Signature Dish

The Post with the Return

2004-12-07T13:34:00.000-05:00

Not-so-Interesting Fact: It is nearly impossible to maintain a full time job, be in school, and keep current on two blogs all at the same time, but with a little prodding and a sympathetic boss, one can in fact pull it off.

So. When we last left off I was somewhere near the beginning of Module 2: The Cooking Methods, alas now I'm a solid week and change into Module 3: Breakfast Cookery, Line Simulation and Garde Manger. This means that we have some catching up to do. Also, it seems I have to discuss poaching eggs, which by the way Deb, can be done, although, I certainly feel your pain! So lets get it started. The rest of Mod2 broke down all the cooking methods in a method-a-day fashion. We fried, we poached, we boiled, we simmered, we steamed, we stewed, we braised. The chef made me cry, although I did make it home before the tears started streaming. A classmate threatened me, although he's now been expelled. And I still look really stupid in a chef's uniform, although I am aware that most people can't pull it off either.

If anyone has any interest in hearing about a particular cooking method, I'd be happy to break it down.

Then came Mod3. New material, same chef, although she's eased up quite a bit and I can almost see a glimmer of a heart somewhere deep inside. The first two days of the module were spent on breakfast cookery. We spent the entire first day on Eggs. Yep. thats right, 4 hours cooking eggs. We fried them, baked them, hard cooked (i learned that a chef does not "boil" eggs - this way no green yolks), soft cooked, learned how to make fritattas, American style omelets, and French rolled omelets. Then we poached the eggs, made hollandaise, heated up some canadian bacon and toasted some english muffins for eggs benedict. Poaching eggs is sort of a strange phenomenon, and its not that easy to do. There are a couple of tricks that I can pass along. First, the water should be shivering (165 degrees-180 degrees) no bubbles should be breaking the surface at all. Fresh eggs are better because the white is tighter. Now crack the egg into a cup to make sure that you dont break the yolk. Now pour egg into the water, BUT, there are 2 ways to do it that will keep the egg together so you're not making some strange variation of egg drop soup. One can either pour the egg into a poaching ring - this little metal mold that sits in the bottom of the pot that will hold the egg in place (this works fairly well, although be careful when removing the egg as it will stick to the bottom) or take the handle of a wooden spoon and make a little tornado in the water, drop the egg right in the yolk. wait for it, and pull out when the yolk is set but not cooked through. If you take the egg out too early - egg drop soup. [Hope that helps, god speed].

The second day of breakfast cookery was carbs galore - waffles, pancakes, french toast, stuffed french toast, crepes, hash browns. Really complicated stuff.

Then we immersed ourselves in line cooking. Every day through next tuesday, we prep all the recipies for the day and then we individually cook on the line - so far this has been my favorite part of the class as we all just get to cook and work on different plating presentations and we don't cook in teams so I don't have to rely on anyone else for my food to cook well.

Thats it in a nutshell (help, i'm stuck in a nutshell- which is really why I haven't been updating). Some other interesting things of note:

including crazy guy who got expelled, my class is now down to 11 people from 14. (People are dropping like flies)
i'm almost halfway done with the program
my knife skills have improved tremendously
my knife skills are the only thing to have improved tremendously - while i think its good to learn classic technique and what working in a kitchen is like, culinary school has only furthered my belief that cooking is instinctual, either you have it or you don't

The Post with the Week's Worth of Classes

2004-11-08T15:54:00.000-05:00

Interesting Fact: Saltimbocca means pop in the mouth in Italian. Veal Saltimbocca is so named because of the sage leaf that is placed between the Veal and the Prosciutto, who's flavor "pops" in your mouth.

So yes I'm a big slacker and haven't updated for the three of you that read this, but I have my reasons. First, last Tuesday's debacle known as our presidential election put me into a serious depression and rendered me feeling as though culinary school was unimportant. Incidentally, the last time I felt this way was the last presidential election and I found myself not too long after getting a graduate degree in philosophy, but I digress. Also, impeding my path to updating the blog was actual work, as in with my job getting busier I was at my desk minimally last week leaving me no time to post. And finally, we spent the entire week sauteing (Monday we were off, and then tues. wed. thurs were devoted to the one cooking method), so it seemed almost natural to give one post to run through the three days.

