The Post with the Return

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

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

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

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

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!)

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

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.