Kitchen Confidential: Recipes, Consulting, and Restaurant Trends

Mark (: 00:00

Sam, here we are, another episode, in the burnt podcast. And today we're going to talk about this week recipe that you're going to share with us today. What do we have for this week, man?

sam (: 00:15

Look, this week, you know, I've been playing a lot with Turkish style eggs. Everybody seems to be jumping on that. And so I thought I'd make some myself, you know. Instead, I made a little difference. You know, I burnt the butter. I added a little bit of that Aleppo pepper to it. Squeeze of lime juice in there just to give it a little bit more of acidity. I mean, you don't have to use the lime juice either. You could grate some lime zest in there. And then I'm just doing a really simple garlic yogurt. You could even use tum.

You can buy turmeric at the shop, you know, that's that garlic paste, you know, a little bit of turmeric in the garlic paste, make a little bit of labneh, something like that. Mix it through the yogurt. You don't even have to do the labneh if you want, just plain yogurt is.

Mark (: 00:45

Oh man, I love my tomb. Yes.

Nice

nice. So can you describe what for people that's got no idea what Turkish eggs is like? Can you describe that?

sam (: 01:04

Yeah, so pretty much it's just like a flavored yogurt with a sort of a chili, almost like a chili butter, if you will. But I like to burn the butter and take it a little step further and then throw in the Aleppo pepper after and then poached eggs on top. And then you serve that with a Simit bread. But if you can't find Simit, because it can be a bit hard to find sometimes, especially if you're not around any Turkish bakeries or anything like that, it can be quite hard to find. I mean, you could use a bagel or

You know, Turkish bread is fine. Any sort of bread is fine, really. But pretty much it's just poached eggs, lots of dill, lots of garlic yogurt, and chili butter. And it's amazing. It's probably one of the most beautiful things I've ever eaten. And that with a bit of side of pickles is even better.

Mark (: 01:54

Nice. I love it. I love my Turkish eggs and every time I go to different cafes, they add their own twist to it. Their own chili sauce or a chili this or there's always something in there that makes it taste epic and I absolutely love it for that, for the flavor and for the texture. Well, that's amazing. We started with a bang and I guess...

sam (: 02:01

Yes.

Mark (: 02:20

it's time to talk a little about the state of the market today. Anything, anything worth talking about in the last couple of weeks? Have you noticed anything that's going on in the market that worth sharing?

sam (: 02:36

Oh, well, look, to be honest with you, I mean, over the last couple of weeks, I wouldn't say much has changed. I mean, look, a lot of always everything's expensive, but I wouldn't say too much has changed. But what has changed is I'm noticing a lot more influx of, I don't know, like people, I'm not usually busy around this time of year, to be honest with you, but over the last couple of weeks, I've had a lot of inquiries for consulting.

which is quite strange for me because around this time of the year, I sort of chill out, you know, like my busy period for consulting is toward the end of the year, you know, and then it sort of picks up and then it dies down, you know. But for some reason, I seem to have gone from a busy period from August last year and it's still continuing into now. I'm not sure whether people are getting...

a little bit worried to hire head chefs because I'm finding a lot of the clients that are coming to me are head chef -less, so to speak. I'm not sure why that is. I know that there are chefs out there looking for jobs. There are great chefs out there looking for jobs. But I'm just not sure why people are hiring consultants. I mean, which is a great thing, don't get me wrong.

Mark (: 03:39

Okay, yes.

sam (: 03:57

I don't want to chop my own head off, but I'm just not sure why they don't have head chefs in place to create their menus. And I mean, look, it's great because I guess the sous chefs can step up. You know, they get to work with someone, you know, like myself who's very creative and likes to fucking push it a little bit. And I guess they get to step up a little, I guess, but I'm just...

Mark (: 04:19

love to

dig a little deeper on that. Like when you said they come and they head chefless, like they don't have chefs in place and they're looking for consultants to work on it to come up with a menu or to work on a menu. What? I mean, have you ever asked them like, why? Why don't they have a head chef? Like, what's their biggest problem when it gets to hiring head chefs? In that in that regards?

sam (: 04:42

I think in this economy, it must be money. No one's really told me exactly what the problem is. You know, a lot of them just say, oh yeah, the chef left and we never found another one. But I don't believe that's true. I think the problem is paying chefs money. I think at the moment, a lot of chefs are asking for, they are asking for big dollars. And probably there's not, and I don't want to be, I don't want to be.