It should also be noted, that culinary school gets increasingly more difficult. We spend more time cooking and work in a fast, almost chaotic manner. (Well, it seems chaotic, but its actually not). And the new chef, who I can now say in no uncertain terms is a huge bitch, made me cry last Wednesday night because she's a heartless, soulless woman.

OK all of that aside let's get to the cooking. The rules of Sauteing:
1. Choose an appropriate size pan (too large and the food will cook to quickly, too small and the food might steam)
2. Heat up the pan.
3. Dry the item (rub off any herbs that might burn and remove any excess liquid if item was marinating)
4. Add a small amount of fat to the already warm pan (choose a fat with neutral flavor and a high smoking point)
5. Put the presentation side down first, put it inwards and away from you.
6. Sear until a golden brown crust appears
7. FLIP ONCE and either finish on stove or in oven.

Do not shake the pan. This stirs up all of the good fond that develops at the bottom of the pan that you'll need to make your pan sauce. How do you make that pan sauce you say? Here are the rules:

1. Let the item rest on a rack (remember this allows the juices to redistribute)
2. Degrease the pan
3. Add aromatics (ie. shallots, onion, or garlic) and sweat
4. Deglaze OFF the heat (with an acid, wine, liquor, juices)
5. Reduce au sec (this means till the acid is almost dry)
6. Add in stock. The ratio is always 1 part acid to 4 parts stock.
7. Reduce until nappe
8. Monte au Beurre (mount with butter, take small dices of cold butter and infuse into sauce)
9. Adjust seasoning.

We spent the first day on veggies (most of which we didn't actually saute in the true form of the method) and made ratatouille (a summer stew w. veggies), sauteed spinach, mushroom duxelles (an appareil of finely chopped mushrooms and shallot used in such dishes as beef wellington), pommes anna (a giant potato latke type thing minus the egg, onion and matzo meal) and pommes paillison (similar to the pommes anna, but the potato is julienned instead of sliced). None too exciting.

Then it was two days of meat: veal saltimbocca, chicken breast, calf's liver (probably the 2nd most disgusting thing I've ever eaten in my life), kidney saute (THE most disgusting thing I've ever eaten in my life), beef tenderloin, lamb chops, Venison, Rib Eye-Steak, Pork Medallions, Veal Chops, Lamb Emince (lamb tenderloin sliced thinly and dredged in flour).

The first couple of days were not my best in the kitchen, but Thursday I was reassured in my decision to go to school in the first place and it was reaffirmed that I actually do have a place in a kitchen. The only thing I know about what this week has in store is that we spend the first two days on deep-frying and pan-frying and the last two on cooking methods for fish. As for the tin-woman known as my chef-instructor, maybe she'll pick on someone else this week. Then again, maybe not.

The Class with the Substitute

2004-10-27T11:10:00.000-04:00

Interesting Fact: If you shake cloves of garlic between two metal bowls, they will peel themselves without smashing the cloves.

Apologies for my unbelievably small post yesterday, but I was fairly miserable after our first class with the new chef as she's not particularly nice, chided me for "gossiping" (which I wasn't even doing), and has absolutely no sense of humor. Very sad.

