Dry Heat Cooking or Beef part 2

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

Lean Doughs

Today we made lots and lots of bread. I love bread, but this was A LOT. It was weird to have a baking class that didn't leave me in a sugar coma for a few hours! Since I like bread, this class was fun. We actually started making our dough before we had lecture. All of the doughs had to do their first rise, so we got started right away. The bread I was given was Cheddar Cheese Bread...yummy! My dough took longer because there were extra ingredients that had to go into the dough. Everyone else was pretty much had just yeast, flour and water. This was the first class that we had to start kneading dough. We had to make it so that it felt like the back of your earlobe. My dough came out awesome. It was so soft, even with a pound of cheddar shredded into it! We set them in the hot box to rise and started the lecture.

My dough didn't rise as much as I had though, but I wasn't disappointed by that because it looked so good! Next, we had to shape the dough. I made a braid, a twist and 2 small loaves. Then, they had to rise again. This didn't take nearly as long. Mine was done in 20-25 minutes. I sprinkled poppy seeds and more cheddar on top and then popped it in the oven. As soon as it was done, we started to dig into the smaller ones while they were still hot. Oh, man, it was so good! I liked most of the bread everyone made today.

I also had my seminar tonight. This seminar, we took our ServSafe exam. I just have to get a 75 to be certified. I should have the results within the next week or so. Some of the questions were common sense. I can't imagine anyone not passing it.

Today's Recipes:Pane alla Salvia, Mushroom Bread, French Bread, Sourdough Bread, Sun-dried Tomato Bread, English Muffins, Chocolate Bread, Beijing Steamed Buns, Pita with Tabboulegh, Tuscan Bread, Macedonian Green Cream, Cheddar Cheese Bread, Bagels

Moist Heat Cooking with Beef and Veal

Today we had a quick lecture then went right into cooking. Our goal was to have everything ready to eat by 3:30pm. We were partnered up. Most groups had 2 dishes and one group had 3. The technique we focused on today was braising. The dishes I had today were Short Ribs Braised in Red Wine with Vegetables and Mixed Fruit Cobbler with Mascarpone Cream. My partner and I started on the short ribs since they have to braise for quite a while. We started to brown the short ribs and develop the fond on the bottom of the pot. We removed the ribs and started to caramelize the shallots and vegetables. In this recipe, the veggies were carrots and turnips. Then, we put the ribs back in and filled the pot, half way up the ribs, with stock and red wine. It went into the oven to cook for a few hours. We then started on the cobbler. Our version had pears, plums, and blueberries. I started to stew the berries on the stove with orange juice and sugar. The color got to be this beautiful purple-magenta. It was absolutely gorgeous. I was very proud of it! (Side story - In between the baking class and our seminar on Tuesday night, some of us got hungry. We went upstairs to the walk in fridge, where all leftovers are stored, to see what they had to eat. There was the cobbler from another class. I took a look at it to compare and saw that there was hardly and color to their, even with blackberries in it, and the dough from the topping wasn't cooked on the bottom. I don't know if they ran out of time or what, but why would you keep it?)

As I have said before, we are now being judged on how if we get the food out when we say we will....well, today we did it!! Right on the nose even. Chef did mention that next week will be even more difficult because the food from today could sit and braise forever, but next week is dry heat cooking and everything has to be done at the same time and we will all be fighting for the stove at the same time.

The food today was awesome. It was a complete meal(s) and was really very good. It was probably the best meal we have made as a group.

Today's Recipe:Vegetable Fritters with Caper-Shallot Mayonnaise, Yellow Tomato Gazpacho, Blanquette de Veau, Beef Shanks Braised in Onions, Short Ribs Braised with Red Wines and Vegetables, Sauteed Young Turnips, Green Beans and Roasted Tomato Salad, Potato Gnocchi with Porchini Mushrooms, Mixed Fruit Cobbler with Mascarpone Cream

Croissant and Danish

We started off the baking class with a quiz. I got a 100. It was a lot easier than we were all expecting. We were expecting questions like what are the steps in making a pate au choux, but instead it was 10 simple short-answer questions. I'm wondering if they take it easy on the baking exams since that's not our concentration.

We started our lecture on croissants and danishes. It was ok. Nothing to spectacular in the lecture. The process is very similar to doing puff pastry like we did last week. Chef Louise demonstrated the making of both pastries. She put her ball of started dough in a big bucket of room temperature water. The point is to show that the yeast is alive. The yeast starts releasing carbon dioxide and after a while the dough will rise up to the top. With the yeast on the market today, we don't ever need to do this test, but she thought it would be cool for us to see.

The recipe I was given was Chocolate and Raspberry Stuffed Croissants. Companies actually make chocolate 'sticks' that are meant only for stuffing croissants. They are very good! Anyways, I started making my dough and really enjoyed it. I think it's because I like to eat croissants. My dough was smooth and made so well...not like the disaster that was last week. The only issue is that I cut my dough too big. The croissants were giant, but I didn't mind. Once I rolled the filling into the dough, I had to put them in a warm, moist environment which in this case was a proof box. They were in there for about 45 minutes to rise. They got HUGE! I put them in the oven to bake. During the middle of my baking time, the fire alarm went off. We all headed outside and gathered with the rest of the school in the little cramped parking lot. I kept kidding with everyone that I made the croissants so big because I knew that we were going to have a fire drill and that I allowed for the time!! Chef Louise was so freaked out about every one's stuff burning that she kept going back into the building to take them out! Nothing got burnt because of her. I have to give a special shout out to the Cambridge fire department for their response to our fire alarm...it only took them 15 minutes to get there. Too bad they are right across the street from the school. You would think they would be over in less than a minute since there is the chance for some free food! Anyways, if there were a real fire, hopefully they would be there just a little bit more quickly.

