At this point in our education, that is, approximately 3 months or almost 40 classes in, there is a certain skill level that you should possess. At this skill level, knowledge of certain culinary techniques should come naturally to you. For instance, cutting vegetables, particularly the sizes and shapes, should be easy, maybe approximated to a degree, but still common knowledge. Everyone in class should have the ability to cut the perfect julienne. Time wise this may be an issue, but you should still get a relatively uniform, nice cut.
One guy just received word that he will not be moving along with us to level 3. Quite frankly, I’m not surprised, and to be even more frank (who is this frank character?) this is not only best for the class, but for him as well, if he truly believes he wants to be a chef.
I’m sure it’s his overall performance, but I personally believe he doesn’t learn as quickly and absorb this stuff as well as someone should (Every time we need a 1L measurement he verifies with someone in the class that there are 2 - 500mL measuring cup loads in 1L). Not to mention, I’m sure he doesn’t apply himself the way some others do. Interestingly enough, he just went out and bought a relatively expensive Global chef’s knife, and a bunch of other gear, including an apple corer which I noticed him packing up even though we didn’t core any apples. I found that pretty humorous. The fact of the matter is, the most expensive knife on the market will not make him a better chef. Our somewhat mundane, barely at-par school provided knives allows some of us to cut as well as any Wusthof or Henckel. I do know he bought the knife in a response to his being labeled as “dull” by Chef Tom. All he had to do was sharpen the sucker.
Anyhow, after a discussion over a few beers with some other classmates (for the most part we all feel a little bad – some less than others – but we all agree it’s for the best for everyone and its not undeserved), we concluded it’s also his attitude. In the locker room after class he usually starts with something like “Man, Chef ripped me a new one today! I don’t know what he was talking about, my dish was as good as the rest of yours, and yadda yadda…” and usually ends with “well fuck him, we’re not gonna have him after this level, and he’s just a dick, yadda yadda…”
That’s the attitude of a know it all who clearly doesn’t know a thing, and can’t accept constructive criticism, which is a synonym for “the truth.” Or maybe a Staten Islander? Sorry, don't want to offend anyone.
Until this point, everyone who has left class has done so on their own accord, primarily related to excessive absences (perhaps due to a prolonged illness, or not, but it wasn’t the result of being asked to leave or redo a level). This is a nice wake up call, hopefully for him, but also for us. This is serious. Although we paid good money to be here, it’s an accredited educational institution. That’s to say, you can fail an economics class in university, and you can fail a level in culinary school. Class isn’t necessarily a competition amongst each other, but you have to at least set the bar to be as good, or better, than the best guy in class. And that will raise all of us up if we at least strive for that.
There are predictions that one other girl will be asked to repeat a level, maybe level 3. I don’t necessarily agree, but time will tell.
We went out and had a few beers and a bunch of laughs at this guy’s expense. But we also concluded that this is best for everyone, especially him. One guy who was out with us has been his partner for a while, actually two of the guys have had him as a partner. Both strong students who have been brought down by this guy, and chef understood that this guy was the common denominator in both cases, so it didn’t affect their evaluations.This is serious stuff, and if we want to be good at it, its starts here in school.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Con queso? Con queso?
So, we were guinea pigs for this class. That is, the first, THE FIRST, class to have a cheese tasting class. Traditionally, they made ricotta cheese, and maybe some others. We not only made ricotta and mozzarella, but we had a pretty well thought out cheese tasting.
Oh, we also had a HACCP review. Did you know that we have our HACCP test on SATURDAY!!! I’m not really worried about it, but still. Everyone should do alright. We had a nice refresher today.
After our refresher, we went right into our cheese course. It was pretty well thought out. We were going to try a linear tasting of 3 main dairy/cheese sources: Cow, Goat and Sheep. So we progressed from the basic ingredient, milk, then to a yogurt, then to a fresh cheese, and then to slightly more aged and complex cheeses.
