Today was all about steaks!!! I love to cook and eat beef, so class today was quite yummy. We started with our normal lecture and discussed the normal methods for dry heat cooking. Most common is sauteing. This means that you cook the steak in a high-heat pan with little fat. Once lecture was over, we got into butchering beef. We were lucky enough to get a sub-primal cut of beef which had both the strip steak and the tenderloin attached. Apparently it's rare for the school to get the meat with the tenderloin still attached. Chef showed us out to take off the tenderloin, clean it up and slice into serving sized. He then showed us how to remove the strip steak from the feather bones. It looks difficult simply because the whole piece of beef is huge. We portioned out the tenderloin and the strip steaks for our recipes.
There were 3 teams of 2 and then an individual. I chose to be the individual today. I like not having to worry about someone else over my shoulder or messing up a dish. I was in control of the whole situation. Plus, the recipe included a sauce that had a mayo base and I had yet to have actually made a mayonnaise, so I needed to brush us on those skills. The recipes I had were Rainbow Roulade of Beef and Fillet Mignon with Onion and Red Wine Sauce. I started with the roulade since that was going to take the longest. I had to butcher a piece of beef and 2 chicken breasts. The highlight of the day was having to pound out the meat to get it as flat as I could have. I got a lot of stress out today! Once they were both pounded thin, I put the chicken on the beef then put 2 slices of ham on the chicken. On top of the ham I put a thin omelet I had previously made. Then it gets sprinkled with salt and pepper, Parmesan cheese and parsley. It all gets rolled and tied together then bakes until the beef is done. While that was cooking, I worked on the Creamy Tarragon Caper Sauce. This starts with the mayonnaise base. You whip 2 yolks with Dijon and other ingredients, then slowly start adding the oil as you whisk. Don't ever bother doing this by hand. My arm still aches and it goes a heck of a lot quicker than doing it by hand. Unfortunately, we have to do it by hand at school so we can get the 'feel' for how it should be. Once that was done, it went into the serving bowl and into the fridge. Since a mayo is a stable emulsion, it can hold really well for a long time without separating.
Next, I prepped for the tenderloin with the red wine and onion sauce. Everyone had to saute a steak, so it kind of sucked because everyone was at the stove with their steak. I sauteed mine then put in the onions and red wine to cook down. While that cooked down, I cut my roulade into rounds. It looked nice and uniform. I returned to my tenderloin to finish that off. We had a time of 3 pm for today's eating. I was perfect, but the rest of the class was a little late. Chef didn't say anything today, but I am sure he knew that it wasn't on time. For this dry heat cooking class to be 'harder' about being on time, I still think we kicked ass!!
We have a quiz next week in food basics, but I should do well on it. I looked a few minutes ago at the ServSafe website and our grade haven't been posted yet. I am hoping that it will be up no later than next week.
Today's Recipes:Rainbow Roulade of Beef with Creamy Tarragon Caper Sauce, Tanabar Yogurt and Barley Soup, Steaks with Vidalia Onions and Red Wine Sauce, Steak au Poivre, Espagnole Sauce, Broccoli with Asian Pesto, Fried Zucchini, Steak with Herb Butter, Old-Fashioned Mashed Potatoes with a Modern Twist of Goat Cheese, Lemon Thyme Popovers, Spinach Salad with Fried Blue Cheese 'Croutons', Plum Upside Down Cake
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