Mark (: 04:49

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

sam (: 05:10

you know, discriminatory against any of the chefs or whatever. But I think, you know, some of the chefs are asking for big dollars and that, that skill set is just, the skill level is just not there to be asking for $100 ,000 for a cafe.

Mark (: 05:20

Okay, so.

Yes. So then it's cost, it's the investment involved to hire a head chef. There's, yeah, there's...

sam (: 05:31

Of course, you got to think about

that, that initial investment to hire a chef and to, to, to bring them along with you. Because I mean, as an owner, you know, as much as the chef is giving you their time and everything, you are at the end of the day, putting up your money every single day. Um, and you're trusting in that person to bring their A game every single day and not everybody can bring their A game every single day. We all know that's impossible. Um, but.

There's a certain level of character and a certain level of skill that you need to be able to come to the table with if you're going to ask for certain amounts of money.

Mark (: 06:08

interesting. But and also makes sense because people, I guess what they're doing is they're hiring consultants to work on a project by project basis where they can control cost and investment where instead of hiring someone for the whole year. I think that's what's what's going on here, which is in Yeah, which I guess it makes sense to the current market state, I guess.

sam (: 06:27

Of course, I've got some clients.

Yeah.

I mean, look, I've got some clients that go month by month with me and then they come back every couple of months. And then I've got clients that want to do a full years consult, but still that's cheaper than them hiring a chef who's going to leave. It's viable for them too, I guess too, because obviously I get...

Mark (: 06:45

Yeah.

a lot more viable, a lot more viable than

sam (: 06:55

Yeah, don't get me wrong. It's, you know, like I get pounded for menus. I get this and that. I want this. I want that. I want phone calls. I get this every five seconds. You know, I get constant emails, I get constant Instagram messages.

Mark (: 07:05

Yeah.

So describe that. Like when, let's say, what's the difference between hiring a head chef versus working with a consultant, like kitchen consultant like yourself. I'm pretty sure with a kitchen consultant, they get a lot more bang for their buck because you get involved and exposed to a lot more things that a typical head chef might have been exposed to. Would that?

Does that make... Is it true?

sam (: 07:38

Look, to be honest with you, Mark, I think the problem is when you got a head chef and it's not a problem to have a head chef. It's a very good thing. But I think the problem is when a head chef has been around for a long time or a head chef has reached a certain age, they become a little bit stagnant. They become a little bit bored. They get boring. They got their blinders on and they can't escape what they're doing. So it just becomes mundane. The job becomes mundane. And then when you have someone like myself come along or you have someone like Paul Wilson,

Mark (: 07:56

Yeah.

sam (: 08:06

or Raymond Capaldi or any of those guys come along and they're doing consulting and they have been for a long time. The creativity is there. So these chefs who are stuck doing things one way, all of a sudden get open to a whole new way of cooking, a whole new mindset, a whole new skill set as well, because all of a sudden you're taking their dishes and making them better.

And that's a very, very important for me. I mean, you've known me for nearly 10 years now. You remember when we first started, I used to write the menus and I used to go in there and I give them the recipes and I go, bang, there you go. Do it yourself. These days, I like to go in there. I'll work with the team. I'll have actual look at the kitchen first. I'll see what the kitchen's capable of doing. Let me see the equipment. Cause I don't like to go in there. I used to go in there. I used to go, I need this, I need this, I need this, I need this, I need this.

Mark (: 08:39

Yes.

What about today? What's the plan? What's the go today?

sam (: 09:03

Um, and it's just not, you can't do that anymore. So now I go in with open eyes and I go, okay, well, we can do it this way and we can do that and we can make that pure and we can do this and we can do that, but we don't necessarily have to have certain equipment or certain skill sets to be able to do those things. Um,

Mark (: 09:07

Mm -hmm.

