Master chefs

                 Our program had the amazing opportunity to have a few lectures from master chefs on Team USA! They had a few workshops on cheeses and legumes.

We tasted favo beans, mozzarella and ricotta prepared by a chef from the USA Olympics Team.  The favo beans were a bit crunchy and had shredded cheese and sea salt for flavor. It was a yummy snack that reminded me of chips. The mozzarella was really thick and moist and came together really smooth and soft. It was mesmerizing to watch the chef wrap the cheese into one consistent massive ball.

                The ricotta was an interesting sour flavor, but better tasting and had a superior soft texture as well to something you’d buy at the store.

                 In the lectures, I found the advice interesting about food trucks as a great future and easily attainable in the food industry. I also really liked when one of the chefs told us to find our “niche” our specialty in food service. And that can only come from learning all that you can, especially in the fundamentals.

Moist heat

               After yesterday, today I was introduced to moist heat methods of cookery. this included poaching, steaming and boiling, as well as a braising chicken and vegetables. 

With the Court Bouillon, we started the poaching process. I added several cut vegetables like celery, carrots and onions to a few cups of water and wine and threw in herbs to my liking (sage and thyme). I then put in the raw chicken thigh and let it slowly cook on the burner. I also added peppercorns and caraway seeds before letting it cook. I got distracted with my stew at one point, so I think I let it get too hot and it began to simmer. This is probably why my poached chicken was slightly overdone. Once it simmered, I placed a parchment paper over it and let it cook for about another 10 minutes before removing the poached chicken from the broth and straining the broth of all the vegetables and herbs.

                We made a buerre blanc sauce with star anise, I began with some melted butter and flour in the bottom of my pan and let warm. Then I added about two cups of heavy whipping cream and let it heat up until it began to simmer. I whisked the flour roux clumps into the heated cream and then added some stock to the sauce. Afterwards I combined the broth from the poached chicken into the cream mixture and whisked that until it was bubbling occasionally. I kept the heat on low and added salt and pepper to my own taste.

                The chicken stew was my favorite to make today. Chef John let us do whatever we wanted with the mixture and add whatever seasonings and ingredients. I let a pot get hot with oil and then sauted 4 cubed chicken thighs to about the point where it was half cooked through before removing t from the pot. Next I added more oil to the bottom of the pot and sauted a cup of onions and then began adding carrots, celery, shallots, and potatoes. I also used a fair amount of salt, pepper and Tuscan rosemary seasoning to it. Once it was all mixed in I coated it with about a ½ cup of flour and let it get sticky like chef showed us. When there wasn’t much liquid left in the pot, I added some white wine and then added about three cups of chicken stock to the stew. I let it cook for a while to where the potatoes were almost soft and put the chicken back in the stew. I let it cool to thicken a little bit more and I think this is why the bottom of my pot had some brown stuck to it.

                The Rice Pilaf was about the same beginning process as the formers. I sauted some onions and garlic in a small saucepan and let cook until translucent. Then I added the rice. The recipe said to only cook for about 30 seconds before adding chicken stock to the pan. Once it started to simmer, I took it off the heat and covered the top with some aluminum foil before placing it in the oven to cook the rest of the way.

                The steamed chicken was an interesting process. We used a buttered parchment paper cut to be an en papillote and l placed a chicken thigh with carrots, celery, thyme and a few cubes of butter before wrapping it and placing the butter knives as a weight so that the chicken could steam properly in the oven.

                I also braised carrots today and successfully cooked them, so they were not undercooked like last time with the parsnips. I sauted them first before adding a bit of stock and then brown sugar and let braise for a few minutes. After tasting them, I was pleased with the texture and how it was not overcooked either.

Dry heat

In addition to our classroom times, I learned even more about dry heat methods of cooking in the kitchen. Today we practiced pan-fry, deep-fry, broiling and grilling chicken. We also practiced combination heat methods in making a basic risotto

With Risotto, first you must sauté onions in a hot pan with oil and let cook until the onions are clear. Then add the rice and quickly sauté. Before it browns, one must add 1 cup of chicken stock and let the rice absorb it, and then add another 2 cups once the rice has absorbed it each time. This is a sort of braising method, first sautéing and then adding liquid for it to cook the rest of the way in.