There are a hell of a lot of characteristics that are pretty bogus. Not righteous or gnarly, but just bogus. Maybe if you have the most disciplined sense of taste and smell you could label some of the cheeses with some of these names. But for the most part, there were about 10 different classifications that repeatedly came up. The one that was the most distinct was “gamy.” That taste of lamb that you can only describe as the taste of “game” was so distinct in the lamb and sheep dairy. The milk, for starters was straight up game flavored. It wasn’t really pleasant. It made cow’s milk seem extremely delicious. This was a constant theme in all of the sheep cheeses. They weren’t my favorites. The cow’s line had some good cheddar and creamy brie like cheese (was it camembert?). The goat has some nice flavors as well, though there was one stank cheese. The flavor was a lot better than the smell. And we had a couple of moldy cheeses which were a lot better than one would think.
Chef asked “so do you think you guys can taste a cheese and know what you’re talking about?” It was one of those rhetorical questions, I knew that. But I said “NO!” I mean, we just took a ½ hour course on tasting a few random cheeses from 3 different animals. Yes I know a little more than I knew, but am I really prepared to contribute meaningful input about a cheese by just tasting it? I really don’t think so. I could probably point out the gamy flavor found in sheep or goat cheese and know its one of those two, but not much more than that.
Either way, it was extremely interesting, and I learned a lot. I’m telling you, there were probably 50-60 flavor classifications. That’ll take some intensive tasting.
Next we made cheese! I’m not sure how much of “making” the cheese we did for the mozzarella, but the ricotta was pretty amazing. We took 2L of milk, added ¾ of a teaspoon of citric acid and some cheese salt, and just heated to 180F, then let it sit. The milk solids coagulated and separated from the liquid, primarily water. After a little while, we scooped out the solids, tied it in some cheese cloth and it’s currently sitting in the fridge.
The mozzarella was a bit different. We started with cheese curds. It was a semi-solid block of curds that were stacked on top of each other and compressed. We took a bowl full of these, chopped them into cubes and added 170F water and some salt. After some stirring they softened and we clumped them together and started stretching them to smooth them out.
So the reason I am skeptical about it is because all we did was stretch the curds in warm water. We didn’t make or prepare the curds or anything. It was a little sad. However, the resulting cheese was very delicious. It was definitely mozzarella cheese. It was stringy with a little chew to it. We left them in balls, but we will be using them for our pasta class on Thursday. We could have made knots, added herbs, rolled them with sliced hams and basil; it’s a pretty versatile cheese.
Well, we have our HACCP test on Saturday, our final on Tuesday and then we come back in a week two level 3! We met our new chef. He seemed a little on the hard side, but Chef Tom said he’s a nice guy. I feel like that one guy who is struggling, may have a hard time in level 3. But we’ll see. We’re also a lot more focused on timing. That is one of my weaknesses. I like to absorb what I’m doing. But I think by this point I have absorbed the basics and the techniques and its time to just “do.”
Oh, we also had a HACCP review. Did you know that we have our HACCP test on SATURDAY!!! I’m not really worried about it, but still. Everyone should do alright. We had a nice refresher today.
After our refresher, we went right into our cheese course. It was pretty well thought out. We were going to try a linear tasting of 3 main dairy/cheese sources: Cow, Goat and Sheep. So we progressed from the basic ingredient, milk, then to a yogurt, then to a fresh cheese, and then to slightly more aged and complex cheeses.
There are a hell of a lot of characteristics that are pretty bogus. Not righteous or gnarly, but just bogus. Maybe if you have the most disciplined sense of taste and smell you could label some of the cheeses with some of these names. But for the most part, there were about 10 different classifications that repeatedly came up. The one that was the most distinct was “gamy.” That taste of lamb that you can only describe as the taste of “game” was so distinct in the lamb and sheep dairy. The milk, for starters was straight up game flavored. It wasn’t really pleasant. It made cow’s milk seem extremely delicious. This was a constant theme in all of the sheep cheeses. They weren’t my favorites. The cow’s line had some good cheddar and creamy brie like cheese (was it camembert?). The goat has some nice flavors as well, though there was one stank cheese. The flavor was a lot better than the smell. And we had a couple of moldy cheeses which were a lot better than one would think.
Chef asked “so do you think you guys can taste a cheese and know what you’re talking about?” It was one of those rhetorical questions, I knew that. But I said “NO!” I mean, we just took a ½ hour course on tasting a few random cheeses from 3 different animals. Yes I know a little more than I knew, but am I really prepared to contribute meaningful input about a cheese by just tasting it? I really don’t think so. I could probably point out the gamy flavor found in sheep or goat cheese and know its one of those two, but not much more than that.