But last night, we had a substitute chef who I have a slight crush on. He was amazing. We grilled proteins last night and after a brief recap lecture of grilling and some information on the proper temps of the degrees of wellness for meats, we went to work on our marinades and fabricating our meats (we had to cut up our ostrich, trim the fat from our Duck breast. De-bone our chicken breasts and paillard them). Sub-Chef wouldn't let us measure anything for our marinades, we had to do it all on sight and taste. He showed us the neat garlic trick that became today's interesting fact. He actually did our knife skills with us and took time to properly demo them so the class (including myself) would start cutting better and straighter. He showed us the best way to control a flare up on the grill (throw salt on it). He refused to let us pull out our thermometers to test the temperature of the meats, but rather showed us a trick to learn the doneness of a piece of meat based on touch. He was all about the grilling and some great information. Most importantly, meat after cooking, must rest for at least 5-10 minutes to allow the juices to redistribute throughout (this way it doesn't bleed out when you cut into it) and the meat should be turned over once when resting (you know, gravity and all). Also when cooking meat, always slightly undercook it and allow for carryover cooking.
He watched us all like hawks, critiqued our seasoning techniques, our grilling techniques and tasted everything we produced (center-cut pork chops, steak, ostrich, duck breast, chicken paillard, lamb chops). And while he was critical and made sure we understood how important proper technique was, he let us be creative with our marinades, and didn't talk down to us. It was refreshing after one day with our new chef who seems to have forgotten that cooking is fun.

Oh and for those of you who have asked about whether tasting everything is mandatory in culinary school or not - as I mentioned previously our old chef didn't make us, the new one different story. At the end of Monday's class she asked if we were allergic to anything, and then promptly told us after those of us that had allergies divulged them that besides the foods we just said we were allergic to we had to eat everything that we made in class from now on. No excuses.

Tonight, I believe we start roasting.

The Class with the New Chef

2004-10-26T14:07:00.000-04:00

Interesting Fact: Criss Cross grill marks are also known as quadrillage.

New module. New chef. Same Kitchen. After Thursday's trying, yet successful, exams we closed the book on module one and began our dry heat methods. Class began with a laying down of the law, aka the new chef's rules, and man does she run a tight ship and then a brief lecture on grilling before we were off slicing vegetables to put in our marinade. Which wasn't particularly good or interesting, so I won't bother to share. Then it was off to the grill pans to practice our grill marks (lay foods at the 2 oclock position and then the 10 oclock position).

All not very interesting at all and thanks to someone's good graces I wasn't paired with either Thing 1 or Thing 2 this week. Hopefully tonight will bring more fun and more interesting things to report on.

The Class with Emulsion

2004-10-21T14:27:00.000-04:00

Interesting Fact: Hollandaise sauce was originally called Sauce Isigny after a town in Normandy known for its butter. During World War I, butter production came to a halt in France and had to be imported from Holland. The name was changed to hollandaise to indicate the source of the butter and was never changed back.

Oof - this week in the kitchen went from what seemed like chaos to what was actual chaos. In our last lesson in module one before our practical and written exams (TONIGHT!), we handled emulsified sauces. First up to bat we all had to individually make a hollandaise sauce - the process and the finished product are not for the weak of heart. First, make a reduction using black peppercorns and cider vinegar. Add 4 oz. of water to the reduction. Then in a metal bowl take a tablespoon of the reduction, mix with an egg yolk, and then here comes the tricky part take the bowl and place it over a pot of simmering water and whisk the hell out the yolk/reduction mixture until it cooks. But don' t let it cook too much. IMMEDIATELY remove it from the heat and then whisk in slowly 2 1/2 oz of clarified butter. I let my mixture cook too much, my hollandaise had the consistency of mayonnaise. And even though no one else's faired much better, I blame it on thing 1 and thing 2 who flanked me at the stove and kept yapping in my ears like needy bichon frise. It was then back to the groups ( still paired with thing 1 and thing 2) to prepare a bernaise, a lemon beurre blanc, and a compound butter. Chef came up to me as I was finishing the bernaise and asked me if I wanted to re-try making the hollandaise and to double the recipe. She said that I would see how impossible it is to make a hollandaise with one yolk and that with two my sauce would be fine. She was right.

While I was remaking the "perfect marriage of butter and egg", the things squared were left up to their own devices to make the lemon beurre blanc (it burned) and the compound butter (which looked more like sour cream than an herbed soft butter). It was then back to individual work to make a mayonnaise. Here's where I really started to feel bad for our chef, after tasting 13 different hollandaises she then had to hunker down and taste 13 different mayonnaises. Just thinking about it makes me never want to go near the stuff again, I can only imagine what its like to do it.

