Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
The little Family Meal that could (but didn’t).
Every Saturday is a level 4 buffet for us. Two people were in this buffet group, plus the chef. Despite the fact that Buffet is preparing a beautiful spread that could, essentially, feed the whole school, family meal must still prepare food for the classes that don’t make it down, and the people in the restaurant who do not have a chance to eat the buffet food.
In short, we also had 2 people plus the chef, and we busted our asses off for a few hours to get family meal done, when practically NONE of it was eaten. We did get it to the classes in levels 1 and 2, but I think they still came down to eat at the buffet.
Anyhow, we made Pollock (baked and fried), quinoa, string beans, and few other things which we reheated form a previous family meal (though they were very fresh).
Anyhow, with there just being two people in family meal, we pretty much had to get cracking. Steve tackled the Quinoa, and while that cooked, he worked on some veggies. I had prepared the baked and fried fish. Chef Karen cut the filets, and I deep fried about 75 pieces and prepared about 20 baked. The fried ones were simply dipped in an egg mixture and then coated with panko bread crumbs, and fried til golden. Of course they were tasty, though I must be honest… I didn’t even have a piece. They were thick cuts, so after they were fried, we needed to bake them for about 10 minutes until they were completely cooked. Salmon can be left slightly pink, but certain other fish shouldn’t be raw (Pollock is, a white fish).
The baked one took a bit more effort. I prepared a bread crumb topping with fresh chopped chives, basil, and parsley, tomatoes, S&P and olive oil. Chopping herbs is pretty time consuming. Not difficult, just time consuming. But after the mixture turned to a gritty green wet looking sand concoction, I brushed some mayo on the Pollock and pressed some of the green bread crumb mixture on top.
What was weird was I was going step by step in the recipe, but each subsequent step contradicted the previous step. For instance, the first step is to mix all the ingredients that I listed for the bread crumb mixture together. So after I chopped everything and combined I moved on to step two. Step two was to take the chives and mix them into the mayo?! They just told me to mix all the herbs into the bread crumbs?! I figured either way it was the same thing, but it didn’t make sense. Then, the very next step says sprinkle some tomatoes onto the fish?! It already told me to mix the tomatoes with the bread crumbs as well?! I figured everything was fine, but I mentioned it to the chef. I told her I was confident it was all the same and it will be fine, but I wanted to let her know. She agreed that it was fine, but she said she noticed these inconsistencies and forgot to mention them. I should have read the recipe before hand.
Family meal is great because the recipes are relatively simple. We don’t have time for an extravagant showing. We just whip together relatively basic things, in large quantities and very quickly. When I say basic, I don’t mean S&P only. The other day we had lavender chicken, Israeli couscous, lamb meatballs, etc. But the chicken was just lots of chicken and all the herbs and spices thrown together. We didn’t remove the rib bones, or manchonner the legs and wings.
It’s also a little boring, but it’s extremely productive, particularly when everyone eats and we overhear, “wow that was a tasty family meal today.”
Well, this is our last week of it before we move on to production.
In short, we also had 2 people plus the chef, and we busted our asses off for a few hours to get family meal done, when practically NONE of it was eaten. We did get it to the classes in levels 1 and 2, but I think they still came down to eat at the buffet.
Anyhow, we made Pollock (baked and fried), quinoa, string beans, and few other things which we reheated form a previous family meal (though they were very fresh).
Anyhow, with there just being two people in family meal, we pretty much had to get cracking. Steve tackled the Quinoa, and while that cooked, he worked on some veggies. I had prepared the baked and fried fish. Chef Karen cut the filets, and I deep fried about 75 pieces and prepared about 20 baked. The fried ones were simply dipped in an egg mixture and then coated with panko bread crumbs, and fried til golden. Of course they were tasty, though I must be honest… I didn’t even have a piece. They were thick cuts, so after they were fried, we needed to bake them for about 10 minutes until they were completely cooked. Salmon can be left slightly pink, but certain other fish shouldn’t be raw (Pollock is, a white fish).
The baked one took a bit more effort. I prepared a bread crumb topping with fresh chopped chives, basil, and parsley, tomatoes, S&P and olive oil. Chopping herbs is pretty time consuming. Not difficult, just time consuming. But after the mixture turned to a gritty green wet looking sand concoction, I brushed some mayo on the Pollock and pressed some of the green bread crumb mixture on top.
What was weird was I was going step by step in the recipe, but each subsequent step contradicted the previous step. For instance, the first step is to mix all the ingredients that I listed for the bread crumb mixture together. So after I chopped everything and combined I moved on to step two. Step two was to take the chives and mix them into the mayo?! They just told me to mix all the herbs into the bread crumbs?! I figured either way it was the same thing, but it didn’t make sense. Then, the very next step says sprinkle some tomatoes onto the fish?! It already told me to mix the tomatoes with the bread crumbs as well?! I figured everything was fine, but I mentioned it to the chef. I told her I was confident it was all the same and it will be fine, but I wanted to let her know. She agreed that it was fine, but she said she noticed these inconsistencies and forgot to mention them. I should have read the recipe before hand.
Family meal is great because the recipes are relatively simple. We don’t have time for an extravagant showing. We just whip together relatively basic things, in large quantities and very quickly. When I say basic, I don’t mean S&P only. The other day we had lavender chicken, Israeli couscous, lamb meatballs, etc. But the chicken was just lots of chicken and all the herbs and spices thrown together. We didn’t remove the rib bones, or manchonner the legs and wings.
It’s also a little boring, but it’s extremely productive, particularly when everyone eats and we overhear, “wow that was a tasty family meal today.”
Well, this is our last week of it before we move on to production.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Here, we’re family
There were a couple of highlights of my night. The first was just the sheer amount of production we did in such a short period of time. Between 6 of us, (the 3 of us in level 4, Chef Wanda and 2 make up students) we created family meal for 60-80 people in a little over 2 hours. There was supposed to be some prep work completed on Saturday for Tuesday’s class. Of course we were not aware, so the family meal people didn’t do anything for the next meal (since we were switching groups).
