See Panda Cook

Status Update: Not Dead Yet

2012-01-06T21:34:00.000-08:00

Not Dead Yet

I apologize for the extreme negligence to this blog and YumYum Panda. Other things in my life have been progressing successfully (oh hai dere career) and am now at a brand new job working for Food52. It's everything I could want in a job and in a work family.

So there's one question that people keep asking me and that is "How is cooking school?"

I can't answer that question.

Truth is, I don't even know where to start. I just fumble with an answer like "Oh it's going great, it's awesome." They probably end up thinking I'm dealing drugs.

Hopefully I can answer that question fully, here, in this post.

What is going on with cooking school?

It is now Level 3. (Level 1 and 2, I can barely remember) In this level, we are grouped in teams of 4 and each person is assigned one recipe to execute and plate at a specific time. This means, the appetizer dish must be plated first, then fish, then entree, then dessert. Though, if you're late, you don't necessarily jeopardize the people after you. You just get points taken off.

It is by far the hardest level, simply because you are timed to the minute and every detail is noticed. "Your shrimp is cold. There isn't enough parsley. Your soup bowl is missing a doily."

That being said, we have an all-star class. We are killing it. Even Chef Alain is amazed, "You guys have a great sense of taste and seasoning. Everyone works together well. Just don't forget discipline, refinement, and consistency." Details, details, details.

How do you like the people you cook with?

Cooking School is like being adopted into a joyous, wacky, dysfunctional family. We get each other sick. We sometimes get upset with each other (petty things), then quickly make up. We drink together. We laugh together. You see people on their bad days, where nothing is going right and their hollandaise keeps breaking (this happened to me and it's unbelievably frustrating). But you also see people on their up days when they're in the zone, mise en place, and rockin' it. I like every single one of my classmates and hope that never changes.

What do you like about cooking school?

For me, it's a test of endurance, skill, and teamwork. You stand for 5 hours 3 days a week over a hot stove, scurrying around a kitchen wielding heavy pots and sharp things. You cut yourself (frequently if you're me). You burn yourself (or burn someone else if you're me...sorry Diana!). It's not for the faint of heart and there should probably be some medical disclaimer like:

Cooking school is not recommended for children under 18, people with weak immune systems, pregnant women, or people with artificial hearts. Or sissies.

Most importantly you need something I would call mental endurance - the ability to pick yourself back up. So yeah, your hollandaise broke, and you have 3 minutes to make a new one. You can either say "screw it, I'm serving it anyway" or you can start over and do it right. I'm guilty of doing the former and it actually makes you feel worse, like I'm wasting my time and education. I'd rather be late and good, then on-time and lacking.

As for skill, one of the hardest parts of it all for me is being able to reproduce consistently. Sure, you make that lemon tart perfect once. Now make it just as good tomorrow. Oodles of things could go wrong between now and then: oven too hot, tart crust burned, lemon curd curdled, crust broke apart when cutting, etc. etc.

Teamwork is something that I enjoy the most about cooking school. I subconsciously seek it out in work, in dragonboat, and in friends and family. Things are just done better in teams. Good teams can make great things, and this shows tremendously in cooking. Every now and then, Chef Alain gives us teams a mystery basket of ingredients and we are then asked to present an amuse bouche before the appetizer. And you know what, it's stressful, it's thrilling, but we always end up producing something tasty.

One example? Mystery basket: goat cheese, spiced nuts, dates, jalapenos, chives, shrimp, bacon, bread. We produced Bacon-wrapped shrimp with goat cheese mixed with nuts, dates and jalapenos on a buttered crouton, all tied with a single chive. Best. Bite. Ever.

Working with people is fun to me because (yes it's cliche) everyone has such different skills. One person has a great palate - let them do the sauces. Another may be super precise with the knife- give them the taillage to cut the small dice and julienne. Another does a great job with dough - let them make the tart dough for the apple tart. You have the chatty people who tell you some crazy stories about their weekend, or you have the silent types who listen and nod and think "God I wish she would look when she's cutting that thing."

So that's the end of this post. I will still try to finish my posts for Level 1 and 2 so bear with me.

Happy cooking and happy new year!

Lesson 16: Poultry

2011-11-18T20:47:00.001-08:00

Bring on the Game Birds

What a class! Today we got to work with a whole duck and quail. For the duck they use a great purveyor called Crescent Farms to supply their Long Island duck, which is like $3.99/lb...and these ducks were at least 5lbs each.

Duck is one of those meats that I grew up with, as well as char siu bbq pork and roast chicken. We had these three dishes at every big family event on my Mother's side and the duck would almost always be Peking Duck. Roasted duck with the crispy crunchy skin separated from the meat and cut into large squares, meat sliced thin. Taking a slice of skin and a slice of the dark fatty meat, wrapped up in a rice pancake with a smear of sweet plum sauce and shredded scallions, was heaven.

This is not that duck.

When you get a raw duck, you instantly realize how much FAT is on there. There's flaps of fat all over, so much so that it's recommended to render the fat off during cooking (because you won't be able to cut it all off). No wonder I used to love this stuff as a child - it's pure fat calories! Mmm fat.

Quartering a duck is similar to quartering a chicken, except that the breasts are much larger on a duck. They're deep red because of the concentration of myoglobin, the protein that transports oxygen through the muscles. Game birds tend to have more myoglobin because they are more active and use their muscles more - this is why most game bird meat is labeled dark meat.

First Task: Canard Roti a L'Orange

Translation: Sweet and Sour Duck

Picture from French Culinary Institute website

When you taste this duck, you'll think: "chinese take-out orange sauce" but ten times better. The sauce is a sweet and sour gastrique + duck stock you make from the carcass + orange liquor + orange candied zest. What makes it sweet and sour is the gastrique (yet another syrupy concoction) which is 80g sugar and 120g white wine vinegar cooked over a low flame. It's very sweet but it balances the richness and fattiness of the duck. When we make the stock, chop up the carcass into 2" chunks and brown along with the neck, heart, gizzards, and some carrots and onions (PS the liver is foie gras). In order to make the orange zest, remove all the white pith carefully from the peel and blanche in hot water a couple times until it's tender and not too bitter. Drain, julienne, then soak it in orange liqueur. Try not to eat all of this before you add it to the sauce.

We gobbled up this duck as soon as the sauce went on, so that's one reason why I didn't take a photo =(

Second Task: Pan-Roasted Quail Stuffed with Rice and Sausage Stuffing

Translation: Dainty Stuffed Softball

Picture from French Culinary Institute website

If you think that picture makes the quail look messy, you should've seen the REAL ones we made in class. It was like our quail exploded!

A quail is the size of a softball. Now imagine trying to stuff it. You therefore have to dice all your vegetables for the "stuffing" into confetti. The stuffing consists of onion, carrot, zucchini, mushroom, sausage and rice cooked in chicken stock - which is super delicious on its own.

When you stuff these tiny birds, it's not a good idea to truss it like you would a chicken or turkey. So you use toothpicks to hold the meat together, which makes the quail look like Edwards Scissorhands, toothpicks sticking out everywhere.

In the end the quail a hot mess. Stuffing all over the place, barely recognizable. But at least it's tasty!

Lesson 15: Introduction to Poultry

2011-11-16T22:32:00.001-08:00

Guts and Gizzards

In Yan We Trust

We've finally made it to real meat: Chicken.

First Task: Quarter a whole chicken

This can be done in as many ways as you can tie your shoe...which is a lot. Every chef has their own special flair and I envy them for making it look so damn easy. One day, or 500 chickens later, we'll get there. In the end though you want to produce two boneless breasts, two boneless thighs, two legs, and two wings.