So, once back in the kitchen I saw my croissants out of the oven. They looked almost like footballs! Everyone was making fun of them, but I liked the size. Why do they need to be only 1 size, that gets boring after a while. Today's class was fun. It still didn't make me like baking though!

Today's Recipes:Chocolate and Raspberry Stuffed Croissant, Pineapple Danish, Lemon Curd Danish, Chocolate Pastry Cream Danish, Caramelized Onion and Gruyere Croissant, Blueberry Croissant, Swiss and Prosciutto Croissant (the best of the day!), Spanikopita Croissant, Chicken, Broccoli and Cheddar Croissant

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

Puff Pastry

If Alton Brown says you should never bother making puff pastry, then you probably shouldn't. I was confused as to why, and how, we would attempt to make puff pastry. Puff pastry consists of layers of butter and flour. There are a total of 1,459 layers in puff pastry...again, you can see why someone would even bother to make such a thing. I am pretty sure no ones puff pastry consisted of that many layers but, who knows. I know mine didn't!

There were 2 types of puff pastry dough we made, full puff and semi puff. I made a full puff recipe. For this, you make the dough of flour, water and salt. Then, you cream butter until it is smooth. You put the 'butter batter' in the middle of the rolled out dough and wrap it like a package. Then, you roll the two out together. It's a long process because you have to keep putting the dough in the fridge to keep the butter chilled. To make the semi puff, you put the pieces of butting in the flour and water when you are mixing it. It's a lot quicker to make then full puff, but it's nerve-wracking because it looks like it's a complete mess, but that is what it is suppose to look like.

I was getting disappointed in my dough because the butter was coming through and the dough was sticking to my rolling pin causing it to tear. I told Chef Lisa that my dough looked like crap and she recommended throwing it in the freezer for about 5 minutes. What a difference it made. It looked fine, so I could continue with my recipe. I was making sweet Palmiers. My mixture included granulated sugar, light brown sugar and chopped hazelnuts. It was really good and really sweet! The day went really well. Next week, we have our first baking quiz. I won't do as well on this one because it's harder for me to understand the concept of baking. I am sure I will do well, but I just want to get these next few weeks of baking over with!!!

A couple of funny stories...Derek knows my baking class is the only opportunity where the quantities of what we make is so big, that we can take some stuff home. I have been refusing to do this since we don't need it and by the end of class, the last thing I want to do is look at the food we just made. He finally got so fed up, that he forces Tupperware into my school bag!! Also, Chef Lisa started of the class by asking how many of us went into baking hating it...guess who's hand shot up first! About half of us raised our hands. She's got a fun outlook on it though because she knows that we are in the PCP program, so, baking is not what we do or want to do. She said she makes it her personal challenge to change people over so that they are baking at home...all I can say is BRING IT ON! I cannot picture myself getting enjoyment out of baking.

Today's Recipes:Scallops and Shrimp in a Puff Pastry Cup with Fennel Puree, Sacristains, Palmiers, Savory Olive Palmiers, Napoleons, Palpillion, Vol-au-Vent, Cream Horns, Onion Tart, Fruit Tart

My favorite thing to eat....SOUP!

To begin Monday's class we took a quiz. During the previous week's review, Chef Jim told us it would be about 10 questions. Well, it turned out being about 20 questions over 3 pages. I wasn't thrown off by it though because I knew that I knew my stuff. Luckily, Chef Jim came into school on Tuesday and had our graded quizzed in hand. I got a 97!!!! I wonder if I scored the highest?

Once the quiz was over, we began a 3 hour lecture about soups and stocks. I'm not surprised that the lecture took that long since a good stock is the foundation to any good meal. We also learned about the difference between stock and broth. Stock is not seasoned with salt. So, we are really buying broth at the grocery store, not stock. At the end of the lecture, we got right into making the stocks since they take so long to cook. Usually, I couldn't care less about being short, but it was a challenge today when I had to skim the crap off of the top of the stock. I could barely see into the pot. The stove comes up to my waist and then we used a 3-foot tall stock pot to cook the batches of stocks in. I was pretty much hanging off of the edge of the pot with my fingers and nose!

We each got our own soup recipe. There wasn't a clear soup like minest so that sucked, but I'll eat any kind of soup you put in front of me. My soup was Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup. It used ingredients that I don't ever cook with at home, but that I love the flavor of. I used lemongrass, ginger, jalapeno peppers...I love eating this type of food. I had to strain the above ingredients from the recipe so you couldn't even taste any spice in there. So, Chef Jim and I went to get Sriracha sauce. Holy moly it that stuff spicy...but so good! I would recommend this over Tabasco any day.

So, I had a really good day. The only thing that would have made it better would be to have had a sandwich with the soups...that is my heaven!

Today's' Recipes: Creamy Mussel Soup, Shrimp Bisque with Pernod and Dill Cream Drizzle, Puree of Vegetable Soup, Pot Au Feu, Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup, Cold Cream of Asparagus Soup, Tomato and Bread Soup