For the same dish, each chef has a different technique, so is there a fixed standard reference?

Simply put, this is the non-replicability of dishes

The solution is to unify standards

Finally, cooking with heart is a chef, cooking with technology It's a cook

Suppose you are a new chef and learn to cook from the master. The master teaches you step by step. You learn step by step and follow the master's steps to copy step by step. The final dish is cooked. , most likely they are different.

The reasons mainly include several aspects.

1. Individuals have different understandings of ingredients.

Some people think that 3 minutes is just the right amount of time to cook a dish, while others think 3 minutes and 10 seconds is enough. The length of cooking time sometimes greatly affects the taste of the dish.

2. Individuals have different understandings of seasonings. Salt, soy sauce, pepper, and sugar, because Chinese chefs' standards for seasonings are "a small amount" and "a little", so this amount is difficult to grasp. The amount of seasonings will greatly affect the taste of the dish.

3. The proportion of ingredients. It is difficult for an apprentice to have the same grasp of the ratio of ingredients as the master. This will seriously affect the taste. It is very likely that the taste of the auxiliary ingredients will take away the taste of the main ingredients, which is not worth the gain.

4. The understanding of knife skills and heat is different. Knife skills and heat are very important skills for Chinese people to pursue delicious food. The quality of knife skills will affect the taste of the dish, while the level of heat is more demanding, and the difference in heat will seriously affect the taste. The chef's experience, personal understanding, and understanding of heat will also vary greatly. Of course, the chef's taste will also vary greatly.

But then again, for the same dish, a hundred chefs have to have a hundred flavors. Different flavors can satisfy the taste buds of different people. Otherwise, all the dishes will be the same. Eating is no longer interesting! Right!

Our memory of taste requires the inheritance of history, and cooking skills require the accumulation of experience. No one is born a gourmet or a master of cooking. They need to grow step by step and gradually mature. However, many catering experts and scholars, kitchen managers, and chain restaurant operators have been pursuing simple management, emphasizing the need to reform Chinese food, implement standardization and stylization, and simplify the procedures for serving dishes. For people who think this way, their purpose is to facilitate the management of catering companies and the duplication and chain development of restaurants. They are just for convenience and want to maximize profits.

The standardization of Chinese food is to make every dish process-based, knowledge-based, and standardized. That is, people or robots without any cooking experience can make any dish with the same taste after simple training.

Over the years, many provinces have successively introduced their own standards for their classic delicacies, and some have even introduced their own "national standards." Among the standards reported by the media, in 2008 the country introduced the “national standard for steamed buns”. In 2010, Shandong compiled 53 Shandong cuisine standards and promulgated them for implementation. In 2013, the Hunan Provincial Quality Supervision Bureau issued local standards for 38 Hunan dishes, including chili fried pork and Mao's braised pork. On October 22, 2015, Jiangsu Yangzhou Municipal Quality Supervision Bureau released new standards for Yangzhou fried rice. In October 2015, the Sichuan Provincial Quality Supervision Bureau formulated standards for 12 Sichuan dishes, including twice-cooked pork, couple's lung slices, and fish-flavored shredded pork. At the end of November 2015, Xi'an issued standards for beef and mutton steamed buns. After the introduction of these classic food standards, how many restaurants are implementing them, and how many diners like to request chefs according to these standards, but no one answers or pays attention.

The standardization of catering is the prerequisite for the rapid scale of Chinese fast food, group meals, business meals, etc. But what diners pursue for gourmet food is its taste, and standardization is not enough. At least in terms of ingredients, cooking techniques, local traditional practices, characteristic utensils, special cooking utensils, regional civilization, local characteristics and local culture, taste methods, etc., strict standardization cannot be used to produce and standardize.

