Working up...I think

chinese Food

Why not do a little bit of General Tso chicken or pepper chicken? are you able to do do seafood style items? if so, shrimp chow mein is an easy one that would probably meet under your budget. there are tons of options and ideas you could come up with. Dont forget within the specials section you could always work with a spin of your own tastes. Take some food that you have a lot of and create something. just the .02 from me.

Andy

You're going to love commercial wok cooking. It's like running the egg line while on fire. And you're fighting ninjas. And the ninjas are on fire.

But seriously its a lot of fun.

Best way to practice is to with flipping dry rice in the wok. It's a lot like the sautee motion. Cooking is also different because the wok is much hotter in the center then in the sides. I prefer the round bottem woks with a pan handle. If you are really hard core, you can get one with only loop handles.

I am curious if you are doing made to order or steam table style stuff. Also if you have an exibition kitchen.

Remember, the major strength of American style chinese cooking is versitility and custamization. You should be able to turn the menu around on a dime. (This is good because it can allow you to sell off-menu items to regulars, which will increase participation).

I'll dig up my note book from the chinese restaurant. It's got some pretty good master sauce recipies. Check out both of Barbara Tropp's cookbooks they are written with a professional kitchen prospective here and here. Also get a copy of Bruce Cost's Asian Ingredients

As for some menu items off the top of my head:
-No soup?
-Chicken: You'll probally be using white meat right? See if you can order the scraps from when they cut portion control chicken breasts. Its good for a bargain menu, and most of the cutting is done.
-Tofu: Have you checked out the fried tofus? They have a nice meaty chew. You should also check out seitan, tempeh, and wheat gluten for the veg heads.
- Orange chicken/beef. There are two schools of thought. The orange peel school and the OJ concentrate school. Go with the orange peel. I prefer the preserved tangerine peel that you get from the chinese herbalist. I have also seen versions made with sections of fresh orange peel and all.
-California Spring Roll. Spring roll stuffed with surimi/crab and avocado. It sold well.
- Chicken Pahd Ped. Its a Thai dish. Chicken, GG&S, peanuts, lot of chile (usually cayenne powder, but you can sub), diced tomato, and oyster sauce. Finish with a generous amount of chopped mint. Served with rice.
Is this a made to order set up or is it steam table panda express type food? Bonus points for an open chicken.
- Chicken/Shrimp Forcemeat. If master this technique you can do a lot of things with minor variations. Paper-Wrapped Chicken (you can use foil), shrimp toast, angel wings (chicken wings stuffed with farce), dumplings et al, lumpia (skinny Phillapino spring rolls), and more.
- Brown rice- If it is in the budget see about getting a seperate cooker for brown rice. At the place I worked about 25 to 30% of steamed rice orders were for brown rice.
- Fried Rice: If you are doing fried rice for scratch, use day cooked rice that you have broken the clumps up with your hands. It cooks much easier then fresh hot rice. Don't limit your self to the brown-soy-sauce rice that passes for fried rice in most places.

There is a lot of ground to cover. More to come as I think about it.

I am sitting in a Barnes & Noble while I am reading this line. I laughed out loud, while simultaneously spraying my computer screen and the table on which it rests with a mouthful of decaf. Great!!

Glad you liked it Jim!:cool: Sorry about the laptop...

Headless-

It's funny the places we end up in the biz. When I started, I wanted to be the next Charlie Trotter. Now I'd be happy doing diner (from scratch, mind you) stuff...

Heh "guai lao." I've heard that word used like gringo.

Steam tables huh? Rice noodle dishes like Pad Thai or Rad Nah won't hold well. Stir frys with crispy meat are right out...

I want to tell you to fill the steamtable's with ice so you can keep your mise there so you can do stuff to order, but I don't think that would be practicle.

You might want to add some curries to the menu since they hold well and serve fast. Let me know if you need formula's.

Have you thought about cold noodle dishes? They can get really easy and they are better made ahead of time. We did one with wheat noodles, five-flavor oil, scallion, cilantro, bean sprouts, fresh veg, and cold slow-poach chicken. We also did one that was similar to don-don noodles with a peanut dressing.

Cream cheese won-tons sold very well. Very cheap too.

If you are selling lettuce based salads already, you could work lettuce cups into the rotation. Bulk it up with lots of fired rice stick or bean thread vermicelli and it gets surprisingly affordable.

How are the other vegetarian options at your school? If they suck, you could capture a big segment of the statements.

I hope your suppliers come through. The abundance of stuff here in Los Angeles has me spoiled. We've even got a HUGE cash and carry place dedicated to asian foods and supplies that has way better prices and variety then the main-line distributers.(Canton Food Co, its downtown near the wholesale produce market for any interested locals) Maybe they have something like that in Toronto.


I didn't mean anything about the rice thing. Honest!:talk: The place I worked at tended to use the fresh rice, and it created a bit of extra work.