Anyhow, as soon as we got into class, there were two big plastic crates full of chicken. Chef Wanda wanted us to quarter them, and quickly. And we did. We didn’t take so much care in getting the oysters out, or in removing the wish bones. But in about 20 minutes, we must have quartered 40 chickens. I was a little disappointed in the fact that we didn’t put much care into the process, but in the time frame that was presented to us, we did quite well.
After this, my task was the carrots. I had free reign over the carrots. Of course I had to peel about 20lbs. of them first. Then I had to peel parsnips as well, which were on the puny side, which actually made it harder to peel. At the advice/request of one of my classmates (Steve), I made a brown sugar/cinnamon butter mix to coat them in, and they were very delicious.
Besides the carrots and the quartering of the chicken, by 8:30, we had a phenomenal family meal prepared in no time. We also took a test on charcuterie which I am not so thrilled about. I studied last week, but I should have brushed up on it. Oh well.
What I AM thrilled about is I got a grade back for my buffet portion. A 98! 98 out of 100!! That’s pretty money! He took off two points on very random things, things that he could have been guilty of. But he commented that my hard work and dedication showed and that I have a good chance at making it in this career. That was pretty awesome to hear.
The motto of the class was: “if we like it, you will, too.” That is, whatever we make for family meal, if it pleases us, we don’t care if it’s what you want; you’re going to like it. That was fantastic because, as Chef Wanda said, there is some creativity that we’re allowed to play with.
Two days, 2 showers, many hand washes and lots of Purell later, I still have carrot pigment in my left index finger and thumb. Its borderline gross, but it doesn’t rub onto anything.
Oh, so somebody in our family meal group (I’m thinking it was the Chef) put a couple of trays of chicken into a different oven. Long after family meal ended, we found that chicken, charred beyond recognition. We were commenting on how we had JUST enough chicken, when there’s usually more to take home. We were preparing food for the next class when we found smoke coming out of the oven. What I got a great kick out of was Chef Wanda offered some to Chef Janet, and she replied, “are they done?” It was a you had to be there moment. The way she said it in a concerned factual manner, was just hilarious. I enjoyed it immensely. This level is so cool. We get to see a lot, and do a lot.
Anyhow, as soon as we got into class, there were two big plastic crates full of chicken. Chef Wanda wanted us to quarter them, and quickly. And we did. We didn’t take so much care in getting the oysters out, or in removing the wish bones. But in about 20 minutes, we must have quartered 40 chickens. I was a little disappointed in the fact that we didn’t put much care into the process, but in the time frame that was presented to us, we did quite well.
After this, my task was the carrots. I had free reign over the carrots. Of course I had to peel about 20lbs. of them first. Then I had to peel parsnips as well, which were on the puny side, which actually made it harder to peel. At the advice/request of one of my classmates (Steve), I made a brown sugar/cinnamon butter mix to coat them in, and they were very delicious.
Besides the carrots and the quartering of the chicken, by 8:30, we had a phenomenal family meal prepared in no time. We also took a test on charcuterie which I am not so thrilled about. I studied last week, but I should have brushed up on it. Oh well.
What I AM thrilled about is I got a grade back for my buffet portion. A 98! 98 out of 100!! That’s pretty money! He took off two points on very random things, things that he could have been guilty of. But he commented that my hard work and dedication showed and that I have a good chance at making it in this career. That was pretty awesome to hear.
The motto of the class was: “if we like it, you will, too.” That is, whatever we make for family meal, if it pleases us, we don’t care if it’s what you want; you’re going to like it. That was fantastic because, as Chef Wanda said, there is some creativity that we’re allowed to play with.
Two days, 2 showers, many hand washes and lots of Purell later, I still have carrot pigment in my left index finger and thumb. Its borderline gross, but it doesn’t rub onto anything.
Oh, so somebody in our family meal group (I’m thinking it was the Chef) put a couple of trays of chicken into a different oven. Long after family meal ended, we found that chicken, charred beyond recognition. We were commenting on how we had JUST enough chicken, when there’s usually more to take home. We were preparing food for the next class when we found smoke coming out of the oven. What I got a great kick out of was Chef Wanda offered some to Chef Janet, and she replied, “are they done?” It was a you had to be there moment. The way she said it in a concerned factual manner, was just hilarious. I enjoyed it immensely. This level is so cool. We get to see a lot, and do a lot.
Monday, February 4, 2008
CIA Caliber (that’s like elephant hunting ammo)
...or maybe anti aircraft rounds?
Soooo, as you may or may not be aware, we had our second and final buffet to prepare for. The buffet was on Saturday. I haven’t posted since my last buffet, because quite frankly, I’m pooped. That buffet took a lot out of us, but none the less, we had to get back in there and do it all over again. Of course we changed the theme up a bit. We wanted to bring it back to the classics. Focus on the details and produce a lot of small beautiful tasty items.
We did just that and some. In addition to about 5 different canapés, we had 3 carving stations, and some serious desserts. I didn’t know at the time either, but a canapé is basically a small appetizer or hors d'oeuvre. They are usually very intricate with a lot of detail.
Off the top of my head I can recall a few. We had layers of prosciutto on white bread, cut into rounds, with a mint mascarpone spread, as well as a dollop of this mixture on top with a ball of honey dew on top. They looked phenomenal. We had a seared and smoked filet sliced onto a slice of baguette with a dollop of gorgonzola cheese. There was a crab meat and avocado profiterole, which was really delicious. The crowd pleaser, hands down, was the duck leg confit over a bed of caramelized onion and chopped apple, with a slice of brie over a baguette slice. These were incredible!
In fact, as we were cleaning up, there was a student in the room adjacent to ours working on pastries. There are windows between the two rooms so he was watching me pack some of these away to take home, and he just pointed at them and was giving us the thumbs up. And so I offered him one, and he put two fingers up in the air, asking for 2!! He got em. That was a compliment in its own.
I went on a tangent… The production group laid out a platter of 3 kinds of sausages they made. Two were pork, one was lamb. They were all really tasty. Right behind that, Steve and I were at the carving station! We had an entire leg of lamb, 3 turkey breasts and an entire prime rib roast. Steve and I were slicing them to order and placing them on the plates. It was phenomenal. For the lamb, I made a fresh focaccia bread with rosemary, and we sliced that, drizzled a red pepper mayo on it with a few leaves of arugala, and I placed the lamb slices right on the bread. It was money.