In China, a country with vast territory and abundant resources, the ingredients in Chinese food come from different regional environments. Ingredients with the same name and the same species have different advantages and disadvantages and cannot be completely standardized and fixed. There are many subtle differences in the ingredients. Take the peppers in the famous Hunan dish, Chili Stir-fried Pork, for example. There are more than 2,000 varieties of peppers in the world, and there are more than 600 varieties in Hunan. Dozens of common varieties also come in individual sizes. , the difference in curvature, meat thickness, and spiciness.

In different cities, states and counties in Hunan, the peppers produced in each place are different due to different soils. They are peppers grown on the same pepper tree. Each pepper is different in size, age and spiciness. How many peppers to fry, how much meat to fry, what shape to cut into, and what is the size of each piece are external things that the chef can easily determine and grasp, but they cannot guarantee that they will taste exactly the same.

Pork belly is the most commonly used meat ingredient. It is used in making Mao’s braised pork, braised pork, stir-fried pork with chili, etc. How to set the standards for this pork belly? Depending on the breed of pig and the size of the individual, pork belly can vary in thickness. Because of the different raising methods, pork belly can be fat or thin. There are also differences in the pork belly itself, including fine pork belly, fat pork belly, ordinary pork belly, etc. When these pork belly are cut according to the standard requirements, you will not be able to cut a complete piece of pork belly. It will either be a big piece or a small piece. The big piece is easy to handle, just cut off some. If you don't want the small piece, you should use other things to supplement it. , it’s hard to make a conclusion.

Each province in China is probably a large cuisine. The cooking techniques of chefs in each cuisine are not exactly the same, and the cooking procedures cannot be exactly the same and standardized. For the same ingredient in different cuisines, chefs have different requirements for the raw and cooked ingredients. For example, the lettuce we are familiar with is called green bamboo shoots in Sichuan cuisine. The standards for raw and cooked lettuce in Sichuan cuisine and Hunan cuisine are completely different. There are also different raw and cooked standards for the same ingredient in different dishes of the same cuisine. Stir-fried shredded lettuce and stir-fried pork with lettuce slices are an example. The tastes of the dishes they prepare are also completely different. As different catering companies, they use different fuels for cooking. These different fuels produce completely different firepower and require different cooking times. Some chefs like to add water when cooking and some don't. Add water in the same way, but if you add more or less, the time standard for juice collection will be different. Some chefs wield the shovel more frequently and in a wider range, and the results of the stir-fried dishes are completely different, making them beautiful, juicy, fresh and refreshing. If standardized, the width of the shovel swing and how many shovel swings should be used for each dish during cooking will be specified.

The very popular and popular dishes on the dining tables of large and medium-sized cities are largely traditional dishes from some mountainous areas and small places. They have their own traditional cooking methods in a fixed place. We It is impossible to standardize, and even improvement is difficult. There are tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of innovative dishes created by chefs across the country every year, but only a few hundred can survive in hotels. After one or two years of elimination, there may only be a few or even none left. These dish standards set by government departments were introduced after the dishes were produced and spread widely. In fact, for this dish, when it first appeared, the creator set the standard for it, how many main dishes and side dishes should be paired, how many ingredients should be used to make how many dishes, what seasonings should be added, and how many processes should be done. The process and when to add the oil, salt and soy sauce are all very clear. Those local famous dishes have been passed down through time and history, and they also have fixed fans and enthusiasts. These people are their disseminators and promoters. If this dish is introduced to the dining tables of large and medium-sized cities, it is not necessary to After a lot of improvements and enhancements, you don’t even need to make any modifications, just copy it. Entering large and medium-sized cities, through the short-term media and diners' warm-up, the whole city will be ecstatic, and diners will flock to it. Those cooking methods and techniques are completely contrary to the standardization of modern catering, but there is a market and profits, so many catering companies are still willing to operate these dishes, and even cook them separately or arrange for specialized chefs to cook them.

