The End is near...ish

So, yesterday was the end and the beginning all at the same time. We ended our food labs with sauteing...I have now experienced it all and that should make my next move easier right? wrong. Dead wrong. But enough with my constant complaints of feeling like I am in a major crossroad. You are turning to me for cooking advice so here ya go!
The point of saute is to cook things fast in a little bit of fat at medium high temperatures. The funny thing about going through class is that we have never actually cooked anything on high heat. So yesterday we made zucchini provencale style, mushrooms, potato lyonaisse, trout muenire (I think that's how you spell it) and simple sauteed chicken breast. Again, if you want the recipe just let me know. They were all delicious easy to make and if you are fearless you will even be able to cook them the right way (tossing them without spoon, spatula, or tongs) the vegetables that is...you need to be give TLC to fish and meat when sauteing they are so fragile. This weeks lab really doesn't lend itself to lots of tips and tricks, everyone basically sautes everyday just remember to never over crowd the pan, its okay to cook things in stages. You basically steam when you over crowd the pan (hence why the zucchini won't brown family of mine) and if your pan isn't hot enough you will steam whatever you put in there (hence why the food takes forever to cook). Keep this in mind everyone saute should be quick. Don't over complicate things the simplest food sometimes has the fewest ingredients. This is a major lesson I have learned this semester. Simple = Deliciousness! Thanks for the feedback and comments and we will see where I am this Fall when I start back up on this blog...until then!

Cooking, the southern way...

Sorry to be not so on the ball this week. I have had a lot of things on my plate and just now have a few moments between tasks to write this little blog of mine...The long awaited food lab of deep fried goodness...I was way excited! (If you couldn't tell) So we did french fries, chicken legs, onion rings, and corn fritters. Pretty standard fare I think but I was really excited to learn how to do traditional deep fried chicken. This item alone has never been made in my house ever! Mom never mastered it and well even the cat wouldn't eat her attempts...you know its bad when a natural predator won't eat it...anyway back to me. We had to hand cut french fries into 1/4" thick fries, this task alone caused my group leader to freak out on me. Why? I was eyeing the cut, not using a ruler, and doing it faster than she was. Chef noticed her freaking out when she demanded that I go and get my ruler. He came over looked at me looked at her and stated loud and clear for everyone to hear that I had one of the steadiest hands with a knife that he had ever seen a first year culinary student have...looking at me he stated that my fries were perfect and smiled and walked away. I was floored. That is one of the HIGHEST compliments a master chef can ever give. I was walking on cloud nine, she was waiting for me to come down with her daggers ready and waiting. From then on out she was a pain in my side.

So, what pearls of wisdom can I give to you about frying in deep fat? I think the first thing is that this cooking technique is not easy to master. Food is not to be greasy after it has been drained, no odd flavor to your fried food, it should be golden in color, and cooked all the way through. Sounds easy right? So not the case! My team captain decided to take on the fried chicken which was a major bummer for me but she had to do something that put her back on top. This decision of hers put our team behind everyone else. It took her 30 minutes to get everything together because she was telling the other guy in the group what to do...meanwhile by the time I had got to fry my onion rings (The third thing to fry after frying the fries the 1st time and then the fried chicken) the other 2 teams were cleaning up their stations and loading up their plates with their food...I have never been this far behind in a food lab! I was frustrated and irritated that this woman was such a control freak. Anyway, for those of you who might be wondering about french fries, two facts real quick. Yes they are fried TWICE and they should not be greasy. Onion rings, ah my love for those golden rings of battered or breaded onion goodness knows no bounds of time or place. If you want to try them out at home find a good batter recipe and dip the rings one at a time! Otherwise your rings will stick together in the fryer and they look green instead of golden brown because the batter didn't cover everything.

Beyond this everything about deep frying is pretty standard watch the temperature of your oil, strain is after each use, add up to 20% new oil to your used oil to keep it fresh and you should be good to go! Now the question remains...Do you want fries with that?

Next week will be my last blog for the semester...cooking labs wrap up next week with Sauteing. Sadness will shortly follow because then I have 3 weeks of testing in Professional Cooking 1. I feel like I will be rung out dry and raked over the coals but hey this will be an everyday occurrence for me once I hit the real world. Happy eating everyone!

I've been roasted before...

