Day 12: Butcher Carly

Monday we worked with veal. Veal is a pretty controversial meat since it is the baby calf. With controversy comes the enthusiasts who love the meat for its tenderness and high quality. Often I see veal on menus, but don't be surprised if you are at a restaurant that doesn't serve it. Reading about a chef and their philosophy could give you some insight on the type of food they cook and why they may prefer to avoid certain things. It is a bit ironic for a chef to cook beef but not veal in my eyes but to each their own.

Huge Hunk of Veal 

This piece is the entire edible sections-loin, tenderloin, ribs, etc. We started by cutting down the veal into its respective cuts. In order to do so you need to use a fillet knife and slice right across the bone, pulling the meat away from it. This is a tricky skill set that gets easier with practice. You slice section by section until the meat is disconnected from each bone. After that point you disconnect the fat by applying the same method. Just as I was getting pumped up to have the opportunity to master the break down of a whole veal, my hyperactive sense of smell began to kick in. Maybe it is because I have never cooked veal before, or maybe because it was just smelly, but I had a very difficult time embracing the odor coming off of the meat. Chef was intrigued by how I felt, telling me that most people do not feel this way about veal. I was told my good sense of smell was a helpful trait for culinary school, but it seems that for the few things I do not like it is going to get interesting ( well, nauseating).

Now we have all of the veal parts broken down and cooked for tasting. The smell may have been a bit funky but it was delicious!

With every piece of meat broken off comes a set of bones. To make best use of the food, we learned how to make veal stock. To get the veal stock going I had to play butcher, and use a massive knife to break apart the ribs. That means I had to actually slam this huge knife through a rack of veal ribs until they budged. This was actually a very effective way to wake us all up at 9AM. We roasted the bones, roasted vegetables, added tomato paste and water and dumped it all into a large stock pot to simmer for 8-12 hours. Tomorrow we will see how it turned out. Until then I leave you with a picture of my butchering skills below. Sorry for the nightmares in advance.