Restaurant Staff Meal…

Staff meal or otherwise affectionately known as “family meal” in the restaurant world is a time when the entire staff gathers together for 30 to 60 minutes to not only eat, but to relax and escape from the day’s mental stress and physical hardship.  It’s a time to relax, re-fuel and replenish the mind, body and soul.

The very first restaurant I worked for, Chanterelle, had the most elegant family meals of any other restaurant that I’ve been a part of.  By elegant, I don’t mean we were eating Kumamoto oysters, Osetra caviar, Hudson Valley foie gras, New Zealand rack of lamb and Kobe wagyu.  It was rather the attitude and importance placed upon the day’s meal that has branded my memory some 20 odd years later.  Family meal at Chanterelle consisted of white linens, wine glasses, water glasses, Pellegrino sparkling water, bread baskets and various meals often cooked by Chef Waltuck himself.  The food itself was not fancy by any means, and in most cases, a lot of it was comfort food or food for the bourgeois served family style on platters and passed around the dinner table.  In 2000, Chef Waltuck in fact published his book called “Staff Meals” with 200 of his favorite “family meal” recipes.  It’s a great cookbook for chefs and home cooks alike and one that I recommend whole heartedly.

Now I don’t purport to serve up staff meal at my restaurant in the same manner as it was at Chanterelle.  However, I do place an importance on the meal and the time spent with employees.  At the restaurant, we take turns cooking staff meal and we have a diverse range of foods that we eat during our lunch time.  We cook up a lot of different dishes with origins from many different countries.  Because a lot of the chefs are Asian, we do tend to cook a lot of Asian foods from Japan, Korea, China, Thailand and Vietnam.  When it’s my turn to cook up family meal, I tend to draw upon a more diverse culinary background including those from Europe, Asia as well as good ole’ America.  Sometimes our family meal can be something as simple as mori soba “cold Japanese soba noodles”, salt roasted hamachi kama with rice or even linguine aglio é olio.  Other times we can go for sushi, grilled pork belly, Thai larb gai or even lemon caper pork chops

Today I decided to cook a casserole which the term itself is of French origin meaning “saucepan”.  However, casseroles are quite common in the United States as it is in France although the styles are different.  Today’s chicken and broccoli casserole was an ode to the American style casserole but with an Asian fusion twist.  Even the term “chicken and broccoli” conjures up the thought of that classic Chinese-American dish that’s served up by the millions at the local Chinese take-out joint.

The chicken was marinated yesterday with Montreal steak seasoning, granulated garlic, Bayou cajun seasoning, egg whites, baking soda and shichimi togarashi otherwise known more commonly as “Japanese 7-spice”.  The egg whites and baking soda are solely used as a tenderizer and is a common Chinese method of tenderizing cheaper cuts of meats.

The chicken was cut into approximate one inch cubes and sautéed with fresh minced garlic.  Chopped onions are then added and sautéed further for about one minute.  Broccoli crowns are then quickly blanched in salted boiling water for about 30 seconds and then seasoned with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper and lightly dressed with a wasabi yuzu dressing.  Although for Thanksgiving I make my own stuffing, since this is a quick family meal, I cheated and enlisted the help of Stove Top Stuffing.  I neatly arranged the blanched and seasoned broccoli on top of the chicken and then placed spooned stuffing all around.

I made a batch of “spicy mayo” by mixing mayonnaise with sriracha, sambal oelek and layu, a spicy sesame oil which can be found at most Asian supermarkets.  Sriracha and sambal, two of my most favorite Asian condiments, can easily be found at most Asian markets these days.  Cover the chicken, broccoli and stuffing mix with the spicy mayo and unagi sauce otherwise known as eel sauce.  Although eel sauce doesn’t sound very mouth watering to most westerners, it’s flavor profile is somewhat similar to teriyaki sauce having that same salty yet sweet combination of flavors.

Add generous amounts mozzarella cheese on top and bake at 450˚F (232˚C) for about 10 minutes or until cheese is completely melted.

Add chopped scallions for flavor as well as to garnish and then enjoy!

~ by TYR Photo on October 15, 2012.