Tips for Keeping the Kitchen Clean. In a restaurant, the kitchen is the most important room. It is a place where delicious foods created by skilled chefs or chefs come out.
We can imagine, during lunch or dinner time, in the dining room, the situation is comfortable, and calm, accompanied by soft jazz music. But behind the scenes, in the kitchen, the atmosphere must be frenzied, the chefs are working hard to turn out dishes as quickly as possible but with impeccable quality.
In a busy kitchen like that, it takes great effort to maintain cleanliness according to standards so that the food produced is kept safe and healthy.
For this reason, it is necessary to make a kind of cleaning SOP so that your professional kitchen, be it in a restaurant or in an institution such as a hospital or hotel, is kept clean and shiny.
In professional kitchens, many cooks follow the “work while cleaning” rule. By implementing these rules, the dirt produced by the kitchen will not accumulate high. Piled-up or messy dirt can distract chefs while they work. If anything spills, wipe it off and dry it again. Sure it will delay the cooking time by a few minutes. But it’s better than having to clean it with a scraper because those stains are already sticky and hardened. Even simply pouring water over a dirty pot before placing it in the sink can be helpful compared to just leaving the pot alone, especially if the pot has just been used to cook something sticky or could harden if left to sit.
Cleaning your kitchen is easy if you follow these tips:
- When slicing, peeling, or chopping, work from side to side, right to left, or left to right. So the dirt is always on one side and ready to be removed before starting the next job.
- Use a sink that is divided into 3 tubs. RMC suggests dividing it into:
- Tub 1 for soaking with soap. You can use an industrial-grade dishwashing solution with a dilution of 1:30. This product effectively removes protein, fat, and oil impurities, as well as sticky impurities such as starch. This product does not foam, so it is easy to rinse and leaves no residue after rinsing.
- Tub 2 for rinsing.
- Tub 3 for soaking with sanitizer/disinfectant. Thus, apart from being clean, cutlery and cooking utensils are also free of germs and bacteria.
Preparation
- Prepare 1 pot with water that is kept hot for example over low heat on one of the stoves. Use it to rinse or sanitize cookware between jobs instead of using new equipment again for each job.
- Keep a damp rag near a chopping board or cutting board. That you can use it right away to wipe up any sticky residue or spills. The cloth can also be moistened. Which effectively removes heavy dirt and has a neutral pH, making it safe for the user’s hands.
- Surfaces must be kept free of bacteria, especially before and after handling seafood, poultry, or meat. So that the customer does not suffer from food poisoning or digestive ailments. Prepared in a ready-to-use spray. It is best to let it dry on its own. If the surface is needed for immediate use. You can use a clean cloth that has also been sanitized with the same product.
- If you make more than you need. Put the rest in an airtight container and put it in the fridge, freezer, or ingredient storage cupboard. If necessary, label the name of the material. Check the date it was made so that it is not stored too long.
Make sure all cooking and eating utensils are clean from the sink area
Before leaving the restaurant, all cooking utensils must be washed and removed from the sink. In washing dishes, three stages of washing are needed. For cookware with stubborn stains, high-pressure water (hot jet) is required, so that dirt can be removed immediately. Food scraps must be accommodated in a garbage container or garbage disposal. If the dishes and other cooking utensils have been washed, transfer them to a rack to dry them, separating the cups, glasses, plates, pans, and other cooking utensils.
Talking about refrigerators and freezers. They also have to be neatly arranged to speed up the work of the staff in the kitchen. Make sure all staff know where to look for and put materials back where they belong.
Keeping the industrial kitchen clean and hygienic is the most important step in implementing food safety(food safety). Contact us to try the products mentioned above for free.
