Spring Term 2010

So this term I'm taking Latin Cuisine and American Cuisine.  I'm very much looking forward to them.  Keep reading and you'll see how they go...... Wish me luck.

CL117 - Latin Cuisine (Tuesday Night)

This course emphasizes both the influences and ingredients that create the unique character of selected Latin cuisines. Students prepare, taste, serve, and evaluate traditional, regional dishes of Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean Islands. Importance is placed on ingredients, flavor profiles, preparations, and techniques representative of these cuisines.

CL128 - American Cuisine (Wednesday and Thrusday Nights)

The course reinforces the knowledge and skill learned in the preceding classes and helps students build confidence in the techniques of basic cookery. The development of knife skills is accented. Students explore the use of indigenous ingredients in the preparation of traditional and contemporary American specialties. The concepts of mise en place, timelines, plate presentation, and teamwork in a production setting are introduced and accentuated. Timing and organization skills are emphasized.

Week 10: The Final

Personal Observations: I was very nervous going into the exam and second guessed myself often. It was really nice to have Danny as a partner to keep me together. Everything in production when pretty smoothly and we were really able to get everything done in our allotted time, and even had some to spare.


The next day we had our Knife Cuts exam and well that was awful. I thought I had done a lot better this go round than I did at the midterm, but that was certainly not the case. My mind drew a complete blank when it came to the dimensions.

Chef comments: Chef said everything was really good. The only critique was that the soup was a little peppery and he took points off for that.

Week 9: Eggs and Brunch

Personal Observations: Week 9 is actually week 11 due to the week of classes we missed because of the snow storm. I’m not a huge fan of eggs in general, but I still need to learn how to make perfect eggs.


The Quiche Lorraine was much too custardy for my taste and I didn’t like it.

The Rosti Potatoes and the Potatoes Anna were fairly easy to make and had a great presentation.

The Crepes were pretty easy to make. I added a little orange zest to give it a little bit of flavor.

Chef comments: Chef said that everything had good texture, flavor and consistency. Chef said I had the best Crepes out of the entire class.

Week 8: Fish and Seafood

Personal Observations: Killing the lobster was one of the weirdest things I’ve done. It totally wigged me out at first how after you killed the lobster it would still move. Apparently if you pet the lobster on the head before you stab it, it helps calm the lobster down so it doesn’t squirm as much. That little trick was very helpful. So I killed two lobsters. I had Ashley show me how to do it first, and then it was a piece of cake. We were given the liberty to be a little creative with our lobster dishes because there isn’t too much to boiling lobster. So, we grilled and made our boiled lobster into a sauce.


My group didn’t get a chance to make Calamari because we ran out of squid. I was a little disappointed but I can always make it at home to impress my friends and family.

But honestly the most daunting thing was fabricating the Salmon. We didn’t do the best of jobs, but we were able to salvage a lot of it. I was very proud of how everything turned out. Our Salmon pieces were all roughly the same size.

Chef comments: All of our dishes had excellent flavor and texture with the exception of the Salmon en Papillote which was over cooked a little.

Week 7: Pasta, Potatoes, and Grains

Personal Observations: Making Pasta dough by hand was much more difficult than I was expecting. Many of the other groups got very creative with the various flavors of pastas they made. My group stuck with just plain Semolina pasta. On the first night we tried to make a shrimp filling for our Ravioli but it didn’t turn out so well, so we remade it again the next night, and with the cheesiness from the Mornay Sauce, it was excellent. We learned that the Ravioli filling needed to be a little denser than we originally had it, so I add so roux to thicken it up and it did the trick. There was a lot of trial and error this week. It was lots of fun and pasta was defiantly the star and focus of the week. Everything else seemed to fall by the wayside.


Chef comments: The Gratin Potatoes were very cheesy, and the Rice Pilaf was undercooked. But other than that, Chef said that everything had good flavor and texture.