Each catering company has a clear positioning for its business at the beginning of planning, including dining environment, decoration, dishes and utensils, etc. According to the respective requirements of each company, they will choose what they like. and utensils that you think are unique. Different utensils have their own requirements for the size and shape of dishes, so they cannot be implemented according to the standards issued by the country. The same steamed fish head with chopped chili pepper, the first generation steamed fish head with chopped chili pepper and the third generation steamed fish head with chopped chili pepper are different. The first generation steamed fish head with chopped chili pepper and the second generation steamed fish head with chopped chili pepper are steamed by the chef in a large steam cabinet before being served to the table. The third-generation steamed fish head with chopped chili is steamed on the table. A small bottle of liquefied gas is used to heat the non-stick pan, and then the fish head is steamed for fifteen minutes, which is about twice the time of the steam cabinet. The fish they use The head size is different, the taste is different, the body of the fish is lengthened, and the side dishes are also different, with tofu as the rim. The standard for steamed fish head with chopped chili pepper previously promulgated by Hunan Province has become invalid, and the production of the third generation steamed fish head with chopped chili pepper cannot be controlled.

Chefs use different cooking utensils when cooking dishes. The utensils have different requirements for ingredients, and the taste of the dishes they cook is also different. Therefore, the use of special cooking utensils makes it impossible to standardize Chinese food. In different regions of China, they may use different cooking utensils for the same dish. Even in the same city or even the same catering company, if different chefs cook the same dish, they use different utensils, such as cast iron pots, cast iron pots, casseroles, etc. Some are personal habits, and some are conditional restrictions. Are the dishes made this way substandard? Is it inedible?

Regional civilizations in various parts of our country have a great impact on diet. Specific ingredients and dishes have cultural and regional limitations, and cannot be measured by rigid national or local standardization. The regional civilization of various places is the basic factor in forming my country's characteristic food, and it is also the main factor that determines the characteristics of catering. Under the influence of regional civilization, the dishes here are different from other surrounding places. This comprehensive cultural factor is very prominent in dishes, especially its shaping and appearance structure. Regional civilization cannot adapt to every province or place, let alone anywhere in the country.

The local specialties of each place instill a special soul and novelty into the dishes. The local culture of each place extends its cultural taste and connotation to the dishes. Local characteristics and local culture cannot be spread across the country. It is universal and cannot be unanimously recognized by diners across the country, so it cannot be completely standardized. These things are also the basic reasons for the formation of major cuisines in the country, and make the eight major cuisines prominent in the country. Other small cuisines and local cuisines will not die out, but will develop more vigorously and continue to multiply in their birthplace and special environment. , exuding vitality.

Each diner has his or her own special preference for food and tastes it in a different way. They have different standard requirements for salty, raw and cooked dishes. As the direct evaluator of a dish, the first is the diners who taste the dish, rather than the law enforcers and food critics. Only when the diners are satisfied is the chef's responsibility The highest pursuit.

As our era continues to evolve, people across the country are moving around the country due to the emergence of the wave of migrant workers. Because of the advent of the Internet era and the high-speed rail era, the world has become a global village. People can move freely anywhere in the world. In addition to tasting the delicacies from all over the world, they are most nostalgic for the dishes of their hometowns. Because of the conditions in different places and the lack of ingredients, when cooking dishes in other places, we cannot completely follow the standardization of our hometown. The taste will be different and there is an essential difference.

As long as it tastes good, it is a good dish

Each chef has his own technique, and each region has its own way of eating. Chefs cook with their own hearts. If you rely solely on As for cooking, he can only be a cook.

For example, you are a top Sichuan cuisine chef. You are very famous in your local area and the dishes you cook are also very popular. But one day you go to Jiangsu and you still follow your old recipe. As for the dishes, if I cook them using old techniques, the results I want will not be as satisfactory.

It is not the chef who has the final say in evaluating the quality of a dish, but the people who eat it. When most people in your place are not used to the food you cook, you should reflect on it. , you should adjust your own cooking standards, whether it is too salty, too spicy, etc.

So, my answer is the same dish, each chef has his own technique, there is no fixed standard.