Welcome back to Chef Rick Unseen Cuisine. And guess what, everybody? This is restaurant week. And for the next two weeks, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we're going to eat out, but we're not leaving our kitchens. We're going to stop at some different restaurants, take a look at some of those dishes we love ordering when we go out, and then we're going to bring those restaurant experiences right back home. But you know, we're going to do it a little differently around here. We're doing it the unseen cuisine way. We're not depending on our vision to tell us when something is ready. We're going to listen, we're going to smell, we're going to feel those changes in textures and resistance. We're going to pay attention to what our utensils are telling us, and we're going to use our systems to stay organized, stay safe, and in control of our kitchen. And throughout Restaurant Week, I'm going to talk a little bit about my experience and from my perspective with somebody with vision loss. What does good hospitality really look like? What makes a restaurant accessible? What makes somebody feel welcome when they walk through that door? We're going to get into some of that, but now we came to eat. So let's get cooking. Our first restaurant week stop is PF Chang's. And today we recreating their Mongolian trio. We got beef, we got chicken, we got shrimp, we're bringing in broccoli, carrots, and green onions. Then we're tossing all of that in a sweet, savory Mongolian style sauce. Now, if you've been cooking with me for a while, you know I've done Mongolian beef before. So we're taking something familiar, turning it up a little bit, because today we're not dealing with just one protein, we've got three. We got beef, chicken, and shrimp. And they don't cook the same way. That's where today's Technique Monday lesson comes in walk awareness and heat control. Because if you throw all three proteins into the wok together and just let them go, something is going to get overcooked. And I bet you, nine out of ten times, it's that poor shrimp. It's going to take the hit every single time. But we don't want that today. So we're going to cook each protein to where it needs to be, bring everything together at the right time, and let our senses tell us what's happening along the way. Alright, let's get into this culinary cockpit. Here's what you're going to need. First, we're going to grab for our proteins. Eight ounces of flank steak, thinly sliced against the grain, eight ounces of boneless, skinless chicken breast, thinly sliced, eight ounces of large shrimp peeled in the vein, three tablespoons of cornstarch to lightly coat the beef and chicken, three tablespoons of a neutral high heat oil, such as avocado, and vegetable oil. For our vegetables, it's going to be two cups of broccoli florets, one thin sliced medium carrot, four green onions with white and green portions separated. And for that Mongolian style sauce, you're going to use a one-third cup of low-sodium soy sauce, one-third cup of water, one-third cup of brown sugar, one teaspoon of freshly grated ginger, two teaspoons of minced garlic, nothing crazy. But once that garlic, ginger, soy, and brown sugar hits that hot wok, you're going to notice something happening. However, before we get there though, let's set ourselves up. Set up your culinary cockpit. You hear me talk about this all the time. Don't wait until the pan is hot to figure where everything is going. Today, especially is important because we got raw beef, we got raw chicken, we got raw shrimp. Keep those proteins separate. Give each one its own container and its own location. Maybe your beef is going to be at 9 o'clock, the chicken at 12, the shrimp at 3, and vegetables at 6. It doesn't have to be those exact positions. Use whatever works for you in your kitchen. But once you decide where something lives, you just want to leave it. That's how you build that mental map. Have your sauce mixed and ready. Have a clean plate or bowl ready for the cooked proteins. Know where your utensils are. Know where your hot zone is. Know where your safe landing area is for that utensil when you put it down. And because we're handling raw proteins, you're either going to use separate utensils for each or make sure you're thoroughly washing anything that's coming in contact with raw food before you use it again. Take a second while everything is still cool. Orientate yourself. Find your walk handle. Find your controls. Find your ingredients. Find your safe space beside the stove. Because once we turn on our heat, we're not reaching around trying to figure where everything is. Everything has a home that is safety through systems. Now we are ready. Let's start with the beef. You want to take your flank steak. Before you slice it, feel the direction of those muscle fibers. You're going to feel those little lines running through the meat. We don't want to slice those with those lines. We want to go across them. That's against the grain, and that's going to help us give it a little more tender bite. Once the beef is sliced, lightly coated with cornstarch, and I want you to actually feel this. Take