We want to show our guests, how we operate our kitchen and about what we care. This page is getting updated, when we get better ideas to serve our guests more safe, healthier and with better taste. We have an open kitchen and we want to make the process more transparent.

This page is also our own manual, how we run the kitchen. Everybody, who want to work in our kitchen has to agree to the standards, have to sign them and have to follow them.

This is our first step to introduce a fully HACCP Concept for all our operations.

The Principles

We not only run a kitchen. We want to give with our kitchen an impact to the society, how food can be prepared in the BEST WAY! To reach this aim we have the following principles:

Use our own resources
Everything what we produce here, we know where it comes from. We don´t use chemicals for our plants or animals. Everything is growing naturally. For this, we can say: Our food is made from the best resources. For this we don´t have a fixed menu. We cook what we have on our land. The garden is the boss of our menu! We try to produce everything ourselves. Only the things we don´t have, we buy. But we prevent to buy ingredients from outside. If we have to buy something, this always means we are to stupid to produce it ourselves. And we don´t want to be stupid anymore!
We want to eat ourselves the BEST FOOD this we also want to give to the guests
We eat the same food, then our guests. We want to stay healthy and also our guests. What is the best for us, this is the best for our guest. For this we use the fresh fruits and vegetables of the garden, we work hygienic and we don´t use chemicals for food processing. We don´t use: MSG, preservatives, canned or bottled ingredients from outside. We try to serve as much as possible in raw food Quality and organic from the own garden. Our Menu all the time has a salad and fruits.
We work fully effective
The guests don´t want to wait a long time for the food. Also we don´t want to use the half time of our life to process food and cleaning dishes and the kitchen. We don´t want to destroy food. And we like to train ourselves in operating a kitchen. If we are cooking, we are cooking and not something else. 100 % of our body and brain is in the kitchen. And we work there with the system of Multitasking and team playing. We see, what need to be done, especially always keep the sink clean. Everybody has an eye on the fires, that nothing can be burned.
Mise en place
Everything is a his place! This principle make the work much more easier. And for the beginning of the cooking everything, what you need is prepared. And you have the optimal space for cooking. That means no start of any new cooking, before the sink is clean, the table clean and all ingredients are prepared and filled up.
Clean as you go!
All the time you have an eye, what can be cleaned, just on the way. If you bring one part to the sink, you can look, what else can go there. If you have a towel for leaning in your hand, than this towels can always clean something else what is dirty.
We learn from the others
Everybody know something better. Everybody has an idea! Everything can be more tasty. everything can be done more effective. Everything can be prepared more healthy! Everything can be done more fast. Everything can be organized better.
Hygienic
We follow as a member the health protocol of our Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Organization (PHRI) . We take care of the Covid-19 and the other standards of hygienic. We remind us, if somebody forget.

Preparation

The most important part of the cooking. For this we have a checklist, what all to need to be prepared for cooking. Before this is not done, nobody can start cooking. We follow here the french concept of Mise en plage: Everything at his place!

The person has to wear an apron and the hairs need to be covered. If the kitchen is entered, a mask has been worn. This also can be a face shield.
The hand have to be washed for 20 seconds with soap
The body temperature has been tested and noted in the documentation. If the temperature is over 37,3 degrees Celsius, it is not possible to enter the kitchen.
The person have to feel healthy and not sick.

The direct preparation of the tools and materials:

the first is to check if the two hot thermos bottles are full with really hot water. If not, the water is getting reboiled and the amount of hot water is cooked to fill the two bottles up. Often people early in the morning want to drink a hot coffee. I take for the this the rainwater. If there is no rain water, I take it from the gallons. Never the dirty Lake water is used for cooking. This is polluted by the PT. Aquafarm Regalsprings Indonesia. This is not for human consumption. The drinking water we take directly from a spring.
Then I look if all the dishes are cleaned, the tables in the kitchen are clean and I check all the already prepared food, if it is still good, if I have to reheat it or to give it in the bowl for the pigs.
Then I bring out all the waste. The food for the pigs, the compost and the rest of the waste. I clean the container in the Lake. Before I give back I check that the place of the bins are clean.
Then I go through the whole restaurant area and sweep it after I cleaned the tables. The process is always from up to down. Wherever I sweep, I look up first, if there are spiderwebs or other dirt on the sealing or the walls or wherever. After I sweep, I wipe the floor.
Then I look for the settings of the tables:
- The menu there
- The laminating of the right amount of people, they can sit at the table.
- The flowers on the table and they have enough water, when not fill them
- The right amount of seating are around the table with a minimum distance of 1 meter to the next.
Back at the kitchen I look now for all the things I need for cooking:
- I look that all the spices are filled up with the amount I never will use the whole day. Specially I look for the salt, the cinnamon, pepper and turmeric.
- I look for the knives I want to use and I test them, if they are sharp. If not I sharpen them directly with the sharpening stone at the sink.
- Then I look for the Microfibers and cloth, I want to use, if they are clean. All the clean one I hang above the sink. never there will be a dirty one. The dirty ones go to the sink and getting instantly cleaned, when it is time.
- The water gallons are filled up and the dispenser for the water are not empty. If they are empty, I look, if they need a deep cleaning. If yes, I do it directly. I take me a full jug of rain water to my cooking table. If there is no rainwater, I take it from the gallon
- What I have to use today of the fruits an vegetables and already cooked things, that are to be used or saved today. All this things I put on my cooking table at the right side. Also I look to the fridge, what are there for leftovers, which are to use today.
- I make the sink and the place around clean and empty.
- I disinfect the table and the area around the sink with 96 % alcohol from the spray bottle.

