The Class With the Shucking

Interesting Fact: To correctly store a whole fish, place the fish in a bed of shaved ice in a perforated container. The belly cavity should be stuffed with shaved ice and the fish should be covered with additional shaved ice. The perforated container should be placed inside a second container and the fish should be re-iced daily. Never use cubed ice as it will bruise the fish's flesh and leave air packets that will allow the fish to decay quicker.

The class began with some quick notes on fish and shellfish identification. The 6 steps to checking whether a fish is fresh (smell the fish, feel the skin, look at the fins and tail, press the flesh,check the eyes, gills and belly), the difference between a univalve and a bivalve mollusk, and the difference between a round and flat fish were all detailed before we broke out the knives again for our knife drill. From here on out, for 15 minutes a class we will be practicing one particular knife technique - last night we chopped parsley. I must say I felt much more comfortable with the knife in my hand this time around.

From there we went on to our Fish ID.

Mollusks: We looked at some blue-point oysters first. Chef showed us how to shuck them and then we got to shuck some ourselves. You'd all be happy to know I did this successfully and without stabbing myself in the hand. I promptly eat a few oysters as most of my classmates enjoyed the shucking but not the sucking. Then came the clams. More yum. We looked at mussels. [Bonus interesting fact: Clams and Oysters are alive if their shells are closed, but mussels gasp for air and could be open, press on the shell - if it closes shut, the mussel is alive]. We looked at sea scallops removed the innards and put them to the side.

Crustaceans: Out came the soft-shell crabs and chef taught us the proper way to kill these puppies, first snip off the eyes with kitchen scissors, then remove the lungs, and the flap. We killed and cleaned the crabs and put them aside. We then shelled and deveined some mighty large prawn and looked at some alive and kicking lobsters and learned how to tell the difference between male and females.

Regular Ole Fish: I learned how to properly filet both flat fish (ie. a flounder) and round fish (ie. red snapper). The fish (using our checking techniques), didn't look so good so the entire salmon, flounder, red snapper and mackerel that we filleted went straight into the trash.

Cephalopod: We looked at squid, learned the proper way to clean them and how to find the inkspot. It was all very exciting, and class was only half over.

Then the cooking prep instruction began. I managed to properly clarify an entire pound of butter without burning it. I prepared a tomato concasse, that was not totally de-seeded, but the dices were decent and I was proud of my attempt at knife skills. We roasted peppers. We made bread crumbs, croutons and en croute. We zested a lemon. I zested my thumb.

All the while chef was boiling a big pot of water. We took out the lobsters again. Killed the suckers and threw them into the pot. While we were cleaning up and finishing, chef cooked the lobsters and sauteed the soft shell crabs, scallops and prawns. We feasted. Another class brought us some leftover cheese fritters and another class, on their sandwich making day, brought us all kinds of tasty sandwiches. Yum!

Tonight: My first quiz. Wish me luck. Then we move onto beef fabrication. And by fabrication, I mean butchering. (Hopefully this means I'm having me some steak for dinner tonight).

The Class Where I Was Humbled Beyond Recognition

interesting fact: The temperature range most favorable for rapid growth of pathogens, known as the danger zone, is 40- 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep your cold food cold and your hot food hot if you want to avoid food poisoning.

So I missed reporting on two lessons, or rather I decided to not bore you with the hours I had on sanitation and calculating edible portion cost or regale you with details of olive tasting that I couldn't participate in as I am allergic. Hence I move on to last night's 4 hours of knife skills.

We began with a small lecture on the parts of a knife, how to properly handle, clean and sharpen a knife, and the difference between carbon, steel and carbon-steel blades. And then we took out our knives.

It was see one, do one for the rest of the night.