Thing 2, ever trying to be helpful mise-d me for the mayonnaise (that is he measured out all of my ingredients for me with out my asking), but of course measured an ounce of vinegar instead of a tablespoon. You can only begin to picture the disaster that ensued. **Note to self: NEVER rely on anyone else, especially if you didn't ask them for help**. Round 2 mayonnaise came out, unsurprisingly, a thousand times better.

Thank goodness this week, and my pairing with the things have come to a close. We have a written exam tonight, a practical exam (we each have to make a soup and a mayo) and that's the end of Module One. Monday we begin a new module - Dry and Moist Cooking methods - with a new Chef. Wish me good luck on the exams and please hold those good thoughts straight into mod2 as I hear our new chef is tough.

The Post with the Two Classes (again!)

2004-10-19T16:53:00.000-04:00

Interesting Fact: The french term Nappe refers to a soups ability to properly coat the back of a spoon.

Sauces and pandemonium have ruled the kitchen for the past two days. When we cook we're broken up in teams of three or four and this week I had the honor of being paired with the two worst fellas in the class. I like to think its because chef has faith in my abilities and thought that I could carry the team. Monday night and Tuesday night's classes consisted of learning briefly about sauces and the mother sauces (that can be remembered by the handy anagram BETH has VD - bechamel, espagnole(brown sauce), tomato, hollandaise, veloute, and demi-glace (people argue about whether or not this one is really considered a mother sauce)). And then we got into the sauce making. Each group had to make the same sauces : Espagnole (brown stock, pale roux, tomato paste), demi-glace (brown stock, espagnole, reduce by half), jus lie (nasty, lots of ingredients), chasseur (a demi-glace derivative with mushrooms), and fines herbes (a demi-glace derivative with fines herbes) and then last night: allemande (veloute, mushrooms, hint of lemon), bechamel (milk, white roux), mornay (bechamel derivative with gruyere and reggiano), tomato sauce, and roasted red pepper coulis.

Teamed with dumb and dumber we went about our cooking in this fashion. We did our mise (all of the prep cutting and measuring), and while they continued to do that for each sauce, I managed 3 saute pans and a sauce pot on the stove. Basically for the past two nights I've had prep cooks, leaving me to manage the flames. Sounds like a good deal, right? Leave all the chopping to someone else so you can actually cook. And for the most part it was ok, I got a decent sense of how it would really work on a line, working 4 different sauces at the same time, making sure the right ingredients went into the right ones at the right time, reducing them properly and for the correct length of time and managing not to burn a damned thing including myself. The only problem? Thing 1 and Thing 2, couldn't even follow the directions for what needed to be cut and how. For the tomato sauce they brought me whole canned tomatoes without crushing them. If I walked away from the stove for 2 minutes to wash a dish - the flames would be turned up or turned down. So I stayed by my sauces and they managed to survive. And while the whole thing was seemingly chaotic, working that many pans and pots at once is like dancing a waltz, if your timing is right, its beautiful.

Tonight is our last night in module one not including our practical and written exams tomorrow, (already?), and our last night of sauces - we're tackling hollandaise (eggs benedict anyone?), bernaise (don't get saucy with me Bernaise!), lemon beurre blanc, maitre d'hotel compound butter, balsamic vinaigrette and aioli. The good news? We all have to make our own hollandaise and our own aioli.

The Class With Hours of Simmering

2004-10-15T11:32:00.000-04:00

Interesting Fact: Eating a 1/2 a raw onion a day, will increase your HDL cholesterol (the good kind) an average of 30%. Onions also increase circulation, lower blood pressure, and prevent blood clotting.

Let the cooking begin! Last night when I walked into our kitchen classroom, there were no chairs set up around the table. For the first time we had no lecture but went straight to our cooking. My group began immediately thin slicing 3 pounds of onions to carmelize for our onion soup gratinee. While those were cooking down we took approximately 30 oysters scrubbed the hell out of them and shucked them putting them in a bowl with their liquor (that's the liquid that's in the shell). We diced 3 oz of onions and sauteed them with 2 oz of butter. We strained the oysters, and took the liquor and 50 oz of clam juice and threw it on top of our translucent onions with approximately 3 oz of rice. We brought it all to a boil and then reduced to a simmer until the rice was soft. While that was going on, we began peeling, coring and slicing 6 pairs which went into a pot with white table wine to boil and soften.