The cooking process

Whenever I start cooking, I prepare me a huge space for it and clean it directly before I start to work. I wash my hands again for 20 seconds with soap, before I touch any food for preparing.

I have to imagine, that I have now one of the biggest cutting boards of the world. At least this are 2 square-meter of Indonesian Mahagoni (Toona Sureni) wood plate. The wood is disinfecting itself. From the whole tree antioxidants and natural antibiotics can be extracted.

And we divide our table in two parts:

The right side
This is getting used for all the things, they are afterwards cooked. Here is the place to prepare the meat, to work with not cooked eggs and not washed vegetables. Everything was here is getting later cooked or washed.
The left side
This is the clean side. Here is the place to make salad, to cut washed fruits to prepare the food after cooking. No kitchen tool like knives can go from the right side to the left side before washing. With a towel you never can go from the dirty side to the clean side. You clean with a fresh microfiber from the left side to the right side and after this the towel is getting directly washed with detergent.
The left side is also the halal side. There cannot any pig products! Even they are cooked!

I make me a plan, what I want to cook and think about the time, when the food has to be ready. I start with the things, they need a long time or they can stay without loosing quality. Also I think about which kind of work I can combine:

opening all the onions, garlic and chili at one time and make me a deposit
cutting all the vegetables at one time and make me a deposit.
make a dough for all the products I want to make
think about what I can make out of the fruits and vegetables, what I can make else out of it. Chayote and Pumpkin can be used for several things. I save time and products.
I make me a plan, when I have to use the oven, that i don´t get the problem at the end, when everything has to be ready.
Whenever it makes sense, I use the food processor to cut a lot of things. If I use it, I directy think about, what to blender first and where i don´t have a problem, if the vegetables getting mixed. Then I don´t have to clean the processor between each vegetable. Before I wash a blender or a mixer, I think about, for what i can use the leftover mixed with water again. ( Example: Mostly a tomato leftover can go to a sauce.)

Whenever I am ready with one step of cooking, I directly clean the place, where I was working, that I have space again. (Not necessary, if I am alone AND I cut something again which not interfere with the product before.

Everything what is dirty and i don´t need anymore is going back to the sink. whenever I drop something to the sink, I can clean it directly. Especially a blender and a mixer is getting cleaned instantly. It is much more easy to make it direct, than to clean a blender after the tomato sauce or a papaya juice is dried in for one hour.

Also if I have to wash my hands, I can clean everything laying in the sink directly. Here I can combine 3 processes in one. I take a not clean microfiber and clean with this the dishes in the sink. Then I can clean all the surfaces around the sink and this is also clean. Then at the end:

the mircrofiber is clean and disinfected new
the dishes are clean and disinfected
my hands are disinfected and clean
The surrounding of the sink is clean
…….and at the end, I dry my hands with the clean microfiber and hang the microfiber on the line on top of the sink. Whenever I need a fresh microfiber I can take it from there.

No dirty Microfiber or towel has to lay around in the whole kitchen area. Each has to be hanging fresh or has to go as a used one close to the sink to be cleaned at the next step.

Hygienic aspects of several foods

Eggs

Our eggs are getting stored in the Storage under the house. There it is cold and dark. Each morning I look, that I have at least one full layer of 30 eggs in my kitchen. For this I take from the storage one new layer of not cleaned eggs. I take them to the lake and wash them with sand and water. After this I disinfect them with the sediment of the mango vnegar. For this we have a bucket of the stuff placed at the storage of the eggs. Also after cleaning the eggs I clean my hands with the vinegar.

This process is important, because eggs are often polluted with Salmonella bacterial. The eggs cannot be cleaned after harvesting, because with the cleaning the Kutikulla (the outer skin of the egg) is getting destroyed and the egg can not be stored anymore.

