A whole class on salads?

Yes, an entire class on salads. And quite frankly it may be one of the more important ones we've had thus far (though emulsification was fun and proved quite interesting). If you think about it, depending on what type of cuisine you're having, the salad could be the very first, or very last thing you shove down your pie hole. It could make or ruin a meal. If the first thing you put in your mouth is a soggy piece of lettuce or a big chunk of raw carrot, it could leave a bad taste in your mouth.

To be honest, I sent an email to a few friends who asked me what I've been up to in class. Quite frankly I feel like I wrote what should have been the entry for this blog post, and I may have lost the words after writing it the first time. Hence I am pasting in the bulk of that email so you can get the same passion that went into writing it the first time, rather than a watered down repetition as I feel it may be if I were to write it a second time. Here goes:

The salad dressing is what brings it all together. The key is a temporary emulsification... That is, the oil and vinegar, not having a binding agent, like egg yolks, can only stay in suspension for a short period. the general ratio of dressing is 3:1 Oil to vinegar, plus salt, pepper, and any other herbs or seasoning and flavors (lemon juice, wines, etc..) you want to add. Beat them together with a whisk and they emulsify, though only temporarily, and will need a quick beating before using.

With that said, a salad is anything you want to put in it... the one that may have taken the most time was the salade nicoise. Originally, it was intended to be a rustic salad, everything tossed together and devoured, but in order to charge 15 bucks for it you need to use the finest ingredients and make them look pretty. I really should be writing this in my blog and sending you there... but you're special.. anyhow, this salad consists of boiled new potatoes, hard boiled eggs, anchovies, tuna, and some greens and tomatoes.

FOR EVERYONE'S INFORMATION!! When boiling almost anything, you should try to have like sized ingredients (match the sizes of your potatoes when boiling, a tiny one will turn to mush before a larger one gets soft, and usually boiled separately - turnips cook faster than carrots - as they will take different times despite their sizes), and you start in cold water. This allows the items being boiled to heat up at a constant temperature throughout the entire item - potato, egg, etc. Rather than throwing it in boiling water, flash cooking the outside, then overcooking it just to cook the inside. You catch me? And it doesn't take any longer than the time to boil the water. Also, reduce to a simmer after the boiling process has begun.. the water temperature pretty much remains the same.

The nicoise salad consisted of boiled eggs and potatoes, peeled, seeded tomatoes, peeled, julienned green pepper (yes peeled with a peeler, it was weird), green beans cooked a l'anglaise (boiled in really salty water then shocked in an ice bath, but contrary to my previous statement, the water should already be boiling...) In French cooking boiling/cooking veggies is usually to the point that it is tender. Al dente is too raw. But when cooking these veggies, you usually cook them separately.

(We made a different salad of cooked veggies - carrots, turnips, peas, string beans, all cut to the size of the peas, and we had to cook them individually a l'anglaise. It was a bitch, but that one was really good, we bound them together with mayo that we made and seasoned with salt and pepper.. really good)

So we cooked the peas and string beans, and broke up some romaine lettuce. Plated everything nicely [the potatoes were sliced and laid out in a ring, each slice overlapping the previous slice, with the lettuce piled on top], then topped with some anchovies and chunks of white canned tuna (in water). Dressing was drizzled on everything, though the lettuce was dressed separately by drizzling the sides of the bowl with dressing and gently tossing the salad against the sides. They should not be overdressed!!! or else they get soggy as you all know.

------ The email ended here. I'll continue with some more insight.

The first salad we made was the cooked vegetables bound together with a home made mayo. The veggies consisted of carrots, turnips, peas and string beans, all cut to macedoine size (.5 cm cubed, the string beans were not cubed, just cut to size, and the peas were... well, the size of peas) Each vegetable was cooked a l'anglaise individually because each vegetable takes a different amount of time to cook. But by cutting them to the same size, we could pretty much guarantee that within its own species, the vegetables will all be done when one cube is done.

What differentiated our cubed-vegetables-in-mayo salad from a normal something-in-mayo salad was that the veggies weren't drowning in mayo. The mayo was simply there to bind the veggies together, and for some flavoring. It did not overpower the sweetness and individuality of the vegetables, and having them in uniform sizes was pleasant to the tongue, and no vegetable stood out over the other. It was quite a nice blend.

The nicoise salad, as I mentioned in much detail, was pretty good too, though we avoided eating the anchovies. Close minded? Maybe, but we didn't need 'em. I can't recall anything too memorable besides the salads that we made, but there can't always be drama and me passing judgment on others... boring? Sure, whatever.

eMulsification

Most people have heard the term emulsify, and know exactly what it means. Other's will just smile and nod, having heard the term, kind of understanding it, and just move right along. That used to be me. An emulsification is the binding of two liquids that don't normally combine. The greatest example: oil and water. In this class, we emulsified. We made a few sauces using the standard emulsification process... whipping that bad boy up until your arm fell off.