one piece between your fingers. Not wet, not gummy. We don't want big clumps of cornstarch hanging off of it. If you got that, you want to shake off the excess cornstarch. Do the same thing with your chicken and its own container. And then I want you to patch your shrimp dry. We don't want that shrimp dripping wet when it goes next to the oil. Once that's done, I want you to wash your hands, dry them well, and let's turn on some heat. We're going to listen to that beep first. Bring your wok or skill it up to temperature and add your oil. Now we're not just going to dump everything in there. You're going to take one piece and carefully introduce it to that oil. I want you to listen for that. You hear that? That what you're looking for, that strong, steady sizzle is telling you that the pan is ready to work. If you put that first piece in there and you barely hear anything, hold up. Don't add the rest yet. Give that pan a little bit more time. Once you got the strong sizzle, add your beef in small batches. Don't overcrowd the wok. Listen to what's happening. You want that sizzle to stay strong. If you add too much food and then suddenly the sound gets weak and watery, your pan temperature has dropped. That's information. Give it a chance to recover. And here's another cue. Take your utensils and gently move one of the pieces of beef. At first, you might feel it grabbing onto the surface a little bit. Don't fight it. Give it a moment and try it again. Feel how it starts the releasing easier? There it is. That's your natural release cue. The food is telling you I'm ready to move. Now pay attention to your nose. At first, you're getting hot oil and raw meat aroma. Give it a minute. That aroma starts changing. It gets more deeper, more savory, more roasted. That is your aroma checkpoint. Now have you got your sound telling us something? We got the resistance telling us something. And we got the aroma telling us something. That's what I mean when I tell you the food is always giving you information. Take that beef out and place it on your clean receiving plate. Now, let's get that chicken going. Bring that chicken over, again, lightly coated with cornstarch. Put it into that hot pan and listen, there's that sizzle again. Now the chicken is going to give us a little different tactile experience from the beef. Early in the cooking process, those pieces are going to feel softer and you move them with your utensils. As they cook, the resistance changes. Take your utensils and gently press one of the thicker pieces. Don't smash it, just press it. You're looking for that transition from soft and yielding to firmer with a little spring back. That's your texture checkpoint. But remember, textures give us information. It does not replace food safety. Use an accessible food thermometer to verify that the chicken reaches 165 degrees in the thickest portion. Once we're there, take the chicken out and let it join the beef. Now, let's get on to the shrimp. Alright, here's where people get themselves in trouble. Shrimp does not need a meeting, it does not need a long conversation. Shrimp cooks fast. Get it into the hot pan, listen to that sizzle. Now pay attention to the aroma. Raw shrimp have that mild ocean aroma. As it cooks, that changes. You're gonna start picking up that sweeter cooked seafood aroma. There's another aroma checkpoint for you. Now use your tensus and gently press one. At first, shrimp is softer. It cooks, it becomes firmer and springy. That's what you're looking for. You don't want it hard. If you're pressing that shrimp and it feels like a rubber tire, you went too far. Depending on the sides, you're looking roughly at one to two minutes per side. But remember, the clock supports your senses. It does not replace them. Once that shrimp has reached safe doneess and you've got that gentle spring back, get it out of there. Residual heat is going to keep working. Bring in those vegetables. Now let's let our broccoli and carrots into that wok. Listen when they hit it. Hear how the sound changes. You've got moisture in those vegetables, so you're going to hear a slightly wetter, sharper sizzle. Move them around, and here's where your utensils become an extension of your hand. Press gently against one of those pieces of carrots. At first, it's pretty rigid. As it cooks, you're going to feel it start giving you a little more. Same thing with the broccoli stems. We're looking for a tender with some resistance, not raw, but definitely not mush. Now bring in the white parts of those green onions and smell that sharper, raw onion aroma is going to start softening, become sweeter, more aromatic. And that's another aroma checkpoint. It's the sauce time. Let's build that Mongolian sauce. We've already mixed together our soy sauce, water, brown sugar, fresh ginger, and garlic. Carefully pour that mixture into the hot wok. Now listen, you hear that? The whole wok just changed. It's going from dry stir-fried sound to a wetter, more active, bubbling sound. And this is the perfect place to use the SEE. Stop, engage, evaluate. Stop unnecessary movement for a moment. Engage your senses. What are you hearing? What are