I have actually asked this in a few countries, in China the most common answer I got was Peking duck or thousand year egg, every interesting processes.
I love to challenge myself in the kitchen, in fact its the only place I like to challenge myself.
Anyone who has worked in a kitchen commercially, what is your hardest dish, or one you just remember having the toughest time with? What specifically didn’t go right?
really caputing the spirit of the NY pizza slice requires some really in depth study and uncommon equipment, from how the dough is developed to the fat and moisture content of the cheese to an oven hot enough to actually get it to cook right
so many restaurants (outside NY) screw that up, and end up with flat dough.
Risotto, or at least the perfected version, is part skill, part luck. The hydration ratio needs to be perfect at all steps in order to get the intended consistency with any sort of regularity. Go to any restaurant that makes it fresh a few times and you’ll get different results every time.
The making of Black Garlic is nearly impossible to get right with any sort of regularity, and takes SO MUCH TIME. You’re dealing with possible contaminants at so many levels, equipment failure, and just plain luck. Slowly dehydrating while at the same time fermenting something is a fool’s errand, and I’d like to meet the insane person who even thought this up.
Omelette.
So many factors: fat-to-air ratio, time whisking, time resting, egg by itself vs. adding ingredients, pan temperature, length of heat exposure… And that’s just chemistry. That doesn’t even take into account the physics of folding and lifting.
can second, i tried to make a french rolled omelette this morning and… it was not rolled, i’m not even sure it was french
was tasty though!
And getting it right without any burning or scarring on the outside without drowning it in butter or oil is crazy difficult.
Edit: saw this the other day, and it’s crazy impressive, even for a short order position in a kitchen:
So I’m not a chef, and I’m not disagreeing, but I think omelettes are one of the easiest things to practice. You mess them up and you just have 100% edible scrambled eggs for breakfast. You do that every morning you want eggs and you can get pretty good at it.
It’s because I’m no good at baking, but frying an egg involves similar chemistry/math to baking.
I can fix a bitter stew by adding sweet fruit or vegetables. I can fix thin soup by simmering it longer. I can fix a steak by not fucking cooking it too long.
If I add fine pepper to the egg? Coarse pepper? Coarse pepper because I forgot to change the setting on the grinder? How much moisture is in the paprika? Kosher salt or high-mineral sea salt?
…shit, the thing broke when I tried to flip it, because the eggs had more moisture in the pan than I realized. “GARY, WHERE’S THAT OMELET?” start over from scratch
I’m being overly dramatic - and my name’s not Gary - but hopefully you can understand why I found it challenging!
the eggs had more water added than I realized
Uh what? If that number is anything other than zero I’m pretty sure you’re doing it wrong.
I make perfect French omelettes nearly every day, and it’s a 90 second start to finish process once the pan is heated. Other than whisking there are no required tools. Folding and flipping are done with the pan and a little wrist movement.
Unless your pepper is enormous (ex: cracked instead of ground) the size doesn’t matter. Paprika is a garnish in this dish, and even if it were an ingredient its moisture content is irrelevant.
Getting the heat right can be tricky at first, until you figure out your equipment. I can’t help but feel you’re overthinking this whole thing (or trolling)
Yeah, a classic French omelette is simpler, but American omelettes have a wider range of ingredients and styles.
Tomato is the worst. Tastes great, but adds a TON of moisture.
That’s exactly what someone who’s name is Gary would say!
side note, i’ve heard of using a baking sheet over your pan when cooking eggs to prevent having to clean the pan as much. has anyone had any truth to this?
Side note, I’m sorry I didn’t see this was a science based community, I’m still interested in your answers but mods if you want I will remove the post
Question is valid. There’s a lot of science-baced challenge to many dishes.
My most difficult dish was not in a commercial kitchen.
Sourdough Croissants. It is so hard to get everything the exact right temperature, the dough wants to tear, they were one of the best things I’ve ever tasted but technically so ridiculously difficult to accomplish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mee_ka_tee
A lot of ingredients especially if you make your own curry paste. Real easy to have too much or too little of anything. So many ingredients that you pretty much have to make a lot but it goes bad fast so you can’t really store.
Plus some stuff taste a bit sour if boiled for too long and other stuff the flavor pretty much disappears if you boil too long so you have time it with when it’ll be served. And it’s just like any other bone stock dish where you can go hours to boil the bones. Then there’s if you’re doing just pork bones or you’re doing pork bones and fish bones. It’s a lot of timing that’s really not worth the effort unless the restaurant is in a community with a lot of Lao people that know the cuisine and buy it rather than buy stir fried noodles dishes. It’s a lot of steps. Sauteing parts, simmering parts, remove stuff in the pot to process process a bit to back in later or serve as a topping. There’s fermented beans to put in you’re high efforting this on the ingredients list
I’ve seen it go off the menu at multiple restaurants in the city I’m in and when asked why, the answer is always because the community the restaurant is in doesn’t buy it and it doesn’t hold well while it stays on the menu in communities with large Lao, Thai, Cambodian, Burmese, Malaysian. Indonesian, Viet people. The people in these communities are all like, “oh shit I never seen this on menus and I don’t want to make that - too much work. Got to get that”
