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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I used to manage a kitchen.
For us, food was prepped around 2 hours before opening. This included anything with greens, sauces, rice, and filling up the line with containers of various ingredients and at least 2 containers ready to refill in case we ran out during a busy day.
Often times, we will cook the meats to fill up the containers and cook large batches of meat as needed because otherwise it will dry out or lose flavor in a few different ways.
There are restaurants I’ve worked with other chefs ar that start cooking at 3 or 4 am because of the long cooking times. Asian restaurants are famous for this because the broth or certain meats need to be precooked/poached and internally cooked so that they are ready for the last step which is to sear the skin. The meat is held to specific temperatures under heat lamps. This is why you see so many reddish tints on windows in Chinatown/Korea Town, Japan Town and other Asian neighborhoods to showcase the meat is cooked and ready to go immediately. They are keeping the food ready. In sit down restaurants its similar, but they resear it, redouse it in its sauce and send it out.
You probably know about fridges and freezers but there’s another device which does the same thing but in heat. Its designed to keep something at temp but not enough to keep it from cooking completely. The best visual is the spinning meat pile for Middle Eastern schwarmas. That device can be used to cook AND keep the meat at a ready to serve temperature.
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