Exactly. So you use

like a practical approach to what they already have and you work with that. Yeah.

sam (: 09:27

Of course. And the end goal is

to make money. Um, you know, it's great to be in broadsheet. I mean, how many times have you seen, I don't know how many times I've done a broadsheet or a good food or whatever. Um, and it's great, you know, but there's also something called broad chat. Um, you know, and if you're not ready, you can definitely get broad chat.

Mark (: 09:31

Exactly.

way too many times.

So true, so true.

sam (: 09:53

You know, and then you, it's the end of your business straight away. Like, I mean, broadsheets are pretty big thing. Um, even though, you know, sometimes I think they write about everything and everything these days. Um, but it can still destroy you if, um, especially for cafes, especially if you're not ready for that initial rush.

Mark (: 10:11

Yes, correct. Well,

you know what, and and and sometimes it doesn't do that. What it does is you just waste your investment. Because that that that yeah, that brings me brings me to the memory when we were working with this restaurant. So they hire us to do like a full on marketing campaign ongoing. It wasn't even like a one off project. It was like a full on thing ongoing. And there was a lot of money.

sam (: 10:21

100 percent.

Mark (: 10:39

being invested on marketing and advertising. The problem was that we came to solve a problem, but they had a different problem that was beyond our obviously our reach. For example,

sam (: 10:52

was way beyond my reach,

especially back then.

Mark (: 10:55

Yeah, well, then what would the what was the problem is we were attracting customers because people can see, wow, the food looks amazing. The venue looks amazing. Let's go and check it out. And then people come but then they have this average experience. Food wise and service wise, then they don't really they don't when they go home or go back to work. Not my word of mouth isn't really kicking in. So then you're really

sort of like running on a massive leaking bucket, you're getting a lot of people in but then none of them is bringing people back. And it makes marketing very, very expensive exercise.

sam (: 11:32

That

was, and I do remember that being quite hard because the owners just wanted things to be a certain way and there was just nothing we could do about it.

Mark (: 11:42

Yeah, well, then what happened? That's when I can, when I consider projects like these are either they become like sort of a long term projects, you sit down with them, and you talk to them say, look, at the very start, we had this massive influx of customers and, and functions and this and that and this is the feedback that is documented. Sorry.

sam (: 12:04

Do you know what the problem was too, don't you? The problem too with that

was, the problem too also with that was, with that particular place. Back then, they wanted everything too quickly. So we did broadsheet, we did good food, we did timeout, we did all that in the space of one month. And I think that was just a bit much. That was a bit much for what they could handle.

Mark (: 12:22

Mm.

sam (: 12:27

It was a bit much for what the staff could handle. And we knew back then too, that the staff, you know, they still needed a lot of training. It was just, I mean, look, hey, that was very early days. I learned a lot from that.

Mark (: 12:38

Yeah, well, that's the that's that's the place you're

talking about. So the place that I'm the the place that I'm talking about. So I had a sort of like a we had a change in the change that that took place. It took place like nearly two years later. And what they did for they introduced an authentic chef, like from their motherland.

And he pretty much came and improved every single dish in terms of flavor, texture, experience, along with, you know, customer experience. But then when I started bringing people in for dinner, just to see their reaction, the, they were absolutely mind blown because of the flavor, the texture, the quality, the like, the, it was absolutely amazing. And then they started when, when this kicked in, this change kicked in.

then everything else started to work for them and they started seeing their ideal customers to come in where in the past you get all sort of people they come they try it they don't come back or the word of mouth doesn't kick in but now that they've they made this dramatic change in terms of quality texture and flavor and people sit down they have this amazing you know eating experience dining experience flavor and texture all the sudden all the things that they were asking

for from marketing started to happen for them because now it's like, you know, hand in hand, it's it's it's it's sort of like you're on everything is on the same page and it's it's on it's working, which was which was very, very pleasing to see. So often, when you find out that your marketing isn't working, most of the time, it's not really marketing, it could be operations, it could be the flavor or the quality of

of the menu, or it could be many, many things that's got nothing to do with marketing. All marketing does is it broadcast what you're offering. Yeah. And people see it, they might be they might engage with it. And if they do engage, and they come in, and you'll find, wow, there was this big, massive adoption, like, you know, new customer generation that came in and tried it and whatever, but then they're not coming back. That's when you should know it either food,

issues or experience issues or something that's not working, it's got nothing to do with the communication of marketing. And it's, and I've seen that way, way too many times. Sometimes you'll, you'll be able to fix it by communicating your feedback as a marketer. Sometimes you can't because you can't really get in the kitchen and cook their food and fix their food because that's not, that's way beyond your capabilities now as a marketer. And that's where you come in, Sam.