We also blew it up for desserts. I spent probably 8 hours on making tiny pastry shells for canapé desserts. Some we filled with a lemon curd, and topped with fruits or swiss meringue (which took me about 20 minutes to pipe out, then we passed a torch over them leaving a beautiful beautiful lightly browned color. There were chocolate ganache with white chocolate swirls, napoleons with pastry cream and raspberries, puff pastry with pistachio ice cream scoops and Chef Rob’s famous tuxedo strawberries.
Oh, how could I forget? We had 3 different rolled/stuffed meats that we cooked sous-vide style. We made a salmon roulade, stuffed with a smoked trout force meat. For this, we flattened out salmon fillets, then layered basil and piped a layer of ground up smoked trout. We then rolled it in plastic, and then twisted it until it was a really tight package. When they were cooked we sliced it and presented it on a layer of aspic. They were gorgeous.
We also did a stuffed duck breast with a pork forcemeat, and boneless turkey legs with an herb stuffing. Everything was truly amazing.
Another chef came in and told Chef Rob that this buffet, and the last, were of CIA caliber. I was watching this chef as we were serving our buffet. He was walking up and down the table just examining… admiring our work. You could see he was amazed.
On Saturday we came in at 12 noon to finalize preparation for 8:30. There was no way we would have completed everything in time if we didn’t come in that early. We were rushing from pretty much the moment we got in.
Again, I have pics, and I will get them up, somehow.
We now move on to family meal. To be honest, I look forward to this transition. I have done so much baking in the past few weeks that I really want to get back into cooking the meats and starches. Chef reassured me that my baking was clutch and everything was fantastic, but I do look forward to hacking some meat, and tackling the mass production of entrée food. The current group of 3 in family meal have been making FANTASTIC family meals, especially compared to the previous levels before us. They have received many compliments, which is rare for family meal. I hope to carry on in their footsteps. On Saturday, the next group is planning an Italian buffet, and then they need to muster up the courage for another buffet. We set the bar high, but I have a feeling chef rob is going to take them higher! I hope so. We’re definitely tearing level 4 a new one.
Soooo, as you may or may not be aware, we had our second and final buffet to prepare for. The buffet was on Saturday. I haven’t posted since my last buffet, because quite frankly, I’m pooped. That buffet took a lot out of us, but none the less, we had to get back in there and do it all over again. Of course we changed the theme up a bit. We wanted to bring it back to the classics. Focus on the details and produce a lot of small beautiful tasty items.
We did just that and some. In addition to about 5 different canapés, we had 3 carving stations, and some serious desserts. I didn’t know at the time either, but a canapé is basically a small appetizer or hors d'oeuvre. They are usually very intricate with a lot of detail.
Off the top of my head I can recall a few. We had layers of prosciutto on white bread, cut into rounds, with a mint mascarpone spread, as well as a dollop of this mixture on top with a ball of honey dew on top. They looked phenomenal. We had a seared and smoked filet sliced onto a slice of baguette with a dollop of gorgonzola cheese. There was a crab meat and avocado profiterole, which was really delicious. The crowd pleaser, hands down, was the duck leg confit over a bed of caramelized onion and chopped apple, with a slice of brie over a baguette slice. These were incredible!
In fact, as we were cleaning up, there was a student in the room adjacent to ours working on pastries. There are windows between the two rooms so he was watching me pack some of these away to take home, and he just pointed at them and was giving us the thumbs up. And so I offered him one, and he put two fingers up in the air, asking for 2!! He got em. That was a compliment in its own.
I went on a tangent… The production group laid out a platter of 3 kinds of sausages they made. Two were pork, one was lamb. They were all really tasty. Right behind that, Steve and I were at the carving station! We had an entire leg of lamb, 3 turkey breasts and an entire prime rib roast. Steve and I were slicing them to order and placing them on the plates. It was phenomenal. For the lamb, I made a fresh focaccia bread with rosemary, and we sliced that, drizzled a red pepper mayo on it with a few leaves of arugala, and I placed the lamb slices right on the bread. It was money.
We also blew it up for desserts. I spent probably 8 hours on making tiny pastry shells for canapé desserts. Some we filled with a lemon curd, and topped with fruits or swiss meringue (which took me about 20 minutes to pipe out, then we passed a torch over them leaving a beautiful beautiful lightly browned color. There were chocolate ganache with white chocolate swirls, napoleons with pastry cream and raspberries, puff pastry with pistachio ice cream scoops and Chef Rob’s famous tuxedo strawberries.
Oh, how could I forget? We had 3 different rolled/stuffed meats that we cooked sous-vide style. We made a salmon roulade, stuffed with a smoked trout force meat. For this, we flattened out salmon fillets, then layered basil and piped a layer of ground up smoked trout. We then rolled it in plastic, and then twisted it until it was a really tight package. When they were cooked we sliced it and presented it on a layer of aspic. They were gorgeous.
We also did a stuffed duck breast with a pork forcemeat, and boneless turkey legs with an herb stuffing. Everything was truly amazing.
Another chef came in and told Chef Rob that this buffet, and the last, were of CIA caliber. I was watching this chef as we were serving our buffet. He was walking up and down the table just examining… admiring our work. You could see he was amazed.
On Saturday we came in at 12 noon to finalize preparation for 8:30. There was no way we would have completed everything in time if we didn’t come in that early. We were rushing from pretty much the moment we got in.
Again, I have pics, and I will get them up, somehow.
We now move on to family meal. To be honest, I look forward to this transition. I have done so much baking in the past few weeks that I really want to get back into cooking the meats and starches. Chef reassured me that my baking was clutch and everything was fantastic, but I do look forward to hacking some meat, and tackling the mass production of entrée food. The current group of 3 in family meal have been making FANTASTIC family meals, especially compared to the previous levels before us. They have received many compliments, which is rare for family meal. I hope to carry on in their footsteps. On Saturday, the next group is planning an Italian buffet, and then they need to muster up the courage for another buffet. We set the bar high, but I have a feeling chef rob is going to take them higher! I hope so. We’re definitely tearing level 4 a new one.