There are some tricky parts to this. You have to remove the wishbone. You also need to cut around the "oyster" (the tender oval muscle located on the lower back) when separating your leg quarter. It's like the chicken's lower back muscle and it's one of the tenderest parts of the entire chicken. It's also one of the easiest things to miss and cut through when quartering.

We struggled. We fought with our chickens. Took me almost 10 mins to butcher one. 10 mins feels like an eternity compared to Chef Martin Yan who does it in 18 secs: Martin Yan Quarters a Chicken in 18 secs Oh, and he does it WITH A GIANT CLEAVER. (bows to the master).

Second Task: Hunter-Style Chicken

Translation: Sauteed Chicken with wine sauce

I'm beginning to realize that every single sauce in the French lexicon is just a stock reduction. All of our sauces look like Robitussin. It's gross and I hate cough syrup.

This recipe was good but not great. The pros about this recipe: flambeeing the mushrooms (the more brandy, the better) and the return of tomato fondue. Other than that, this was just an OK dish.

Third Task: Chicken poached in Mediterranean-style Broth

Translation: Yellow Chicken Football

Not my favorite recipe. Just imagine tying up a chicken to be compact like a football, then poaching it in a broth with every possible spice in your pantry. It's excessive and annoying to have to miz out 20+ ingredients for the broth, which becomes bright yellow from the turmeric. And just because something has kalamata olives doesn't mean it's "mediterranean." Give me a roasting pan any day.

Dragonboat Camp Chef

2011-10-27T20:43:00.000-07:00

Dragonboat + Food = Love

Our Puff Puff Crew at Dragonboat Camp

Foreword: I've been reading up on entrepreneur Tim Ferris, author of The Four Hour Work Week and The Four Hour Body, and he's inspired me to start documenting some lessons learned while I continue this culinary adventure. This didn't take place during my culinary school stint but I really learned a lot on this trip as an amateur chef.

April 3 2010 - 1 Week before Training Camp

Signed up to go to an intense one-week dragonboat training camp in Melbourne, FL (not Australia) near Cocoa Beach. Dragonboating is my other love in life, besides food, Rob, friends, and family. We signed up as a group of 9, paid our registrations, and began packing. I volunteered to help organize and cook healthy meals for the group for the week. I knew that I could count on my buddies to help me prep and cook in the kitchen so that was a huge relief. Began planning out a menu and estimating AP costs (as purchased) for the recipes based on the nearby Publix online store ad. This was no easy task and Rob can tell you, I obsessed over everything: the recipes, whether people would enjoy this, is this enough meat for a guy, etc.

Here is the link to the Dragonboat Camp Groceries Google doc: Dragonboat Camp Groceries

Sample Menu - What I had planned on making. Each meal was designed to have a starch, veg, and protein. The green-highlighted dishes were vegetarian.
Actual Menu - What REALLY happened.
Shopping List - Color coordinated by section in Grocery Store. Got a little ambitious here and tried to make it into a game by making teams - whoever got their groceries collected first wins. This idea became moot when it ended up just being the four girls shopping for the whole list anyway. Next time!
Recipes - There were more recipes here but I removed them since they didn't work for me at all.

April 8 - Night before my Flight

Started to pack the spice mixes in ziploc bags. Each ziploc was for each recipe, so if I wanted to make 3 times the recipe, I would just need 3 of its ziploc bags. Definitely saved on luggage space and cooking time. Quickly realized that the dry goods (rice, beans, oatmeal, and lentils) were NOT gonna fit into my suitcase and backpack, and left them at home. I don't even know why I even thought I should bring them in my suitcase - that stuff is dirt cheap. Must be my asian-ness.

April 9-10 - Flights and Really Bad Weather

What should've taken us just half a day of travel turned into 2 hellish days of frantic, anxiety-filled flying. Suffered the WORST weather conditions I've ever seen and had to stay overnight in Charlotte due to hurricanes. If you ever intend on going there, fly to Orlando instead and just rent a car to drive to Melbourne. Its a cheaper flight since its a bigger airport too.

After finally getting in on Sunday afternoon, we went grocery shopping at the nearby Publix. It was four girls so we split up the grocery list, each grabbed a cart, and we were in and out in under 40 mins. Cold-blooded grocery list killers.

Everyone was so done by dinner time so we just decided to eat at a nearby all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. It wasn't glamorous or healthy but it was cheap and fast and simple to split the bill. Definitely enjoyed the night off of cooking and stressing. Took advantage of the Mongolian grill in the back and polished off all the meat (it was almost closing time when we arrived). Everything else was pretty tired-looking but they had a great selection of ice cream in the back; green tea ice cream ice was delicious.

Cooked the hard-boiled eggs for the next morning. 11mins in boiling water does the trick for me. Shock them in ice water so the eggs peel off easier. Peel them and store in an airtight container in the fridge.

April 11 - First Day of Camp

I'll spare you the details of the dragonboat camp, since those activities themselves could fill a book. Woke up at 5am for an early morning run. Feasted on hard-boiled egs, oatmeal and bananas for breakfast.

For lunch we made deli meat sandwiches and for dessert Elvis sandwiches: peanut butter and banana. Those sandwiches are freakin delicious - might even be better deep-fried...

The Bolognese pasta sauce at dinner was a bit disappointing and I blame it on the Prego that I was trying to pump up. I added dried herbs and ground beef to it but was still bland. Next time, I'll try adding some proper mirepoix to the mix along with some green and red bell peppers. Oh, and more SALT. The stewed chickpeas were also kinda disappointing and bland and mushy - not good. Indian cuisine is not my forte but it's something I've always wanted to be good at. Will need to research and test out some legit recipes from friends and co-workers.

Brewed some coffee for iced coffee the following morning...

April 12 - Second Day of Camp

5am run to the beach. The beach was perfectly calm, serene, and rosy pink with the sunrise. Rushed home and scarfed down oatmeal and leftover hard-boiled eggs and iced coffee (THANK GOD).

Afternoon snack of apples, oranges, and cantaloupe. It's amazing how good the fruit is down in Florida. Wish we could get it that fresh in NYC.

The guys were sweet enough to take the lunch shift and made sandwiches for everyone to take on the go to our Camp Meeting. Roast beef and ham with cheddar, arugala, and mustard - yummy! Thank you guys!

Dinner was pretty light today, mostly veggies. Balsamic green beans which turned out pretty well given our tiny pans. Baked Tilapia with breadcrumbs and herbs were ok but not as crispy as it should've been. The brown rice was pretty boring but at least the brocoli was nice and garlicky. Later I learned that the guys had secretly gotten Chinese takeout before dinner :O

Realized that our fridge was still chock full of kale and brocoli. We would've been fine buying half the amount of veg we bought, plus we still had the salad greens and a big bag of baby carrots to finish by Sat.

Opened a bottle of wine with a sneaker. This you'll just have to ask about ;)

April 13 - Third Day of Camp and Potluck

Did an early morning run with the girls and yoga on the beach. The perfect way to wake up!
Ran home and had cereal, iced coffee, and egg whites. Originally the plan was to alternate every morning breakfast with hard-boiled eggs and omelettes. That was pretty dumb. Making omelettes in a rickety pan with nothing but canned-butter-spray? No way jose.

Lunch was sandwiches as the usual. Also realized that when you're on a healthy kick, peanut butter is the best tasting food you can eat. It became our junk food and got smeared on apples, bananas, fingers, and spoons. Should've gotten a Costco-sized jar of it.