Week 6: Meats

Small Wares and Utensils used: Loaf pan


Roasting pan

China cap

Sauté pan

Large Skillet

Stock pot

Melon Baller

Personal Observations: This week we worked with various kinds of meat. Chef gave us the option of making slight variations to the Grilled Lamb Chops. In my group we did a garlic-rosemary marinade for the Lamb Chops, and I was able to get great grill marks on the meat. Chef also had some ground bison meat for the groups that wanted to try and do something extra with it. So I made a classic meatloaf, and it turned out amazingly well. My group also had Venison instead of Beef for the Stew, and it was really nice to have that contrast in flavors from the other groups. Chef made the Roasted Prime Rib and barbeque ribs for us because there just wasn’t enough meat requisitioned for each group to really cook with.

I really enjoyed the flavors of the lamb, venison, and bison meats over that of beef and veal. They all seemed to be more tender and flavorful.

The two potato dishes were by far the most difficult of the dishes made. Trying to get a perfect potato ball for the Parisienne potatoes was more difficult than making tournes for the Chateau Potatoes.

Chef comments: Chef said that everything thing we made had good texture and flavor, the seasonings were well balanced. Our potatoes had a crispy exterior and fluffy interior. Everything was cooked perfectly.

Week 5: Vegetables

Personal Observations:


After a week off from snow it’s back to the kitchen. This week was Vegetables! On the first day we made beer battered onion rings, Brussels sprouts in pecan butter noisette, Broccoli Almondine, and Parsnip Purée. We were supposed to do the Pan-fried eggplant, but it was spoiled so Chef said we could wait until the next day and he might have fresh ones.

To go with the onion rings DJ made this amazing sauce, I’m not sure what was in it, but man was it good. The parsnip purée was surprisingly very sweet, much sweeter than mashed sweet potatoes. The Brussels sprouts were very good as well. It only had a hint of the bitter taste that I associate with them. They were cooked a little too long and so the outer leaves wilted a little, but still very tasty. For a garnish I candied some lemon rind for that extra pop of color. The Broccoli Almondine was good as well, but not all that notable.

The next day it was just me and Mike. We made the grilled vegetable skewers, baked butternut squash, the pan-fried Zucchini with tomato sauce, stir-fried asparagus and the white bean salad. Pretty impressive for just the two of us. We didn’t get to the braised celery, because we ran out of time. The grilled vegetables were good and we were able to get nice grill marks on the vegetables. The butternut squash was very good and very sweet. The sugars caramelized very well. The asparagus turned out extremely well. I added some water to the oyster sauce so that once the sauce cooked and reduced a bit it wouldn’t be overpoweringly salty. Instead of pan-frying the zucchini we baked it instead. To get the bread crumbs nice as crispy, I brushed some olive oil on each side. All in all everything turned out very well.



Chef comments:

For both days, Chef said that our productions were very flavorful and had good texture. Nothing was over or underdone. The Zucchini was a little cold, but amazingly crispy.

Week 4: Chicken

Personal Observations:


At the beginning of class, Chef did a quick demo on the various ways of breaking down, or fabricating, a chicken. Since chicken is a high risk food, we did all the fabrication for the week on the first day. Each person in our group had a whole chicken to break down into 8 parts. Two wings, two thighs, two legs, and two breast halves. The left over bones we put into a pot to make chicken stock. It seems to me like we are always using various stocks in all our productions.

One of the first things my group did was make the marinade for the chicken breast, and let the chicken marinade over night. We didn’t add the wine or lemon juice until first thing then next day, since we didn’t want the acids to denature the chicken. We also started on our red pepper butter so that it had time to rest and get solid before we used it the next day.

So on day one our production assignments were to do the Poached Breast of Chicken with Tarragon sauce, Chicken Fricassee, Mashed Potatoes, and Glazed Pearl Onions. The Pan-Fried Chicken was by far my favorite dish. The mashed potatoes were very good, and the pearl onions were very sweet and not what I expected.

The next day we pan-fried chicken w/ pan gravy, grilled the marinated chicken breast, sautéed the chicken with garlic and basil, made the Duchesse potatoes and the glazed carrots.

Chef comments:

On day one Chef said that all the chicken we cook very nicely and was very moist and tender. The sauces had nice flavor, and the mashed potatoes and glazed onions were very good.

On day two Chef said that the grill chicken and duchesse potatoes were a little dry, and the carrots were wilted, but everything else was good. Also that the pan gravy could have been seasoned more. It should stand out on its own too.

