Top 21 Professional Cooks Interview Questions In 2024 [With Answers]

There are some people who are just mad about food, even the sight of which craves them and attracts them towards those mouth-watering dishes. On the other hand, there are people who are elderly and are simply incapable to cook food on their own. Both these types of people are in the need of a professional cook, who can cook food and can serve them as per their needs and requirements. The scope of a professional cook is not limited to households, rather the restaurant, tourism, and hotel industry are some of their largest recruiters. A professional cook gets a handsome salary which increases substantially with the efflux of time. It is for this reason that only a handful of job openings attract a large number of job applications, which thus requires the candidates to prepare exhaustively.

Professional Cooks Interview Questions

21 Best Interview Questions To Study

1. What Are The Three Main Ingredients Of A Flour Cake?

This question tests your knowledge and understanding of the various types of cakes and food items.

Sample Answer

Sure, sir, These are:

  • Condensed Milk
  • White Flour and Semolina
  • Vegetable Oil or Clarified Butter

2. How Can You Make Cookies? Explain The Recipe In Brief.

This question tests your knowledge and understanding of the various types of cakes and food items.

Sample Answer

Sure sir, in order to make cookies, we take white flour, clarified butter, and crushed sugar, so as to knead them into making a dough. Post making a smooth dough, we would flatten the dough and cut the requisite shape out of it. The shapes cut out, would be placed into a pre-heated oven, preferably at 140 degrees Celcius for about 15 minutes.

3. What Is The Role Of Fenugreeks In Food Preparation?

This question tests your knowledge and understanding of the various food items.

Sample Answer

Sir, fenugreek is one of the most used ingredients in cooking and gives a pleasant sour aroma to the taste along with eliminating a lot of ailments, making the food healthy as well as tasty.

4. What Is A Sour Dough Bread?

This question tests your knowledge and understanding of the various types of bread made and consumed. Sourdough is a common form of bread consumed mostly across the United States.

Sample Answer

Sir, a loaf of sourdough bread is prepared by following the process of fermentation in a slow and gradual manner. This is unique and different from others as no commercial yeast is used in its production, rather a live culture is used which is responsible for it to rise. Further, this is a bread that is a lot easier to digest as slow fermentation enables the gluten to break down which is absorbed efficiently by our body.

5. What Is A Fusion In The Context Of Food Preparation?

This question tests your knowledge and understanding of the various methods of food preparation.

Sample Answer

Sir, we live in a big world, and there are simply several countries having innumerable cultures, tastes, and preferences. A fusion is a common term used in the world of foods and beverages, which simply means a strategic and controlled union of two or more food preferences and cultures. For Example, Pasta is native to Italy whereas spices are more of a common thing in the sub-continent. By mixing those two items, we are basically doing a fusion of Italy and the entire sub-continent. A pasta enriched with a variety of spices, such as turmeric, black pepper, and red chili, is a perfect example of fusion.

Click here to preview your posts with PRO themes ››

6. To Which Country Does The Som Tam Identify and What Is It?

This question tests your knowledge and understanding of the famous global cuisines.

Sample Answer

Sir, Som Tam is a popular Thai cuisine and it refers to the green salad mostly comprising, Papaya (main ingredient), Tomatoes, Garlic, Fish sauce, Lime juice, Beans, etc. It is highly piquant and has the ability to offer all four tastes, sour, sweet, salty, chili.

7. How Would You React After Watching A Colleague Of Yours Stealing?

Stealing, robbery, and theft at the workplaces are a mess and contribute a huge loss to the business organizations. This is a strict no-no and business organizations do not prefer any such unethical activities, hence, always answer in a positive and convincing manner.

Sample Answer

Sir, I am strict and totally against such unethical activities. If I ever watch any of my colleagues engaging himself in any such unethical activity, I would not just be a mute watcher, rather I would straight away warn him as well as request him to keep the things stolen back to their places. Further, I would also put forward the case to my senior.

8. What Qualities Do You Find In A Team?

Nowadays, working in a team setting is a common requirement for all types of business organizations. It is for this reason that, interviewers have now started asking about the common qualities that you look for in your team members. Be genuine, and as an ideal response share what you truly expect from your team members to be. It is recommended that you always control your emotions while answering this question, and ensure that you do not get carried away. Boost your preparation for this interview question, through our exclusive post.

9. Why Is Citric Acid Added To Canned Tomatoes?

This question tests you deeply and aims to enquire your knowledge about the commercial use of various foods items due to their properties.

Sample Answer

Sir, citric acid or lemon juice is an important ingredient while preparing canned tomatoes. This addition helps the canned tomatoes to have a common acidity level which is uniform and common across the entire preparation. It is necessary for the tomatoes to have an acidity level of 4.6 in order to be canned and lemon juice helps in achieving this ratio.

10. What Is A Niter Kibbeh?

This question tests your understanding of the several worldwide items used widely across the nations.