We waited. Our rice got soft, so we took the pot off the stove and pureed with an immersion blender. Our bisque was not thick enough, so we had to take action and make a roux to thicken that puppy up. It worked like a charm and now our soup was at the right consistency as well as tasty, we put that soup on low heat to reduce a little bit more (but not too much otherwise it would have gotten wicked salty).

In time our onions finally carmelized (this took about an hour or so), we then deglazed the pan with Calvados, threw in three sprigs of thyme and a bay leaf. Added chicken stock and brown veal stock and let that bad boy reduce.

Chef had demanded that all of our soups be done by 9pm for tasting, and they had to be plated as she was going to note our presentation skills as well. We cut large croutons for our onion soup and grated Gruyere. We added cider and pear nectar to our softened pears cooked for a few and then removed from the stove and pureed with immersion blender. We put our onion soup into crocks topped with a crouton each and covered in grated cheese. We popped the crocks under the boiler to brown. We heated up our bisque and slid in our oysters and let them cook for about 3 minutes we heated our bowl. Took the pear and put it in a bowl that we placed in a bowl of ice to chill. We minced parsley. Took the crocks out of the broiler, ladled our oyster bisque into a heated bowl and garnished with the parsley. We put the chilled pear soup into a chilled bowl and garnished with pear slices. It was 8:57.

This may sound like organization, but it was all quite fast paced and required quite a bit of multitasking, even with three people working on three soups, we weren't quite confident in our abilities. But something clicked because chef raved about our soups again. I may, just may, have a knack for this after all.

Monday we begin sauces. Have a good weekend.

The Classes with the Hard Peaks and the Sweating Onions

2004-10-14T15:15:00.000-04:00

Interesting Fact: The traditional thickening agent in a bisque is rice.

Damned work, keeping me busy and interfering with my updates. Damned! OK two classes, one post and a whole lot of information so lets get going.

We spent Tuesday's class learning all about thickening agents and egg foams. Why, you ask? Because you need to know these things to know how to thicken a soup. I won't go into all of the different thickeners in detail because my chef said that most of them she's never seen used in a real kitchen, but a roux is used constantly (and is a necessary component of veloute - one of the 5 mother sauces). So here's the skinny on a roux. It consists of clarified butter and flour in equal parts. Its made by heating up the clarified butter and then adding all of the flour and stirring constantly until it mixes into a paste that isn't too far off from wet sand in consistency. There are 4 types of roux (white, blonde, brown, and black). They're made by cooking the roux at longer temperatures. The black roux is used mainly in Cajun food and has no thickening ability, its used mostly for flavor. The more a roux is cooked the less it thickens. Generally you should use 10% by volume of the liquid your adding the roux to and its got to cook out otherwise you get a starchy flavor in your soup or sauce. Very exciting stuff, I know.

We made a roux. It looks like wet sand, but smells pretty damned good.

Then we learned about egg foams (ie. whipped egg whites). Some important things to remember:
- a speck of yolk in your egg whites will inhibit volume when beating
- copper bowls produce more volume and stability
- room temperature eggs will also produce more volume

there are 3 stages to whipped eggs:
soft - where droopy white peaks form
medium - rounded but stable peaks (dirty)
stiff - peaks stand upright (really dirty!)

we whipped the crap out of those eggs, it takes some muscle (my arm is still a little sore)
and then we whipped some cream for good measure. the same rules apply to cream as it does to eggs. If you overwhip cream it becomes butter (be careful).

Then last night the cooking actually began. We were broken into teams of three and were each assigned to soups to cook, my group got the honor of making a puree of butternut squash and a cauliflower soup. We started by roasting the butternut squash in the oven, and then chopped our onions for both soups and our cauliflower. We let the onions sweat, and didn't pay close enough attention to our onions and cauliflower sweating because we burned them. So we had to start over, it was the best thing that happened to our group, because we then realized how much we had to care for our ingredients. We followed all the steps for both soups, and even though it took us longer than every other group, everyone agreed that our cauliflower soup was the best of the bunch. And that's saying a lot because, I mean come on, its Cauliflower! But it was delish! I was so proud of it.