Week 3: Soups - Personal Observations

This week was the first week we actually were able to eat something after production. The first day we did New England Clam Chowder, Split Pea, and Beef Vegetable with Barley. Since we had three people in our group, we each concentrated on one recipe each and then helped each other out as needed. This seemed to work out really well.


The New England Clam Chowder was the one that had my main focus. I thought it was really good. While I was babysitting the Beef Vegetable soup my roux turned into a dark blonde roux instead of a blonde roux, but even still. The soup turned out really well. It was very rich and creamy

The Split Pea soup gave us a little bit concern that day because we weren’t exactly sure what the consistency was supposed to be like, but it turned out very well. We made croutons as a garnish and they were very delicious. I did cut the bread a little too big though and were slightly soggy in the middle.

We were all fine with the Beef Vegetable Soup up until the addition of the barley. None of us had made barley before, so we weren’t sure how or how long to cook it for. So we ended up treating it like rice, and used brown stock instead of water for that extra flavor. It ended up working out for us in the end.

The next class we did the Beef Consommé, Cream of Broccoli, and the Shrimp Bisque. The only hiccup in production was that we didn’t have enough shrimp to go around and Chef had to go searching for some more. So another group and I improvised by adding some shrimp to the shrimp shells to supplement the flavor a little.

Chef comments:

All of our soups had the right amount of seasoning and consistency with the only exception of the shrimp bisque, and Chef said that it was too thick.

Week 2: Mother Sauces and Small Sauces

Week 2 was the week of sauce production. It was also a short week due to the MLK holiday, so we only had class Tuesday and Wednesday. Usually we will have lecture on Mondays; Tuesdays and Wednesdays are production days. So we had a very short lecture on Tuesday and the Wednesday before to make up for missing on Monday.

In those two days we learned how to make Hollandaise, Béarnaise, Velouté, Allemande, Béchamel, Tomato, and Espagnole sauces. Hollandaise is the “Mother” sauce for the Béarnaise, and the Velouté is the “Mother” sauce for the Allemande.
I learned something very important about the Hollandaise sauce….. I don’t like it. It’s disgusting. YUCK! It tastes a lot like mayonnaise. The velouté is very similar to a gravy and it was by far my favorite sauce. The béchamel is very much like an incredibly bland Alfredo sauce. It’s white and creamy. It’s ok, better than the hollandaise, but nowhere close to my favorite.
The tomato sauce was much more complicated than I was expecting. It was infused with ham and took on that flavor a bit, so it was bit like a Bolognese sauce. SO GOOD! Chef got us some pasta so we could have some dinner. It was really good.


So now on to what I learned about sauces….

There are 3 components to every sauce: the liquid, the thickening agent, and the seasoning.

The liquid of the sauce is typically a good quality stock. However, there are other types of sauces that don’t use a stock, and these are coulis, beurre blanc, beurre rouge, flavored butters, flavored oils, salsas, relishes, and pan gravies.

There are many different types of thickening agents. The most commonly used are: roux (to which there are three types, white, blond, and brown), cornstarch (used as a slurry), arrowroot, beurre manié (kinda like a cold roux), liaison, and emulsification.

A roux is equal parts, by weight, of flour and any fat, cooked together to form a paste. The different types of roux depends on how long it is cooked. Also, it is important to remember that the darker the roux the more it breaks down as a thickening agent, so more is need to thicken a given quantity of liquid. Another thing to remember is to always add cold to hot, so add cold stock to a hot roux, or a cold roux to a hot stock. Both will need to be cooked together for about 20 min to get rid of the raw flour flavor that might remain. A good roux will be stiff, not runny or pourable.

When using cornstarch as your thickening agent, it is important to remember that your sauce (or soup) cannot be reheated because it will break down and won’t taste good. Typically when cornstarch is used, it is incorporated with the slurry (a mixture of the raw starch with a cold liquid) method to reduce lumps.

Arrowroot is very similar to cornstarch, but it is MUCH more expensive and had a cleaner finish.

Beurre manié is equal amounts, by weight of flour and soft whole butter. This is incorporated at the end.

There are 5 types of seasonings: Salt, Sweet, Acid, Bitter, and now Umami.