Meat and fish

Meat and fish is getting processed directly after killing the animal or it is going directly fresh to the fridge or to the freezer. It is getting taken out directly before cooking. It is getting processed on a separated cutting board and directly washed afterwards. Now raw meet or fish is laying around in the kitchen.

Presentation of the food

The ready food is prepared directly for the guests on plates or for the buffet in the best presentable way. It has to look nice and has to be garnished with fresh herbs and/or vegetables. For this especially Cosmos Caudatus or Cranberry Hibiscus can be used. All the bowls getting directly equipped with a cutlery to take out the food. The ready food is draped at the left side of the table after cleaning the table. At this moment it has to been looked again, that the other food, what is staying there is still in a good quality and maybe has to be re-designed.

Always at the table have to be presented fresh fruits and a salad, bread, a main dish and vegetables, 2 different homemade sauces and boiled rice.

Storage of food, which is produced to much

We always cook more, then it is ordered. For this, we can offer a variety of food also if only a single person comes to our place. We work ahead. If somebody order 1 tray of Pizza we make 3 and also directly bread for the next days for example. Only one tray is getting fully baked. the other is getting half backed, cooled down and then, if it is not need getting frozen in portions, that it is easy to take it out and bake it ready for the next guests.

Then everything, what is not needed and to much is getting frozen or brought to the fridge or to the freezer. Salad and open fruits are going to the food for the pig. This is no problem, because we feed our pigs also with the fruits and vegetable which we have to much. We don´t destroy with this food. Better our pigs are happy, then a guest is getting sick!

Black Piglet Being Fed

Cleaning the dishes

All the dishes and the cooking ware which is used for cooking can be cleaned directly at the sink. But all the dishes somebody ate from have to been disinfected. For this we prepare under the sink a big black bowl with water and soap. All the leftovers go to bucket for the pigs and the dishes go to the bowl. Whenever it is time, they can be cleaned then later at the sink. The remaining time in the soap water is a minimum of 20 seconds to inactivate the Corona Viruses. But the time will be mostly much more and because our kitchen in outside also the ultraviolet light, which is at Lake Toba one of the strongest of the world will do the rest. The dishes are not getting dried with a towel: We don´t want to make them dirty again.

Microfiber and Towels

Microfiber

One person at the kitchen only need 1 Microfiber, this is getting used all the time. When I start working, I prepare me the microfiber, which I want to use. I look that this is really clean. I use soap to get especially all the grease out of it. Then I use this all the time. For this, it will not be a place where bacterial can get an exponential grow. The place for the Microfiber is at the left side of the sink, if it is already used, in the sink, if it is dirty and at the right side of the sink, if it fresh cleaned.

A microfiber never want to go direct to oil. This go deep in the fiber and it is hard to get it out. For the oily places first I go with the sponge with water and soap to solve the oil. Then I take the microfiber to take the solved grease and oil and wash it instantly out, that the rest of the oil cannot deep in the fiber.

The microfiber clean the best if it just moist and not wet. Then I also can clean very easy glass in one step.

The cooking table is NEVER a parking place for a microfiber or a towel. Never!

The microfiber go back to the sink: In – left – or right.

To clean the things outside the kitchen, there is another microfiber to use. The parking place for this it at your body, when it is clean or in the black bowl with the dirty dishes for disinfection. There are no other places.

The cotton towels

and the towel is only used to carry hot things, that you don´t burn your fingers. This is the ONLY reason to use them. They are made out of cotton, they can stay the high temperature of a hot cooking pot or a tray. A Microfiber cannot be used for it. This will burn and is then destroyed.

The cotton towel is a natural material and like to be a place for bacterial. This towels must have a good smell, if the smell is not good, that means they are polluted with bacterial. Then the only place for them is on the ground or directly outside of the kitchen. The only parking place for the clean one is under the table, close to the oven and the fire places. Because there I need them and NOWHERE else.

The white towels cannot be used for:

clean the oil
drying hands or dishes
cleaning anything

This towels in the normal Indonesian usage a hygienic catastrophe. The smell is from the billions of bacterial much more worse then a pig stay. And we want to have clean hands and not work with food after we touch such a towel.

After a group of guest are leaving

All the dishes are brought back to the black bowl for disinfection.
The table need to be cleaned with the Microfiber for the guests.
The chairs have to be placed in a distance of minimum of one meter again
The cards of the maximum amount of guests have to be placed. Also the menu and has be fixed with an empty and clean ashtray.
The table and the seats has to be sprayed with 96 % alcohol and the floor has to be swiped and maybe wiped.