Tonight. My team has been assigned a chilled pear soup, onion gratine, and oyster bisque. I promise a much bigger post tomorrow.

The Class with the Pope's Nose

2004-10-12T10:16:00.000-04:00

Interesting Fact: The earliest known recipe for meat in a spicy sauce with a bread appeared on tablets found near Babylon in Mesopotamia, written in cuneiform text by the Sumerians from 1700 B.C.

So Thursday night's class was dedicated to the fowl, that is the chicken and other poultry. The lecture was short as there's not much to know about poultry. They're separated into white and dark meat. Its relatively tender all over, they're inspected before and after slaughter and squab is just another name for pigeon. So if you've ever thought about eating squab, you may want to know that.

Then came the knife drill - slicing onions. Chef asked me to demo. I had a rough time - mostly because my knife edge had dulled so chef showed us how to steel our blades. Back to the slicing, much better with a knife that has an edge. We took all of our sliced onions and put them in a pot with a little oil so they would begin to sweat.

While the onions were sweating we took out our chickens. First we learned how to truss a chicken and learned that the tail is also referred to as the Pope's nose. Chef taught us how to cut the thigh/leg out, making sure to get the oyster (not to be confused with a rocky mountain oyster), and then how to separate the leg from the thigh and to debone them both. We then learned how to remove the wing, de bone the breasts and supreme the breast.

We went after our own chickens. Chef added the veal stock we had made the night before and some chicken stock to the onions, as well as some bay leaf and thyme and a bit of sherry. She then let it reduce, reduce, reduce.

Once we were finished with the de-boning and supreming and general chicken dissecting, we took all of our wings and smothered them in a whole slew of spices and popped them in the oven. When everything was over we feasted on some hot wings and a mighty tasty onion soup. This past week has taught me that if I fail at being a chef, I could always become a butcher. Also, chicken is boring. Learning about chickens is boring and cutting chickens is boring.

Tonight we have some fun with thickeners, rendering and egg foams - meringue anyone? The rest of module 1 (through lesson 21 or a week from thursday) is about soups. good times.

The Class With All the Frenching

2004-10-07T10:24:00.000-04:00

Interesting Fact: Due to its Ethnic Diversity, the Northeast Corridor is the Largest Consumer of Lamb in the United States.

Two apologies off the bat. First, the interesting fact isn't that interesting, and second I missed another post yesterday. These are both due to the effects of working full time and being in school full time, finally having their way with me. I'm walking in a haze here people. I missed reporting on the fabrication of pork, and rabbit.

Ok on with the show. Last night we continued butchering our way through the meats, by adding a lamb leg (from hip to hoof) and a full rack of lamb to the long list of raw, bloody meat I have learned to debone and cut into fancy chops, filets and a whole lot of cubes. But as always the lecture came first.

The different types of lamb:
1. Genuine spring lamb - milk-fed only, tremendous quality and texture of meat. Slaughtered at 3-5 months old, 30-45 lbs. Only available from March-May.
2. Hothouse (Incubator) Lamb - Specially bred for Christmas (no joke). 6-10 weeks old at slaughter time, milk and formula fed, 20-40lbs. Meat is very tender, flavorful and has a fine grain.
3. Spring lamb (yep, different from Genuine spring lamb) - Available from March-October, 5-7 months old, 40-50 lbs. The spring lamb is milk and grain fed so the meat is a little darker and grainy.
4. Pre-sale (pronounced Pre-sally) - This lamb is from Normandy only, and is raised on the salt marshes there so the meat picks up a slightly salty flavor.
5. Yearling - 10-12 months old very gamey.

When picking out a lamb, some quality points to remember: the meat should be a dark pink color, it should have a fine grain and the fat should be firm, white and brittle (it should flake when you squeeze it). We went over the basic cuts of lamb and talked about offals (the "specialty meats" - kidney, heart, sweetbreads...)