Monday, January 28, 2008
We Souffléed it!!
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Well the literal translation of Soufflé is to blow up. Therefore, we blew it up! It was a great success, which was enjoyed by all. The flavor of everything was great, but even more so, the appearance was grand. I brought my camera in and shot a few photos. I will get those on here hopefully soon, and you’ll be able to see not only me, but the buffet as well.
I think to sum it up, when all was said and done, Chef Rob took us into the buffet prep room, closed the door and said, I need to be honest with you guys. The FCI hasn’t seen a buffet like this since probably as long as I’ve been here. He went on to thank us for not only the hard work and dedication that made it a success, but for making him look good in front of his peers. Other chefs were complimenting us, telling us that we did a fantastic job.
With that said, I must say, we did rock it like a Vegas whore. Nice analogy, huh? What was amazing was how cool, calm and reserved we all were. We prepped so well, and we were so thorough and organized that we were sitting back polishing off the details, not scrambling before the buffet. At 7:00, an hour and a half before showtime, Chef Rob was talking to another chef saying, "look at this, its 7:00 and I'm chilling back sipping a cup of coffee." We really did hit the high notes. From little things like doming off the top of the fried rice (What you know about dome?), and finishing with scallion blossoms, to laying down a bed of shredded coconut surrounded by orange slices and strawberry halves for our fried dumpling platter.
Let me give you a verbal visualization of some of our platters. I’ll start with more details on the dumpling platter.
I sliced a bunch of oranges. We overlapped slices around the oblong platter, with a few strawberry halves on top and covered the middle with a bed of coconut shreds, and then sprinkled on a small handfull of red peppercorns! Just picture that! It’s such a beautiful and simple presentation. We piled the dumplings in the middle.
For the spring rolls, we sliced cucumbers on the bias, and placed those along the perimeter, sprinkled with black pepper and made a pyramid of spring rolls in the middle. We had a spare refill platter with pea shoots (looked a little like spinach) piled on both ends, with 3 strawberry halves pointing out on top of each pile.
For the Spicy Thai chicken wings, I laid out some greens around a small mound of fried julienned wonton skins and topped that with a crowned orange half.
The raw tuna with taboulleh salsa was laid out diagonally along a mirror platter, simple with no other garnish, and it looked gorgeous. The beef platter (seared, yet raw in the middle with julienned cucumbers inside, and topped with black and white sesame seeds and a rolled blossom of pickled ginger) had an oval pile of the fried shredded wonton skins, and we placed the beef in concentric ovals around it.
The kimchi was served in a round dish, and we alternated overlapping pineapple wedges and orange slices around the perimiter of the bowl.
Oh the pineapples! I took a couple of pineapples and carved spirals going down and around the sides. Along the line of these carvings, we stuck our chicken and beef skewers into the pinapples. People simply had to pull them out, but you had to see how awesome it was. A spiral of skewered meats beautiful riding down the sides of the pineapple. I think it might have been my favorite presentation, though everything was gorgeous.
The duck carving station was magnificent also. Besides the fact that we were butchering the ducks in front of people with a cleaver, we laid out our sliced duck sous vide breast along the 3 sides away from the person butchering, in which he gave a few slices to each person along with the duck. There were also two long skinny platters (about 1.5 inches wide and 1.5 feet long) which we filled with nicely sliced and blossomed scallions for people to take with their duck.
For the duck confit buns, Chef Rob showed me this cool presentation trick with handkerchiefs (cloth napkins?) and aluminum foil. You take a square of aluminum and place it on top of the napkin so that the top side of the aluminum is lined up with the top side of the cloth. Then fold in the top two corner like your folding an airplane. Then fold them in again, and again until you have a thin pointy top, flaring out to thicker bottom. Then start at the tip you just made and start rolling it up. Slightly unroll it and you have a horn looking napkin. Make two of these, put them in opposite corners so the rolled in ends point to eachother and stack the buns up in between. It looked great.
The production group made the whole pig that they were trying to do, and it came out great, and it looked AMAZING! The glaze on the skin was beautiful, and the interior came out great. Their plan to layer different colors of pork was as successful as it could have been despite the problems they had with cutting the fatback. Wait til you see pictures. We also had the ducks hanging from above, and we put some Chinese lanterns and 4 flags up (Vietnam, China, Korea and Japan).
Oh, and last but not least we had 2 fozen ice bowls, one which we served iced tea out of, and another which we rested a bowl of coconut, mango and passion fruit sorbets on. When we froze the ice bowls we placed orange slices, strawberries, rosemary sprigs, lemon slices and other garnish inside, so when we took it out of the bowl it had an array of colors and fruits. It was really phenomenal.
My descriptions barely scratch the surface of the show we put on. As Carlos was carving the duck, Steve was continuously frying up more spring rolls and I was serving the tuna and beef as well as refilling platters, making sure we were stocked. We didn't run out of anything but everyone ate well! I wish I were a journalist or an author, so I can convey these ideas and visualizations a lot clearer and with more passion, but just wait til I get the pictures up!
We now have to get over the hype that we just worked up, and make our way down from the high of such a successful Asian buffet, and bring it back to a classic, beautiful French buffet. Very detail and flavor oriented. I don’t think we can put as much effort as we just put into the last one. Did I mention that I spent about 4-5 hours on Friday night preparing our duck confit buns? Well I did, and they were spectacular.
I think to sum it up, when all was said and done, Chef Rob took us into the buffet prep room, closed the door and said, I need to be honest with you guys. The FCI hasn’t seen a buffet like this since probably as long as I’ve been here. He went on to thank us for not only the hard work and dedication that made it a success, but for making him look good in front of his peers. Other chefs were complimenting us, telling us that we did a fantastic job.
With that said, I must say, we did rock it like a Vegas whore. Nice analogy, huh? What was amazing was how cool, calm and reserved we all were. We prepped so well, and we were so thorough and organized that we were sitting back polishing off the details, not scrambling before the buffet. At 7:00, an hour and a half before showtime, Chef Rob was talking to another chef saying, "look at this, its 7:00 and I'm chilling back sipping a cup of coffee." We really did hit the high notes. From little things like doming off the top of the fried rice (What you know about dome?), and finishing with scallion blossoms, to laying down a bed of shredded coconut surrounded by orange slices and strawberry halves for our fried dumpling platter.
