‘If you can’t take it, get another job’: chef’s tough apprenticeship, and how young cooks don’t want to work in Chinese restaurant kitchens any more
- Siu Hin-chi, the executive chef of Ying Jee Club, says traditional Chinese dishes are disappearing from Hong Kong menus because they are too labour-intensive
- Where once there were seven chefs at each station in the kitchen, now there are one or two. Young cooks think the work too tough, but it was worse in his youth
How did you get into the restaurant industry? “I’ve been cooking since 1975. When I entered the industry, at 15 years of age, we needed to eat to survive. It was tough, working from early in the morning until midnight. My first job was at a high-end restaurant called Lung Tung Court, in Jordan [now closed].
“I started off cleaning the kitchen, washing vegetables and finishing the dishes, like arranging broccoli on a plate. The chef asked me to carry a pot – it was so hot – but we weren’t allowed to use any cloth to protect our hands. After a week I got blisters. He chided me, saying if you can’t take it, get another job. I practised carrying hot pots until I didn’t get any more blisters. I began enjoying cooking about 10 years in.”
How did you move up in the kitchen? “I was lucky. On our break, we apprentices would practise stir-frying leftover noodles and rice. One time, four of us cooked Singapore noodles. The chef came by and only ate my noodles. After that I was promoted to stir-frying.”
What kind of dishes did you cook? “In 1986, I worked for a high-end restaurant called Lung Heen [also closed]. Guests at high-end restaurants have high expectations: the flavours are delicate, not too salty, and you need to cook more carefully. Stir-fried choi sum could be HK$60 in regular restaurants, but there it was HK$120. It is the same ingredient but you need to cook it carefully, use less oil, and present it nicely.”
Are expensive dishes more difficult to prepare? “When it comes to expensive ingredients, when you are learning, you watch more than you cook. But when the chef trusts you, he will let you cook. Once you learn to cook the dish, it’s not that hard.
“For example, shark’s fin and crab roe is easier than stir-frying beef and vegetables. Once you make the supreme stock, cook the shark’s fin in it, then add the crab roe. That’s it. With stir-fried beef and vegetables, you need to cook two ingredients separately.”