Day 14: Frenching

Today we had our second test to make sure we understood the different types of fish, shellfish, meat, and stocks. After that we frenched lamb! I know that sounds silly but it is a very fancy way to serve lamb. We were each given a rack. We peeled off the large layer of fat, and sliced cuts between each rib. See below.

Following that we had to "shave" the ribs. We took our smallest knife (paring knife) and scraped over the ribs until all of the excess skin and fat was removed.  8 ribs later we had a perfectly frenched rack of lamb. This looked easy but it took a lot of energy to scrape meat off of 8 bones! Once the scraping was complete it did indeed look fancy. The leg is supposed to be 'so' clean that a guest can eat the rack of lamb with his/her hands. I think my guests would have been all set.

Next up we had to de-bone an entire leg of lamb. WOW this was a huge set of bones that curved in all sorts of funky ways. Following the bone line throughout this 1-2 foot piece of meat eventually led me to the knee bone where I reached success. This process took a good 20 minutes. When I finally finished I announced that I had NO idea how I just did that, but I was extremely excited to see my meat perfectly detached from the monster bones. Below is a picture of the leg pre-fabrication. The blue ink on top is the USDA regulation stamp saying that the meat is acceptable for consumption in America. To maintain food safety the ink is made out of blueberry dye.

As we waited for our leg of lamb and rack of lamb to be cooked by the Chef we strained the veal stock that had been cooking overnight. I worked with a partner to strain this professional kitchen sized pot containing the large bones shown in the butcher picture yesterday. Once it was all strained, we put it through a chinois which is a smaller strainer to keep all bones and vegetables from the broth. We put the large pot of strained stock over an ice bucket to cool. I tasted the stock which was extremely tasty and will definitely compliment whatever dish it is added to. At this point we also tasted the lamb. Unfortunately I enjoy my meat very well done. I blame my father for this insult to all chefs, but it is a flavor that me and my father love. It does make it hard for me to enjoy rare meat, the type Chef usually serves, so I have been struggling a bit. I managed a small bite but it was not my favorite of the meat so far. Today was the last day of fabrication but we will be cooking all of these meats again in the upcoming lessons.