Let me give you a verbal visualization of some of our platters. I’ll start with more details on the dumpling platter.
I sliced a bunch of oranges. We overlapped slices around the oblong platter, with a few strawberry halves on top and covered the middle with a bed of coconut shreds, and then sprinkled on a small handfull of red peppercorns! Just picture that! It’s such a beautiful and simple presentation. We piled the dumplings in the middle.
For the spring rolls, we sliced cucumbers on the bias, and placed those along the perimeter, sprinkled with black pepper and made a pyramid of spring rolls in the middle. We had a spare refill platter with pea shoots (looked a little like spinach) piled on both ends, with 3 strawberry halves pointing out on top of each pile.
For the Spicy Thai chicken wings, I laid out some greens around a small mound of fried julienned wonton skins and topped that with a crowned orange half.
The raw tuna with taboulleh salsa was laid out diagonally along a mirror platter, simple with no other garnish, and it looked gorgeous. The beef platter (seared, yet raw in the middle with julienned cucumbers inside, and topped with black and white sesame seeds and a rolled blossom of pickled ginger) had an oval pile of the fried shredded wonton skins, and we placed the beef in concentric ovals around it.
The kimchi was served in a round dish, and we alternated overlapping pineapple wedges and orange slices around the perimiter of the bowl.
Oh the pineapples! I took a couple of pineapples and carved spirals going down and around the sides. Along the line of these carvings, we stuck our chicken and beef skewers into the pinapples. People simply had to pull them out, but you had to see how awesome it was. A spiral of skewered meats beautiful riding down the sides of the pineapple. I think it might have been my favorite presentation, though everything was gorgeous.
The duck carving station was magnificent also. Besides the fact that we were butchering the ducks in front of people with a cleaver, we laid out our sliced duck sous vide breast along the 3 sides away from the person butchering, in which he gave a few slices to each person along with the duck. There were also two long skinny platters (about 1.5 inches wide and 1.5 feet long) which we filled with nicely sliced and blossomed scallions for people to take with their duck.
For the duck confit buns, Chef Rob showed me this cool presentation trick with handkerchiefs (cloth napkins?) and aluminum foil. You take a square of aluminum and place it on top of the napkin so that the top side of the aluminum is lined up with the top side of the cloth. Then fold in the top two corner like your folding an airplane. Then fold them in again, and again until you have a thin pointy top, flaring out to thicker bottom. Then start at the tip you just made and start rolling it up. Slightly unroll it and you have a horn looking napkin. Make two of these, put them in opposite corners so the rolled in ends point to eachother and stack the buns up in between. It looked great.
The production group made the whole pig that they were trying to do, and it came out great, and it looked AMAZING! The glaze on the skin was beautiful, and the interior came out great. Their plan to layer different colors of pork was as successful as it could have been despite the problems they had with cutting the fatback. Wait til you see pictures. We also had the ducks hanging from above, and we put some Chinese lanterns and 4 flags up (Vietnam, China, Korea and Japan).
Oh, and last but not least we had 2 fozen ice bowls, one which we served iced tea out of, and another which we rested a bowl of coconut, mango and passion fruit sorbets on. When we froze the ice bowls we placed orange slices, strawberries, rosemary sprigs, lemon slices and other garnish inside, so when we took it out of the bowl it had an array of colors and fruits. It was really phenomenal.
My descriptions barely scratch the surface of the show we put on. As Carlos was carving the duck, Steve was continuously frying up more spring rolls and I was serving the tuna and beef as well as refilling platters, making sure we were stocked. We didn't run out of anything but everyone ate well! I wish I were a journalist or an author, so I can convey these ideas and visualizations a lot clearer and with more passion, but just wait til I get the pictures up!
We now have to get over the hype that we just worked up, and make our way down from the high of such a successful Asian buffet, and bring it back to a classic, beautiful French buffet. Very detail and flavor oriented. I don’t think we can put as much effort as we just put into the last one. Did I mention that I spent about 4-5 hours on Friday night preparing our duck confit buns? Well I did, and they were spectacular.
Friday, January 25, 2008
T-24 hours until a taste of Asia hits the FCI
I’ve mentioned this already, but this level is 10 times more interesting than the last one. It’s also less stressful. Not entirely stress free, but you get to step back and enjoy what you’re doing. We’ve tasted all of our food and tweaked it to become what we want it to be, not what its expected of us to be.
Since we’re still working o our buffet for Saturday, let me give you an update. We order chicken wings to prepare for the buffet. In addition to ordering 10 lbs, we wanted whole fresh wings. What we got was a bag of precut buffalo wings, frozen. What we originally wanted to do was manchonner the wings and lollipop them. When the wings are whole it’s a lot easier to manchonner. When they’re pre cut you need to do a lot more digging and scraping. So, I spent about 45 minutes cleaning up the wings. Not to mention the chicken quality was, in my opinion, sub par and just a little gross. If I were making buffalo wings at a bar, these would be perfect, but for our purposes, I felt they were downright gross. I have opinions on things…
Further, there just weren’t that many wings!! Definitely not 10 lbs. There were 5 lbs at best. That came out to 40 pieces, which is not as much as we would have liked. However, they’re marinating in a spicy Thai marinade that we made. We made all of our marinades and sauces from scratch, which is great.
We also brushed a basic ginger, scallion, soy, oyster sauce/hoisen sauce marinade on the fillet mignon and chicken skewers. It’s actually really good, and hopefully the meats absorb it all up.
We did a test run on the dumplings and spring rolls to see if they’ll fry properly or blow up in our faces. We heated up a small pan of oil. I was cooking them, so I kept a watchful eye on them. I was considering a couple of things. First and foremost, the dumplings and spring rolls were frozen solid prior to being cooked. So I wanted to make sure the fillings were cooked through. The dumplings were smaller and the meat was raw and frozen. I didn’t want to burn the outside and leave the inside undercooked. Either way they came out just right. After I was almost finished with the spring rolls, I remember that we filled it a) with just vegetables, and b) we cooked the vegetables, so we only needed to defrost and the inside and heat it up. So we could afford to go a little lighter in color that I initially cooked the spring rolls to. That’s why we did it… to get these questionables out of the way. Again, the spring rolls were slammin’.
