Weights and Measures/Blanching and Shocking (Dicey Dices)

The day opened with a quiz on sanitation and herb ID. Ten herbs were spread out around the room with numbers for identifying, and the multiple choice questions were no big deal. Upon review of the answers, I somehow mistook Cilantro for Chervil. Ninety-five percent ain't bad.

An ounce is an ounce is an ounce, unless you're measuring volume (the amount of space a material takes up), then it's a fluid ounce. Today's lecture defined the English Standard series of measures for weight (lbs and ozs) and volume (tsp to G), and the simple math need to convert recipes to larger or smaller amounts. Lip service was given to the metric system -- if a chef were to give you a recipe in metrics, all measures in the kitchen would be metric so there would be no need to waste time and lessen accuracy with conversion.

Chef M discussed blanching, defined as boiling in salted water until just-cooked. This reduces strong flavors or smells, sets color, makes skins easier to remove, and prepares vegetables for other cooking methods that may not otherwise cook thoroughly on their own. We proceeded to dice a large amount of potatoes; prepped haricot vertes and broccoli; blanch the vegetables and shock them in ice baths (to stop the cooking); and boil the potatoes before running them through a food mill. The vegetables were thrown into a hot pan with a little bit of water and butter, then coated (or, as the method is known, glazed). Copious amounts of cream, butter, and salt went in to the potatoes. According to Chef M, you keep adding salt until it tastes 'good' -- not necessarily salty, but right before that point.

At the end of class, potatoes were distributed for us to take home and practice on. My diced potatoes were relatively cubical, and the chef complimented me on a nice dice. One other student's dice was weirdly flat and chip-like -- how does someone mess this up? I'm going to practice on my taters tonight and try to dice them with some speed; in a real-life situation, I'm not going to have all the time in the world to achieve a nice dice so my boss can pat me on the back.

ADDENDA:
Speaking of weights & measures, I tipped the scales at 229 this morning, a pound up from last week. A few people who read this blog congratulated me on my 7lb weight loss, but I shrugged it off -- I didn't really try too hard and know it'll fluctuate with water, the weather, etc.

As I was engraving all my tools with a symbol to indicate my ownership (as every student's tools are identical), I dropped the bread knife by accident. It bounced off my leg and I barely gave it a notice. As I picked up the next blade to engrave, I noticed a not-small trickle of red down my thigh. Damn, these things are sharp!

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, organic cheerios with good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 9am, fresh french bread, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM TASTING: 11:15am, broccoli and haricot vertes with mashed potatoes, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2pm, homemade cheese ravioli with homemade tomato sauce, quart of seltzer, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5:15pm, Ben & Jerry's "Half Baked" icecream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Went to the local conventional supermarket to pick up cleaning supplies and paper for note taking. Felt sugar cravings and the need to treat myself. Took a long look at the freezer section, B&Js is not organic but has about half the number of ingredients of some other brands. This weed-themed treat is half chocolate, half vanilla, half chocolate chip cookie dough and half brownie. A bit of a mess, and all the chunks of stuff left a chalky taste in my mouth against the indistinct ice cream flavors. But I imagine it would be amaaaaazing if I was stoned, maaaaan.

DINNER: 7:15pm, baby carrots & cucumber with ranch dressing, 3 ears of fresh corn with sea salt and the good butter, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

WEEKEND REPORT:
Ate lots of healthy vegan and vegetarian food from a nice buffet at Omega with B & the HVS. Being that it was all-you-can-eat, I wasn't really watching how MUCH I ate -- good nutrition yes, low-calorie no.

On Saturday I went out on my bicycle and did a large loop around Rhinebeck and Red Hook. I passed Migoreli (sp?) Farms, which I buy a lot of produce from at the Union Square farmer's market. After a few hours I was hungry and my map said I wasn't near any towns. So I went with what was available: a gas station. I bought a bag of lightly salted 'kettle' potato chips and a 2-pack of Entemann's chocolate-coated donuts. I ate a lot of them as a kid, my parents would get them for dessert. When I grabbed these two things, I briefly looked at the nutritional info -- 400 calories, not too bad. When I sat down and started reading, I noticed both of these bags were TWO servings - 800 calories and about 50% of my daily sodium. On top of that, the donuts tasted kinda of....plastic, a coating of wax all over my mouth. It had more than 2x the salt as the chips, but you wouldn't know it by taste. Fractionated palm oil is not a delicacy.