Did a Potluck Dinner with our sister team Empire Dragons. We prepped and cooked as much as we could. Rubbed the pork chops with equal parts cumin and coriander, along with salt and pepper and olive oil which were grilled on a portable grill and still tasted amazing (recipe in spreadsheet). Peeled and cut oranges and apples for a Sangria, made the rest of our spaghetti and pasta sauce, and a tasty cold sweet potato salad with green beans. The ingredients were similar to that of a regular creamy potato salad like mayo, paprika, mustard, and relish. I'll have to try making that one again on my own.

April 14 - The 14K Paddle

No run today. Everyone carbed up at breakfast to get ready for our 2-hour long paddle. Oatmeal, cereal, eggs, coffee, fruit, etc.

Had the afternoon off after the looong paddle and feasted on sandwiches and leftovers. Strolled to the beach and enjoyed the sunny weather. Got a Slurpee at the 7-11 on the way home = heaven.

Time to hit the town for dinner. Went to Coconuts on the Beach, an island-style sports bar right on the beach with live music. Really chill (literally; it was cold and windy). Nice long drink menu and went with a fruity drink called "Pain in my Ass:" half pina colada, half rum runner, all sugary sweet. Got the Coconut crusted Mahi Mahi which was crunchy and satisfying with the tropical relish. Mango Key Lime pie was pretty decent too.

April 15 - 2K in the Rain

Early morning run with the girls today. Breakfast was the usual: egg whites, oatmeal, coffee.

For lunch I experimented with the leftover spices. Mixed together cumin, coriander, oregano and parsley - this turns out to be awful on chicken.

Because some of us couldn't eat meat on Friday and were vegetarian, we decided to eat out again and found the only Indian restaurant in 15 miles. It was a small restaurant and it took a while for food to come out but when it did we weren't disappointed. Everything was well seasoned (nothing like my bland attempts) and moderately spicy, like aloo gobi, tikka masala, lamb vindaloo. Steaming hot naan was brought to the table and devoured instantly. The mango lassi was uber fresh - damn you Florida and your amazing fruit!

April 16 - Last Day of Camp

Started to clean out the fridge. We had so much leftover uncooked kale so I decided to bake it in the oven to make crispy kale chips - sprinkle with salt and garlic powder. A reasonable substitute for the lack of potato chips and junk food this week. Cooked the last of our vegetables and brought the remaining deli meats to donate to the End of Camp BBQ. While there, had a dulce de leche apple pudding (caramel + dulce de leche pudding + apples) which was aweessomee.

This week of cooking was fun and a super learning opportunity. I thank my team for trusting in me to plan out the food and thank them for all the cooking and help - without them it wouldn't have worked. Took a big step towards catering and private cheffing. If you want more tips, take a look at the Notes section in the spreadsheet. Enjoy and keep on cookin' !

Lesson 14: Shellfish

2011-10-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

Lobster killer.

Mussels, Scallops, Lobster, Escargot, Clams and Oysters. I can't believe we cooked this much food in one freakin class. Also, my partner was allergic to shellfish so lucky me, I got to take all the leftovers home. Let's get to it:

First Task: Moules a la Marinere

Translation: Steamed Mussels

Moules a la Marinere from class

In the book "Heat", the author Bill Buford talks about cockles. He realizes that you cook cockles not for the meat but for the juice. It makes your broth taste like the sea. This is what I thought about when cooking these mussels. The mussels themselves are ok, but the broth is really what I love. I used to order the mussels at Maggiano's with my family and fight over the broth with my Mom, which we'd dip the bread into.

This broth however was a little weak for my taste. We followed the recipe correctly, but if I had the chance I would've added sauteed bacon.

Second Task: Coquilles Saint-Jacques, Coulis au Persil

Translation: Seared Scallops with Neon Green Sauce

Seared Scallops with Parsley Coulis from class

What's convenient about seafood is that it's so lean it cooks up super fast. These big fat juicy scallops only took a few minutes to sear up. However, the cool-lookin' parsley sauce took almost 45 minutes to prepare! You make a court bouillon (a vinegary short broth) and simmer for 30mins, while painstakingly washing, blanching, and shocking a huge bunch of parsley. Then you blend the broth and the parsley together for what seems like an eternity until aaaall the little green flecks are gone. It's probably impossible to make this sauce perfect unless you have a high-wattage, state of the art Vitamix handy. Needless to say, it presents well and looks great on white plates. Tastes good too.

Third Task: Lobster Americaine

Translation: Lobster Killer.

You know that scene in Julie & Julia where Julia Child (Meryl Streep) stabs her knife into the lobster's head, and swings down with a crunch, with her male counterparts watching in awe. What they DIDN'T show you was the part right afterwards where the lobster SQUIRMS AND TWITCHES while achieving rigor mortis. That or they were using a dummy lobster.

This brings up the question: would you rather suffer a slow painful death of being boiled alive, or would you rather die quickly (though perhaps not with a knife through the head)? I'd choose the latter. So. We were told to grip the lobster firmly and hold it in place, stab straight down through the forehead close to the eyes and then swing down to cut through the mouth. I was probably more nervous than the lobster at this point. I stabbed, then cut down. The lobster then squirms and twitches and a couple onlookers shrieked. I just grit my teeth and tried to hold the lobster down so it didn't escape my cutting board. Some people dropped their lobster while attempting to kill it, and I really didn't want to be any more cruel to this lobster aka dinner.

The sauce is made from other chopped up raw lobster shells and sauteed until bright orange. The shells give the sauce a powerfully strong lobster aroma. Then you add in your mirepoix, brown it up, add brandy and flambee, then add fumet and simmer for 30mins. Don't cook it too long or too much calcium will get extracted from the lobster shells and become bitter.

We got two lobsters per team so that means two lobster tails, 4 claws, and knuckle meat. But since my partner Diana was allergic to shellfish, that means I got to eat aaalll that lobster (and cholesterol). Life can't get any better than this.

Fourth Task: Escargot Bourguignon

Translation: Butter with a side of Snails

This dish has so much butter because really, there is no point in eating just snails. Like my Dad says, "Someone must've been reaaaallly hungry to want to eat this" (he usually refers this to crab). Consequently, they also must've thought more butter is better. Did you know that snails are packaged, pre-cooked, in giant cans? It's gross. To gussy up these ugly brown snails, we used petite white ceramic escargot plates, which had 6 divots in it for each snail. After blanching the canned snails in court bouillon, drop one in each divot, and hide it completely with compound butter. Bake it off high in the oven so that the butter melts and browns a little. Chef said it needed more butter because ours didn't brown up enough. Meh, not like either of us really wanted to eat that dish anyway.

Fifth Task: Raw Bar - Shuck 3 oysters and 3 clams

Thankfully we weren't cooking these, just shucking. I doubt anyone actually ate their raw oysters and clams because we were so full from the rest of the seafood and Family Meal.

One of the best perks of going to culinary school at night is getting to eat Family Meal. Usually in a restaurant, it's a meal prepared by the staff for the staff. At the FCI however, the Level 4 students are in charge of cooking this as part of our curriculum. Some days it's good, some days it's awful (don't even get me started on their bok choy), but some days it's ridiculously good. They have two or three Buffet nights where they go all out and cook 5-6 types of appetizers, veg, entrees, and desserts. My classmates and I go straight for the desserts, which have been anything from blueberry cream cheese ice cream to chocolate hazelnut tarts. Another thing with Pastry. We have a symbiotic relationship with the Pastry students (which is also a 9 month long program). We give the Pastry students what ever extra protein we make and they in turn give us whatever extra pastries and desserts they produce. We love you Pastry!

