Braising Hell...The end of Level 1

For the most part the title of this post is just a play on the word braise, in fact, our braise was quite heavenly. Every team had a couple of lamb shanks to braise. We had to remove the bulk of the tough sinewy silver skin. This is the same stuff that reduces and releases gelatin, but there is plenty on there even after you reduce most of it. We browned it on all sides, and then partially covered with stock, and then baked. It was actually pretty simple.

I'll keep this one brief. I've been a little behind on posts, and I can recount the food, but I can't necessarily recount the social interactions (which is what I find interesting for the sake of this blog)

We also made a type of braised chicken, on the stove. Let me first say, braising is wonderful, however, chicken... well, of course its wonderful as well, but pretty much EVERY recipe we've had calls for cooking the chick about 15-30 more minutes than necessary. What is necessary? There are a few schools of thought. If you work in a hospital where your "customers" are relatively high risk, weaker immune system patients, then it is pretty necessary to cook that chicken to rubber and make sure no one contracts any food borne illness. But when you're cooking for friends or customers at a high end restaurant, then the chicken is READY at 145F. Therefore, you remove the chicken when the internal temperature is between 135F-140F. You must consider carry-over cooking. That chicken will continue to cook through well after it is removed from the heat source.

With that said, all of our recipes, even ones that call for low and slow cooking, usually lend themselves to overcooking the chicken. I have never stuck my thermometer into the chicken and had it be under 160. The chicken doesn't automatically turn to rubber. They have all been juicy, not super juicy, but pretty moist, but none have been tinkering around 145F. I guess that's something to work on, and I guess something for you to keep in mind.

Oh, Chef made a big batch of couscous to go with the lamb, which was very good. They complement each other perfectly.

Moving right along, it is important to know that after this braising class, we are DONE with level 1. And that means a big ole TEST!

Chef told us exactly what we needed to do. He told us that we needed to work on as far as our cuts (taillage), work on our tournage (footballs), and know how to cook a l'anglaise and a l'etuvee. He also gave us the usual run down of what was going to be on the written portion. Piece of cake, right.. we'll see.