Ok, so I know that I am a little late in getting this out there but please give me a break this week. So this week was our roasting lab which means in reality that the semester is winding down which will leave a big gaping whole in my culinary heart. Especially since I have no clue what will happen in the fall. If I am going to enter the baking/pastry program or if I am just going to bite the big one and take on the chef apprenticeship program. Even with those two decisions I still have multiple decisions to make within each program. I can study in Italy or here for the chef apprenticeship program. I can chose to add to the pastry/baking program courses that will help me build my own bakery or I can just study baking/pastry. I know this must seem silly to most people reading this blog but I am finding the options irritating! What makes this even worse is I feel so, not lost but at a stand-still and I don't know which way to go...this was my fear at the beginning of the semester that I would not be able to decide and now that I am here I felt like I should have given more time to contemplate my next move. Who am I kidding here?!?! Me CONTEMPLATE??? Let's face the facts I do everything spur of the moment and I just pray that in the end I make the better choice. Back to class and helpful tips, knowledge, and whatever... Like I said above, we did roasting this week. We made scalloped potatoes, oven roasted potatoes, roasted winter vegetables, and roasted chicken thighs. Here is a question for you...Do you know the difference between roasting and baking? dwell on this question for the rest of this little blog of mine and then I will rock your world! Ok, so I have never honestly eaten a turnip...I was nervous about having to eat turnips in my roasted winter vegetables. However, with Chef Todd's phrase of "Be an adventurous eater" Reverberating through my brain I hesitantly ate them along with the celery root, butternut squash, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, roasted garlic, and shallots it was a fantastic side dish! Sorry to everyone who now will have to endure my praise of this dish in real life. If you want the recipe just ask me for it, it will knock your socks off!!! So I learned a finishing technique for roasted root vegetables (potatoes) After they are nice and roasted put them in a bowl and toss them with a little bit of butter and then sprinkle them with salt and then cover the bowl with plastic wrap. The heat in the bowl will help you if any of your vegetables are not quite done and the butter gives them a nice shiny coat that adds a little professionalism to the plate. Okay, now we are near the end...I am going to tell you the difference between roasting and baking...are you ready? Can you handle the TRUTH??? I think you can! Baking is what you do to breads and pastries. Roasting is everything else, meat/poultry are roasted not baked (So in reality shake 'n bake needs to change to shake 'n roast) vegetables are not baked they are roasted...Did I rock your world? Let's hope not too much, I do want people to still talk to me when they see me and not avoid me like the plague because I told them the truth. Food Network likes to give us this false information so they can keep the real truth from people that roasting is actually pretty darn easy because we do it more than we think. Also, another world shocking moment...You know those 'baked' potatoes you make that you cover with foil? STOP DOING THAT!!! I have been telling people not to do that and now I will give the reason why. So this is your usual process for baked potatoes. Scrub the potato, poke the potato, rub them down with some oil or butter maybe, place in foil, and then put them in the oven and cook them till they are soft...am I right? Ok number one most people do that because they are afraid of how dirty their oven is. Come on!!! Your oven goes hotter than your water heater, your oven is more clean than you. Ok so what really happens to your spud when it is wrapped in foil, well this little event called steam happens and steam is not your spuds best friend. In matter of fact if you ever wonder why your potato doesn't fluff when you cut it open you can thank your foil for that. What happens is that the steam makes your potato dense and gummy so no matter how much rolling you do to your potato it will never be fluffy...sadness, unless you like gummy dense potatoes...then you are doing the right thing. You can still rub your potatoes down with butter or oil you just have to put them on a half sheet (aka jelly roll pan or cookie sheet) and that added step of rubbing them down gives the skin a nice crispiness to it which is always awesome. So try this once just once, skip the foil. See if you like it better that way. Also, if you haven't tried a turnip give them a chance! Well this is it folks, next week is frying...I am one very excited girl! Until next week!

Momma taught me right???

Today was the long awaited baking food lab. I have been excited about this lab since day one of class. Why? cause I am good at this stuff...not to toot my horn excessively but this comes natural to me. Pie crust, rolls, muffins all things that my Mom taught me to do since I was old enough to use a sharp knife (age 8). We discussed biscuit making today and to end a long debate between members in my family yes, you do knead biscuits briefly like 2-3 times no more because you will cause the gluten to form and then your biscuits won't be flaky and tender. Biscuits also are a one pass baked good so don't cut them into round biscuits and then reform them, the reworking of them will make them too tough. While making our fabulous blueberry muffins we learned a very valuable lesson, mix your muffins with a spoon. I know sounds weird but by using a whip you are going to end up overmixing your muffins which will lead to a serious offense called tunnelling. Tunnelling is the big tunnels that you get in store-bought-way-too-huge muffins they also cause the muffins to get a peak in the middle of them. As Chef put it the only muffins that should have holes in them need to have the word "English" infront of the muffin. So by using the spoon test this out, and only mix them until all dry ingredients are incorporated. My masterpiece today however was my pie crust...This is when having a huge family gathering around the holiday's comes in handy especially when it comes to dessert. I have been making pie crust my Mom's way since I was 15, now 12 years later I have learned a new way and I can't wait to put it to use!!! Shortening has no place in a pie crust it leads to a bitter oily crust that tends to get too tough if they are even slightly overworked. However if you replace that fake fat to a half and half ratio of butter and lard your crust will lose the bitter taste and actually be more tender. LARD?! No way! That's the terrible stuff that is way too bad for you...All fat in excess is bad for you. Sorry, I hate to burst your bubble but if you are eating that much pie that you are worried about the fat in your pastry dough you need to cut back on your pie intake. And actually, if you use natural fats instead of these combo hydrogenated fats you will find that your body actually uses the fat in a more natural way. All in all what was reinforced to me today? My mom did actually teach us to the best to her ability and she wasn't really that far off, with the proper techniques she could improve...now I just have to show her. Odd how life's lessons can seem to be reversed. I just hope she doesn't throw the temper tantrums that I did when I was 8...

