17
Spent 4 days chasing a sauce that kept splitting on me
Ran a fish special last Tuesday with a beurre blanc and it broke three times during service. I thought it was my heat, so I dropped the burner, but it still split. Turns out my prep cook was adding cold butter straight from the walk-in instead of letting it soften, which I never wouldve guessed. Took me until Friday to actually watch him do it and now we have a rule about butter temp before service. Anyone else had a sauce issue that was a person problem, not a technique problem?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
claire_wells8720d agoMost Upvoted
Watch the little things that seem too stupid to matter. It was probably the same for me with a hollandaise on a brunch shift, kept breaking every damn Sunday. Turned out my morning guy was rinsing the bowl with hot tap water instead of giving it a proper dry, so the temp was all off from the second I started whisking. He thought it was no big deal, but water is a killer for emulsions. You fixed the butter issue, but I bet there is another habit lurking that nobody thinks to mention until it costs you a whole service. Make a checklist for prep, not just the big stuff, the tiny dumb steps too.
6