Lesson 13: Additional Methods of Cooking Fish and Flat Fish

2011-10-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

Flat Fish are UGLY

A cartoon flounder. Trust me, they're uglier in real life

Sorry I didn't get any pictures from class. Will take some of my own attempts to recreate this (although not keen on redoing the Bonne Femme...).

Flat fish happens is one of those species that are obviously descendants of ancient history. Ugly looking things with both eyes on one side of their body. Performed the same steps to fillet while additionally removing the head and guts.

First Task: Goujonette de Limande aux Deux Sauces

Translation: Awesome Fish Sticks

Is it sad that I really like this dish? It reminds me of the yellow boxed Gorton frozen fish sticks I ate as a kid, except much better. You cut up the flouder fillet into strips, season, then bread with flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, and deep fry. Simple as that.

Make two dipping sauces with this: a remoulade and a creamy red bell pepper sauce. The remoulade we made packed a punch: mayonnaise with chopped cornichons, anchovy paste, capers, mustard, and herbs. Lightyears better than tartar sauce! The red bell pepper sauce was a little too runny for Chef's liking - probably didn't reduce it enough before blending.

Second Task: Filet de Limande Bonne Femme

Translation: Fish in Cream? Wait a minute...

Here I thought this was one of the unforgiveable sins in cooking: mixing fish with cream. It doesn't even sound tasty. Even worse, this "bonne femme" sauce uses heavy cream and whipping cream. BLECH! The point of using the cream in this sauce is so that you can glaze it under a salamander. Honestly, it ends up looking like "toasted marshmallow fish." The one thing I do appreciate about this recipe is the fact that you make a fumet out of the resulting flounder bones, resourceful and smart.

Lesson 12: Introduction to Fish

2011-10-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

Respect the Fish.

Today we took a big step towards chef-dom today. We finally got to work with protein! Go meat! (PS the duck confit didn't count because we merely cured it, not cooked it). Fish is one of the few dishes that showcase the skill and ethos of a restaurant. It's fast, simple to cook, but easy to screw up. The quality of the fish tells you whether the restaurant has good suppliers; you can taste the difference between frozen fish and fresh fish. Fish is also one of the more expensive items on a menu because you lose 60% of it to bones and inedible parts. Put it this way: a whole 3lb fish for $6.99/lb, with 60% loss, results in 1.2lbs of edible meat which ends up costing $17/lb. $17/lb costs more than a T-bone steak! So, if a restaurant happens to have a killer whole fish on their menu, that means they A) have a great relationship with their supplier, B) have the money to spend on buying whole product AND a trained chef to butcher it correctly, C) have the skill to cook it properly, and finally D) the belief that doing things from scratch is the right way to go. Hint: If the chef is savvy enough, he/she probably uses the bones and scrap to make a fumet (fish stock) so I'd try any of their seafod soups on their menu which uses that fumet as a base liquid.

First Task: Fillet a Sea Bass and a Trout, two fillets each

Translation: Easier said than done.

Time to pull off the protective sleeve on our filleting knife. One of the things I most enjoy watching, weirdly, is butchering. Not the violent hacking kind, but the kind that shows respect for the food. Artful, smooth, graceful, precise cuts that release the flesh from the bones with little waste and in beautifully whole pieces.

This is MUCH easier said than done. After watching Chef demo it, it was our turn. Bowl with fish on ice: check. Scrap bowl for fish guts: check. Bowl for fish bones: check. Bowl for fillets on ice: check. Wet towel to clean knife: check. My attempts to fillet the fish were adequate but left some meat on the bones. Now to remove the pinbones - the annoying little bones that are stuck in the filets. You take a needle nose plier, just like the ones from the hardware store, and pluck these bones out while trying NOT to mutilate the beautiful fillet. Ended up with slightly beaten up fillets but at least I know Chef won't be choking on any bones.

Second Task: Poisson en Papillote

Translation: "Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things!" - Sound of Music

Poisson en Papillote from class

Definitely a fun dish: sea bass fillet wrapped up parchment paper along with wine, mushrooms, tomato fondue, carrots, celery and leek, and then baked / steamed in the oven. As the consumer, it's like opening a fragrant yummy christmas present. As the cook, it sucks because you have NO IDEA if it's fully cooked or not (or worse, overcooked). You just have to use a timer and pray, which my partner and I did with success. Chef Veronica enjoyed our dish: "Great presentation, good amount of veg on the fish. Put skin-side down next time. Could use a little more seasoning"

Third Task: Filet de Truite a la Grenobloise

Translation: Breaded Trout

Trout Grenobloise from class

This fish is cooked a la Meuniere ("Miller's wife" in French) which means breading the fish in flour and pan-frying. Simple enough to do, but one tip is to wipe out the pan to remove excess breadcrumbs so it doesn't smoke and burn. The fish came out golden brown and tasty. The sauce grenobloise was not my fav...just too much brown butter. Give me a slice of lemon and I'm happy.

Lesson 11: Potatoes

2011-10-22T16:10:00.000-07:00

"Boil 'em, Mash 'em, Stick 'em in a stew"

Today was THE fattiest classes to date. Potatoes, oil and butter cooked 6 different ways. No wonder the salad class was right before this. (Btw the title comes from a LoTR internet meme) So here we go:

First Task: Pommes Darphin

Translation: McD Hashbrown Frisbee

Chef Phil's Pommes Darphin

The name fits because this is exactly what it looked and tasted like. To start, you use a mandolin to make pretty julienned potatoes. You do NOT want to make a julienne of your palm, which is what I was desperately trying not to do. The potatoes are then dumped into a hot pan with lots of oil and pressed to form a cake, or giant latke. I kept adding more and more butter and oil, which resulted in a nice even golden brown color but also super greasy. Good bar food but not good eats.

Second Task: Gratin Dauphinois

Translation: Cheesy Potatoes

This is a tres fancy potatoes au gratin recipe which is loaded with gruyere, cream, lots of salt and pepper. Slice your potatoes into thin pliable rounds using a mandolin, create an overlapping layer in your small sautoir (straight-sided sauce pan), top with gruyere and S&P, and repeat. To make matters worse, once you've reached the top, you pour cream over the whole thing. It's like something straight out of a Paula Deen cookbook: cheesy, fattening, and highly addictive.

Third Task: Pommes Pont-Neuf

Translation: French Fries

French Fries from class

Man I had no clue french fries were so complicated! A properly cooked french fry is cooked three times: blanched in water, blanched in oil, and fried in hot oil. Chef Phil made ketchup from scratch with ginger and molasses - yummy!

Fourth Task: Pommes Gaufrette

Translation: Waffle Fries

Thus solves the great mystery of how you make a waffle fry. Turns out you need a mandolin with a waffle blade, which looks like a row of upside down letter V's. Cut a large potato in half, and run off a few slices of the fatter side of the potato half on the mandolin. Then you rotate the potato 90 degrees, slice, and you should have a slice with the waffle-like holes. With every slice you rotate the potato 90 degrees. Cute? Yup! Tedious? Absolutely. Later, we made a basket out of these slices by layering them into a mold and deep frying it. It's a huge pain to release this fragile basket from the mold without shattering, so for now just stick with the waffle fries.

Fifth Task: Pommes Duchesse

Translation: Fun shapes with Mashed Potatoes

Pommes Duchesse piped into shapes

This is basically mashed potatoes (ok fine they're not mashed, but instead run through a food mill) with egg. You put this eggy mash into a pastry bag and pipe it into aaaaany shape you desire: tubes, dung piles, stars, whatever! Brush em with egg wash and bake them off. We didnt' end up baking ours since we were so sick of potatoes.

After class, we hit up the bar for some much desired beer. We were greasy from the deep fryers we used, bloated from the starch, and unbelievely hot and sweaty. Best feeling in the world? Pressing that ice cold beer to my forehead and sipping heartily.

