Metric units are based on multiples of 10
Thermometers measure degrees of temperature in either Fahrenheit (°F), which is the customary measure, or Celsius (°C), which is the metric measure.
F to C: -32, multiply by 5, and divide by 9
C to F: multiply by 9, divide by 5 and add 32
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Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

7. Standardized Recipes
A recipe is a written record of the ingredients and preparation steps needed to make a particular dish.
standardized recipes, follows a format that is clear to anyone who uses them.
A standardized recipe lists the ingredients first (in the order they are to be used) and then the assembly directions
A standardized recipe includes:
Name of the recipe
Ingredients
Yield
Portion size
Temperature, time, and equipment
Step-by-step directions
Nutrition information
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Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

8. Converting Recipes
Convert a recipe when the yield of the recipe (the amount it provides) is not the same as the amount of product needed.
When properly converted, the quality of the product should not vary from the original, no matter how many portions it yields.
Sometimes you must change (or convert) a recipe if the yield is not the amount you need.
desired yield = Conversion factor (# to multiply by)
original yield
See page 248
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9. Measuring
Measurement refers to how much of something is being used in a recipe.
Volume is the amount of space an ingredient takes up. Volume measurement is best used for liquids.
Dry ingredients are measured by leveling them off evenly at the rim of the spoon or cup using a straightedge.
A typical set of measuring cups includes 1/4 cup, 1/3 cup, 1/2 cup, and 1 cup measures.
Liquid measuring cups are see-through and have measurement markings on the side.
Measuring spoons generally come in a set of four or five. Most customary sets include these sizes: 1/4 tsp, 1/2 tsp, 1 tsp, and 1 Tbsp.
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Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

10. Measuring (cont.) Weight is expressed in ounces and pounds.
ex. spring scale; balance beam (Baker’s scale) p.252
Fat can be measured in several ways.
Stick method:
Used for butter or margarine. The wrapper is marked in Tbsp. and in fractions of a cup. Simply cut off the amount needed.
Dry measuring cup method:
Pack the fat down into the cup; level off the top; use a rubber scraper to empty the fat from the cup.
Water displacement method:
This method involves combining fat with water in a liquid measuring cup.
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Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

11. EP/AP Amounts
To determine how much of an item is needed to yield an AP (as purchased ) amount : AP = EP
yield %
To determine the EP (edible portion) quantity: EP = AP X yield %
See page 256
A cooking loss test is a way to measure the amount of shrinkage of meats
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Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism

12. Costing Recipes
To find the total cost of a standard recipe, a manager must know both the ingredient amounts needed and the price of each one.
Many operations price out all recipes and then check them every six months to see if they are still accurate
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Chapter 4 | Kitchen Essentials: Part 1—Professionalism