Ever wondered how those chicken Tikka pieces you are eating were created; how the paneer in your saag was made and who from inside an Indian restaurants kitchen prepares those Tandoori chicken pieces always skewered to perfection. A typical Indian restaurant kitchen is a hotbed of activity and we are about to provide you an insight into the people behind the cuisine.

The Helpers
As with any commercial kitchen environment,  there will be some common ground with the type of staff that is found. Depending on the size – a typical kitchen can consist of between 4 – 6 people. You will find helpers, dishwashers, food preparation workers, assemblers and so on.  On a busy night, these people are key to the smooth running of the restaurant making sure food goes out in a timely manner and looks the way it is supposed to. Presentation is a key factor to what these individuals do.

The Cooks
The Cook is considered to be one of the most important people within an Indian kitchen.  There are generally 2 types of cook; Prep Cooks and Line Cooks.

Prep Cooks – as the name suggests – prepare the food. They do a lot of the grunt work and prepare the base of the curries and a majority of the dishes. Indian cooking styles requires a lot of preparation –which includes preparing bases, splitting chicken breasts for Tandoori, kneading dough for chapattis, marinating and so forth.

Line cooks take over from where the prep cooks leave finish. These guys add the relevant meats or vegetables to the curries, bake the Tandoori items, make the chapattis, fry fish and so forth. Many restaurants in the UK have separate line cooks for different requirements. For example, a particular restaurant may have a line cook who just prepares the breads section like chapattis and rotis and adds tarka (garlic) to the daals etc. Other line cooks might specialize in the preparation specific curries.

Possibly the most common form of Line cook is the Tandoori Chef (confusing name – but the Tandoori Chef is a cook and not a Chef).  The Tandoori Chef is in charge of the Tandoori (the clay oven in which Tikka, Tandoori, Naans, Sheekh Kebabs and much more) are prepared.  The Tandoori Chef literally has his hand (and arm) in the oven throughout the night.  This is possibly the most difficult position within an Indian restaurant and good Tandoori Chefs command a lot of respect within the industry.

The Chefs
A typical Indian restaurant kitchen may have 1 or more chefs. There will always be a head chef and sometimes a 2nd or 3rd chef also – but this is very dependent on the size of the kitchen.  Chefs manage the kitchen, the staff and make sure the quality of the food, ingredients and anything that leaves the kitchen is of a satisfactory standard.

Chefs also experiment with new recipes and styles of cooking. An Indian restaurant takes on the flavors and styles of its chef and the customers become accustomed to the individual styles of food as a result. It is ultimately the Chefs responsibility for anything that happens within the kitchen or anything that leaves the kitchen to be served to the public. This is why you usually find chefs within Indian restaurants run the kitchen with an iron fist.