That's when consultants like you come in and fix that stuff for them.

sam (: 15:38

Yeah, of course. I mean, you know, going back to, you know, the, what I was talking about, like, I mean, that place had great success, you know, I mean, they got a lot within that, within that couple of months in the beginning, when they opened up, you know, and then it started to dwindle and then it came back. It had a couple of lifelines that one, but you know,

Mark (: 16:07

Yes, so true.

sam (: 16:10

you just get that to this industry as well. Sometimes you get the, it doesn't matter whether the sun and the fucking stars and everything, the moon and the stars align. Some things just don't work out, which was unfortunate.

Mark (: 16:23

Well,

speaking of food and yummy food and delicious food, texture and flavor and all of that, tell us about a dish where you just couldn't really, it wasn't working. It just wasn't working for you until you added an unexpected ingredient and it fixed all the problems in the world for you. And it was a winner. Is there any story like that you have somewhere?

sam (: 16:50

Look, I mean, there are many dishes that I've played around with over the years, but I guess, I used to back in a long time ago, I mean, before I even, back to my first head chef days, I remember I used to make this pigeon dish. Pigeon, yeah, it was a pigeon. And I used to do that in the master stock.

Mark (: 17:10

Pigeon Nice Okay

sam (: 17:15

So I used to do that in like an Asian style master stock and just poach it very, very gently. And then we'd take it out and we'd carve it. And I wanted to serve it with a congee. And I remember playing around, you know, we did like, you know, ginger through it, like just fresh ginger, shallots, fish sauce.

um a little bit of um chilies um and just to like you know because one thing with congee is congee's congee is a great vehicle for carrying flavor because it's got no flavor right um it's like porridge um there's no there's just no flavor to it um so you add things to it you keep playing and playing and playing and playing

I just kept going, there's just something missing from this dish. There's the really nice flavor of the master stock, but the master stock flavor just isn't coming through into the actual congee itself. And it was an entree, yeah. It was quite a small dish. It wasn't very big. And I thought, but I don't want to serve a bowl. Yeah. So I'm trying to think of a way, how can I serve this dish?

Mark (: 18:22

Oh, okay.

sam (: 18:37

without serving a mega bowl of, you know, I'm not serving a congee. The congee was there to just carry on flavors. So you've got, you know, ginger, garlic, you know, fried, fried garlic, you know, fresh ginger, fish sauce, a little bit of soy shallots. And I thought to myself, there's just something is not working here. There's a lot of freshness in there. There was like coriander. I had Vietnamese mint. And I thought to myself, I don't know how to really get the flavor of a little bit more of the master stock in there. And then I remembered,

Mark (: 18:45

Mm -hmm.

sam (: 19:08

I can use the master stock as a dressing. So I took a little bit of mace. We broke that up in a mortar and pestle, added a little bit of the master stock to the mace and then mixed that with some honey and sesame oil and made a dressing from the master stock. And then we just dress that over the top of the pigeon and the congee with all those other things in there. And that just gave it that extra kick.

Mark (: 19:33

Mm -hmm.

sam (: 19:38

Um, you know, and then that's what it was missing. Um, it's not, it wasn't just an, it wasn't just, you know, it started with, okay, let's take the master stock and dress it over the top of it. And then I was like, yeah, but no, it's missing something else. Um, you know, how about a little bit of mace? We try that. It's not very commonly used. Okay. That's quite nice. Okay. How do we get it a little bit more like addressing? How do we get it a little bit more, um, interesting.

Mark (: 19:39

That's amazing.

sam (: 20:08

Okay, let's add some honey to it. Cool. That's a bit thicker now over the top.

