RESTAURANT SUPPLY
Don't miss the recipe for Steamed Fish Heaped with Ginger and Green Onions that follows the story below:
Photo by Rae Wallis at unsplash.
I forever encourage home cooks to think and cook like restaurant chefs and cooks. “Taste along the way,” I say, or “Easy on the salt at the start.”
Use your hands to toss the salad. Wash up bowls and pots as you go. Hand towel on the hip.
Now I counsel home cooks to buy like chefs—not food in bulk or shopping every day but to stock restaurant-grade utensils and cookware for their home kitchens.
Pots and pans, knives and cutting boards—sure, you may buy them at various types of stores, from the same places where you stock up on your razor blades to artisanal boutiques that specialize in hand-hammered steel knives.
Keep at it, if that matters. But consider also going to restaurant supply stores, the (usually) very large warehouse-like stores that stock a restaurant with everything from a walk-in cooler to a box of vinyl gloves. These stores are no longer exclusively for restaurateurs; most anyone can patronize them and purchase at retail from them.
After many visits, over the years, to bunches of restaurant supply houses (as well as Asian and specialty markets), my own kitchen sports a mishmash of skimmers, strainers, steamers, and spatulas.
I very much appreciate my kitchen brigade; it’s proven stronger, more versatile, and longer-lived than would have been the same collection purchased in the common way. In many cases, it was less expensive, too.
Most of it is organized in an old farrier’s wooden work box, its several compartments equal in number to the crocks that others might use to arrange their stuff. Overall admonition: Never clutter the kids in the drawers. They’re worth admiring—and, better, accessing—in plain view.
For some reason, I have fallen for strainers, of different sizes and sorts. One, a steel skimmer almost as flat as a saucer and with dozens of wee perforations, I’ve nicknamed “Sine” (as in sine qua non) because it is absolutely essential for skimming fat or froth from simmering liquids. Never again for me, the side of a large spoon.
I’ve found indispensable a small cache of sturdy, steel Chinese wok tools (which may be found at both non-Asian restaurant suppliers as well as some large Asian grocers): a larger-than-life ladle; several bamboo-handled so-called “spider” strainers, variously meshed, that get their name from their webs of wiring; and a wok shovel (Sine’s spatula sib). While I own two woks, one large, one small, I rarely use them. I have married these Chinese steel wok tools to their Western stainless All-Clad partner pots and pans.
Only a few years ago, I discovered that restaurant supply stores sell those inexpensive plastic containers used by delis to move potato salad and by many an Asian restaurant to doggy-bag soups. The lids are the same size, while the containers come variously sized. They’re around $5 to $10 a sleeve of 25 or 50. What a useful find; what a deal.
If you listen carefully to the chatter from that open-air kitchen at your next restaurant visit, you’ll hear the word “Cambro.” It’s the brand of a very sturdy, hard plastic food container, in both squares and rounds, and of various capacities. As “Kleenex” now means “facial tissue,” so “Cambro” stands in for other brands of similarly constructed containers. Get a few; they outperform less sturdy plastics, especially for large quantities of foods such as cleaned greens, vegetable preps, or stockpot broths.
The best steamer you can have around is made of bamboo, not steel. Depending on diameter, they’re $15-$25 and, though not dishwasher safe, easily washable and reusable hundreds of times. I fit my 10-incher down into a stainless steel pot (sorry, woks) and won’t use anything else to hard-cook eggs.
Finally, don’t wash any spoon, spatula or utensil made of wood (any sort of wood) in the dishwasher; it’ll kill them. Like sterling, good wood obtains a patina over time when both frequently used and properly cared for. Plus, they kind of become your friends, this one’s personality good for this kind of dish; that one, for that kind of dish.
I just haven’t gotten around yet to giving all of mine nicknames.
RECIPE: Steamed Fish Heaped with Ginger and Green Onions
Serves 4; from canadianliving.com
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds fish filets (such as sea bass, salmon or halibut)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry
2 teaspoons sesame oil
4 ounces ginger (enough to fill 1 cup container when peeled and sliced)
6 large green onions or scallions
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large shallot, peeled and minced
Directions
Place fish in shallow dish. In small bowl, stir together soy sauce, cooking wine and sesame oil; pour over fish. Marinate at room temperature for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, peel ginger; cut into fine julienne or matchstick-size lengths to make about 1 cup. Set aside. Trim green onions. With side of cleaver, smash onions flat. Slice in half lengthwise; cut into 2-inch lengths. Set aside.
In wok or skillet over medium-high heat, heat oil. Add ginger; stir-fry for about 2 minutes or until turning golden. Add shallot; stir-fry for about 2 minutes or until ginger is golden. Add green onions; stir-fry for 2 minutes, pressing onions against bottom of wok or skillet to sear. Spoon over fish. Spoon any of the marinade on plate over fish. Pour enough water (to depth of about an inch) into wok or skillet to allow for steamer basket; bring to boil. Place dish with fish inside basket; place in wok. Cover and steam for 10 to 15 minutes or until fish is opaque and flakes easily when tested with a fork.