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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They prep the food in advance so basically it’s already cooked in most cases and just needs warming up, by chucking it on a grill/fryer or in an oven to do the finishing touches
answer: something like pork belly is already boiled and then fried to order. its part of the prepping before service.
just like fresh pasta would have been made and set aside beforehand, meatballs or hamburger patties would be shaped and set aside, lasagne constructed but not cooked, etc.
portion size also helps a lot, if they are going to serve something like meat loaf or shepards pie they can’t give you something big enough for a family in 15 minutes, but it doesn’t take as long to cook if its small enough for one person.
Mice on paws they do all the prep ahead of time so the other rodents can cook quickly. Have you not seen Ratatouille?
So restraunts and a lot of home chefs use “Mise en place.” It’s a French term for putting in place. Preparing everything, putting it in the correct spot, etc. Restaurants have a menu. Where the cook times and ingredients are known. They also have an idea of what they will sell and how much each day based on historical data. So for most items the veggies are cut, meat prepared, sauces ready, etc. When an order comes through they just cook and serve. For foods needing more prep time, they are make it based on the historical data
Well a lot of things aren’t fresh. They are prepped for that day or for the week.
I’m sure others will add all sorts of things, but one of the things from my experience was bacon. Every morning I’d cook up 15lbs of bacon on the flat top until it was mostly done. Then into one of the fridges, and when it was needed, one minute in the deep frier made it just right.
Some things were more strategic. Like the sautéed onion queue. Just like we’d prep the bacon, morning prep included slicing up a bunch of onions. So we’d have the bucket of onions for the day. Then because sautéed onions went in omelets and a number of hot sandwiches and took way longer to cook than both, you just kept a few portions cooking in the flat top to one side. Put a serving in an order from one end? Replace from the bucket at the other end.
Then there’s things like the food rack enclosure things that can be kept hot or cold. You can keep things ready to serve in them for a while without too much harm.
Then for finishing with a crust if some sort, you have salamanders. Way faster than the tools you have as a home cook.
Then there’s the microwave kits. Chef Mike cooks more stuff than you’d think.
Prepping a commercial kitchen involves cooking a lot of the stuff most of the way.
For instance pasta, when I worked in an Italian restaurant we cooked it 9/10’s of the way. Then it was shocked in cold water and tossed in canola oil, then stored until needed.
On the back of the stove there was a big pot of boiling water with strainers in it. When an order of pasta came in during service we’d drop the appropriate portion of pasta in a strainer and cook it for a couple of minutes, lift the strainer insert to drain, then plate and sauce.
It’s all about the prep.
For even more fun go through your cities “restaurant inspections reports”, and you can quickly see how long some food is prepped beforehand D:
In addition to what everyone else has said, [here’s a video of a high-end restaurant doing ‘Mise en Place’.](https://youtu.be/X2jakwIVLbY?si=6Lc_Cj6K3YPkDpif) I think it does a great job of showing just how much prep these professionals do.
Specifically for pork belly depending on the recipe, it will be marinaded and grilled/boiled before service or even days before and portioned, then when an order comes up you pull it out throw it on the grill, in the oven or under the salamander and dress it in 5 or so minutes.
“Fresh” doesn’t mean cooked from scratch at that very moment. It just means it was cooked from scratch. It very likely is still getting frozen in portions or sitting in a warmer for hours.
Look up “warming cabinets”.
Many things are pre-prepped and held at safe temperatures.
The fancier the restaurant the more elements of the meal are prepared at the time of the order.
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