Pencils down. Cutting boards and knives out. First the knife drill, medium dice (1/2" x 1/2" x 1/2") of potatoes. My cuts are finally getting better! While no speed demon, my dices were square for the most part, only a few rhombuses, and pretty close to the right size!! Then we took out the leg.

Removing the tail bone and leg bone/shank from this piece of meat is a bitch. The veins still had blood in them and the meat was so cold my fingers started to hurt. Not to mention its one hell of a long bone. You have to cut around the tail first loosening the meat, then cut around what for all intents and purposes is the femur, making a slit through the meat straight down to the knee cap. Then you have to come back in to take out the knee and the shank. Once the bone is removed, the fat and elastin has to be trimmed and then we cubed the damned meat.

From there we got the demo on frenching a rack of lamb. To completely remove the meat, fat and membranes from half the rib bones is a daunting and arduous task. First on either side of the rack, make a mark approximately an inch down from the eye. Then connect the marks straight on both the outside and inside. Stab the knife in between the rib bones along this line. Slice down the center of each bone to loosen the membranes. Then work along the bone to completely detach the membrane from the meat on both sides. Put the rack of lamb on its head, so the bones stick straight up in the air, place fingers on meat in between bones and pull down. The meat should break away from the bones in one piece leaving a whole section of riblets and your bones meat and membrane free.

Simple, right? More like total disaster. And most of us, myself included, had to spend a good fifteen minutes using the backs of our knives to scrape off all of the meat and membrane from the bones to leave them clean. A total nightmare.

We salted and peppered our chops. Threw some fresh asparagus into a salted pot. Grilled the chops and after we cleaned up the kitchen (I'm still on floors and side towels), ate the fruits of our labor. I love lamb.

Tonight, since we're working backwards through the butchering, we're tackling chicken. I believe Chef said something about making hot-wings too.

The Class With the Saddle and Baby Loins

2004-10-05T09:59:00.000-04:00

**Warning - If you are sensitive about Veal, do not read this post**

Interesting Fact: Veal is a byproduct of the dairy industry. New York and Wisconsin are the largest producers of veal because they are the largest dairy producing states in the country.

By now I'm sure you've figured out that we spend the first part of every class in lecture. And tonight was no different, 'cept we got our quizzes back. Your favorite chef-in-training got one of the only two 100's handed out. On the menu for t0nigh'ts lectures were stocks and veal. We covered stocks first.

Stocks (the culinary process of extraction, dilution and concentration), are the foundation of all cooking. They're the reason that restaurant food tastes so much better than your cooking. They use gallons upon gallons of stocks a day, you've never used one at all.

All stocks are made out of three things: nourishing elements (ie. bones), aromates, and water. There are two different kinds of stock white and brown. In brown stocks, the bones and veggies are roasted before being placed in water and tomato product is used. In white stocks, nothing is roasted prior and there are no tomato products.

For 1 Gallon of stock use:
7-8 lbs of bones
1 lb of mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery)
5 qts. of H2O
8 oz. of Tomtato product (brown only).

Cooking times depend on the bones you use, but can be anywhere from 1hour (fish) to 10 hours (brown veal).

From stocks we moved on to the Veal notes. Veal is classified into 4 groups (again, apologies for anyone's sensibilities that are about to be hurt, but I warned you):

1. Bob (baby veal) - Brought to slaughter anywhere from 3 days to 1 month old. They weigh about 20-60 lbs are milk fed only and are tough and less flavorful.
2. Vealers - Brought to slaughter anywhere from 1-3 months old. They are milk fed only and weigh 80-150 lobs. Their meat is fine grained and has a delicate texture
3. Calf - Brought to slaughter anywhere from 3-8 months old. Eat a mixed diet, and weigh 125-300 lbs. The grain is more coarse. ** Once the calf is over 4 months old, they really aren't considered veal anymore.
4. Natured veal - This is the good stuff. 16 weeks old, fed on a special formula of proteins, vitamins and minerals they have a fine grained delicate meat, weigh approximately 180-300 lbs and is the most expensive veal.

