Part of the Prep and Production Cook track. Lesson 6 of 10.
Where in the shift: as late as the schedule allows.
Prerequisites: Modules 15, 30, 41.
The sequence
Cut coarser than instinct suggests.
Salt and drain anything that will be dressed.
Dress in service-sized portions, not in bulk.
Chill a sample and taste it cold before approving.
Date everything.
The decisions
When to dress. In portions through the shift, or salt and drain first so the water leaves before the dressing goes on rather than after, per Module 41.
Both work. Dressing a full batch at three does not.
When to approve. At service temperature or not at all.
Because cold suppresses taste perception substantially, per Module 30 — and a potato salad seasoned warm reads bland to every guest while the cook is certain it was correct.
And how coarse to cut. Fine cuts have far more surface area and collapse faster under dressing.
What you are reading
The container's bottom. A faint sheen of liquid that was not there at production is thirty minutes of warning.
And the sample, chilled. Not the bowl.
What goes wrong here
Seasoned warm. Bland to every guest, correct to the cook.
Dressed at open. Watery, limp, dressing pooling.
And the over-correction on the other side — seasoned until it tastes right warm, which is aggressive on an outdoor table in August.
Verification
The chilled sample tasting. Ask whether it happened.
And walk the cold station and pick five containers. Any undated one is the finding.
The boundary
Ready-to-eat handling, bare-hand contact, date marking, and cold holding are governed by the local health authority. Cold food has no kill step — whatever is on it at plating is what the guest eats.