Day 31: $100 Chicken

There have been 2 days so far where I have truly understood why the tuition is the way it is. Today was one of those days, and made me realize how worth it it is. We started the day by making Roasted Stuffed Poussin (baby chickens) with Porcini-Truffle Butter. Yes, you heard me right, that's butter+truffle in 1 dish. I titled this dish the $100 chicken because after chef told us how much the ingredients would cost in real life, I am pretty certain this could out-price any lobster on any menu. What we did was make the truffle butter by combining truffle butter, porcini powder, truffle oil and salt, and put it in a pastry bag. We then squeezed the truffle butter under the skin of the baby chickens. Normally a chicken is seasoned inside the cavity, and on top. Most people don't actually eat the skin so they miss out on a lot of the seasoning. By filling the space between the chicken meat and the skin, the flavor is doubled. Lets just say this dish made us extremely popular on our floor. The class across the hall is in their pastry unit so they were eager to trade us some bread for some truffle stuffed chicken.

Poussin

Poussin Stuffed with Truffle Butter

The other main dish we made was Roasted Veal Tenderloins with Oyster Mushroom cream sauce. There was some truffle butter in this dish, making it a very close contender with the baby chickens. Between the veal and the mushroom sauce there was so much flavor and deliciousness. Thankfully I was able to come home after this class because I put my self into a mild food coma.

Roasted Carrots

Roasted Curry-Garlic Cauliflower

Day 30: Roasted

On day 30 we roasted! We began by making a roasted chicken with pan gravy. Roasting is a dry heat cooking method where the item is surrounded by heat, without touching anything. In order to fulfill this rule we made a 'rack' for our chickens to sit on so they didn't touch the pan. We used big carrots as a rack which i thought was pretty cleaver. Once the whole chicken was cooked we made a pan gravy using the drippings. We also got to butcher the chicken, something we have only done with a raw chicken. It was really cool  to be able to see the whole process of roasting the whole chicken and then breaking it down. 

In addition we made Rack of Lamb Persiallde. The crust we put on the rack could make a vegetarian like lamb! We also made roasted garlic and roasted sweet potatoes with orange and sage- a great winter dish that is both beautiful and flavorful! 

Day 27/28: Check out my Grills

The 27th and 28th lesson focused on grilling! There is 1 grill in the class room. In addition we used grilling pans that are placed over the stove and heated by the flames. My best friends gave me a gift certificate to an amazing cooking store so I am thinking of buying my own grill pan for my apartment after being inspired by this amazing day.

To grill properly, you marinate the meat, pat it dry (to avoid flame flare ups), and cook it on a 90 degree angle. Then you rotate it 90 degrees, to form an X on the item. Then you flip it and repeat the process. The lines look pretty and carry a lot of the flavor.

Grilled Shrimp Brochette- Everyone reading this blog should make this!!! It is so simple, healthy, and pretty. Using a sprig of rosemary as your skewer, you stick shrimp, bay leaves, and tomatoes on the skewer and then brush it with a marinade-in this case we used garlic, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. During the grilling process the flavor from the rosemary sprig gets infused into the shrimp and tomatoes giving it an amazing flavor. It is also really pretty once plated.

Grilled Salmon Tranche- I am still getting used to salmon, but I can say it is better then I ever would have thought. As my parents read this they will most likely be elated since they have been trying to get me to eat fish for my whole life. Mom and dad: its official, I eat fish.

Grilled pork chops with Roasted poblano and cactus salad-this is a Mexican dish that has a ton of flavor. First we made a brine for the pork chops, and then marinated in a chili based paste. We had to wear gloves when preparing it to avoid burning out hands so I was nervous to try it but it actually came out a lot more mild once cooked through. Ironically, the steward department forgot to bring us cactus for the cactus salad so we made cactus salad sans cactus, but with tomatillas. This is another dish that I will make again soon. We roasted green peppers and mixed them with chopped tomatillas, red onion, cilantro, garlic, tomato, lime juice and salt and pepper-YUM.

Lastly we made Grilled Lamb Loin Chops with Mojo, a Cuban sauce. We also made a ton of grilled vegetables to be served with all of the meats.

Day 26: Pan Fry

Thank you to everyone that has been reading my blog! I apologize for the big delay in posting. I will make sure to post at least 1x a week from now on :). Now back to the cooking:

On day 26 we did pan frying. Since I tend to cook pretty healthy for myself, I have barely ever practiced pan frying. The technique includes covering the item 1/2 way with fat and letting it brown on each side until cooked through. To practice we made Veal Milanese, Supreme of Chicken, Crab Cakes with avocado sauce and potato pancakes with apple sauce. Although I don't cook fried food often, I obviously LOVE eating it, and really enjoyed the end of this class session (lunch time). My friend Eric had the day off so he came over for a grand feast of fried foods.