Either way, it was extremely interesting, and I learned a lot. I’m telling you, there were probably 50-60 flavor classifications. That’ll take some intensive tasting.
Next we made cheese! I’m not sure how much of “making” the cheese we did for the mozzarella, but the ricotta was pretty amazing. We took 2L of milk, added ¾ of a teaspoon of citric acid and some cheese salt, and just heated to 180F, then let it sit. The milk solids coagulated and separated from the liquid, primarily water. After a little while, we scooped out the solids, tied it in some cheese cloth and it’s currently sitting in the fridge.
The mozzarella was a bit different. We started with cheese curds. It was a semi-solid block of curds that were stacked on top of each other and compressed. We took a bowl full of these, chopped them into cubes and added 170F water and some salt. After some stirring they softened and we clumped them together and started stretching them to smooth them out.
So the reason I am skeptical about it is because all we did was stretch the curds in warm water. We didn’t make or prepare the curds or anything. It was a little sad. However, the resulting cheese was very delicious. It was definitely mozzarella cheese. It was stringy with a little chew to it. We left them in balls, but we will be using them for our pasta class on Thursday. We could have made knots, added herbs, rolled them with sliced hams and basil; it’s a pretty versatile cheese.
Well, we have our HACCP test on Saturday, our final on Tuesday and then we come back in a week two level 3! We met our new chef. He seemed a little on the hard side, but Chef Tom said he’s a nice guy. I feel like that one guy who is struggling, may have a hard time in level 3. But we’ll see. We’re also a lot more focused on timing. That is one of my weaknesses. I like to absorb what I’m doing. But I think by this point I have absorbed the basics and the techniques and its time to just “do.”
Monday, November 12, 2007
En Votre Facon (In your Own Way)
Things just got interesting… This class was the first one where we got to show a little creativity (aside from decorating a plate or a cake). Before I go on, since I have some time at work (lots of time), I write these post on a template of my job’s letter head so it looks like I’m working. Just thought I’d share that with you. I find it pretty funny. Anyways, we were given a list of ingredients, and from this fairly strict list, we had to make a dish.
I’ll try to recount the ingredients as best I could:
-1 flounder (to be shared by 2 people - 2 fillets each)
-1 potato or rice
-250ml chicken Stock
-125mL wine
-125mL cream
-2 carrots
-1 medium sized onion or 2 large shallots
-a serving or so of haricot vert
-4 plum tomatoes
-1 bay leaf
-1 sprig thyme
-parsley
-butter
-salt and pepper
And there were lemons for us to use which wasn’t listed, but thank goodness they gave it to us, because it’s tough to make fish without lemons.
So I wrote these ingredients down and I thought a lot about them for the past day. I concluded that I wanted to keep everything light and true to the fish. I didn’t want to fry anything because I knew most of the other people would do that, and I wanted to keep things delicate. I personally hate the rice that we use. It’s very plain, and just reminds me of cafeteria rice from high school, rather than delicious Spanish style rice, or Italian risotto, or a delicious pilaf. So I decided on a potato dish for the starch. Most people fried their potato. Either as a pommes darphin, or sliced and fried or something. This was just too heavy for my liking. One other guy had the same idea as me. I peeled the potato, boiled them ‘til tender and then riced it to make a delicious pommes puree. That included like 4 tablespoons of butter and a bit of cream. (we’re supposed to use milk, according to the recipe, but milk wasn’t in our list of ingredients.) Before service I mixed in some chopped up parsley. However, my downfall was that I made the potatoes first and I tried to keep them warm on the flat top, but to no avail.
After I scaled and my partner filleted one flounder, I was planning on making a fish fumet with the bones. However, my partner did a shoddy job on the fillet, and chef wanted me to do my own. So I needed to scale an entire other fish and fillet it. It was quite a waste of time, and my fillets were perfect and beautiful. But it still set me back almost 30 minutes! Scaling the fish is a pain in the ass! And scales get all over the place. So between scaling, cleaning, filleting the fish, and then cleaning my station TWICE, I had wasted a lot of time. I would have presented with the rest of the early birds, but they only had to scale one fish.
