From our Ask the Chef series

Q: If you were working in a restaurant and wanted to make pancakes with a blueberry compote for the breakfast hour, how could you keep the compote fresh, while plating all those pancakes? Would you keep it refrigerated and heat it up as needed, or could it be left out and heated as needed? Just curious how a breakfast restaurant would do it.

Thanks,

Mark

A:  Thinking about opening up a pancake house, Mark? Typically in a restaurant setting, the blueberry compote would be held hot on a steam table (covered containers are placed in a steam-well, heated from below with hot water/steam), which keeps food warm without scorching or drying it out, for easy serving.

Chef Gail