Sushi is a traditional dish from Japanese cuisine made by fermenting rice and fish together. Some popular sushi types include Nigirizushi, Makizushi, Temakizushi, Chirashizushi, Inarizushi, Narezushi, Oshizushi and a westernized version of sushi. Most of the sushi preparations include some or most of the following ingredients: fish (salmon, eel, octopus, tuna, etc), white or brown rice, wasabi, soy sauce, seaweed, pickled ginger, crabs, shrimp, sea urchin, tempura, caviar, avocado, cucumber and asparagus. Here is an insight on how to become a professional sushi chef.

Professional Culinary Education

A traditional Japanese sushi chef spends approximately 8 to 10 years of his life perfecting his sushi skills. However, new culinary courses at various universities across the US offer you a diploma for sushi expertise in a span of not more than 2 to 3 years. Some restaurants permit their existing chefs to enroll for 6 months long crash courses on sushi art. With the growing popularity of sushi, there is high demand for chefs who know all about different versions of Asian cuisine along with an additional expertise in Japanese and sushi styles.

Basic Skills of a Sushi Chef

Acquaintance with Japanese and general Asian cuisines
Formal education in sushi art
Knife skills and good presentation skills
Excellent skills of verbal communication
Ability to control and handle the prescribed hygiene standards at the kitchen station.
Ability to multi-task responsibilities in colleague’s absence or during peak hours at the restaurant.
Ability to innovate and create new recipes of sushi.
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Oh the Hors d’oeuvres! The sausages! The steaks, and the cheeses! There are two reasons to become a chef – either you’re a foodie, or you’re on a mission to turn the entire world into foodies. Doesn’t matter which category you fall into; what matters is the fact that cooking can turn into one of the most interesting careers in the world for you, if you have the knack of playing with spices and flavors. Think beyond, and you could manage a team of skilled chefs who know the nitty-gritty that the culinary world enfolds within. That said, the career of head chefs revolves around creating innovative recipes, establishing a name for themselves, managing a team of chefs and kitchen workers, and earning handsomely. If you’re a bon vivant and see yourself mixing the best of spices in a reputable eatery a few years down the lane, a career as a head chef awaits you with arms wide open. In the following segment, we bounce off the various steps on how to become a head chef, which are composed of the education requirements, specialization, and personal skills, all of which define the absolute process of becoming a head chef in a hotel. So, here goes.

Steps to Becoming a Head Chef

Just so you know, to become a head chef, one must be through the basics of becoming a chef, gain relevant experience in the field of cooking, and then plan on becoming a head chef in a large-scale eatery. Following are the steps involved in becoming a head chef:

Seek Education: While the knack of cooking is a requisite for every culinary aspirant who plans on becoming a chef later in life, one needs to enroll in a culinary school post high school. The United States of America boasts of a number of world-class culinary institutions such as Institute of Culinary Education (NYC), California Culinary Academy (San Francisco), and Texas Culinary Academy (Austin) which can be considered if one wants to kick-start their career as a chef. From basic cooking to baking art, these schools groom their students in the best way possible, and prepare them to cook some of the best dishes in the world. Lastly, they will help you discover your own unique style of cooking, and tell you how to maximize it. Read the rest of this entry »

Chefs entice the olfactory like no other perfume can. It is a skill that is honed over years of kitchen experience. A professional chefs can do it under extreme pressure as well. The job of head cook, is not an easy one. A head cook needs to be calm and composed under stress of meeting immediate orders and demands. He must have excellent communication skills to maintain his loyal clientele and have an efficient team. A head cook holds a managerial position that brings a great responsibility. He must be a leader in every situation, who can steer his teammates towards a successful career.

Job Description of a Head Cook

The primary task of a head cook is to decide the menu and cook. He is responsible for coming up with the right combination of drinks, starters, main course and desserts.
To prepare the whole menu or get the bare minimum ready, to prepare it when the order comes in, he must have an able staff and a sous-chef. Thus, a head cook must also play the role of a human resource manager and recruit the skilled chefs for his team.
He must also know the sources of buying the vegetables, meat, alcohol, spices and other required raw materials at wholesale rates, so that the work flow remains within the budget.
The biggest task of a head cook is that he needs to keep a quality check on food preparations and the surroundings. He must make sure that the food is being cooked as per the pre-determined standards and the eating area is clean and hygienic. A slight falter can cost him, his job.
The storage area, especially the cold storage has to be cleaned completely every twice a week to maintain prescribed sanitary norms.
The hotel industry records maximum food wastage, which in big ways contributes to global food crisis. A head cook must plan his preparation in a way, that it minimizes food wastage. Expensive spices and condiments have to be used judiciously to work within decided budgets.
A head cook is also responsible for taking inventories of stock, supplies and makes a list of items that will be required in the coming week. Read the rest of this entry »