you smelling? What are you feeling through your utensils? Now evaluate what all of that information is telling you. At first, the sauce is loose. Run your utensils through it. There's almost no resistance. Now give it some time and pay attention to aroma. First, you're probably going to pick up on that soy sauce. Then the sweetness starts coming through. And here's that garlic. Here's that ginger. Now give it another minute. Those aromas start coming together, but it doesn't smell like five separate ingredients anymore. It starts to smell like one sauce, deeper, richer, sweet, savory, garlicky, gingery. And that is your aroma checkpoint. Now listen again. That bubbling starts changing as some of that water is starting to cook away. And take your utensil and drag it gently across the bottom of the wok. You feel that? There's a little more resistance than there was before. The sauce isn't moving around like water anymore. We're getting bigger. Now, everybody back in the wok. Bring that beef, bring that chicken back. Toss them thoroughly in the sauce, and listen, when they go in, hear the wok wake back up? That's what we want. Keep everything moving. Let the sauce get around those proteins. Now bring the broccoli and the carrots through. And finally, the shrimp goes in last because they've already cooked. We're not trying to cook them again. We're just warming it through and getting those beautiful sauces around it. Now add the green portions of your onions and let's check this thing. Stop, engage, evaluate. Listen, that sauce isn't soining wet as it did when we first poured it in. Smell. You got that concentrated soy, brown sugar, garlic, and ginger. You got those cooked vegetables. You got those seared proteins. Now move your utensils through the wok. The sauce should feel different. It should be clinging to the food, not running around underneath everything like soup. That is your texture's checkpoint. Sound, aroma, resistance, they are all telling us the same thing. We're there, turn off the heat. And now we're at the quiet point. The act of cooking has stopped it. We're back in control. Give yourself a moment to make your final evaluation. And there you have it, PF Chang inspired Mongolian trio. Beef, chicken, shrimp, broccoli, carrots, and green onions. That sweet savory Mongolian sauce, put it over some steamed rice, and restaurant week has finally started. Now, let's talk about hospitality. Before we leave our first restaurant week stop, I want to talk about something we're going to come back to throughout these two weeks. Accessible hospitality. As somebody with vision loss, when I walk into a restaurant, ability doesn't mean that I need somebody to take over everything for me. Sometimes good hospitality starts with something real simple. Just ask me, how may I assist you? That's it. Maybe I need somebody to help me with the menu. Maybe there's an accessible digital menu that I can handle myself. Maybe when my food comes out, I need you to tell me what's on my plate and where it is at. You can use the clock system to tell me my protein is at 6 o'clock, vegetables at 3, and my rice is at 9. Now I know where everything is that's right in front of me without somebody moving my food around and assuming what I need. And sometimes I may not need any help at all. That's why you ask, don't assume. Give that guest the opportunity to tell you what they need. Because when I think about accessibility in a restaurant, I don't think it should be something separate from hospitality. Accessibility is hospitality, and we're going to talk about it more as the restaurant week continues. Before you leave the kitchen, think about what you just did. We cooked three different proteins without depending on vision to tell us what was happening. You listen to the pan, you recognize the natural release cues, you follow the aroma from raw to roasted, you felt the resistance change in your chicken, you recognize that spring back in your shrimp, you followed the sauce as a change from loose and watery to something that actually clung to food. And when you notice, confirmation, food safety, you use the temperature. Then you use the SEE. Stop, engage, evaluate. That's the culinary cockpit. It's not about guessing, it's about learning how to recognize the information food is already giving you. Keep cooking with me. If you enjoyed today's Restaurant Week episode, don't stop here. Head over to unsynccuisine.com. You'll find more recipes, sensory cucumin resources, my books, and information about the Culinary Cockpit Foundation course, where we go deeper into the systems and sensory skills that we use right here in the kitchen. And if you know somebody who's blind, low vision, or adjusting to vision loss, or maybe somebody who just wants to be a more confident cook, send them this episode. Let them come cook with us and make sure you come back Wednesday because restaurant week isn't over. We're going somewhere completely different, different restaurant, different food, different sensory experience. But the same culinary cockpit. I'm Chef Rick. This is Unseen Cuisine. Trust your senses, trust your systems, become the pilot.