Behind the Scenes: The pots, pans, and people that make millions of meals
joseandres.substack.com
joseandres.substack.com
(there are the giant paella pans, and then there's the FIRE!)
==== I fell in love with making the fire. Until one day I told my dad, why don't you let me cook? He said, no, I need you to do the fire. Yeah, but I know how to make the fire. Make somebody else make the fire. I want to cook. No, I need you to do the fire. Paella and fire, hand by hand. If you don't have the right fire, it will never be a right paella. One day, he got very upset, very upset, a big tantrum. He sent me to the forest, "Go to the forest." When we finished, he came and said, "My son, I know you were upset because I'm not letting you cook and you think that cooking is the most important part. But, actually, I gave you the most important task. That was making the fire. If you control the fire, then and only then one day, you'll be able to cook." Since then, I've been always trying to search what really is my fire, what really is what holds everything else. The cooking is the obvious. When we are able to achieve success in the non-obvious is when things begin moving.
But it's too hard! It takes too much time! Well, you need a freezer, and a plan, but for HN readers, I think everyone can handle it. Also it's fun buying spices from Penzeys and making up big batches of Indian food, stews of many different cuisines, risottos with many different combinations of yummy things, etc. You eat your fill of the big batch and then it's quart and gallon labelled freezer bags for the rest. Nuke 'em during the week and you're good to go. If you're young, it's a great way to entertain friends, and potentially partners.
If you look at what either José Andrés or the cooks for the Sikh Temple are serving, they cook for the purpose, not for ephemeral desires. My point, I want to emphasize, is that we culinary plebes can cook for the purpose and it be delicious and nutritious, with a freezer and a plan.
Ship the difference in fundage to the World Central Kitchen (or wherever) and your karma goes up too.
So what to do with hamburger at scale. As it happens... I have a great recipe for ground beef, potatoes, bell peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and stock that everybody I've ever fed it to, including my MIL, gets addicted to. It freezes perfectly. Here's a tip: grill a bunch of hamburgers on a nice hardwood fire, seasoned however you like. Eat a fabulous hamburger dinner with friends (and lettuce). Freeze the leftover burgers, and then... use them in this dish. We call it 4-Layer Dinner.
(edited to fix some nits and omissions)
So... I sometimes send this dish off in a French Provençal direction, or sometimes toward Mexican Sonoran, or even Oaxacan. But you don't need to do that, all you need is some umami, and some basics. We have eaten it many times over the decades with Worcestershire Sauce as the umami (basically anchovies in soy) and the basics are a good grind of black pepper and potentially something sweet, if the tomatoes suck, as they often do. Don't get too fancy: you want to eat this after a frustrating day at work, freezer->microwave->plate. We add whatever chili concoctions we feel like as we like a bit of burn. But you don't need to do that!
So: take ground beef, cook if raw, use the fat to saute the vegetable matter, compose layers of beef first, then green matter, tomatoes, and then finally sliced potatoes covering the top. Add stock and spices to fill to just covering the potatoes, cook until as moist as you like. We like it saucy, but not a stew though. The more you make, the more nutritious and tasty comfort food you have for those days when... maybe I'll just order DoorDash.
Buen provecho!
Turned out not bad. Not quite beef stew, maybe more like a soupy shepherd’s pie.
I did end up with a considerable amount of unnecessary broth. I made a batch with 5lbs of beef, maybe another pound of veggies, 1.5 lbs tomatoes and 4 large gold potatoes. I filled my dutch oven and my crock pot with the layers and used 4.5 cartons of stock to get the liquid just over the potatoes. So it cooked in the liquid, but barely absorbed any, and I separated out the solids to pack in the freezer, adding back enough of the broth to hit a sloppy-joe ish consistency.
If you have a recipe with measurements, would love to compare. As it stands, looking to eat well for the next couple weeks. Cheers!
It was very sad to see, but it was really inspiring to see the generosity and humanity from all the people helping.
I donate to WCK, a great organization.
WOW. That's a PAN!
https://www.insider.com/worlds-largest-community-kitchen-gol...
Assuming the average meal is >400 calories - you need about 25,000 pounds of rice.
That's 500 50-lb bags.
That's a lot of food and work if all you were doing was just boiling rice!