Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)
Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)
This event was on
Tuesday, September 24, 2024 at 2:00 pm Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern
Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to cours… Read More.
Question:
When I'm cooking I go forward and back from the sink as I'm touching different foods. What do you chefs do to avoid this?
— ingrid ortega
Answer:
So, so yeah, it looks like you're just rinsing your hands between different ingredients. Um, now that's okay to do, but um, you know, typically most chefs will just wash their hands before they get everything going. You'll get all your ingredients basically kind of, um, you know, washed in the state that you want to. And then once you start, you know, using those ingredients, they're not washing their hands between each one. Now the one, uh, difference in this is meat products. If you're using meat products, you do want to go back and wash your hands and your cutting surfaces actually as well, um, after you're done doing them. But for vegetables, if you're making something like the chili we were talking about earlier, you can go through and peel the carrots and cut the celery and cut up the tomatoes and all those other things, um, with washing your hands just the one time and then not having to worry about it. Now if you're adding something like a chicken or um, um, you know, beef to that, uh, do your vegetables first, that cut up your, uh, your meat on a cutting board and then thoroughly wash your hands cutting boards, um, afterward. And that's just something you have to do as part of cooking. If you're cooking with meats, um, being plant-based, you don't have to worry about that cross-contamination as much unless somebody has an allergen to one of the vegetables that's in there or gluten as well. So, um, when you are cooking, you are gonna be washing your hands, uh, quite a bit just to be able to keep things nice and clean, um, uh, especially if you're doing it with meats.