Chef chopped an onion, I attempted to chop an onion.
Chef minced a shallot, I attempted to mince a shallot.
Chef julienned a carrot (1/8 x 1/8 x 1-2”), I cut strips that were uneven and pathetic.
Chef battoneted the carrot (¼x ¼ x 2-2 ½”), my strips were larger and equally as pathetic as my attempted julienne.
Chef then brunoised her julienned carrots (1/8 x 1/8 x 1/8”), I came close to a brunoise, although mine were more rhombus like than her perfect cubes.
Chef then diced her battoneted carrot (1/4 x 1/4 x 1/4"), see above to get an idea of what my "dice" looked like.
Chef chifonnaded some spinach, I took the spinach and made it look like it went through a document shredder.
Chef paysanned a potato( ½ x ½ x 1/8”), she made these perfect little scrabble tiles that were just missing the engraved letter. I attempted the paysanne and actually did something right although my tiles were a little large.

And then came the tournee. Chef used a tournee knife, made a perfect potato football. Chef took a paring knife and made a perfect potato football. Mine looked more like a tornado than a tournee.

I've chopped things before, I know that I've used my knives half decently in the past, but put me in a room with 12 other people some of whom actually have knife skills, a chef who's been in a kitchen for 30 years and all of a sudden I'm terrified to hold a knife. Also, I'm apparently dyslexic because I couldn't seem to transfer her right handed knife technique to my left handed klutziness. It was terrible. All I wanted to do when I got home at 11:15 last night was practice because I was so pathetic.

I suggest you all come over on Sunday because I'm going to go after a 50lb. bag of potatoes and that'll make a whole lot of potato chips, french fries and mashed potatoes.

Tonight, more knife practice and shellfish identification.

The Class Where the Virgins Were Separated from the Extra Virgins

Interesting Fact - The Chef's hat (otherwise known as the Toque Blanche), has one hundred pleats in it. Legend has it that they represent the 100 different ways a chef can prepare eggs

I skipped a class and for that I apologize, but I was swamped at work yesterday and barely had time to eat lunch. So here's a quick recap before I get into last night's class. First things first we received are super awesome knife kits. Complete with Wusthof Knives. It was like Channukah come early. After a whole lot of oohing and aahing we moved on to learning about the Brigade System - a.k.a the Kitchen version of Ford's Assembly line. Which then brought us to fruit ID, nothing to surprising and shocking here except that I did try my first baby coconut and they were quite good. We got out of class a half an hour early.

Last night we spent the first hour doing recipe conversions. I now can tell you That 4 quarts = 128 oz = 8 pints = 1 gallon. Also that a pint of liquid (such as H20 or milk) that has no density weighs exactly a pound. Pretty neat, right?

Then we moved on to our oils and vinegars. Our chef-instructor, who happens to kick some major ass and owns this restaurant upstate (so if you're ever in the 'hood go!), also threw in with the vinegars and oils, three bottles of a fairly decent merlot for us to drink. We went through the nutty oils (hazelnut, walnut, peanut, sesame), the infused oils (tarragon, basil, red pepper), the canolas and the corns, and then we hit up the olive oils. Some interesting facts about olive oil for ya: first of all - the grades of olive oil (ie. pure, virgin, extra virgin) refers to the acidity level in the oil) - The first pressed cold oils are going to be cloudy and the best of the batch.

After the olive oils we moved to the vinegars: red wine, white wine, rice wine, champagne, sherry, regular balsamic, and a balsamic that had been aged for over 12 years. The aged balsamic was so viscous it was like cough syrup. I thought it was pretty decent although Chef Anna told us that it wasn't a good balsamic. In other words if it starts out as crappy balsamic, it doesn't age into anything but a crappy aged balsamic. Also, its interesting to note, that while wine goes into cellars for proper storage and aging, vinegars go into attics for the same reason. Someday I would like to have both a wine cellar and a vinegar attic. It doesn't even have to be in a gingerbread house.

From the vinegars we moved into the cooking wines - Madeira, port, red, white, marsala, but all of the examples we had for tasting were crappy, so I just stuck with the drinking wine I had in front of me.

Tonight - Nutrition and Condiments and Spices. You'll all be happy to know that next week we begin our knife skills, and not too far behind that is butchering! Until tomorrow...