Scaled back today

Today, wow what to say...I really wasn't looking forward to today's food lab. Why? Because today was the day that I watched as two helplessly dead fish eyes watched me as I fileted itself. I was really not looking forward to it. If I say this enough maybe you will understand how much I didn't want to do this. I grew up in Kansas, so give me a break if I have never really enjoyed anything that comes from the sea, river, lake, or basically any body of water. Someday I might live somewhere where I will and this is why I am glad that I learned this lesson today. So being in this state of hesitancy I took my boning knife and went to work and it turned out that I was a natural! Chef made a joke about how this was like the time in his life when he was a professional assassin. He quit not because he was bad at it but because he didn't like killing people. I don't like fish but I am really good at cutting them up! Who knew! I certainly didn't. So enough of bragging about myself and my mad skills with butchering! helpful tip time!!! Skin on fish, how do you get it off before you cook it and without taking off too much protein with it? Boning knives or any thin flexible knife work best. Start at a corner as flat as you can cut and have a clean kitchen towel with you. As you start cutting in a sawing motion take the towel and hold on to the skin with the towel. I know sounds logical and it really works well. There now you have something useful to use to make a better, tastier fish....I hope this information was worth catching ;)

Pluck a duck, butcher a chicken

Okay, so I must confess I didn't pluck a duck today...nor did I butcher a chicken. I was in bed most of the time today, trying to rest my back. Today was not the kind of day I wanted to have but I am resolved to keep this up-to-date and I did practise fabricating chickens yesterday so I thought I should still give my hopefully helpful tips. First of all, fabricating a chicken sounds complex and scary right??? Well everyone I am here to tell you be not afraid of such a word as fabricating is just a snobby cooking term for cutting a chicken into 2 to 8 pieces either semi-boneless or on the bone pieces. Its pretty easy and not very hard but you have to have a lot of hand strength (or a good pair of kitchen shears). Also, when fabricating its easier to cut the chicken into pieces skin side up, otherwise your chicken moves and you end up cutting yourself with a gross chicken germ-filled knife (do ya need to know what that involves?) Anyway, so after all this practise I decided two things. First, why the use of the word fabricate when all I am really doing is butchering. Second, why not just BUY the chicken fabricated in the first place! These are my thoughts on this weeks culinary lesson...Sorry if you didn't find it that thrilling.

The Mayo clinic

Today was sandwich day, I have been looking forward to this day because I LOVE sandwiches! I would eat them any time of day if I could...or do I??? Pizza is considered a sandwich by the way...sorry to burst your bubble but it falls under the classification. We made mayonnaise by hand today and let me give ya a bit of advise. Mayonnaise should not be made with olive oil unless you want the mayonnaise to be a stand out on the plate. Also, olive oil is expensive and I don't know about you but the cost of your mayonnaise will exceed that of what you can purchase so you end up not saving any money. The biggest difference between what you make and what comes in a jar is sweetness. Mayonnaise, I am sorry to say SHOULD NEVER BE SWEET! We are over sweetened in our condiments. I cannot wait till I can get my hands on a fresh from my garden beefsteak tomato put it in a sandwich and put some homemade mayonnaise on it...Saliva glands are working just fine at this point thank you very much!

So you might be thinking this is a hard process, if you have a stand mixer it is pretty easy to do but what do you do if the mixture breaks down and doesn't emulsify? Here is the answer. In a new clean bowl beat an egg yolk. Once that is almost frothy slowly add the broken mixture into the egg yolk and whip it like your life depended on it by hand with your wire whip (remember that tool in your kitchen is NOT a whisk, its a whip).

Now you have the secret to the kingdom...don't abuse your power, I will take it away. The good Debi giveth and I will certainly taketh away somehow. Today I was in a new team and leadership was well rather lame. Nothing can compare to a leader who wants to just do what he wants and not let others experience new things...this was my new frustration today and this will just be the bane of my life I think. It doesn't help that he is a favorite of chef because he is just a very friendly guy and easy to get along with. He just is a leader lacking in leadership skills...

Spring break is coming, it is way to soon, this means the semester is almost over and I will have to make my choice soon...to be go into the chef's apprenticeship program or to go into the bakery/pastry program. I thought I would have more time but isn't that how life goes? We think we will have all the time in the world to figure out the solution but life often demands that we make quick choices, we just have to pray that when we make these decisions that they are the right ones. I just have to remember that everything can be changed and probably will. If I go with the chef's apprenticeship program I can decide to go and study in the sister school in Florence, Italy. It costs $18,000 per year and I don't know if that would include my room and board. Well it just means its something else to pray about after I make up my mind...Life!

So, next food lab we are fabricating a chicken...this will be interesting! Chef told us today to go and buy 3-5 whole chickens and just practice. I am wondering if I ace this on my own then what challenge will I have to come to class? Anyway, If you want the recipe for mayonnaise let me know! Keep cooking and I will do the same!