Lesson 10: Salads

2011-10-05T23:23:00.000-07:00

Rabbit food.

This was the healthiest class to date. No heat, no cooking, just lots of leafy greens, vinegar (which is super healthy for you), but still couldn't dodge that mayonnaise. Curses!

First Task: Macedoine Salad

Chef Phil's Macedoine Salad

Translation: Pretty Peas and Carrots

It's not as tasty as it looks. But! The tomato fondue that is smeared on top is ADDICTIVE. The tomato pulp reduces and caramelizes along with the shallots, so it gets thick and sweet, so the tomato-ey flavor intensifies. Here's the recipe with some of my tweaks - enjoy!

Fondue de Tomate by the French Culinary Institute, with some tweaks.
200g (7 oz) ripe tomatoes
20g (2/3 oz) shallots, minced
10g (1/2 oz) butter
2-3 garlic cloves
Bouquet Garni (cheesecloth bundle with 1 sprig thyme, 1t peppercorns, 2-3 parsley stems)
Pinch of sugar (optional)
5g (1t) tomato paste (optional)

1. Dunk tomatoes in boiling water until skin breaks. Shock in ice water and peel off skins. Cut in half and de-seed while reserving juice. Chop tomatoes into small dice.
2. Heat butter in saute pan. When melted, add shallots and garlic - don't brown it - and cook for a few mins.
3. Add the tomatoes and bouquet garni. If you don't have cheesecloth, you can use a tea Cut a circular parchment paper top for saute pan with tiny hole in center and place on top. Cook on low until excess water has evaporated. Taste and season.

Second Task: Salad Nicoise

Our Nicoise Salad from class

Translation: Would you like some lettuce with your meat?

There are 11 components in a Nicoise salad, butter lettuce being one of them. You use juuust enough lettuce to cover the bottom of the plate, like 2-3 leaves. The rest is history: pile on top hard boiled eggs, nicoise olives, potatoes, canned tuna, green beans, anchovies, bell pepper, tomatoes, dressing and salt and pepper. Someone should just wrap this whole thing up in a tortilla and call it a Nicoise Salad Wrap. Not that I didn't like it (love olives and anchovies), but really kids, this ain't a salad.

Third Task: Sweet and Bitter Greens with Tomatoes and Herbs.

Translation: It's spinning time!

Kinda boring but involved lots and lots of washing greens. Gotta say it's kinda weird seeing a white OXO salad spinner in the kitchen amongst the sea of stainless steel countertops and equipment. It stands out, kinda like if someone was using some neon orange Rachel Ray "spoonula" in class. Meh, gets the job done so no complaints here.

This salad (and the ones before) call for a vinaigrette, which by proper ratio is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. Vinegar cleanses your system and couldn't help but remember that you can use vinegar to de-scale a coffee maker, so guess it makes sense that it'll do the same to your intestinal tract. Feels like everyone in class drinks enough coffee to be a walking coffee pot (including myself).

Lesson 9: Food Preservation

2011-09-28T23:07:00.000-07:00

Sour Mayonnaise Punishment

The return of Chef Sixto! Today was a light class where we learned to preserve food, so not much cooking. Just lots of salt, sugar, and vinegar. Don't worry, I'll explain the title further down =)

First Task: Pickled Jardiniere Vegetables

Translation: More than just pickles

Turns out you can pickle lots of things besides just cucumbers. In our recipe we used carrots, cucumbers, turnips, shiitake mushrooms, Serrano chiles, and dill. Can't wait until we crack this baby open in a few weeks when it's ready.

Second Task: Preserved Lemons

Translation: Salty lemons

Lemons in salty water? Meh, not so eager to open this one later.

Third Task: Brandade

Translation: Fishy Mashed Potatoes

Don't be fooled by the description - this is actually a rockin' dish. You take something ugly and boring, like salted cod, poach it gently, mash it with a fork, and mix with mashed potatoes and cream, and it becomes something infinitely better. Salty, creamy, and filling, like a good comfort food should be.

Fourth Task: Duck Confit

Translation: Fat is Flavor

First thing we did with our duck legs was to trim off the extra fat. This wasn't a bad idea, but Chef Sixto decided to make a soup with the fat trimmings. He pureed the entire class's trimmings in the robo coupe and it became a gross white sludge with a pinkish tint. Barf. Then he put this into a pot to cook with rosemary and garlic which made it smell pleasant but not enough for any of us to try it.

Back to the duck confit. After salting the duck legs with curing salt, sea salt, garlic and thyme for a couple days, we were each gifted with two beautiful duck confit legs to take home. I pan seared these babies up on Saturday and they were ridiculously good - salty, with a delicate crispy skin, tender meat, and indulgently rich. This could wipe out your whole week's worth of gym time.

Fifth Task: Codfish Fritters - Chef Demo

Chef Sixto demoed this recipe to the class and being the resourceful chef that he is, decided to ask someone in the class to make a remoulade for his fritters. Somehow I was nominated, replied "Yes Chef!", and went to work.

A remoulade is a derivative of a mayonnaise sauce, so I started by making a mayonnaise. 1 egg yolk, 150g oil, 1 tb dijon mustard, and...wait, how much vinegar? I didn't remember, so when someone kindly brought over a mise cup of champagne vinegar (about 2 oz), I shrugged and dumped the whole thing into my bowl and started whisking. Several minutes later, my mayo is not thickening well. I whisk harder and faster.

Chef Sixto saunters over. "Why is your mayo so runny?"

Me: "I dunno Chef, I thought I had the right ratio?"

Sticks his finger in the bowl and his face puckers. "Gyah! Did you taste it?"

I taste. OH EM GEE SOUR! "Whoah, that's sour Chef..."

"How much vinegar did you put in dere!?"

"Uh...half a mise cup?" (it's supposed to be 1 tsp)

"That's too too much! Everybody come here! I want you to taste this mayonnaise!" Oh god please no.

They taste and they pucker, politely less so than Chef.

"See? This is why you must leaaarrn your recipes. Yes?"

Face-palm-SMACK.

As punishment, I was to go up to Chef's table and make a new mayonnaise in front of the class. I whisk while Chef Sixto slooowly adds the oil. Torture. My arm is falling off. Someone kindly relieves me.

I hate mayonnaise.

Delicious procrastination

2011-09-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

Instead of studying for the upcoming Lessons 8-11 test tomorrow, here's a post with some random dishes Rob and I cooked at home! Yay procrastination!

Also here's a quick shoutout to my fellow classmate Catherine and her culinary blog: Whit's End Test Kitchen Her stories are 712987x more well-written and hilarious!

Flank Steak with Chimichurri Sauce, Gruyere, and Red Pepper

A little messy but a whole lotta flavor. Used this chimichurri recipe as a guideline (eyeballed most of the veg and adjusted the vinegar:olive oil ratio).

Tomato Fondue

Saw some really great plum tomatoes at Shoprite (crazy!) and had to have them. If you get the right ripe tomatoes, this turns out nice and sweet.

Apple Pie

Apples were on sale and I wanted to try a blend of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious apples to get that sweet & tart balance. Think it turned out pretty well with 3 Granny Smith (large) and 3 Golden Delicious (med).

Lesson 8: Exam for Lesson 1-7, Soups and Consommes

2011-09-21T09:18:00.001-07:00

Vegetables: 2. Partners: 0.

Had our test for Lessons 1-7. Most of us were expecting a 2 hour long test, esp. since we were told to study hard. Turns out it's only 20 minutes long! Blitzed thru the test, anxious to get it over with because there was a SUPER BUSY action plan on the board. Why they would give us some of the most labor-intensive recipes on the SAME DAY as our first test, idk. Resulted in some casualties on the battlefield....

