- Nov 22, 2006
- 19
- 10
Hello all. New member here in a big way. First a little background; I love to cook. I attended professional culinary school and have been working as a Chef at an upscale restaurant. I was recently approached by a very large gourmet grocery chain. They are starting a new flagship store in my area. It is going to be huge. They are installing a giant smoker and are going to sell not only smoked meats from the meat case, but also put in a mini-cafe just to showcase them (with beer on tap!). They want me to run the smoker, design the menu, everything! I'm so excited. The only problem is I have barely used a smoker before. We did some smoking in culinary school, but most (fine-dining) restaurants don't use smokers so I haven't used one in the workplace. I've been pouring over books and websites in the last week to get more information over the last week, seeing as I haven't officially got the job yet, but that's just a technicality. I haven't seen the smoker yet. The store won't be open until the first of the year. So far I know that it is a vertical hot smoker. They are planning on using green apple wood at least for the start up and keeping the menu simple for the first month, until I can start playing with it and learning it's "moods". I'm not sure yet, but I believe it also can get down to 100 degrees, so slow smoking might be a possibility. Anyway that's my story! Looking for recipes on everything. Besides smoked meats, fish, and shellfish, I need to come up with other ideas such as smoked nuts (better to soak them in hot sauce or coat them in rub?), smoked cheeses, smoked potatoes, beans, stuffed portobellos, tomatoes, smoked fruits, smoked soups, possibly even smoked deserts (?), whatever. The world is my smoked oyster! I'll let y'all know more about the smoker itself when I see it next week or the week after. I've already signed up for the ecourse and purchased four books. So, thoughts, comments, suggestions? This is going to be fun!