The usual ingredient that is used to bind is egg yolk. Egg yolk, by some miracle power of chickens, has the ability to hold up to 200mL of oil in an emulsification. We made a few sauces, particularly Mayonnaise and an orange dessert with an orange saboyan (I believe the term saboyan refers to the step before emulsifying a sauce, that is, before slowly whipping in the oil).

The mayo was SO much better than Hellman's and miracle whip. (I wonder why they call it miracle whip? Should we be eating something that must have taken a miracle to create?) It was also extremely simple. It was 1 egg yolk, some salt, some white pepper, a touch of vinegar, and then veg. oil beat into it very slowly.

My team consisted of myself and a new guy from Korea. He started in the day classes and has changed over to the evening program. I can't remember his first name(s), but I do know his last name is Lee, and I am more than happy calling him Lee for the sake of this blog. He spoke in broken English, but I could tell he was a kind person, pretty stylish, and pretty interested in food. He was also very confident in his English, and considering he has not been in the US for too long, it was pretty damn good. He was a good partner, and fun to talk to. Lee had some significant culinary experience, particularly with Japanese and Korean cuisine, which is awesome because I'd like to extract some tips from him on those. Unfortunately Grace went partnerless and had a hell of a lot of whipping to do by herself. She did a good job though.

Anyhow, the mayo was delicious. So delicious I made it again the next night to make a MEAN chicken salad. It was quite flavorful. A delicious fresh mayo can make or break the sandwich, I have come to realize. (I'll keep that in mind for my restaurant). These are the things I came to learn.

The orange dish was memorable. We had to parer a vif the oranges (method of peeling citrus fruits), and then supreme it (cut out the slices from the membranes). What a world of difference it makes when the fruit is completely free of seeds, peel, pith and membranes. The flavor is basically the same, minus some bitterness, but the effort and carelessness that goes into eating it is great. The sauce, however, was key. It was a saboyan of 3 egg yolks, some sugar, some orange liqueur and a splash of grenadine all whipped together to form a foamy froth. Then we folded in (CAREFULLY) some almond flour and mint leaves in chiffonade. (A chiffonade is simply strips of leafy herbs, or lettuce, usually rolled up like a cigar and then sliced).

After laying out the orange supremes in a beautiful pinwheel design, you nap the slices with the saboyan, and then place it under a broiler until it lightly browns. WOW. It was delicious. The oranges did not quite get hot, so they were still refreshing, and the saboyan had great flavor. The almond flour was clutch, and browning it was so good. The mint also threw in a subtle taste, but added so much. Some people topped their dish with the mint chiffonade, though the recipe called for it to be incorporated in the saboyan. I think a combination of both would have been ideal, and a little whole mint leave as a garnish.

There wasn't any drama in the class, though the one guy who missed 3 classes missed a fourth, although he had an emergency and notified the Chef. Not my call to judge, I suppose, but I don't think missing 4 of the first 7 classes is a good thing.

Next class, we do some salads. I think we only do about 3 salads and 2 or 3 dressings... in the entire 5 hours!! So I hope they're good. I assume the prep, which would normally be done way before hand, takes the most time.

As always, I'll let you know how it goes.

OH, by the way, we had a quiz, not a pop quiz. We were WELL prepared in the previous class. And I got a 100. Sweet. I hope he prepares us the same way for the next one. Though I don't really know what a number grade says for a Chef applying to a restaurant. But I'm shooting 100% right now!

Preserving goods

This was our Saturday class, and quite frankly I don't recall everything we did. I do know that we burned a couple of the dishes, and yet, we got away with one of them.

The general idea is that there are different methods and ingredients used to preserve foods. One method which was demo'ed for us was gravlax. Salting the a fillet of salmon for a few hours (I believe we did it for a few days), and then rubbing in your alcohol of choice and preserving.

Another was the confit. We salted duck legs for a couple of days (maybe too long, but since we didn't have class between Saturday and Tuesday, it had to do), then we cooked it submerged in its own fat. It cooked at a very low temperature for a few hours. We didn't taste it, but we will for the next class.

Most importantly, we prepared a couple of vegetables "a la greque." Its preserving the food with an acid, in this case lemon juice and a little vinegar, I believe. We burned the cauliflower pretty badly, but when it was time to taste it we took only the most perfect fleurettes (least burned, and cut off the burnt parts) and plated them for the Chef to taste. Sure enough, he LOVED it! Perfect texture, and the cauliflower was seasoned pretty well. The mushroom and zucchini were almost as good as the cauliflower, according to the Chef. I broke down in laughter when I returned to my desk...

Unfortunately, we burned the tomato fondue too badly to disguise. The fondue requires enough tomato to cover the pan, however, we did not compensate for lost mass when we removed the seeds and some of the liquid in the middle. Although the mixture DID taste delicious, it was not the proper dish. Fondue means melt. The tomatoes are literally supposed to melt to a near mush. Quite interesting. A low and slow cooking process. Ours was pretty darn low, but it still burned.

Also, apparently the guy who I counted out, with 3 absences, showed up. He was very sick, and had a pretty nasty cough that probably shouldn't have been in the kitchen. I was glad to see he stuck with it though.