First Task: Beef Consomme

Translation: The Gross Floating Beef Disc

Doesn't sound so appetizing does it? Thankfully you don't eat that part. Start with warm veal marmite stock. Make an ugly hamburger-like mix of ground beef, egg whites, julienned carrots + leeks + celery, and tomatoes. Put this meat ball into the marmite and bring to simmer. Like magic, the heat of the flame pushes all of the

debris to the top, forming a raft (yep, that's the official cooking lingo). The egg whites are what keep the raft together. Then you punch (lightly) a hole through the center so it looks like a meat doughnut. It ain't pretty. But after you strain the liquid thru a cheesecloth, it tastes like pure beef.

Somewhere along the line, Chef asked us to slice up two onions for the giant rondeau (this pot could hide a 2 year old) for the French Onion Soup. In doing so, my partner cut himself really bad but came right back to work with a blue finger bandage. He took it like a champ and continued thru the rest of the meal.

Second Task: Split Pea Soup

picture of my Split Pea Soup at home

Translation: Humble Liquid Green Gold

I will never ever pass on split pea soup ever again. When confronted with the choice of split pea soup or clam chowder, no longer will I be the sheep and choose the chowder! Well, as long as it's THIS split pea soup.

Start with good bacon, no wimpy Oscar Mayer slices. You will want to taste the good cured flavor of the bacon throughout the soup, so don't skimp! Sweat the bacon with butter, leeks, carrots, and onions. Cook them slowly so they don't get brown. Then you add water or vegetable stock, garlic, and a bouquet garni (a cheesecloth bundle with thyme, parsley stems, bay leaf, and peppercorns).

After it's done simmering, we get to use the Vitamix blender. THIS BLENDER IS THE SHIET. There's a knob for blending speed, from wimpy-wimpy to JETPLANE ENGINE GOGOGO! (ok just kidding, but you get the point). Puree the living hell out of this soup. Once it's smooth and creamy, heat it back up and add in cream and fresh peas. This was my favorite out of the soups today and I can't wait to make this at home.

Third Task: Farmer-Style Vegetable Soup

Translation: Fussy-Style Vegetable Soup

Ok, if I were a farmer, I wouldn't cut my vegetables into tiny little fingernail-sized tiles (aka paysanne). But perhaps this is called farmer soup because of the variety of vegetables in it. Just means more mis en place for us, goodie.

I don't remember too much of this recipe, because as I was cutting the carrots into these damn tiles, I sliced into my left ring finger. Partners: 0, Vegetables: 2.

Battle Scar #3: Cut on left ring finger

Fourth Task: French Onion Soup. Chef demo.

French Onion Soup I made at home

Darnit! This was the one soup I really wanted to taste and memorize, and then Chef spoils all the fun and makes it solo. Guess it was a good thing, since we were so busy. We didn't even get to taste the end result, or see them plated in the cute little brown bowls. Sigh, next time.

This was an intense class. My partner and I barely made it alive. The whole class was behind most of the time and Chef kept yelling at us to push. We went to the bar afterwards to drink and reflect.

There's a weird feeling you get after working in the kitchen. After a frantic bout of cooking, your body becomes tired but your mind is still going full-speed. It must be the adrenaline that comes when you're rushing to cook and plate on time. Although it sucks because by the time you get home after class, it's midnight, but you end up staying awake till 2am. Nightcap anyone?

Lesson 7: Emulsified Sauces and Sabayon

2011-09-21T08:03:00.001-07:00

Would you like some cholesterol with your heart attack?

This class was not for the faint of heart. We made five sauces today that use copious amounts of egg yolks or butter...or both. Like making sausage, you'll wish you DIDN'T know how these sauces were made. I feel bad for Chef - he has to taste each sauce per team, which amounts to almost 60 sauce tastings...

First Task: Mayonnaise. One per person.

Translation: 100x better than Hellman's.

1 egg yolk, 1 T dijon mustard, 1/4 t salt, 1/2 t red wine vinegar...and 150g oil (aka 5oz). WAIT HOLD THE PHONE, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! 5 oz. of oil is more than 1/2 a cup, more than you would use to fry a hunk of dead animal. It's like 3/5 of a squirt bottle, which you whisk vigorously into your egg yolk DROP BY DROP. The slower you add the oil, the better it turns out, only if your arm doesn't fall off before then.

The reason why this sauce is tastier than Hellman's is because it uses, proportionally, more egg yolk per amount of oil. Hellman's also uses tons of preservatives so that it can live on your shelf for months, while the stuff we made in class will probably only last 2-3 days in the fridge.

Second Task: Hollandaise. One per team.

Translation: The magic sauce on eggs benedict

My new partner made this sauce. Thank god we're splitting these recipes up, because I doubt my arm would last all 5 recipes. Easy peasy stuff for him, since he's actually got some serious industry experience.

Third Task: Bearnaise. One per team.

Translation: Hollandaise + vinegar reduction + herbs.

I took this sauce, for better or worse. Start by making a hollandaise (abbreviation: HOLLA!) and in a pan, reduce some white wine vinegar + shallots (love them shallots) + dried tarragon + peppercorns. PS don't put your face over the reduction - it'll burn your nostrils. Mix the reduction into the holla, along with lots of freshly chopped chervil and tarragon.

On a side note, I took this sauce home in a cup and stuck it in the fridge and it got rock hard. Honestly, it looks more like a compound butter than a sauce, gross.

Fourth Task: Butter Sauce. One per team.

Translation: Got butter?

If you thought the amount of oil in the mayo was bad, this is much worse. 7oz of cold butter. That's nearly 2 sticks of butter. You get the white wine, white wine vinegar and shallots sauteeing in a pan and then you slowly add in little cold cubes of butter, all the while wishing you could make it stop, stop with the butter.

Fifth Task: Sabayon. One per team.

Sweet Sabayon on Strawberries

Translation: Better than whipped cream

Finally, a recipe free of butter! This is a simple recipe with sugar, Marsala wine, and an egg yolk. You whip those three ingredients up over a hot water bath and serve over fresh strawberries. Kinda tasted like tiramisu cream. Next time, I'll try making it with port and egg yolks, no sugar.

Here's hoping that the amount of mad whisking I performed negated some of the calories I just ingested!

Lesson 6: Sauces

2011-09-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

Jacques Torres and a sauce to die for.

After some therapeutic dragonboating on Thursday night, after Wednesday's hellish class, things felt loads better. Sometimes you just gotta escape and do something physically exhausting, and that for me is dragonboating. "Dont bring your emotions into the boat. Just focus on your first stroke" my Dad would say. Wasn't my proudest paddling job ever, with my lame pinky, but it completely washed my stress away.

Refreshed and ready for class, we met our new Friday chef, Chef Sixto. This guy is hilarious and intense. "Come here now! Closer! I want to see your eyes!" Being accustomed to Chef Phil's slow booming, these high-pitched, fast talking demands were something new.

Made the whole kitchen a little more on edge...in a good way.

Today we took the resulting stocks from the previous [hellish] class and turned them into beautiful sauces. Espagnole (beefy veal sauce), Bechamel (milk + roux) , Chicken Veloute (chicken stock + roux), White Wine Fish Sauce, and Wine and Mushroom Sauce (aka THE BEST EFFING SAUCE I'VE EVER MADE). More on that later.

