Worst Kitchen Mistake - Page 3

oldschool1982 · #31 08-02-2006, 11:57 AM

Years ago I was a New Store Opening trainer for one of the major chains. I was acting as the prep trainer in this instance. At the time I did this all of the desserts were still baked on site and we were working on some of them that day.

When I was baking a carrot cake I used to set them on the maxi-rack with the lid of an 18x36 lexan cover on them so nothing coud get in the batter as it came to room temp.

Well it's amazing how clear a brand new lid actually is. Yep you guessed it. Two 18x36 pans of carrot cake when into the oven, lids and all, and started to bake.

After 20 minutes passed I went to go rotate the pans in thne oven and when I opened it...... Arrgghhh!

It seems when the lexan lid heatd it sunk and forced all or most of the batter out of the pans. It all had become one solid carrot cake oven racks, cake pans, oven deck in all. It was a good thing that only 2 of the 6 trainees were there to witness it.

It was really funny that when I returned to this company a couple years later and was opening more restaurants with them, there were still some opening team members I worked with that were told the story of this little mishap.

Al_Dente · #32 08-02-2006, 07:27 PM

Too funny...But did you really have to take me back there???

1) mmmm caramel...smells great...bet it tastes even BETTER!

2) That's got to be the smallest pepper I have ever seen in my life...
taste it you say? SURE!

3) Oh, the cold fryer you say?...hmm. Sorry about that. But did you check out the cool things the plastic bucket did before it popped?

4) Meat fork, shmeat fork...looks great for busting up ice as well...
Doctor: "Yup 4 stitches...2 where it went in..and 2 where it came out.
It was a meat fork after all and your thumb is meat!"

Mikeb · #33 08-02-2006, 08:05 PM

Worst kitchen mistake? Probably the one that cost me the most. I slightly over-browned a starch (supposed to be golden-brown), and didn't have time to make another. It honestly wasn't even that bad, but the sous-chef already hated me. I got fired for that, even though the customers ate the whole dish and enjoyed it (in an interesting twist, I got re-hired at that restaurant at a later date).

Another one - when I was still a green apprentice, we ran out of mustard. I substituted grainy mustard for a vinaigrette, but it didn't emulsify because the grainy mustard didn't have enough emulsifiers in it (since there were still many whole seeds, the effective binding power was reduced). Come to think of it, I should have just used a single egg yolk and a bit of the grainy mustard for flavour, but back then I wasn't thinking strait. The chef wasn't very happy, I thought for sure that was going to be my last day at that job. Of course it wasn't, I went on to become a Chef de Partie there.

oldschool1982 · #34 08-02-2006, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Al_Dente

Too funny...But did you really have to take me back there???

1) mmmm caramel...smells great...bet it tastes even BETTER!

2) That's got to be the smallest pepper I have ever seen in my life...
taste it you say? SURE!

Maybe in part it's my moogarootie but I haven't laughed that hard in a while. I have a mental picture of the images since I actually saw both happen once!!!!!!

ChefInTraining · #35 08-02-2006, 11:16 PM

O.k. check it out. I'm brand new to the industry as a prep cook. As a prep cook one of the items on the prep list was to oven roast and portion button mushrooms. So I place the seasoned and olive oiled mushrooms in the convection for about 12 mins. 12 mins. go by and the loud a** timer on the oven goes off. I look around and there are no dry towels. Idiot me I grab the old dirty gloves hanging on the rack that nobody ever uses. I grab the hot sheet pan out of the oven wearing the cutting gloves and quickly set it down because my hands were burning like a b**ch. The funny part was that I continued to use these gloves as oven mits thinking they were oven mits and thinkging they made my hands hot because they were old and dirty

Greg · #36 08-02-2006, 11:35 PM

The magnet in the lid for the safety switch on our robot coupe had fallen out. While we waited for the new part, we'd put the lid on and put the magnet where it would be if the lid were secured. This, of course makes it impossible to lock down the lid. I had some olive tapenade going but needed a sheetpan for something else. The sheetpans were only 12 feet away, so I left the robot coupe running. I made it to the sheetpans, grabbed one and turned around just in time to watch the lid vibrate off. If you click on the above thumbnail pic, you'll get a full size pic of the mess. There's a key box on the wallnext to a bulletin board; look just below it and you can see a spot of tapenade on the wall. That stuff was everywhere.

ChefInTraining · #37 08-06-2006, 12:14 AM

I cut myself pretty bad today.....I saw it coming too......****...

baaronm · #38 08-07-2006, 10:38 AM

OMG! I haven't laughed this hard in a while! You must have made a great friend out of the Chef!

baaronm · #39 08-07-2006, 10:43 AM

I wasking as a Commis in the most fab restaurant in SF(at the time).....forgot the confit in the oven. By the time I remembered and was trying to remove the duck legs from the fat (as they flell apart into little pieces) the sous Chef was standing over my shoulder, berating me in front of the entire open-kitchen and 300 guests (who found it entertaining).

boosehound · #40 08-07-2006, 10:59 AM

HOBART, 6 flats of eggs(30-flat) ,on highest speed ,and there you have it whipped eggs all over the kitchen, mostly on me, worst part it was my day off i was still in street cloths from school(was in high school at the time) and it took 30 minutes to clean up, thank god it was the chefs day off, the sous just thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen and walked away