Prior to coming to class, Chef Rob spent 30 minutes standing outside a Chinese restaurant watching them hack up a duck. He also purchased a duck so we could get some practice in, and admire and taste the flavor, the amount of fat left under the skin, the color, the texture, everything. What was really cool was the fact that as we were hacking the duck, we saw a piece of star anise in the cavity! What’s so amazing about that? We had it in a brine of star anise (amongst other things), which means we’re practically Chinese. No, it means we were doing everything right (so far). Chef wants to smoke it with star anise and then blast it in the oven to get the color and crispness of the skin. Not to mention the fact that the duck is currently hang drying in the fridge right now. (Which chef repeatedly mentioned “hey fellas, did I mention that we have 3 dugs hanging upstairs right now?”) He’s a riot.
He also wants me and Steve to watch the movie “Good fellas” so we can bust out quotes as he and Carlos have been doing. It’s pretty funny.
I also want to mention… We had a few duck breasts that we wrapped in sous vide plastic with a bit of duck stock and spice (the ones that were already chilling in the fridge in a spice mixture). We cooked them for 2 hours in the sous vide method (wrapped submerged in hot, but not boiling, water for 2 hours. We then took one breast, sautéed it skin side down to render some fat and crisp the skin and then we’re serving it thinly sliced for the picking. It was FABULOUS! We’re really going all out…
Also in this class we saw our HUGE chunk of tuna, which we’re serving rare, sliced thin. We tried some of that with a taboulleh salsa that we made for it, and it was phenomenal.
Lastly, the production group was working on the pig for the buffet. Chef Janet’s intention was to take fat back, compress it, then slice it thin and wrap pigmented pork in the fat back, and arrange it decoratively in the cavity, so when its cooked and cut, we would see a beautiful design. There were some issues with cutting the fat back because it was so thin in the first place. I have a feeling, however, that they will do a good job. I saw the sewed up pig, and it looked awesome.
I am going to class tonight (on an off day) to make the duck confit buns. I think it will be great. I realized today that the original recipe we used we put in what we thought was one cake of yeast. We were under the impression that one cake of yeast was about 40 grams. After a little research, it appears that a cake of yeast is more like 18 grams of yeast. That means we quadrupled the amount of yeast for a single batch. This explains its yeasty flavor which was pretty gross. Hopefully when I cut back on the yeast, it works out perfectly.
We’ll see.
Since we’re still working o our buffet for Saturday, let me give you an update. We order chicken wings to prepare for the buffet. In addition to ordering 10 lbs, we wanted whole fresh wings. What we got was a bag of precut buffalo wings, frozen. What we originally wanted to do was manchonner the wings and lollipop them. When the wings are whole it’s a lot easier to manchonner. When they’re pre cut you need to do a lot more digging and scraping. So, I spent about 45 minutes cleaning up the wings. Not to mention the chicken quality was, in my opinion, sub par and just a little gross. If I were making buffalo wings at a bar, these would be perfect, but for our purposes, I felt they were downright gross. I have opinions on things…
Further, there just weren’t that many wings!! Definitely not 10 lbs. There were 5 lbs at best. That came out to 40 pieces, which is not as much as we would have liked. However, they’re marinating in a spicy Thai marinade that we made. We made all of our marinades and sauces from scratch, which is great.
We also brushed a basic ginger, scallion, soy, oyster sauce/hoisen sauce marinade on the fillet mignon and chicken skewers. It’s actually really good, and hopefully the meats absorb it all up.
We did a test run on the dumplings and spring rolls to see if they’ll fry properly or blow up in our faces. We heated up a small pan of oil. I was cooking them, so I kept a watchful eye on them. I was considering a couple of things. First and foremost, the dumplings and spring rolls were frozen solid prior to being cooked. So I wanted to make sure the fillings were cooked through. The dumplings were smaller and the meat was raw and frozen. I didn’t want to burn the outside and leave the inside undercooked. Either way they came out just right. After I was almost finished with the spring rolls, I remember that we filled it a) with just vegetables, and b) we cooked the vegetables, so we only needed to defrost and the inside and heat it up. So we could afford to go a little lighter in color that I initially cooked the spring rolls to. That’s why we did it… to get these questionables out of the way. Again, the spring rolls were slammin’.
Prior to coming to class, Chef Rob spent 30 minutes standing outside a Chinese restaurant watching them hack up a duck. He also purchased a duck so we could get some practice in, and admire and taste the flavor, the amount of fat left under the skin, the color, the texture, everything. What was really cool was the fact that as we were hacking the duck, we saw a piece of star anise in the cavity! What’s so amazing about that? We had it in a brine of star anise (amongst other things), which means we’re practically Chinese. No, it means we were doing everything right (so far). Chef wants to smoke it with star anise and then blast it in the oven to get the color and crispness of the skin. Not to mention the fact that the duck is currently hang drying in the fridge right now. (Which chef repeatedly mentioned “hey fellas, did I mention that we have 3 dugs hanging upstairs right now?”) He’s a riot.
He also wants me and Steve to watch the movie “Good fellas” so we can bust out quotes as he and Carlos have been doing. It’s pretty funny.
I also want to mention… We had a few duck breasts that we wrapped in sous vide plastic with a bit of duck stock and spice (the ones that were already chilling in the fridge in a spice mixture). We cooked them for 2 hours in the sous vide method (wrapped submerged in hot, but not boiling, water for 2 hours. We then took one breast, sautéed it skin side down to render some fat and crisp the skin and then we’re serving it thinly sliced for the picking. It was FABULOUS! We’re really going all out…
Also in this class we saw our HUGE chunk of tuna, which we’re serving rare, sliced thin. We tried some of that with a taboulleh salsa that we made for it, and it was phenomenal.
