Many people seem to have the misconception that the road to becoming a chef is easy, but if we really look at the intricacies, the reality is in fact the complete opposite. Being a chef is tough and demanding both physically and mentally!
The long hours that are synonymous with the career, makes it absolutely vital that you are passionate and dedicated to the craft. You need to be passionate about creating new recipes, and not be scared to experiment with different ingredients and flavors. Your passion needs to be what motivates you.
The founders and head chefs at the Sirka Gourmet Takeout – Baldeep Singh and Kanwardeep Ahluwalia are not only passionate but also have the right amount of motivation, talent, experience, and enthusiasm. The restaurant has created a stir in Surrey with their lip-smacking delicacies and top-class dining experience. We let you get acquainted with the duo who are the heart and soul of Sirka Gourmet Takeout.
Baldeep, a first-generation chef, feels that a chef must – think like a scientist, cook like a grandma, and plate like an artist. “I believe in choosing my passion as a profession and hence I became a chef.”
He says, “Cooking is an interaction between the ingredients and as a chef, I understand the story behind each ingredient. I feel communication is the key to have a perfect platter with your personal touch as we pour our heart and soul out.”
The different facets of being a chef excites him every day to give his best at work. Meeting different people with varied mindsets and preferences and catering to their needs with utmost care and perfection is what thrills him. He says, “A chef’s life is really an exciting career. The challenges to create menus and deliver dining experiences of a kind that people love. This makes one feel like a winner, and I believe as a chef I make it happen. Also, you cannot ignore the opportunities of meeting new people and celebrating novice cuisines. The empowering experiences that I have after delivering the product is unmatched.”
“I believe a great chef has to be passionate about food and cooking. They must genuinely enjoy the whole process of procuring, preparing, cooking, and serving food and have to be able to design menus too,” he added.
Kanwardeep Ahluwalia, the other culinary master at Sirka
Kanwardeep says, “Chefs use science to develop their food preparation techniques and invent new methods of cooking. Chefs understand how cutting, heating, and cooling food change its composition. Cooking and food preparation are applied sciences, and chefs understand them fully to succeed at their job.”
Gourmet Takeout, feels being a chef is to honor the art of cooking and blend the craftsmanship with your utmost creativity. For him, it is equally important to understand your ingredients, to have the intelligence to play around with your own authentic aesthetics and trust while creating a dish that gives a rush of adrenaline.
He says, “I cannot think well, sleep well if I haven’t dined well. If it applies to me, it surely fits right for many others as well. My life is for food, it’s not just a profession for me but an expansion of my wings to nurture, create, improve, learn, play, and display my deepest desires on the plate.
He says for him being a chef means you need to romanticize the food that you make.
Sirka Gourmet Takeout has not just won people with its amazing food offerings, it has also been a proud food sponsor at various celebrity live shows held in the city. Kanwardeep says, “A chef has to have a keen sense of business to run a profitable organization. The kitchen has to not only produce tasty food, but it also has to be cost effective and wastage should be minimal.” “The ability to multitask comes to great use in the life of a chef. They are overall in charge so from planning and designing menus to raw material procurement and inventory management to ensure that the right food goes to the right table, all the elements of a kitchen have to come together at the right time to result in seamless satisfactory service. It is the chef’s duty to keep tabs on all of it.”
Every chef has to be committed to quality using only the freshest and best quality ingredients and the best techniques to produce tasty food of the highest grade.
He added, “There is no guarantee that everybody will always love the food cooked by a chef. He will sometimes face criticism and he has to be able to handle it with equanimity, analyze the feedback and take appropriate action on it.
“It’s a pleasure and an honor to be a chef,” he concluded and signed off!
Baldeep says, “An essential quality of a true chef is stamina. The commercial kitchen is a hard place to work; long hours on foot exposed to heat, grease, high pressure, and odd working hours; a chef needs stamina to remain focused and consistently produce top quality food.”