Mark (: 20:14

is and that's and that's to get the right like the sweet spot in terms of flavor and texture.

sam (: 20:21

That was just to get the right, the right flavor for that dish because again, the master stock pigeon is very, very beautiful in itself. You don't really need anything on that. I mean, you can just, you know, take that deep fry it beautiful. Um, but what we were doing was just poaching it in the master stock and then just trying to take those flavors of the beautiful poached pigeon over into the congee. But we didn't want to have a big, big, um,

bowl of congee, because I wanted it to be an entree. So it was just more like a small, almost like a little, you know, you see those little mini dog bowl sort of things. They're almost like a big rim and a little dog bowl, very shallow bowl. That's kind of what the dish was. We de -boned the whole pigeon. You know, but it was kind of just like, it was missing. It was just missing something. And that's what it was. You know, the chili was there. Everything was there. You know, you had crispy shallots, crispy garlic.

Mark (: 20:57

Yes.

sam (: 21:18

fresh ginger, fresh spring onion, beautiful coriander. There was a little bit of Vietnamese mint through there from what I can remember. And all those flavors, they all work really, really well together, but I was just missing that initial master stock dressing sort of flavor that just wasn't happening. There was just something missing.

Mark (: 21:33

Love it.

sam (: 21:44

And you know, as a chef, you just kind of go, there is something missing from this, whether it be a little bit more salt or a little bit more pepper or something like that.

Mark (: 21:52

interesting well i'm drooling because i want to have this master stock pigeon dish now i love

sam (: 21:57

Mate, I have to go

deep, deep, deep into the archives of my cooking.

Mark (: 22:04

and

then find that dish. Maybe we should try it one day on a session where we both can eat it and talk about it.

sam (: 22:12

definitely

made. I mean, it's definitely something we can do. And I mean, you know, many things happen to like, you know, even I remember when I was consulting a dandelion, you know, there were many, many times where we were just like, Oh, that needs tamarind, you know, or something needs a little bit more, a little bit more of the curry paste, or you needed to add a little bit more palm sugar to that just to bring the sweetness up. You know, tamarind there for a little bit of sourness.

There was just many, many times, especially in that kitchen where we would just go, okay, we're gonna do something a little bit different, a little bit out of the Vietnamese ordinary, like doing a black sesame souffle. I wanted to do a black sesame souffle. I wanted to make a vegan ice cream.

Things like that, you know, and they come out of nowhere. And then it becomes, how do we make the vegan souffle vegan? How do we make the, how do we make the sesame souffle vegan? How do we do this? How do we do that? And then you start playing with things and then these things come together. They either work or they don't. If they don't work, you scrap them. And there's been many times where I've gone, fuck this dish. I don't like it anymore. Give me something else. And you try something else. But the only way you can grow in your cooking,

Mark (: 23:00

Interesting.

Well...

Anya

sam (: 23:26

is to just keep trying and trying and trying and trying.

Mark (: 23:30

And until you obviously until you find dishes dishes that work and then you just kind of like move on to the next one and to the next one. And and like I said, you always come past some unexpected ingredients or unexpected method that gives you what you want at the end or unexpected results like oh, that's interesting. Yes, yes.

sam (: 23:50

Of course, of course. And there's been a many a

time that that's happened to, you know, like you're just, you, you, you just be mucking around cooking something. Um, you know, maybe you've, you've left something out or you forgot to get some ingredient. It's who knows. Um, and you replace it with something else and you go, Oh, actually that's better. Um, like the other night I was at home and I didn't have any, uh, dry chilies.

for my spaghetti al olio and I love spaghetti al olio but I didn't have any dried chilies but I did have some Lao Gan Ma chili oil which was in the pantry and I thought to myself you know what I'm just gonna mix that Lao Gan Ma chili crispy chili oil I'm gonna fry some garlic and parsley and do the same thing like al olio but

with the Laogamart Chili Oil. And to be honest with you, it was great. And then I threw some butter through it. And then I took a little bit of, you know, the pasta water and I tossed that all together and it became velvety and I put Parmesan through it as well. So.

Mark (: 25:00

Interesting.