Lastly, the production group was working on the pig for the buffet. Chef Janet’s intention was to take fat back, compress it, then slice it thin and wrap pigmented pork in the fat back, and arrange it decoratively in the cavity, so when its cooked and cut, we would see a beautiful design. There were some issues with cutting the fat back because it was so thin in the first place. I have a feeling, however, that they will do a good job. I saw the sewed up pig, and it looked awesome.
I am going to class tonight (on an off day) to make the duck confit buns. I think it will be great. I realized today that the original recipe we used we put in what we thought was one cake of yeast. We were under the impression that one cake of yeast was about 40 grams. After a little research, it appears that a cake of yeast is more like 18 grams of yeast. That means we quadrupled the amount of yeast for a single batch. This explains its yeasty flavor which was pretty gross. Hopefully when I cut back on the yeast, it works out perfectly.
We’ll see.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Buffet!
I have been eating, drinking and sleeping this buffet for the past week and a half. In fact, I purchased 3 whole ducks from Chinatown for the buffet, as well as some other Asian products we needed (including white miso paste, and bonito flakes). I have a few issues about it that I will get into over the course of this post, but in general I am PSYCHED!
So let’s start with the basics. Level 4 started, and 1/3 of us (3 of us) are in the buffet group. The other 2/3 are split up evenly into “production” and “family meal”. Family meal is exactly what it sounds like. They make the food that all the staff and students eat for dinner. Production prepares all the beef, fish, stocks, etc. that the restaurant and classes need. It’s amazing to see what gets done in 5 hours.
Buffet, on the other hand, is in a world of its own. It’s the first time that we get to explore our creativity and abilities as aspiring chefs. We can choose any theme, or not even a theme if we don’t want one, but we choose the buffet menu. We came up with a tour de Asia theme. It wasn’t my first choice, but I’ll be the first person to delve into the unknown and leave my comfort zone to try something new. And, quite frankly, I may know a little more about some Chinese things than the people in my group, but collectively, for not being Asian, we have a wealth of knowledge in this or that.
Our menu (starting with the smaller items):
Filet mignon skewers
Chicken breast skewers
Vegetarian Vietnamese spring rolls
Pork (garlic and ginger) fried dumplings/wontons
Duck confit buns
Kimchee
Seared, rare fillet mignon slices with julienned cucumbers
Spicy Thai wings
Yellow fin tuna Tartar
A SLEW of dipping sauces for all of these things (ranging from spicy, salty, sweet and spicy, etc.)
Fried rice (kind of a cop out, but it’s our starch)
Duck breast sous vide
3 whole Peking ducks
A whole, stuffed suckling pig
3 various sorbets
I’d like to discuss the pig first. What we originally wanted was a traditional roasted sucking pig, similar to what you may see at a Chinese New Years feast. Nothing too fancy, just a whole roasted suckling pig… Somehow, the production Chef came in and said she had an idea for a suckling pig. And we were like, wow, we wanted to do a suckling pig. And we decided to let her roll with it. Her idea is truly brilliant, however far fetched it may be. First, you de-bone the body. Then she has this grand idea of mixing a very colorful pigment (they chose red beets and chlorophyll from a leafy green) with chopped pork and wrapping it in sheets of fat back, arranging them in a flower shape (picture the NBC logo, with two colors and making a complete circle) and stuffing it back into the pig, so when you slice it, you get skin, meat and the flower arrangement inside. It’s really a grand idea. What’s even grander is the method of preparing it. They want to cook it submerged in a circulation cooker overnight, in DUCK FAT, until its just cooked, then finish it in an oven to crisp the skin. Now, quite frankly, that sounds amazing. But I am curious as to how realistic it is. And will a pig submerged in duck fat get crispy and crackling like I imagine? We will find out. But it’s cool that they are doing it, and helping us out, and are as excited as we are about our buffet.
Next issue. I spent about 2 and a half hours pressing wontons together last night. That was great fun.
Moving right along, we have this wonderful plan for duck confit buns. The first day we had a case of ducks waiting for us to butcher. We also had a slew of vegetables to julienne for the spring rolls. Steve very nicely butchered the ducks, and saved the fat for the confit. We actually got a lot of fat from a case of ducks. It was pretty awesome. Chef then cured them in a delicious Indian spice mixture with salt. The next class we cooked them low and slow. The legs came out amazing.
Back to the first class. Within the first 30 minutes of level 4, we were on our way preparing for our buffet. We had to slice a number of veggies for the spring roll, starting with red pepper. One pepper in… SLICE. Carlos’s finger slips and he takes a cross section of his nail clean off!! I helped him clean up the wound (blood didn’t get all over), and we got a band-aid on and a protective finger rubber. Less than 5 minutes late, the rubber was SWELLING with blood. It was crazy!! Eventually it stopped bleeding, but still. Not a good way to start level 4.
Anyhow, by days 1 and 2, we finished a number of items, including the spring rolls, dumplings, prepared a basic kimchee, a bunch of dipping sauces. Prepared the bases for the sorbets, skewered the meats, prepared the duck for the duck confit buns, and a few other items.
Let’s move along to the whole Peking ducks… I purchased these ducks in Chinatown on Monday. 3 whole frozen Long Island ducks (which is pretty good, I’d expect the ducks to come from Guangdong province or something). So they were frozen solid when I got them, but I left them out, keeping a close eye on their temperature, throughout my day at work. By the time I got to class they were barely frozen, but still very cold.
What we did was first prepare a brine of 5 gallons of water, 3 lbs of salt (it was damn salty), 2 lbs of brown sugar, and a bunch of star anise and sticks of cinnamon. We brought that to a boil, cooled it down, and then poured it over the three ducks. I believe we are letting it sit in the brine for a few days, so the flavor penetrates the whole thing. Then on Thursday, we’re going to take them out, dry them up and hang dry them in the fridge until Saturday. Come Saturday, we’re going to baste and roast them for an hour or so until they are ready. I really think its going to be amazing!
Did I mention I pressed dumplings together for over 2 hours yesterday? Great fun!