After we went over the basic cuts of a veal, we put away our notebooks and broke out the knives and cutting boards. We spent 15 minutes on our knife drill, (chiffonading basil, of which chef took and made us all basil oil, that we'll strain tonight and get to bring home). And then came the butchering (umm i mean fabrication). First we took out a whole saddle of veal split it down where the backbone was and trimmed the meat off the bone, cleaned the tenderloin and placed to the side. We then took out the sirloin, trimmed and cleaned it. Some of my fellow students trimmed their fingers in the process. We cut medallions (escaloppes) and then pounded out a paillard. Chef sauteed our tenderloins with salt and pepper and finished them off in the oven. After walking around and okaying our technique with a mallot, we oiled salted and peppered our paillards and got to throw our own on the grill. My hache marks were pretty decent, holding strong at the ten and two positions on my little piece of meat. It was quite yummy as was the tenderloin.

Tonight- we prep our own white stock and fabricate pork and rabbit.

The Class With the Quiz and the Loins

2004-10-04T14:13:00.000-04:00

Interesting Fact: Meat browns when cooked because 1% of the composition is carbohydrates that carmelizes when heated.

Class on Thursday began with our first quiz. 15 questions on sanitation in the kitchen and 10 herbs we had to identify. Does anyone else think that marjoram and oregano taste very similar to each other? I'll let you know tomorrow if I got them right or not. After we put our pencils down we began what the school likes to refer to as "Beef Fabrication." We took notes on yield grades, how to age meat (dry aging which takes 3 weeks, fast aging which is done in 6-8 days, and wet aging by placing in a cryovac. We looked at a diagram of a cow and talked about how its slaughtered in Quarters, what parts come from those quarters and what meats come from where. Who knew that a filet mignon and a chateaubriand were almost exactly the same thing and that a delmonico and a rib-eye were the same thing. We then learned the proper cooking times for meat (and the French names for each):

Rare (au bleu) - 140 degrees
Medium Rare (saignuat) - 145 degrees
Medium (a point) - 150 degrees
Well Done (bleu cuit) - 165 degrees

After the lecture was finished we paired up and each got our own full tenderloin of beef to fabricate steaks out of. In order to properly cut filets, tournedos and the chateaubriand from the tenderloin, you must first remove the membrane, cut off the silver skin (really tough elastin on the topside of the loin) and cut away a whole lot of fat. Then the chain, which is tough sinewy meat needs to be removed. When slicing a steak from the loin, the knife should go through forward on an angle and then back towards your body, cutting through the whole piece of meat in one forward/back slice. This is difficult to do. After we cut our filets, we tied them and weighed them. We then moved on to the sirloin, which is a huge chunk o' meat, weighing in at approximately 22 lbs. We were now three to a side of meat, and my group had a little trouble getting the side out of the cryovac, so blood went everywhere. Sam the butcher would not have approved of our technique. From the sirloin, you have to again trim away the membrane and get rid of the backstrap which, besides hiding under about 3 inches of pure fat, is exactly like the silver skin, and very difficult to remove. Because the sirloin is such a huge piece of meat, chef suggests not using a chefs/french knife to cut it but instead a scimitar. This blade is no joke. We cut our steaks, weighed them and put them aside.

As we were working on making even steaks out of the loins, Chef had added salt pepper and a little oil to the filets we had made earlier and grilled them up. We had a salad brought up and after we all did our chores (we're all broken up into groups and have different cleaning tasks - this week I'm on floors and side-towels) we sat down and ate together. Not a bad way to spend four hours if you ask me.

Tonight we have our introduction to stocks, and we "fabricate" veal. I wonder if we're going to make sweetbreads.

The Class With the Shucking

2004-09-30T10:57:00.000-04:00

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

2004-09-29T09:26:00.000-04:00

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

2004-09-23T10:48:00.000-04:00

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

2004-09-21T09:36:00.000-04:00

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

2004-09-16T10:49:00.000-04:00

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.