I also wanted to make 2 pieces of carrot cocotte to add some color to the dish, and I boiled some haricot vert (I did that first, so that really didn’t take much time). BUT, since I needed to prepare two fish, it meant my fumet would take longer too, since I was making a fumet with someone else. I think he and I were the only ones to use the fumet, which was great because I wanted to keep the fish tasting like fish, and it was a classy move by us to use the bones and some of the other ingredients for our sauce. So after the fumet was done (30 minutes of simmering), I needed to make the sauce, which was minced shallots, a bay leaf and wine reduced down to a syrup, then I added the fumet, reduced that by half, and then the cream, and reduced that by about half. I turned the carrots to cocotte (3 nice sized pieces) and cooked them a l’etuvee (half way covered with water, some butter and salt, boiled under a parchment lid).
So let’s see, I have the pommes puree, I made the carrots, green beans, and sauce. I just needed to cook my fish. I wanted to do this last to keep it moist and warm. (Too bad I wasn’t able to do that with my potatoes). Again, I wanted to keep it tender, moist and true to the flounder. So I decided I was going to steam it, or as chef called it, part-braised (I think). But I really think it was just steamed. I cut a few sliced of lemon and sliced some mushrooms. I laid those in a sauté pan and covered them ¾ of the way with wine. Then I laid 2 halves of a fillet over them (seasoned with salt and white pepper), and covered with a parchment paper lid. I kept a close eye on it and let it cook until it was still a little rare. Not only is this acceptable, but the carry over cooking would finish it so that it was juuuuust cooked. I was really pleased with this preparation. However, the remaining sauce in the pan was gross. It was too lemony and just way too acidic. I thought it would have been better, but I didn’t intend on using it anyways.
So now I had to plate. I put some of the lukewarm potatoes on the side of the plate. Well the plate was pretty small, and round. Then I crossed the fish over it, but hanging off the side, toward the middle of the plate. I topped it with a nice serving of sauce, and placed a pile of string beans and the 3 carrots cocotte in front of them. If I had a bigger plate, I would have done it a little differently. I wanted the carrots and string beans across from each other but separated by the fish and potatoes. But there just wasn’t enough space.
Judgment: Everything was GREAT! EXCEPT, as I suspected, the potatoes were not hot. I didn’t let it get me down, because the flavor was perfect. I knew that was the flaw. The sauce was great, the green beans and carrots looked great and were cooked perfectly. Everything was on point, except the potatoes were cold. I knew it. BUT, that’s cool! I did a good job and I knew my error. Had I thought of the bain-marie for the potatoes, I would have done superb. But I just didn’t get it done. But I will never forget… a bain-marie is a great way to keep things warm!
This class was great. Aside from the temperature of the potatoes, I think mine was up there with the better guys in the class. I will work on this.
Otherwise, everyone else did alright, a few people got special mention, and one guy had to redo his rice about 6 times. Maybe just 3, but the chef was on him. You would think he’d realize that he wasn’t cut out for this… but he’s still ticking, which is good.
This was a great class, and we got to show our own unique voice. Do I like fried fish, of course, but I put a lot of thought into my dish and I feel I took a classy approach.
I’ll try to recount the ingredients as best I could:
-1 flounder (to be shared by 2 people - 2 fillets each)
-1 potato or rice
-250ml chicken Stock
-125mL wine
-125mL cream
-2 carrots
-1 medium sized onion or 2 large shallots
-a serving or so of haricot vert
-4 plum tomatoes
-1 bay leaf
-1 sprig thyme
-parsley
-butter
-salt and pepper
And there were lemons for us to use which wasn’t listed, but thank goodness they gave it to us, because it’s tough to make fish without lemons.
