Hello,
I guess a little about me is needed first. I was recently thrown into the lions den and was volunteered to be the head of the kitchen for a local elks lodge that I am a member at. The previous chef would simply buy frozen prepared food from Cosco and heat them up to serve. Needless to say, it was not that good even for the $10.00 people were charged as he often would leave for a hour while it was cooking and return 2 or 3 hours later. He gave up and left after a year of people speaking badly about his food. Without anyone to cook for a dinner in December I stepped up and managed to pull it off by making smoked pork. Since then I have gone from a member to head of the kitchen. We are all volunteers, not paid anything. The money we raise goes back to the community! I by no means place myself as a chef nor will I ever do that since that is reserved for people with formal culinary experiance unlike me. I used to work in a kitchen and worked my way up from dishwasher. Smoking meats is something I can do with confidence. As of now I am the only person in the kitchen. Two ladies serve the food and that is all they do.
Anyways, every Sunday we have dinner for the members. The numbers of members coming out for Sunday night has diminished to 6 since the other guy took it over. I have been watching every video and taking notes left and right about everything and looking up answers when I have questions. I put this to the test on Sunday and roasted a 20 lb roast. I tried to go for medium rare and finished with a demi glace for the meat and a hollandaise for the potatoes and steamed vegetables. I also made a platter of smoked stuffed mushrooms and only had 3 left over from the original 100.
I had some trouble making the demi glace and potatoes. I had used the unsalted butter that was bought by the club manager (he buys the cheapest items possible, not what I ask for). When I made clarified butter I only got a little bit of foam from 5 lbs of butter. To me it has a very vegetable oil taste and I believe this is what messed up everything. The demi glaze seperated while I was plating and the potatoes had a very oily look and texture. I am going to buy a case of butter from my own pocket and see if this improves anything, if not then I will go through my process and find what I have done wrong.
Below is what I managed to make. I only had spinich to garnish with so used them.