Highlight #1: Jacques Torres, the chocolate man himself, pops into our class and harasses Chef Sixto. "YES CHEF! CHEF! HERE CHEF!" he yells, while hiding behind some students during a demo. While he and Chef Sixto are bantering, I'm just dying to whip out my iPhone and snap a pic. Chef Jacques Torres is a Dean at the FCI so I'm sure we'll see more of his goofy smiley self. Quote Chef Torres: "Next time I geeve you some shock-laht! You know, I geeve out ze chocolate to eeeeverybahdee! I pay people in shock-laht you know. I geeve it to my bank, my hairdresser..." Priceless =)

Highlight #2: The Wine and Mushroom Sauce (Sauce Chateaubriand Aux Champignons).

Chateaubriand Sauce at home from class

This is one hell of a sauce. It's a sauce of a sauce of a stock: veal stock to espagnole sauce (veal stock cooked with mirepoix) and finally to this. You saute porcini and shiitake mushrooms with butter, add in shallots, brandy and then...drumroll...FLAMBE! You take the pan off the heat, pour in the brandy, then return it to the burner and it ignites and flames up. A beautiful cheffy moment...after a quick check to see that my eyebrows are still there. After you flambe, you add in white wine, espagnole sauce, and more butter (egads), and voila! a beautiful, rich, earthy, beefy sauce. Rob and I used this on some shell steak and onions and we were depressed when we finished it =(

Lesson 5: Introduction to Stocks

2011-09-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

Life in the Weeds.

Twas the first class after Labor Day, and all was not well. My shoes were gone from my locker and was forced to wear my sneaks (Chef was not happy). My dear partner was violently sick from food poisoning and couldn't make it to class. Naive, stubborn girl that I am, I told myself I can do the day's recipes by myself, no problem.

Task 1: Brown Veal Stock (fond de veau brun). Make as a team.

This was a team recipe, so half the kitchen was to make the Marmite stock and ours was to make this stock. There were 9 of us so we split up the ingredients amongst us: one two-person team roasted the veal bones, another prepped the leeks and celery, another mirepoix'ed the onions and carrots, another fashioned the bouquet garni, and for me I roughly chopped the tomatoes.

The sheer quantity of veal bones used in this recipe is astounding. We had two huge roasting pans filled to the top with flintstone-sized veal bones. After the bones finished roasting, we pulled them out of the oven and, good lord, the meaty aroma hits you. This "eau de carnivore" permeates the pores on your face and your clothes. This is why your home-made stock will never taste as good as a restaurant-made stock.

Task 2: Chicken Stock (fond de volaille blanc)

Not too hard. The hardest part was guesstimating the amounts of bones and mirepoix I was using. The proper ratio of mirepoix to bones is 1:5, so if you have 5 lbs of chicken bones, you need 1 lb of mirepoix. Out of that mirepoix, 50% is should be onions, 25% carrots, and 25% celery. Not knowing how many lbs of chicken bones I had, I winged it.

Some tips we learned about making stock: Don't let it boil too long. Simmering is best. Skim frequently. Want them to be clear and debris-free. Don't season the stock (ie with salt) because most likely you're going to reduce it later for a sauce.

Task 3: Fish Stock (fumet de poisson)

Butchering fish scraps is a dirty task. We got these ugly-ass bones and scraps of some unidentified flat fish and had to break them up into smaller chunks so that they release all their flavor and gelatin. Our chef's knife in our kit is NOT meant for chopping bones so everyone was feebly hacking away at these dead fish carcasses like some B-rated horror movie. My hand and palm were pulsing with pain. God I wish I had my Chinese cleaver.

Task 4: Vegetable stock (boullion de legumes)

The unfinished stock. On paper, this is the easiest stock to make. However, after barely making it through the Chicken and the Fish stock (damn fish), I was struggling. Now I know what it feels like to be in the weeds. My previous partner from a few lessons ago came over and helped me prep the veggies for this stock - thank god for her. I threw it all into the pot, started to simmer, and decided to speedily add another onion to the mix.

Bad move. While slicing the onion, I also sliced off a bit of my left pinky. At first, it didn't look so bad, told everyone "it's fine, just a cut," but then the blood started to run down my fist. Uh oh. Reported to Chef: "Chef, this is worse than I thought." Chef Phil sprayed a clotting agent on the wound and patched me up. The rest was a blur and I sloowly walked back to my station.

Oh, and what was the beginning of a vegetable stock, was burnt in my pot. Great.

Moral of the story: Breathe and stay calm. When life throws you onions, make your damn stock.

Lesson 4: Introduction to Tournage. Garniture Bouquetiere and Pommes Rissolees.

2011-09-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

Vegetable Football Hell

Today was my birthday, the big 2-5. Can't believe I'm a quarter of a century old already. Cue quarter-century crisis!

Back to tournage. It's where you take a veggie like a carrot, turnip or potato, cut it finger-length size, and whittle it into a football. Yep, a football. Whose bright french idea was this?! By the time I finished carving just 3 of these, I could feel my hand cramping into a claw. And almost everything in our day's recipe required that it be tourneed.

First Task: Garniture Bouquetiere

Sketch of Chef Veronica's masterpiece

Translation: Epic vegetable Christmas wreath

It's a shame I don't have a picture of the Chef Veronica's plate. I sketched one but it doesn't do hers justice. Too pretty to eat, but what a pain to make!

Let's start with the artichoke. You take this wholesome-looking artichoke, cut nearly everything off until you have nothing but a naked base. Then you boil it until it looks like a dull forest green, remove the choke in the center, and voila, you have an atrociously ugly vessel. This held a scoop of bright green peas, which didn't help the attractiveness factor much.

Then, we tourneed. Carrots, turnips, and potatoes. Carrots were the most difficult to shape into footballs because they're woody and tend not to want to be shaped. Footballs everywhere. You then take the carrot and turnip footballs and glaze them with butter, salt, and sugar, so that they don't develop any color but get a nice and shiny coating.

The pommes rissoler, potato footballs, are first blanched, then pan-fried, and then roasted. This makes some tasty, cute-looking french fries, but it's hard to justify using 3 different pans, my stove AND my oven, and more than an hour of my time to make.

When plating, we didn't reheat our carrots and turnips enough so the Chef tasted them cold. Face-palm-SMACK! "The peas and string beans have a good color. The tournage is ok but the carrots and turnips are ice cold. Good clean presentation."

Oh right, the night before I made a mascarpone cheesecake for the class. We finished most of it and it was received well, if just a little messy! Recipe is from Food Network: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/mascarpone-cheesecake-with-almond-crust-recipe/index.html. Also made some brownies from Alton Brown for the office and DAMN were they good - rich, fudgey, and tasted almost like dark chocolate (even though the only chocolate in it was Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa Powder). This recipe Rob and I will have to review in YumYumPanda: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/cocoa-brownies-recipe/index.html

Lesson 3: Ratatouille. Beet and Goat Cheese Timbale with Apples and Vinaigrette.

2011-09-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

Grandma-style vs. Fine Dining

Today we tackled two very different recipes and perhaps learned more about ourselves than we thought.

First Task: Ratatouille

Ratatouille recreation at home

Translation: Vegetables a la Grandma

Ratatouille is a peasant dish which means "from the pantry" - anything you have on hand, you can put into this dish. Eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers. etc. It's simple and rustic, just like Grandma. You cut the veg into even-sized pieces and sautee them one by one, adding them to the sautoir (pan with straight sides). The fussiest ingredient was the tomato, which we had to emonder (peeled, chopped and de-seeded).

