I know you can essentially cook anything in 5 minutes if it’s already been prepared, like boiled, fried beforehand. But restaurants use fresh ingredients, so how are they serving me in 15 minutes a freshly fried pork belly that needs at least 30 minutes to boil, then another like 10 minutes to fry, etc?
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Like you already said in your post, things are prepared beforehand. Just because they label it as “fresh” doesn’t mean they start the cooking process as soon as you order your food. It’s why some restaurants close midday between the lunch and dinner service, and you can see people working in a restaurant all day despite it maybe only being open for dinner.
They make use of that period without any customers to prepare ingredients. Things like side dishes can be prepared way in advance and just kept warm and dished out when need. If you order a side of fries chances are they would have already cooked them beforehand, or have the potatoes already sliced up and all they have to do is dunk it in a fryer.
If you order a pasta dish, the pasta would have already been pre-cooked, maybe not completely, but it would have just needed a couple of minutes in boiling water to finish it off or heat it back up. And the sauces would most likely already been made in advance. So they would have a separate pot of ragu already done and all the chefs need to do is maybe just toss the sauce and pasta together. Like no one is expecting a customer to wait 2hrs for some bolognese.
And with your pork belly example, they would have done the time-consuming part (the boiling) way in advance. And whenever a customer orders it, they just throw it into some hot oil for 10 minutes to finish the cooking.
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