Interesting. Well, speaking speaking of amazing dishes, imagine that you're at a restaurant and you have this amazing dish that you sort of came up with as a special and then all of a sudden now you're in the middle of the service and it's no longer available because you sort of like run out of ingredients or whatever. In America, they have this term they start communicating to each other 86 this or 86 that.

It means that you know, they this this is no longer an option for that night. What what sort of terms do restaurants use here in terms, you know, when it gets to those sort of situations?

sam (: 25:49

Well, I mean, I don't think there's really a term over here. I think we do use 86 at every now and then, but to be honest with you, I just tell them there's no more. We give a countdown throughout the night. The chef will be like, you know, I've got 10 left. I've got eight left. I've got five left. And it's just the communication.

Mark (: 26:04

Communication. Correct.

Yeah. I'd love to touch on those like terms that we use in the industry where some people, you know, they don't have that background, but they just sort of like walked in into the restaurant category and they have really no idea, you know, what sort of terms are out there and how they're being used. What do they mean? Like for example, Maison Place, yeah. What does that mean?

sam (: 26:30

Yeah.

Well, Mizone Plus is your prep. You know, the prep you get ready before service. And to be honest with you, Mark, we don't use these terms anymore. You know, I mean, there was a long stretch where, you know, we used to say we in the kitchen. You know, I feel like here in Australia, we've kind of moved on from...

Mark (: 26:41

Mm -hmm.

sam (: 26:54

the French terms and doing stuff like that anymore. We just, and it's a little bit sad in a way, you know? I mean, I miss We Chef, you know? We also used to say, mercy, you know? All sorts of things, all sorts of things. But, you know, I guess time, time moves by.

Mark (: 27:15

I think I

think I'd love yeah, I see what you mean because stuff like that terms like that as authenticity, a communicates passion, love for the industry, first adds personality as history and heritage. And it makes you feel like you're part of something. Yeah, it'll be nice to see these sort of terms being communicated back in in

in the kitchen and adding this life into it I guess because

sam (: 27:46

It's that brigade system,

you know, also to you know, you don't see many very big brigades anymore. There aren't very many big brigades of chefs anymore. You know, you used to go into places, you know, there'd be 40 seat restaurants, and there'd be fucking 25 chefs in the kitchen. You know, very rare do you see that anymore. And it's, it's, I don't know, it's a dying, I think it's a dying culture, I guess, that

Mark (: 28:11

That's the word culture. Culture. That's the culture, you know, having culture in, in, in the, in the restaurant universe, especially in the kitchen where, you know, where a lot of the blood and sweat that's taking place in there to make things happen. Um, this sort of culture and having those things that they used to communicate back in the day, um, add a bit of, you know, a bit of passion, bit of personality.

sam (: 28:40

Hmm.

Mark (: 28:40

and

you feel like you're part of something.

sam (: 28:43

Yeah.

Mark (: 28:44

like inner circle kind of, you know, that people have got no idea what goes behind the scenes and what sort of language is being used. Yeah. Well, I guess it's been how long we've been chatting? 30, 40 minutes already.

sam (: 28:47

Yeah, con.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark (: 29:05

What do you think? Is there anything else we should end this chat with?

sam (: 29:10

Not sure Mark, but maybe next week we can look at.

maybe bringing on a special guest chef, I think.

Mark (: 29:19

Yeah, it's time because we started finding our grounds in it. And yeah, I agree. We should introduce a guest and we can have a chat with them. Yeah, that'll be fun.

sam (: 29:29

I think so. And I think we keep it very raw.

Let's keep it very raw like we're doing, you know, not too much. You know, we don't really edit these things too much. We just want to keep it. This is how we talk. This is how it is. And it's just a conversation.

Mark (: 29:44

Exactly. Let's do that. Sam, thank you so much. Guys, you can find us on the next one in the next couple of weeks, anywhere on Spotify, Prime, Amazon, podcasts, Apple, anywhere that you can find podcasts, you should be able to listen to all the past and future upcoming ones. Buddy, Sam, thanks so much and I'll speak to you soon, man.

sam (: 29:46

All right, mate.

Cheers mate, I'll speak to you very soon. Bye.