Extraction Complete

Well… I handled the meat, as always. Jiggled it a bit, tied it up, the usual. (I bet you’re wondering where I’m going with this. Don’t worry. Not far) Extraction method is a low and slow method of coking the meat submerged in liquid. It doesn’t concentrate the flavors, but instead extracts the juices, but not the moisture (hopefully).

One of the biggest mistakes is the assumption that cooking IN a liquid keeps the food moist. In fact it’s the opposite. Of course it can be moist if done properly, but there is a chance you may dry it out. The liquid the meat is being cooked in transfers heat “x” times faster than dry heat. So it’s easy to overcook it. It is important to keep the salt content low, and the temperature below a boil. Also, turns out the more tender meats, like a filet mignon, will do terribly in extraction methods of cooking. We used the braising technique in the next class and I’ll go into some more detail on this.

We basically did a veal stew in a creamy sauce (blanquette a veau), I believe it is a bechamel sauce, considering it was a white roux, broth and cream sauce. It was very tasty, and our veal was delicious, however, when we removed it from the cooking broth, and cover it with a damp paper towel it dried up a bit. That isn’t very appetizing, but it did taste great.

With the veal, we made a rice pilaf. It was plain rice, nothing special, but you actually finish cooking it in the oven. Maybe not absolutely necessary, but you can understand how the pan being surrounded in heat can keep the bottom from burning. It came out really good, but not spectacular. It was Uncle-Ben’s after all.

Our presentation was ON POINT. We molded some rice in a small cup, and topped with the veal and sauce. We could have used a little more salt, but it was pretty good.

The class started off VERY quiet. Everyone was a little scared after last week. [This blog somehow didn't post completely, and I don't remember what I wrote.. I'll try to continue] I got to class about 5-10 minutes before start time and no one really said a word. He was being a little hard, but it wore off fairly quickly.