                I also pan-fried chicken tenders. To pan fry, I had to add quite a bit of oil to a pan and let the breaded chicken fry before flipping for a nice brown color. Another dry heat method we executed today was deep frying breaded chicken. It is very similar to pan frying in that the chicken legs were breaded and then placed in hot oil to cook, except for deep frying there is more oil and it does not need to be flipped.

                 Grilling the chicken thighs was a bit easier than broiling since I did not need to stand over and watch it, and it was much more accessible. I made sure there was a good cross of char on the skin and did not overcook it. Grilling the chicken mainly was making sure the poultry did not overcook and burn, but also not taking it off too soon. Chef had a cooler side of the grill which I’d never though of before and is a really good idea to not completely burn the skin off the chicken. I also broiled chicken for the first time. I think in the future, basting the piece would be beneficial to making sure the chicken would not overcook.

                In addition to practicing dry heat methods I also had time to work on knife skills. I still have not got down the tourne completely, but I think next time I will be able to get them thinner. I also need to work on keeping the battonets thicker and my paysannes as well.  I learned that I need to keep better track of time to accomplish everything I need to do. I was taking too long with my knife skills and ended up rushing to cook all my chicken. I didn’t have any time to even start making the risotto. So I definitely need to prioritize my time and multitask while I am performing knife skills. 

Here are the results of my different dry heat methods on chicken and tourned potatoes

              

Heat methods

Today we discussed how different methods on how to cook foods. We tried out a dry heat and a combination method in chicken and parsnips. I had to first sauté the parsnip obliques and then added chicken stock and brown sugar together to cook the parsnips the rest of the time as a braising method. 

                I had prepared several vegetables to stuff my roasted chicken with. I stuffed the chicken hole with apples, onions, celery, lime, parsnips, rosemary, sage and minced garlic and made sure to sprinkle salt and pepper. Then I tied the butchers string around my raw stuffed chicken and trussed it tightly and correctly before placing it in the oven. I had to return it to the oven twice to warm to the proper temperature so that it would not be raw.

                I practiced my knife skills and cut tourne style with my potatoes. With clarified butter, I sautéed the potatoes to give it some brown color before placing them in the oven to be roasted for around 10 minutes. Today was a very busy day and I learned a lot of the standard procedures of basic cookery.

Here are my improving knife skills and my finished trussed chicken

I had the chicken with the breast down to the rack to allow the whole chicken to cook thoroughly and not be overcooked.

Elderquest #1

Today we boiled potatoes and used that product to create mashed potatoes with a food mill. We added butter and milk into the mashed potatoes to add a smooth texture and better flavor. We also made fried chicken with flour, egg yolk wash, and then bread crumbs lastly to create a crust on the raw chicken. The breaded chicken went into oil at 350 degrees Fahrenheit to be deep fried to a golden-brown color before being taken out and salted. The chicken then was arranged so thighs and legs were pan fried together and breasts were separated since they cook faster than the former. The chicken was kept in the oven for around 15 to 20 minutes before being served. Lastly, we sautéed brussel sprouts until they had a nice brown crust and were softer.

              My team and I learned how to work really well together in an assembly line as we each had our own role in breading the chicken. This helped when we plated the prepared food for the members of Elderquest and had to form an assembly line to position each part of the plate. I had the position on the table to plate the fried chicken and with only being a week in, I'm proud to say our first catering event was a success!

First day!

This is my eportfolio for my CA1120 class. Today was the very first day cooking in the kitchen, which I was very excited for yesterday. Some of the things we learned about was stock making, specifically vegetable stock. First we had to cut vegetables for the stock. We worked on dicing vegetables in small, medium and large dice with carrots, potatoes and onions. The scraps went into containers for later use. The onions and the leftover carrots were put into the stockpot with a sachet and few gallons of water to create a vegetable stock.

                Lastly we combined a pot of boiling vegetable stock with the cubed carrots and a sachet and let the carrots soften before putting the soup through the blender to puree. We placed the soup in containers to cool and use tomorrow.

                The critical point in the carrot soup was softening the carrots in the stock and then pureeing afterwards. If you didn’t not puree the soup it would be oddly chunky and without a whole lot of flavor. The consistency would be lacking and not have a creamy and smooth texture.

Today was the first day in the kitchen, so we practiced a few knife cuts. Here are some of my first cuts.