The class was extremely hands on, we each prepared all of the ingredients and then individually fried each item.  My favorite item was the potato pancake and apple sauce. Cooking the potato pancake got a little confusing though since I kept referring to my pancakes as latkas. Potato latkas are a Jewish dish (aka potato pancake) made on Hanukkah. Being that I am the token jew in the class no one could figure out what I was talking about. I had to correct myself half a dozen times. I have made many latkas in my day, but I have never made any that were as good as these. Even better was the apple sauce. We used fresh apples, cinnamon sticks, cloves, nutmeg, brown sugar and water, and simmered them together. Then we pureed it all in a blender, ending with a smooth and delicious sauce.

Rosh Hashanah

Today we had off from school for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I went home to go to temple and  celebrate with my family.  Jewish cooking has so much tradition in it, and is probably the real reason I love to cook. Growing up I was always around my mom and grandmas who cooked for the holidays. I hung around the kitchen to help, usually taking the role of slicing the pickles and setting the table. As I got older I was given more and more responsibility and was taught how to make everything from brisket to zucchini pie. This year I helped as much as I could, made mango chutney, but I still enjoyed taking the back seat and watching my family prepare the traditional way. Although no one has had any traditional training, there is something about Jewish women in the kitchen that is unbelievable. I think Jewish cooking is something that so many Jewish women teach their children to help keep the traditions alive. I am lucky that I had so many holidays with all of the women in my family who each taught me so much. I can give them (and my dad who is an amazing cook as well!) credit for teaching me everything I know up until this point, and opening my eyes to the beauty in cooking.  Overall, if I could rate the Jew food my mom and grandmas made, I would give it a whopping 3 Michelin Stars.

Sweet Noodle Kugle

This years menu included: Vegetarian chopped liver, 3 layer gefilte fish, sweet noodle kugle, zucchini pie, mango chutney (from class), roasted vegetables, grilled vegetables, challah, brisket, Swedish meatballs, chicken in wine and mushroom sauce, and a huge display of deserts. There are a ton of other traditional dishes we normally make but there is only so much you can eat in one sitting!

As per usual, I ended up in a food coma post Rosh Hashanah dinner. As always, it was perfect! Unfortunately I began taking pictures when dinner was being served so I wasn't able to capture the real deal, but hopefully you can get a feel for the deliciousness.

Chicken in wine and mushroom sauce and Swedish meatballs

Brisket, and hidden salmon for my vegetarian cousin :) 

Zucchini Pie, Mango Chutney, Sweet noodle kugle

Zucchini Pie and Roasted Vegetables

La Shana Tova, Happy New Year!

Day 25: Saute II

Talk about moving quick! We started with such basic dishes and now we are making dishes you would order in a restaurant. We made Sauteed Sole with lemon and brown butter sauce. This was a quick saute paired with a mix of lemon juice and butter that is cooked until browned. This sauce was perfect!

Below is steak with pan sauce and potatoes sauteed in garlic and parsley. We have been cutting potato after potato to practice our 'medium dice'. This dish was the first dish where we actually used the medium dice and understood why we need evenly cut potatoes. Not only does this allow them to cook evenly but this makes the dish more pretty.  At the time I thought the below image was beautiful but now that I have a second glance, I suppose I need to practice my 'drawing' skills. 

Below is sauteed salmon on top of sauteed spinach. The green dots are Salsa Verde, a sauce I could live on. This sauce is similar to pesto but it is made with parsley and a few other diversions. I consider this the prized picture of the day. 

As a side note, the chef instructor is short like me. Well, he is probably 5'5 but still.  He has been teaching me a few tricks for us short folk. For instance, when you whisk something for a few minutes (like mayo), it is key to keep your shoulder relaxed instead of up in the air. As someone short it is natural to hold your shoulder up but this other trick helps you from cramping up after a while. He also taught me how to hold a heavy pot using my forearm instead of my wrist. Unfortunately he wasn't able to build me a ladder to reach all of the pots and pans, but its a start. 

Day 24: Pan Sauces

Now that we are in module 2 we are working on dry heating methods. To start we did sauteing. Today was really quick and simple but really yummy. We made sauteed chicken and sauteed flank steak.