We were doing well in the beginning, tomatoes emondeed, onions and peppers ciseled, no color on the veg (which is good), mis en place together. We were in a groove. But it quickly evaporated. Half-way thru the recipe, the pan starts smoking. We turned the flame off and discovered burnt peppers and onions on the bottom of the pan, probably due to the high sugar content in the peppers. The whole dish was slightly brown and my partner and I were heartbroken. What do we show Chef? Then, we decided to grab a new pan, pick out the burnt parts and put the remaining semi-burnt veg in the pan and continue. Instantly, we felt relieved and managed to present a final dish to Chef. He wasn't fooled: "This is a little too brown. It's seasoned well but it's not sweet enough. Lower the heat next time and cook it longer." (Probably because the sugar from the peppers got burnt and we had to chuck it.) My partner and I gave each other a knowing look, and replied "Yes Chef!" Crisis averted.

Battle Scar #2: Burnt ratatouille

Second Task: Beet and Goat Cheese Timbale with Apples and Vinaigrette.

Chef Phil's masterpiece

Translation: Beets as Art

OK, you read that recipe title and already you know it's complicated. And it's true. Let's start with the taillage (cutting) first. The beets and apples are cut macedoine, 1/2 cm cubes. This is half the size of the letters in Campbell's Alphabet Soup. The apples are cored, peeled, and rubbed with lemon. Our apples got too brown too fast, so we had to aggressively dress our apple in lemon juice to prevent further browning. The Frisee salad with chives, chervil and parsley has to be immacuately clean of dirt so you wash and spin the salad until there's no more dirt, almost three times. Your vinaigrette doesn't come from a bottle (heaven forbid) so you make it out of shallot, white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and tarragon. Then you dress the beets, apples, and salad in the vinagrette. Plating requires a ring mold and you make a form a timbale (cylinder) of beets topped with a delicate shmear of goat cheese, then salad resting on top, and sprinkled apples around the cylinder. It kinda looked like a red velvet cupcake with hair. Ours looked pretty spot on, except because we used so much lemon juice to prevent browning on our apple, the vinaigrette was too acidic. "Great presentation, but a little too acidic. If you can taste the acidity on the roof of your mouth you've gone too far. Try to balance the sweetness from the beets with the vinaigrette." Chef said.

Lesson 2: ServSafe

2011-09-06T11:22:00.000-07:00

Germs are everywhere.

Today's class was mostly a lecture given by Chef Greg about the ServSafe certification. ServSafe is a food safety certification that almost everyone in the food industry needs to have. We'll be taking this test by the end of Level 2.

The first thing we learned was about those lovely pathogens in food that make us sick: Bacteria, Viruses, Parasites, and Fungi. Examples of bacteria include E Coli (comes from cow shit), Shigella (comes from human shit), Salmonella (comes from chickens), and many many more. Learning about this stuff is like some OCD person's worst nightmare.

The most interesting thing we learned about was the Danger Zone. The Danger Zone is the temperature range in which bacteria grows the fastest, and this range is 41F-135F. If any food stays in the Danger Zone longer than 4 hours, you must throw it out. Which is ironic, because most of the family dinners I've been to almost always exceed the Danger Zone 4 hr max. Oxtail soup straight from the pot the next morning (reheated of course)...mmm delicious bacteria.

Lesson 1: Introduction to the Kitchen and Basic Taillage

2011-09-04T21:18:00.000-07:00

Into the Fire

The first day of the rest of my life. It began in the hobbit-sized women's locker room, suiting up in our too-white uniforms and mis-tied neckerchiefs, making it all too clear that we were the newbies. We arrived to class and it was like Christmas Day: there lay our brand-spankin new knife kit, complete with everything you could think of. Spatulas, tongs, fish tweezers, etc. but of course: multitudes of knives. This bag is a definite "Don't fuck with me" sign to all those would-be robbers and I found myself hugging this tightly, with my hand on the zipper, as I walked home late that night from the subway station.

We met our Chefs, Chef Phil and assistant Chef Greg, and for the most part was inspired. Chef Phil gave us a run-down of the kitchen, rules and etiquette like washing your own dishes and equipment, and talked of the almighty Kitchen Awareness. It's as if you're plugged into the kitchen, with hyper-sensitivity to every little thing that's happening, like being able to tell when the carrots have finished cooking a l'etuvee by smell alone, or when the pot is at a roiling boil just by listening.

Chef Phil also talked about taking pride in your food and being passionate about what you do. Should another chef touch your knives, you ought to be fighting them off. But most importantly, while in the kitchen, stay calm, don't be lazy, and execute to the best of your ability.

Then, we cut. We scrambled to prepare our poste de travail (work area), get a cutting board, bowls for scrap and finished product, getting the product (carrots and onions), and removing the right knives from our kit. We were like chickens with our heads cut off, clumsy and slightly frantic. Bowls got dropped, people got bumped, but once we got to our work stations, it got magically silent.

First Task: Cut carrot into julienne and cook a l'anglaise.

Translation: Cut carrot into microscopic strips and boil them in salty water.

Julienne is a bitch. The name just reeks prissy-ness and having to cut a round carrot into a rectangle, then into tranches (slices) of 1-2mm thickness, and then batonnets (sticks) of 1-2mm, is enough to drive you mad. You need laser precision and/or 20/10 eyesight if you plan on making perfect julienne. I can't wait till we get to use a mandolin for this cut.

Battle Scar #1: nick on my right thumb.

Second Task: Cut turnip into jardiniere and cook a l'etuvee.

Translation: Cut turnip into shorter and fatter sticks and sautee/steam with water and butter.

Jardiniere is like julienne's fat stumpy cousin. I like her. But again, you still have to cut the turnip into a square before cutting tranches of 1/2 cm and then batonnets of 1/2 cm. The whole French precision is so alien to me. Had this been any asian household, they would've just taken a cleaver to the thing and chopped it into funky chunks. And NEVER would they have thrown away ANY trimmings, without a firm scolding and history lesson of how they came to the States, with just the shirts on their backs.

The neat thing about this cooking method is you put the veg in the pan, fill with water half-way up, and add a pinch of salt and a bit of butter. Then you fashion a parchment paper cartuche (think circular circus tent top) and put it on top while the pan is on high. It's like braising slash steaming the veg, which achieves tenderness without developing color on the veg. Pretty cool stuff.

Third Task: Cut onion into ciseler (dice) and mincer (slice).

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Ciseler is your typical tri-cut onion technique: make a few cuts latitudinally, then longitudinally, then horizontally to achieve a fine dice. Mincer actually means slices (so confusing I know) and Chef explained that if you cut your slices parallel to the root, your onions will break down easier vs cutting your slices perpendicular to the root.

Finally, we finished for the day. Cleaned up my station, de-cheffed in the locker room, and went home, sweaty and exhausted, all from some carrots, turnips, and onions.

The beginning

2011-09-01T22:53:00.001-07:00

Herro there! It's me, Amanda, and this is my quickie blog to keep track of my thoughts and adventures during my stint at the French Culinary Institute. I'll try to keep it short and sweet but please excuse the occasional rant or rave.

The program that I'm taking is the part-time Culinary Arts career degree program at the French Culinary Institute. Classes are in the evening from 5:45-10:30pm every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with time-off for holidays.

Many people have asked, why? Why are you doing this? What was your tipping point? Answer: I hit my quarter life crisis and on a whim, decided to sign up for recreational cooking classes. Like "Thai for Dummies" or "Cured Meats for Couples." This led to a tour of FCI and, why not, an audit of one of their Culinary Arts degree classes.

As soon as I stepped into that CA class, it was love at first sight, taste and smell: watching the students in chef's whites work in a chaotic ballet, tasting a freshly made ravioli, and smelling the buttery yeasty bread from across the hall in the Pastry Arts class. I was intimidated but envigorated, and filled out the forms later that night. And as they say, the rest is history :)