After the meals

After the meals I reorganize the kitchen table. I drape the food on the table new, which can stay there until the next meal without getting bad (It is a Batak Tradition, that all the time there is food to eat on the table, if somebody come and is hungry. Also boiled rice has to be 24 hours in the rice cooker available. We like this tradition). But the food has to be covered from the flies and protected from the cats and dogs.

The other food I give to the storage or to fridge or freezer.

I clean all the dishes and the cooking ware and also the place of cooking. When I see an area, which needs a direct deep cleaning I do it directly or I will tell this to the next shift.

I sweep the floor and/or also I wipe it, if it is necessary.

I switch of the not necessary lights and the water pump. I look backwards, if everything is ok, then I can go do something else, go sleep or eat Easily……….

Change to another Chef

For the quality of a Restaurant, this is one of the most important points. One Chef give the kitchen to the next. We work in Silimalombu in the moment with one person is responsible for one day for the kitchen. We change after breakfast at 9 am. This is the best moment, because the new Chef can prepare for the day and get the knowledge and the situation from the former. They sit together for breakfast and then they go through the kitchen and also they look at the storage and fridge and the freezer.

The old will give all the information, which he can give the next Chef about:

Leftovers, which has to been used
Vegetables and fruits, which are where to find in the land and which are ripe and crying to get eaten, before they go to our pigs.
Guests and diet preferences of guests
Information of things, they need to be bought (Also this has to be written directly to the white board, that somebody buy this)
Information about broken things or lost things.

Before the next Chef take over he check, if:

all the waste beans are empty and fresh cleaned
the whole kitchen is clean. He can refuse to overtake the kitchen in this status until the former cook leave the kitchen in a status, that it can be overtaken. Also each Chef has to make a deep clean to at least one area in the kitchen. This he also has to show the next Chef and this has to be written in the Checklist protocol.
The oven area is cleaned also behind and down under. The window behind the sink and the oven is cleaned.
The towels and the microfibers are clean
the floor is swiped and wiped.
The freezer and the fridge is clean
There are no rotten fruits or vegetables or leftovers around.
The surfaces are sprayed with 96 % alcohol.

One word about paper towels

The people think, a paper tissue is a tool of hygienic and healthy thing. But you ever think about the following:

If you use a dry Kleenex what happen? You only clean the top surface and massage the dirt inside of the deeper layers and you give the dirt everywhere, where you go with the paper tissue. If one hand has a dirt, then at the end also your other hand is dirty. And you will go with this hand then to your face and also to the mouth. If you clean your hands with water and maybe also with soap, the dirt is away. Especially in Covid-19 times, the Kleenex are a huge potential distributor of the virus.
To clean the rear after toilet all Indonesian use water and the hand. You know, that this cleans your butt much better then toilet paper, which not really make you clean. Only western think, they are more clever if they use paper. Why then to use paper for your hand or for your face?
The used tissue all the time getting wasted on the table and on the dishes. Somebody has to touch this dirt later again. This is a totally impertinence to the other people.
we don´t use tissue in our kitchen. We clean with soap and water and disinfect with pure alcohol. Even we use it, if a chicken go wrong to the restaurant and give his shit there or our kitten make piss or shit there. We use leaves for it and give this direct to the nature. A tissue has to go to the waste bin. We don´t want to touch the shit again.
Nearly all tissue in Indonesia are bleached with Chlorine. This Chlorine you also will give to your face, if you “clean” your face with it. But what is much more dangerous, is the impact to the environment:
- By the production is getting used a lot of Chlorine. This mostly go to the rivers and to the ocean. Why do you think, the corals around the Indonesian Islands loose their color? This also has to do with your Tissue!
- When this Chlorine Tissue is getting used at our place, what happen then with the tissue? We deposit it. From there the rain will wash out the Chlorine to the lake. Why you think, Lake Toba have less and less fish? The clutch of the young fish die from Chlorine. But you want to eat fish here. Wake up!
If you think, it make sense to dry your hand after cleaning then maybe you think about the following:
- At least you touch the container, where the tissue is inside. Somebody else before also touched the container with dirty fingers and your fingers are dirty again and then you go to your face. Covid-19 is waiting for you! The public tissue container is a huge health risk for spreading.
- Mostly people go with the tissue then also to the mouth, to clean the mouth. If you are infected then already your hands are contaminated again with the virus and you spread it to the others. Thank you!
- We need oxygen to breath. Trees give us oxygen. If we cut the trees, like it happens around Lake Toba with the Toba Pulp Industry in a huge scale, we destroy the air we need to breath. Then covid 19 is just nothing, if we don´t have air to breath anymore. Toba Pulp Industry is a huge producer of tissue. The area around Lake Toba is getting cut down for your tissue. But you like the nature.

Sweeping

wiping

usage of Microfibers and other cloth