We started with a layer of clarified butter (obviously), seasoned with chicken with salt and pepper, placed it in the pan and let it cook on each side until golden brown. After the meat browns it is removed from the pan, and its time to make the pan sauce. You use the same pan you cook the meat in to get the drippings from the meat. First off you add shallots and brown them briefly. Then you add white wine to deglaze the pan, removing all of the sticky stuff from the pan and adding it to the sauce. Once again you need to remove the pan from the flame when adding the wine, or at least if you want to keep your eyebrows. Once you put the pot back on it is possible the sauce will catch on fire, which is scary but normal. The sauce begins to simmer and you add butter and stir it in. We plated the meat and "drew" the sauce onto the plate making it really pretty.

Next up we did the same thing with the flank steak. Since it is dark meat we made the pan sauce using red wine and veal stock instead of white wine and chicken stock. Steak is also thicker so it may brown on the outside, but it is common that it is still uncooked on the inside. You can stick the steak into the oven for a few minutes to cook it through. We were aiming to cook medium rare but if it were up to me I would have kept it in the oven until it was well done. Both sauces were really delicious but this one stood out as my favorite. It had a really rich flavor for something that seemed so simple.

Day 22: Fred's Brother

You guessed right, lobsters are back. Thankfully we worked in teams and my partner Juan played butcher. We are now in Module 2 so our new chef instructor taught us a new way to kill these poor lobsters: snap the tail off, snap the head off, simple. Oh. Juan was a trooper but told me he would have nightmares tonight (as he snapped the 3rd lobster). As he prepared the lobsters, I worked on the base for Lobster bisque. The new chef instructor is short too so he taught me a few tricks to help me in the kitchen. Unfortunately he neglected to recognize how much smaller and weaker I was. Instead he told me it was time to lift a stainless steal pot with 3 pounds of lobsters in one hand, pour in alcohol with the other (off the flame so we didn't blow up) and then lean the pan into the stove to let it catch on fire. I looked at him like he was out of his mind, he returned the look, and there I was lighting pots on fire, with one non-muscular hand. Success!

The broth was made, and the lobster was cooked. Now we needed to puree the shells that add the flavor. We used a jumbo sized immersion blender that chopped up the shells. Below is a picture of my classmate Annisa using the tool. Once the shells were crushed we put the entire set of ingredients  through a chinois (super fine strainer). This removed all of the shells but let all of the flavor slip through. We completed the soup with a handful of pieces of lobster as garnish. Our chef said our soup was well done, woohoo!

Next up we made Onion Gratin. We caramelized the onions for over an hour until they were brown. Then we added in the remaining ingredients and placed them in individual serving dishes. We made croutes which are slices of bread pan fried in oil until they crisp. We placed 2 croutes on top of each soup dish, and piled on a massive glob of Gruyere cheese (smaller now that I ate a handful). We place these under the broiler and had a completed, very delicious soup.

Last up we made Gazpacho. This was simple and flavorful. All of the vegetables were placed, uncooked, in a blender. The one ingredient I didn't expect to see was chunks of bread added to the blender. Once blended together this cold soup was extremely refreshing and delicious!

Note: Day 21 was skipped because we had our practical test. We had to make Cream of Broccoli, Mayonnaise, and Medium dice potatoes.

Day 20: Soup du Jour

We learned how to make soup on Friday! We made Cream of Broccoli, Puree of Carrot and Chicken Consomme.

Cream of Broccoli is currently living on my uniform, unwilling to budge in the wash. I am not a creamy soup type of girl but after all of the hard work that goes into this soup I had a bowl. Cream of broccoli is made after a process of making "chicken veloute" followed by sweating vegetables which is the process of cooking them until they are tender without browning them. The two pots are mixed together, pureed, strained, the cream is added, and Cream of Broccoli it is!

Puree of carrot follows a similar method. As our spice of choice we added Cumin to our soup. This gave it a nice Mediterranean tang (think the seasoning in hummus) to it.

Chicken Consomme is one of the funnier dishes to watch cook. You heat up chicken stock and pour in a mixture of ground chicken, egg whites, tomato concasse and mirepoix. This combination is mixed in and then magically finds itself in what is called a 'raft'. All of the ingredients hold together forming this big blob on top of the soup. While it is extremely ugly to the eye this raft is what helps make a clarified, successful consomme. Chefs are judged based on how clear their comsomme soups are so this ugly raft is a really key to a good chef! To complete the dish, a sachet de epices (spices in a sachet) is put into a hole sliced into the raft called the 'chimney'. The soup is simple yet flavorful and a great base for other dishes (aka Matzo Ball soup).