The last thing I’d like to mention is that I am an avid fan of Chinatown pork buns, and I really wanted to tackle this challenge. We found a recipe for the dough, and we decided to use the duck confit legs for the filling (genius idea). We prepared a test run for the dough. It takes some time to rest and rise and so forth, but we didn’t pay attention to the part that said “Let sit overnight in the fridge.” That would explain why the dough tasted dense and yeasty. I took it upon myself to hold an experiment. I took the leftover dough home and cooked some that night and then prepared a few buns, put them in the fridge, and cooked them the next morning. Sure enough, the lightest and least yeasty buns were the ones I made in the morning. I think that means that I will be coming in Friday evening and preparing 60 or so buns for Saturday. It is what it is, and it will be great.
Sacrifices.
So let’s start with the basics. Level 4 started, and 1/3 of us (3 of us) are in the buffet group. The other 2/3 are split up evenly into “production” and “family meal”. Family meal is exactly what it sounds like. They make the food that all the staff and students eat for dinner. Production prepares all the beef, fish, stocks, etc. that the restaurant and classes need. It’s amazing to see what gets done in 5 hours.
Buffet, on the other hand, is in a world of its own. It’s the first time that we get to explore our creativity and abilities as aspiring chefs. We can choose any theme, or not even a theme if we don’t want one, but we choose the buffet menu. We came up with a tour de Asia theme. It wasn’t my first choice, but I’ll be the first person to delve into the unknown and leave my comfort zone to try something new. And, quite frankly, I may know a little more about some Chinese things than the people in my group, but collectively, for not being Asian, we have a wealth of knowledge in this or that.
Our menu (starting with the smaller items):
Filet mignon skewers
Chicken breast skewers
Vegetarian Vietnamese spring rolls
Pork (garlic and ginger) fried dumplings/wontons
Duck confit buns
Kimchee
Seared, rare fillet mignon slices with julienned cucumbers
Spicy Thai wings
Yellow fin tuna Tartar
A SLEW of dipping sauces for all of these things (ranging from spicy, salty, sweet and spicy, etc.)
Fried rice (kind of a cop out, but it’s our starch)
Duck breast sous vide
3 whole Peking ducks
A whole, stuffed suckling pig
3 various sorbets
I’d like to discuss the pig first. What we originally wanted was a traditional roasted sucking pig, similar to what you may see at a Chinese New Years feast. Nothing too fancy, just a whole roasted suckling pig… Somehow, the production Chef came in and said she had an idea for a suckling pig. And we were like, wow, we wanted to do a suckling pig. And we decided to let her roll with it. Her idea is truly brilliant, however far fetched it may be. First, you de-bone the body. Then she has this grand idea of mixing a very colorful pigment (they chose red beets and chlorophyll from a leafy green) with chopped pork and wrapping it in sheets of fat back, arranging them in a flower shape (picture the NBC logo, with two colors and making a complete circle) and stuffing it back into the pig, so when you slice it, you get skin, meat and the flower arrangement inside. It’s really a grand idea. What’s even grander is the method of preparing it. They want to cook it submerged in a circulation cooker overnight, in DUCK FAT, until its just cooked, then finish it in an oven to crisp the skin. Now, quite frankly, that sounds amazing. But I am curious as to how realistic it is. And will a pig submerged in duck fat get crispy and crackling like I imagine? We will find out. But it’s cool that they are doing it, and helping us out, and are as excited as we are about our buffet.
Next issue. I spent about 2 and a half hours pressing wontons together last night. That was great fun.
Moving right along, we have this wonderful plan for duck confit buns. The first day we had a case of ducks waiting for us to butcher. We also had a slew of vegetables to julienne for the spring rolls. Steve very nicely butchered the ducks, and saved the fat for the confit. We actually got a lot of fat from a case of ducks. It was pretty awesome. Chef then cured them in a delicious Indian spice mixture with salt. The next class we cooked them low and slow. The legs came out amazing.
Back to the first class. Within the first 30 minutes of level 4, we were on our way preparing for our buffet. We had to slice a number of veggies for the spring roll, starting with red pepper. One pepper in… SLICE. Carlos’s finger slips and he takes a cross section of his nail clean off!! I helped him clean up the wound (blood didn’t get all over), and we got a band-aid on and a protective finger rubber. Less than 5 minutes late, the rubber was SWELLING with blood. It was crazy!! Eventually it stopped bleeding, but still. Not a good way to start level 4.
Anyhow, by days 1 and 2, we finished a number of items, including the spring rolls, dumplings, prepared a basic kimchee, a bunch of dipping sauces. Prepared the bases for the sorbets, skewered the meats, prepared the duck for the duck confit buns, and a few other items.
Let’s move along to the whole Peking ducks… I purchased these ducks in Chinatown on Monday. 3 whole frozen Long Island ducks (which is pretty good, I’d expect the ducks to come from Guangdong province or something). So they were frozen solid when I got them, but I left them out, keeping a close eye on their temperature, throughout my day at work. By the time I got to class they were barely frozen, but still very cold.
What we did was first prepare a brine of 5 gallons of water, 3 lbs of salt (it was damn salty), 2 lbs of brown sugar, and a bunch of star anise and sticks of cinnamon. We brought that to a boil, cooled it down, and then poured it over the three ducks. I believe we are letting it sit in the brine for a few days, so the flavor penetrates the whole thing. Then on Thursday, we’re going to take them out, dry them up and hang dry them in the fridge until Saturday. Come Saturday, we’re going to baste and roast them for an hour or so until they are ready. I really think its going to be amazing!
Did I mention I pressed dumplings together for over 2 hours yesterday? Great fun!
The last thing I’d like to mention is that I am an avid fan of Chinatown pork buns, and I really wanted to tackle this challenge. We found a recipe for the dough, and we decided to use the duck confit legs for the filling (genius idea). We prepared a test run for the dough. It takes some time to rest and rise and so forth, but we didn’t pay attention to the part that said “Let sit overnight in the fridge.” That would explain why the dough tasted dense and yeasty. I took it upon myself to hold an experiment. I took the leftover dough home and cooked some that night and then prepared a few buns, put them in the fridge, and cooked them the next morning. Sure enough, the lightest and least yeasty buns were the ones I made in the morning. I think that means that I will be coming in Friday evening and preparing 60 or so buns for Saturday. It is what it is, and it will be great.
Sacrifices.
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