The purpose of a sauce is to compliment the food. A sauce is supposed to add flavor, moisture, texture, and increase the appeal to the visual taste of the food.

The criteria for judging a sauce are texture, color, body, shine, opacity, and ,most importantly, taste.

So that's just a little bit of info on sauces. 
 

An overview of what I’ve taken/ I’m taking so far…

CL110 - Food Safety and Sanitation (Completed and Certified)


This course is an introduction to food environmental sanitation and safety in a food-production area. Attention is focused on food-borne illness and their origins, and on basic safety procedures followed in the foodservice industry. The National Restaurant Association (NRA) ServSafe certificate exam is administered at the end of the course.

- Passed the course with flying colors. This class really made me take a closer look at what I eat, what I buy, and what’s in my refrigerator.



CL132 - Computer Applications in the Foodservice Industry (Completed)

This course develops basic computer skills through practical application of various software programs, including word processing, presentation software, and spreadsheets. Concentration is also placed on software applications designed for the foodservice industry, including recipe and menu development, nutritional analysis, inventory management, and cost accounting.

- This class was mostly an introduction to Microsoft Office, there was only one week of anything that had anything to do with restaurants and the food industry. I could have done without it, but it was an easy A.



CL105 & CL115 – Fundamentals & Foundations of Classical Culinary Techniques (Currently taking)

The fundamental concepts, skills, and techniques involved in basic cookery are covered in this course. Special emphasis is given to the study of ingredients and cooking theories. Lectures teach organization skills in the kitchen and work coordination. The concepts and techniques of stocks, soups, sauces, vegetable cookery, starch cookery, and meat and poultry are covered. The course emphasizes basic cooking techniques such as sautéing, roasting, poaching, braising, and frying. The two classes are a combination of lecture and lab experience.

- Well you’re reading this blog so you’ll get a better idea of what I’m learning in this class (well classes really)

Week 1: Knife Skills & Stock Production

In the first week of class we went over stock production and knife skills, and yes I was the first person in the class to cut themselves.  I knew I would be, but I'm glad I got it out of the way.  So believe me when I tell you that the knives we got are SHARP!

Back to what I've learned...

Stock, or Fond in french, is a clear flavored liquid.  There are 4 basic types: white, brown, vegetable, and fish. 
White - Typically made from chicken, but can also be made with veal or beef bones.  The bones are simmered in water with vegetables and seasonings for about 4 - 6 hours.
Brown - The bones are carmelized before simmering in water with the vegetables and seasonings for about 6 - 8 hours.  This stock has a rich dark color.
Vegetable - Can be made with any combination of vegetables, but is typically made with leeks, fennel, turnips, garlic, and tomatoes.  The vegetables are simmered in water and seasonings for about 45 minutes.
Fish - Made by slowly cooking fish bones or shells and vegetables, and then simmering the with water and seasonings for 30 - 45 minutes.

There are 4 elements to a stock: Bones, Liquid, Mirepoix (Vegetables), and Aromatics (Seasonings).
The mirepoix is 50% Onion, 25% Carrots, and 25% Celery.  You need 1 pound mirepoix per 1 gallon of stock.  The aromatics are: bay leaves, dried thyme, peppercorns, and parsley stems.

Now on to the knife cuts we learned.....
Rondelles – disk-shaped slices


Diagonals – oval-shaped slices, usually cut on the diagonal

Oblique cuts – small pieces with two angle-cut slices

Julienne – stick shaped that is 1/8” x 1/8” x 2”

Bâtonnet – stick shaped that is ¼” x ¼” x 2”

Brunoise – cube-shaped that is 1/8” x 1/8” x 1/8” (cut from the Julienne)

Small Dice – cube-shaped that is ¼” x ¼” x ¼” (cut from the Bâtonnet)

Tourner – to cut into football-shaped pieces with seven equal sides and blunt ends

So basically that's it for week one.

Bienvenue et Bonjour

Welcome and Hello! Thank you for joining me through my culinary education. As with all things, the best place to start is from the beginning. So in light of that, my first classes are in the Foundations & Fundamentals of Classical Culinary Technique. For the next couple of months I will share what I've learned in each week of classes. I hope you learn and enjoy as much as I do.  Please feel free to comment.