The Class Where The Lactose Intolerant Were Weeded Out

Interesting Fact: The encouraging element in Gorgonzola cheese was originally the mold that was scraped off the walls of the damp and drafty Valassina caves in Lombardi, Italy.

Yes, yes. Last night was cheese identification. But before we got there I learned all about my options in culinary careers from our career advisor and got a full hour on the 9 steps to wise and efficient purchasing for a kitchen. (Its nice to know that we get some restaurant/ chef-as executive stuff along with the skills with the knives). And then it was on to the Cheese. We briefly discussed the process of making cheese and then dove right into the tasting. As I promised to spare only some details here are the cheeses we tasted (in the order we tasted them):

Group 1 - The Fresh Cheeses:
Chevre
Feta
Mascarpone
Polly-O Mozzarella
Fresh Mozzarella
Buffalo Mozzarella (named as such because the milk of a water buffalo is used)
Polly-O Ricotta
Fresh Ricotta

Group 2- The Soft/ Washed Rind Cheeses:
Morbier (probably one of the nastier cheeses I've ever had)
Bel Paese
Fontina (the real stuff, no imitations)
Taleggio (this one is not for the faint of heart)

Group 3- Soft Rind Ripened Cheeses:
Brie de Meaux
Explorateur (this one has a 75% fat content and tastes like good butter)
Pont L'Eveque - smells like hay after a sheep has slept on it for about 3 weeks

Group 4 - Hard Cheese
Vermont Cheddar
Manchego (was before and remains still one of my favorite cheeses)
Gouda
Gruyere (otherwise known as glorified Swiss cheese)

Group 5 - The Grating Cheeses:
Parmesan Reggiano
Pecorino Romano
Salata

Group 6 - The Blue Veined Cheeses
Roquefort
Gorgonzola
Stilton

By the time we were done I was greener than the mold in the stilton. While I love cheese, 22 in a row is a bit much for me. Although now I can at least consider myself an amateur cheese monger. And who doesn't like to say monger?

On another interesting note, there are 12 of us in my class - of that 12 - 8 of us are lefties. Tonight, I believe we get our knife kits!

The Week Where The Uniform Came on And Milk Almost Came Up

Interesting Fact: If you need to ripen an avocado or a tomato quickly, place it in a brown paper bag with an apple. Apples emit ethanol which promotes ripening (and overripening, i.e. spoiling so pay attention to it)

Not that I knew what to expect from my first week of culinary school, but we didn't jump right into the cooking. In fact, the first unit has very little cooking in it at all. The first two lessons have been comprised of food identification which while slightly strange makes sense - you need to know what things are before you cook them.

We went through all nine categories of vegetables, tasting as we went. We went through all the herbs, I know have the cutest little herb chart in my notebook and can explain the difference between an herb and a spice. I know that I pretty much don't like the flavor of marjoram, what I need to make a good herbs de Provence and what the hell a sachet d'epices and fines herbs are, how to make them and what they are used for. Then came the rough part - dairy.

To give some background, I haven't drank a glass of milk probably since I was 8. I don't like the taste of it and when I do use any milk its always skim. After learning about cultures and fermentation, homogenization, and pasteurization, we then did our dairy tasting. I succession I tasted skim milk, 2% milk, whole milk, half and half, light cream, heavy cream, creme fraiche, sour cream, and whole milk yogurt with cream on top. By the 2% I began to turn green. I could feel the fat just coating my tongue. It was here that our chef-instructor informed us that the average culinary student gains 20 pounds during their training. Being an overacheiver Im now worried I'll gain at least 35 lbs. I mean seriously, who just wants to be average. We then went on to butters (yes we had the perfect crusty french bread to go along). I will tell you this butter users - switch immediately to european butter (screw this land o lakes garbage). Its so much creamier and sweeter that the regular stuff almost tastes like margarine in comparison.

Next week - Cheese ID, Fruit ID, Culinary Math (this one has me a little worried), purchasing and storage procedures, and oil and vinegar ID (man, this one has me a lot worried hopefully my stomach will have healed from all of this dairy.