I'll give this a shot and hopefully my internet access will last long enough. I've spent my entire career trying to answer your question.
I'm afraid I don't know of any books that will substitute for visiting other kitchens. But that is a great idea for a book.
In any case, I will offer that much of it is, for lack of a better phrase, common sense. As you noted, not every order of clams casino is shucked to order. Nor is anyone butchering an entire side of beef for every rib eye steak order. So much of every restaurants' work is in preparation. Think of any food product you might want to serve and think about how to get it as close to ready as possible so it can be cooked in the shortest amount of time while still maintaining the best flavor and quality. So you can lightly steam those clams, cool, then cover with a topping and throw them in the oven to reheat as needed. But you already knew that, right? Every other item is exactly the same.
What you can learn from books are things like the five mother sauces, which provide a base from which you can then create thousands of sauces as you cook whatever item the sauce will be served with. You might make a large batch of a sauce and keep it warm during service, saucing each plate as the item is ready for the pass. Or you can use the sauce as a base to finish a pan sauce made with the fond left over from sautéing something.
Some vegetables can be blanched ahead, then heated quickly as needed.
Most proteins, like chicken, veal, beef, fish, etc. are cut ahead of time into individual portions, then cooked as needed. You can't cook an entire three or four pound chicken to order, which is why restaurants don't do that. They cut it in to sections and cook those in various ways because they cook so much faster in smaller pieces.
Books, like the French Laundry and others like it, can teach you things like straining your sauces to remove impurities and make a more pleasing effect when eaten. Many of the ideas Keller shares are useful to anyone in the cooking field at any level.
From cook books, You learn how to do things like cure salmon into gravlax, create sauces from other things like vegetable and fruit purees, herbs and oil, vinaigrettes, and many more. You can learn many food preparation techniques. You can gather many ideas of all kinds and adapt them to your operation.
After 30 years in cooking, I still turn to the Joy of Cooking to learn or re learn many things. I have over 200 cookbooks of all kinds and find them all useful for various reasons.
Remember too that kitchen work is generally broken down in to different stations. So any restaurant with a sizable menu has more than one or two cooks in the kitchen and responsibility for the different menu items is divided among them. Which is to say the more complicated and involved the food, the more cooks you need to get the work done. Or you buy pre made products.
So let's start with a hypothetical scenario. You want to cook a certain product for your restaurant. How far can you prepare it so it retains it's quality but will cook in a very short period of time? Will it have a sauce? Can you prepare that ahead without ruining it or will you need to make it at the last minute? What about sides like vegetables and starches?
Every chef considers all these factors when planning a menu. "How do I prepare and present all these menu items in such a way that the food tastes great, is presented well, and can all be done quickly to order?"
The question you are asking is the single question at the heart of what all chefs do and is also why there are so many different pieces of equipment out there, trying to meet the needs of the chef's trying to answer your question.
All of which is to say, keep reading your cookbooks. Buy others. Learn how to prepare many things. Practice at home. Then when the time comes, you will be better prepared to adapt what you have learned when you have an opportunity in a professional kitchen. But by all means, find the time to at least visit other kitchens now and again.
I'm afraid I don't know of any books that will substitute for visiting other kitchens. But that is a great idea for a book.
In any case, I will offer that much of it is, for lack of a better phrase, common sense. As you noted, not every order of clams casino is shucked to order. Nor is anyone butchering an entire side of beef for every rib eye steak order. So much of every restaurants' work is in preparation. Think of any food product you might want to serve and think about how to get it as close to ready as possible so it can be cooked in the shortest amount of time while still maintaining the best flavor and quality. So you can lightly steam those clams, cool, then cover with a topping and throw them in the oven to reheat as needed. But you already knew that, right? Every other item is exactly the same.
What you can learn from books are things like the five mother sauces, which provide a base from which you can then create thousands of sauces as you cook whatever item the sauce will be served with. You might make a large batch of a sauce and keep it warm during service, saucing each plate as the item is ready for the pass. Or you can use the sauce as a base to finish a pan sauce made with the fond left over from sautéing something.
Some vegetables can be blanched ahead, then heated quickly as needed.
Most proteins, like chicken, veal, beef, fish, etc. are cut ahead of time into individual portions, then cooked as needed. You can't cook an entire three or four pound chicken to order, which is why restaurants don't do that. They cut it in to sections and cook those in various ways because they cook so much faster in smaller pieces.
Books, like the French Laundry and others like it, can teach you things like straining your sauces to remove impurities and make a more pleasing effect when eaten. Many of the ideas Keller shares are useful to anyone in the cooking field at any level.
From cook books, You learn how to do things like cure salmon into gravlax, create sauces from other things like vegetable and fruit purees, herbs and oil, vinaigrettes, and many more. You can learn many food preparation techniques. You can gather many ideas of all kinds and adapt them to your operation.
After 30 years in cooking, I still turn to the Joy of Cooking to learn or re learn many things. I have over 200 cookbooks of all kinds and find them all useful for various reasons.
Remember too that kitchen work is generally broken down in to different stations. So any restaurant with a sizable menu has more than one or two cooks in the kitchen and responsibility for the different menu items is divided among them. Which is to say the more complicated and involved the food, the more cooks you need to get the work done. Or you buy pre made products.
So let's start with a hypothetical scenario. You want to cook a certain product for your restaurant. How far can you prepare it so it retains it's quality but will cook in a very short period of time? Will it have a sauce? Can you prepare that ahead without ruining it or will you need to make it at the last minute? What about sides like vegetables and starches?
Every chef considers all these factors when planning a menu. "How do I prepare and present all these menu items in such a way that the food tastes great, is presented well, and can all be done quickly to order?"
The question you are asking is the single question at the heart of what all chefs do and is also why there are so many different pieces of equipment out there, trying to meet the needs of the chef's trying to answer your question.
All of which is to say, keep reading your cookbooks. Buy others. Learn how to prepare many things. Practice at home. Then when the time comes, you will be better prepared to adapt what you have learned when you have an opportunity in a professional kitchen. But by all means, find the time to at least visit other kitchens now and again.