So I wrote these ingredients down and I thought a lot about them for the past day. I concluded that I wanted to keep everything light and true to the fish. I didn’t want to fry anything because I knew most of the other people would do that, and I wanted to keep things delicate. I personally hate the rice that we use. It’s very plain, and just reminds me of cafeteria rice from high school, rather than delicious Spanish style rice, or Italian risotto, or a delicious pilaf. So I decided on a potato dish for the starch. Most people fried their potato. Either as a pommes darphin, or sliced and fried or something. This was just too heavy for my liking. One other guy had the same idea as me. I peeled the potato, boiled them ‘til tender and then riced it to make a delicious pommes puree. That included like 4 tablespoons of butter and a bit of cream. (we’re supposed to use milk, according to the recipe, but milk wasn’t in our list of ingredients.) Before service I mixed in some chopped up parsley. However, my downfall was that I made the potatoes first and I tried to keep them warm on the flat top, but to no avail.
After I scaled and my partner filleted one flounder, I was planning on making a fish fumet with the bones. However, my partner did a shoddy job on the fillet, and chef wanted me to do my own. So I needed to scale an entire other fish and fillet it. It was quite a waste of time, and my fillets were perfect and beautiful. But it still set me back almost 30 minutes! Scaling the fish is a pain in the ass! And scales get all over the place. So between scaling, cleaning, filleting the fish, and then cleaning my station TWICE, I had wasted a lot of time. I would have presented with the rest of the early birds, but they only had to scale one fish.
I also wanted to make 2 pieces of carrot cocotte to add some color to the dish, and I boiled some haricot vert (I did that first, so that really didn’t take much time). BUT, since I needed to prepare two fish, it meant my fumet would take longer too, since I was making a fumet with someone else. I think he and I were the only ones to use the fumet, which was great because I wanted to keep the fish tasting like fish, and it was a classy move by us to use the bones and some of the other ingredients for our sauce. So after the fumet was done (30 minutes of simmering), I needed to make the sauce, which was minced shallots, a bay leaf and wine reduced down to a syrup, then I added the fumet, reduced that by half, and then the cream, and reduced that by about half. I turned the carrots to cocotte (3 nice sized pieces) and cooked them a l’etuvee (half way covered with water, some butter and salt, boiled under a parchment lid).
So let’s see, I have the pommes puree, I made the carrots, green beans, and sauce. I just needed to cook my fish. I wanted to do this last to keep it moist and warm. (Too bad I wasn’t able to do that with my potatoes). Again, I wanted to keep it tender, moist and true to the flounder. So I decided I was going to steam it, or as chef called it, part-braised (I think). But I really think it was just steamed. I cut a few sliced of lemon and sliced some mushrooms. I laid those in a sauté pan and covered them ¾ of the way with wine. Then I laid 2 halves of a fillet over them (seasoned with salt and white pepper), and covered with a parchment paper lid. I kept a close eye on it and let it cook until it was still a little rare. Not only is this acceptable, but the carry over cooking would finish it so that it was juuuuust cooked. I was really pleased with this preparation. However, the remaining sauce in the pan was gross. It was too lemony and just way too acidic. I thought it would have been better, but I didn’t intend on using it anyways.
So now I had to plate. I put some of the lukewarm potatoes on the side of the plate. Well the plate was pretty small, and round. Then I crossed the fish over it, but hanging off the side, toward the middle of the plate. I topped it with a nice serving of sauce, and placed a pile of string beans and the 3 carrots cocotte in front of them. If I had a bigger plate, I would have done it a little differently. I wanted the carrots and string beans across from each other but separated by the fish and potatoes. But there just wasn’t enough space.
Judgment: Everything was GREAT! EXCEPT, as I suspected, the potatoes were not hot. I didn’t let it get me down, because the flavor was perfect. I knew that was the flaw. The sauce was great, the green beans and carrots looked great and were cooked perfectly. Everything was on point, except the potatoes were cold. I knew it. BUT, that’s cool! I did a good job and I knew my error. Had I thought of the bain-marie for the potatoes, I would have done superb. But I just didn’t get it done. But I will never forget… a bain-marie is a great way to keep things warm!
This class was great. Aside from the temperature of the potatoes, I think mine was up there with the better guys in the class. I will work on this.
Otherwise, everyone else did alright, a few people got special mention, and one guy had to redo his rice about 6 times. Maybe just 3, but the chef was on him. You would think he’d realize that he wasn’t cut out for this… but he’s still ticking, which is good.
This was a great class, and we got to show our own unique voice. Do I like fried fish, of course, but I put a lot of thought into my dish and I feel I took a classy approach.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)