Baby Octopus Pops

It's been a few days huh? My Basic Cookery mid-term came back with a 94.5 on it. Not too shabby, but also not a 100. Again, this class is getting more and more interesting. We started talking about calculating food cost and how to determine menu prices and things of that sort. REALLY fascinating stuff! You may ask, "Hey Luke, how come my Paris Texas Platter from Kerbey Lane costs $7.25?" Well I'll tell you, good friend.

In most cases, restaurants are shooting for around 30% food cost (FC), 30% labor, 30% other (rent, bills, etc), and HOPE for a 10% profit. All we are concerned with here is the food cost. So assuming Kerbey Lane is shooting for around a 30% FC, here's the formula:

30% FC = cost of ingredients / $7.25

So, after a little algebra, we have determined that the cost of the ingredients to make your delicious (and highly recommended) Paris Texas Platter is about $2.17. So then you assume that about $2.17 of labor went into the meal and $2.17 went to keep the lights on and the remaining 74¢ is the profit they turned. Now of course, this is just an example. What you do is run a lower food cost % on menu items with cheaper ingredients (eggs, beverages, booze) and a higher food cost % on items with more expensive ingredients (steak, steak, steak) to balance out the FC of your whole menu.

Then it was on to the really fun stuff. Mise En Place - everything in it's place. This is basically having all your ingredients prepped before service. If I order a chicken breast with a nice little sauce, they're not going to break down a whole chicken for my meal - although sometimes it seems like they are if it takes really long. The chicken will have already been broken down into breasts, thighs, legs, wings, bones, etc, earlier that day. The shallots and garlic will be minced. The stock will have been prepared. They only thing they'll probably have to do is chop some fresh herbs right at the last second so they are as fragrant as possible.

Then we watched a lovely video from the American Culinary Federation on the parts of the knife, types of knives, proper knife handling, and proper knife care. They also covered, very basically, some of the types of knife cuts - dice - S, M, L, brunoise, fine brunoise (which I have been referring to as micro-brunoise); sticks - batonnet, julienne, fine julienne; tourné - a 2" sort of football-shaped cut of a root vegetable that has 7 sides and flat ends; rondelle - basically a coin shape or round on a bias in varied diameter or thickness; paysanne - 1/2"x1/2"x1/8" round, square, or rectangular in shape. I can't wait to start making these in class (2 weeks til the kitchen!!)

Saturday I was at Uchi again. I made tempura sauce. I made baby octopus pops - skewered marinated baby octopus - which was funny since we had just talked about baby octopus a few days before. I made the spicy krab. I prepped some more fried green tomatoes. And, you guessed it, more yucca chips. And it took three weeks, but I finally got my first bloody cut. I pushed the limits and thought I could get one more chip off a chunk of yucca on the mandolin and SLICE! - put a nice cut in my thumb. It turned white. Then got hot. And then came the red stuff. I quickly and quietly made my way to the sink to wash it. Then to the first-aid kit for an alcohol wipe, gauze, band-aid and a finger cot. I never really hurt that much because those mandolin blades make a razor blade look like a spoon. I've kept it clean and freshly bandaged, so I'll live to play another day.

I burned through another pre-reviewed Sanitation quiz today. I should get over 100 again since this one had a bonus question worth 7 points. I'll let you know. Miss Jane usually gets quizzes graded same day. We buzzed through floors, ceilings, walls, and equipment after the quiz. Tomorrow though, we talk pest control. Miss Jane has offered up 100 extra points if anyone can top her rat story - which leads me to believe that it cannot be topped. I'll relay the story tomorrow.

I'll try again to get back in the daily habit so I can not type 15,000 word essays. Later!