David Petrison
Selected dishes I personally cooked from start to finish.
Since December 2025, I have cooked 78 dishes from start to finish from a personal recipe list of 130+ meals. These 10 selected examples show my interest in prep work, sauces, seasoning, ingredient handling, and multi-step cooking.
I am interested in entry-level kitchen, prep, line, and fast-casual restaurant work. I understand that restaurant cooking is different from home cooking, and I am eager to learn professional systems for speed, consistency, cleanliness, and teamwork.
Chicken Mole with Lime-Garlic Rice and Refried Beans
Origin: America’s Test Kitchen
A composed Mexican-inspired plate with chicken in mole sauce, long-grain rice seasoned with lime, garlic, and homemade tomato salsa, and refried beans adjusted with serrano pepper and garlic. The mole sauce was the most involved part of the dish, built from 15 different ingredients plus salt and pepper.
Skills shown: sauce preparation, working with a 15-ingredient mole sauce, rice preparation, bean seasoning, chile handling, garlic preparation, balancing richness and acidity.
Green Eggs and Ham
Origin: Carla Hall / Top Chef
A multi-step breakfast dish with spinach egg whites, whole yolks, avocado-tomatillo relish, parsley-jalapeño oil, toasted brioche, and diced country ham.
Skills shown: egg separation, avocado cutting and preparation, skillet cooking, sauce/puree work, layering ingredients during final assembly.
Spicy Albóndigas Rojas with Roasted Tomato, Mexican Oregano, Mint, and Lemongrass
Origin: Personal recipe developed over time; written as a full original recipe for a future cookbook-style project.
A personal Mexican-inspired meatball soup I have continued to refine over time, built around roasted tomatoes, fresh chiles, sausage-enriched broth, herbs, citrus, and tender meatballs.
Skills shown: roasting vegetables, peeling roasted tomatoes and peppers, using sausage fat to cook vegetables, forming meatballs, balancing heat and acidity.
Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp with Cheddar Grits and Chipotle-Tomato Butter Sauce
Origin: Tre Wilcox / Top Chef
A multi-component dish with bacon-wrapped shrimp, cheddar poblano grits, and chipotle-tomato butter sauce. The sauce was the centerpiece and one of the most involved sauces I have made.
Skills shown: shrimp preparation, bacon wrapping, searing, grits preparation, sautéing aromatics, using a blender to puree sauce, mounting with butter, fine-mesh straining, plating.
Classic Pot Roast with Homemade Mashed Potatoes
Origin: Alex Guarnaschelli
A braised beef pot roast served over homemade mashed potatoes with a rich cooking sauce. This represents one of my favorite styles of cooking: slow-cooked meat that becomes tender, deeply seasoned, and easy to pull apart.
Skills shown: seasoning meat, browning/searing, Dutch oven braising, reducing liquid, building sauce from cooking liquid, long cook-time management, mashed potato preparation.
Thai-Style Hot and Sour Soup with Shrimp, Lemongrass, and Lime
Origin: Gregory Gourdet
A bright, spicy shrimp soup built around lemongrass, lime, chiles, fish sauce, herbs, mushrooms, tomatoes, and aromatic broth. I adapted the recipe by using fresh ginger and lime zest in place of galangal.
Skills shown: aromatic broth infusion, ingredient substitution, shrimp cooking, working with lemongrass and fresh chiles, balancing acidity and salt, final seasoning adjustment.
Vietnamese Shaking Beef
Origin: Milk Street
A Vietnamese-inspired beef dish made with marinated beef, quick skillet cooking, onion, greens, herbs, and a bright savory sauce. This dish practiced high-heat cooking and keeping beef tender while developing browned edges.
Skills shown: cutting beef, marinating, high-heat skillet cooking, browning meat, quick sautéing, sauce preparation, onion preparation, balancing salty/sweet/acidic flavors.
Watermelon Gazpacho with Cucumber, Honeycrisp Apple, Sweet Peppers, and Basil
Origin: Carla Hall
A cold summer gazpacho built around watermelon, cucumber, sweet peppers, herbs, citrus, vinegar, and olive oil. The original recipe called for jicama, but I substituted Honeycrisp apple when jicama was unavailable.
Skills shown: ingredient substitution, fruit and vegetable prep, knife work, blending, fine-mesh straining, balancing sweetness/acidity/heat/salt, chilling, garnish preparation.
Baked Potato with Soft-Boiled Egg and Tonnato Sauce
Origin: Yotam Ottolenghi
A baked potato topped with soft-boiled egg and a tonnato-style sauce made from tuna, capers, anchovies, parsley, garlic, lemon, egg yolk, and olive oil.
Skills shown: baking potatoes, soft-boiling eggs, sauce preparation, blending/emulsifying, working with anchovy and caper flavor, balancing richness and acidity, plating.
Quinoa Allspice Oatmeal Cookies
Origin: Alex Guarnaschelli
A batch-baking project using oats, quinoa flakes, quinoa flour, molasses, lemon zest, cinnamon, allspice, and ginger. This recipe focused on texture, even portioning, timing, and consistency.
Skills shown: baking, measuring, dough preparation, portioning, tray spacing, oven timing, rotating baking sheets, cooling rack use, batch consistency.
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