Sample Answer

Sir, it is an Ethiopian form of clarified butter. This is similar in nature to the regular clarified butter, however, still it is different. A Niter Kibbeh is infused and loaded with a variety of aromatic herbs and shrubs, such as Fenugreek, Cardamom, Cinnamon, etc., and is mainly used in the stewing process or to saute meat items.

11. How Do You Handle Failure At Your Workplace?

This is a common interview question, which not only tests your overall attitude and perception but also your body language. Through this question, an interviewer wants to know about the strategies and techniques which you would incorporate at your workplace after experiencing a setback. It is necessary to handle this question positively, as it could be a game-changer. Boost your preparation through our exclusive post.

Click here to preview your posts with PRO themes ››

12. What Can You Offer Us That Other Candidates Cannot?

Everyone is special, and it is important to realize it. An interviewer is interested in knowing what are the key attributes present in you, which can ultimately be used for the welfare of the organization. This question is largely influenced by the common strength-related question and requires you to self-introspect as well as scrutinize. Find out some of the interesting facts about yourself which could be beneficial at a workplace. If you are confused or wanting for answers, boost your preparation through our specialized post which covers this question completely.

13. The Life Of A Cook Is Stressful. How Do You Handle It?

No matter you are at a commercial organization or in some household, serving the elderly, you would always be a bit tensed and stressed. Such is the nature of this job, that repetition of tasks can crush you in their monotony. Thus, an interviewer always asks such questions to know whether or not you are interested in working in such a business environment. Answer positively, and in case you are short of ideas, refer to our special post.

14. What Are Your Salary Expectations?

It is common for interviewers nowadays to ask about your salary expectations during an interview session itself. As an ideal response to this question, you can always share your expected salary range, which must be based on diligent and exhaustive research. Sharing any random figure, will not come in handy for you and you might be perceived as either underprepared or too greedy. For better negotiations and preparation, refer to our famous article, that can help you to a great extent.

15. Why You Want To Work With Us?

While working with an organization, an employee must put his heart and soul into the tasks assigned and duties to be performed. This is possible only if you are genuinely interested in the organization. Through this question, an interviewer wants to know, your level of commitment as well as seriousness towards the business organization you sought to work with. Boost your preparation through our exclusive article.

16. Which Animal Is Your Favorite?

This question might look simple as well as easy for the underprepared candidates, but only a veteran candidate would know the worth of this interview question. This question requires a candidate to choose corporate-friendly animals, such as honeybees, elephants, bald eagles, etc. instead of choosing your favorite pets, such as dogs and cats. Post this, just mention some of their qualities which if replicated by humans at their workplace, could help them immensely. This is an important interview question and Prepmycareer finds pride in covering this interview question through an exclusive post.

17. How Can You Prioritize Between Several Tasks?

It is common for business organizations to assign several tasks that are to be executed in a single day. In order to execute all these tasks in a time-bound manner, the employees of an organization must execute them on the basis of a prioritization strategy, which must be chosen depending upon the nature of tasks to be performed as well as the candidate’s own interests and comfort level. Refer to our famous article, and increase your level of knowledge considerably by getting yourself acquainted with several unique prioritization strategies.

Click here to preview your posts with PRO themes ››

18. What Are Your Several Strengths?

This is a common interview question, and it would not be wrong to say that, an interview session is almost incomplete without a strength-weakness-related question. Thus, this question must be sincerely prepared and if possible follow the written approach. Refer to our famous article which covers this question completely giving your preparation a considerable boost.

19. What Motivates You To Work?

There are several factors that motivate and prompt an individual to work hard at the workplace and execute the tasks in a time-bound manner. An interviewer is always interested in knowing these factors, for the purposes of assessment. This is a highly personal question and is largely influenced by your own personal situations, circumstances, and financial conditions. Thus, always give an original answer and never follow any generic reply. Boost your preparation through our exclusive post.

20. When Can You Start Working With Us?

This is a trending interview question, which is not at all typical, yet candidates make a mess of it. They think of this question to be a guarantee of their selection, which is not at all true, making them lose their concentration, ultimately affecting the quality of answers given. Hence, it is recommended from our side, that you always control your emotions and never lose focus. Start preparing for this question in-depth by referring to our exclusive post.

21. Do You Have Any Questions For Us?

Be it the interview session of an accountant or an engineer or be it of a professional cook, this is the most preferred way of closing an interview session. Through this question, an interviewer expects you to ask a few questions in regards to the organization, its working culture, work timings, ethics, etc. If you are planning to answer this question in a negative manner, then beware you are in for some trouble, as such an act would surely deplete your selection chances completely. Thus, always maintain the decorum and ask a few questions based on the model questions mentioned below.

Model Questions

  1. What are the work timings of the several shifts?
  2. What are the various incentives and allowances offered by the organization to its employees?
  3. Please share the number of annual paid leaves offered by the company to its employees.

References

  1. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1748895819840396
  2. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/1731968

One request?

I’ve put so much effort writing this blog post to provide value to you. It’ll be very helpful for me, if you consider sharing it on social media or with your friends/family. SHARING IS ♥️