Chicken

I love chicken. There is so much that you can do with it. Today we did about 3 or 4
chicken dishes, some side dishes and a dessert. The lecture was about the manufacturing of chicken within the US. There are 8-11 BILLION chickens running around the US alone. The process bothered some people today, but not enough that they weren't eating by the end of class!

We then went into the kitchen for our demo. The demo today was how to break down a whole chicken. It's quite easy and will end up saving a ton of money than buying boneless, skinless chicken breast. I am going to start doing it more often. We each got a chicken to break down and what we broke down, we used for our recipes. I was really excited to break the chicken down because one seminar that I am really looking forward to is the butchering seminar. For some reason I just like big chunks of meat that need a knife taken to them! I wouldn't mind teaching any one of you how to break down a chicken. It's way too much fun to be doing stuff like this!

My recipe for today was Olive Focaccia with Sun-Dried Tomato Paste and Marinated Peppers. I was really excited to make this. Even though I had to make the bread, which some would consider baking, it's different because it's something that I really enjoy eating. This is certainly a recipe that I am going to make on my own sometime. I made the Kalamata olive dough first then let that rise for about 45 minutes. While that worked, I then went onto roasting red and yellow peppers. I have never roasted my own peppers, I just usually buy them in the jar. Unfortunately, I can only roast them directly on a gas oven, which I don't have, so I may have to take some trips up to NH and use Jer and Erin's kitchen and make a huge supply to last me. You put the peppers directly onto the burners and let them get black all over. This was hard for me because I kept turning them. Chef finally came over and told me to leave them alone, they are suppose to get black! Once the whole pepper is black, you put it in a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap to steam the char off. It's messy to take the char off and remove the seeds, but the taste of them is unbelievable!!! They were them marinated in olive oil, thyme, garlic, and salt and pepper. Next, I had to make the sun-dried tomato paste. This was ok. It was the tomatoes, pine nuts and parm cheese. Once everything was set, I rolled the dough, topped it with the tomato paste, peppers and goat cheese. Everything baked fine except the tomato paste. It got a little dark. Everyone loved the dish though and even asked if there was more left over that they could eat. That made me feel good.

Today was the first class where we had to have everything plated and ready at the same time. After we looked at the recipes, we had to tell Chef what time we would be serving him. We decided on 2:30 pm. I was lucky since my dish could be served at room temp so I could pull it early and not risk anything. We kept a constant communication so we knew if we could meet the 2:30 deadline. We worked well as a group and got everything out at 2:34 pm.....so close. We were pretty impressed, but Chef wasn't. While he didn't say it we failed, he did say that we were 4 minutes late. He wasn't mean about it, but made us realize that even a minute late wouldn't be ok. It's a good thing to learn, especially if you are working in a fast-paced kitchen. Plus, I hate when things aren't on time, so I pushed as best I could to get the rest of my team out.

Today was a really good day because it reminded me of some of the dishes I remember from home. The peppers I made today made me think of the marinated peppers Grandma Mary used to send home with dad and we would eat them in a sandwich. Plus, one of our side dishes was minted potatoes in parchment paper. Minty-Garlic Potatoes, anyone!??! Dad - yours are a million times better than what we had today!

If you take anything away from this blog it should be that you should only buy whole chickens from now on....maybe I will host a party and can teach you guys how to break down the chicken. I know I will save a lot of money since we always eat chicken. Plus, the bones can be saved for stock and then you won't have to buy stock anymore!!!

Today's Recipes: Olive Focaccia with Sun-Dried Tomato Paste and Marinated Peppers, Roast Chicken Roberta, Braised Chicken with Leeks (so delish!), Timbales of Corn with Basil Cream, Bones Chicken Breast with Carrot Puree, New Potatoes en Papillote, Asparagus with Hazelnut-Orange Sauce, Surprise Spinach Salad with a Citrus Dressing, Banana Macadamia Nut Tart