Poultry (Chicken Bondage)

I haven't eaten much chicken in recent years. It kind of tastes boring and neutral, and more often than not is overcooked. While a lot of people's default meat-choice is chicken, I'll always go for either pork or an interesting vegetarian option. However, in the classroom of culinary school, you don't choose from a menu. Today was our introduction to poultry.

In the lecture, Chef M said that inspection of all poultry by the USDA before and after butchering is "mandatory," but because the millions of birds dispatched by only a handful of very large corporations, chances of the chicken on your plate having actually been inspected by a government representative is slim to none. Unlike grading for beef, chicken-grading is not only voluntary, but based solely on appearance (bruising, tears), not on quality or safety.

We reviewed chicken types, from tiny baby Poussins (known in the U.S. as 'Cornish Game Hens' -- I guess 'baby chicken' would be T.M.I. for some folk) to big old Hens, whose egg-laying careers are behind them, leaving their tough meat best suited for stew and pet food.

Turkeys and ducks crossed our radar. Most duck served is the Long Island (Peking) duck, but for foie gras, this one is bred with a Muscovy duck to make a Moulard duck (French for 'mule'). The Moulard is sterile, and when fed by a tube until it has gout, produces a huge fatty liver and a huge thick fatty breast and leg. Geese are actually the preferred animal in France to make foie gras, but are a protected species in the U.S.

The knives came out, some time was spent chopping and dicing vegetables and potatoes, and then every one was given a chicken. Cold, pale, headless, plucked. Unlike yesterday's lobster in which the butchering and gutting was done in-house, Federal and NYC sanitation codes prevented us from doing the same to the chiken. I almost wished we could so I could feel more connected with this thing that we were going to eat in a few hours. That is, only if we used a knife or a tool to kill the chicken -- killing a chicken with my bare hands would of been a bit much.

Our first task was to truss the chicken to make it fit for roasting (trussing the bird helps create an even density throughout for even cooking). Oddly enough, after cutting off the wings and putting it into bondage, it somehow looked more like the idea of "chicken."

After untrussing, we removed the thighs and backbone, then removed the breasts with the wing bone attached (but rib cage removed.) Using the paring knife, meat around the wing bone was stripped away for a formal 'Frenched' look. Using the heal of the chef's knife, I cut off the knobby end of the bone. Watching the bone bleed, after a relatively bloodless session, made me queasy for a split second.

Fabricate one bird, you fabricated them all. We broke down ducks, in the same style of the chickens. The ducks were larger, the bones more substantial, and the meat darker and redder. Unlike the chickens, the ducks came with all the organs and neck stuffed in the body cavity.

During clean-up, the Chef chose me to make the mashed potatoes to accompany the chicken and duck he was roasting in the convection ovens. (He had a huge pot of potato trimmings we chopped up earlier already on boil.) He set me to melt a pound of butter with a pint of heavy cream while he demonstrated the curing of duck to make Duck Confit for tomorrow. While I was digging around for a fork to see if the potatoes were tender, the cream and butter quickly boiled over and Chef ran over and turned it off. The burners we're using are a LOT hotter than the burners I'm used to at home. I felt a bit stupid, a bit studenty -- I will not turn my back on a high-flamed pot again.

The birds were seasoned simply with salt and olive oil, and the skin got a little crispy. Since it was still on the bone, the flesh was cooked but still moist. The duck was a little tougher, and a had a stronger, gamier flavor.

There was a young woman auditing the class today. A few fellow students and I chatted with her during the class, and shared the roast birds and mashed potatoes. I audited a couple of schools myself before making a choice, and when I got in there and spoke to the professors at each, they all said basically the same thing -- either school will give you a fine culinary education, it's what you put in that'll determine what you get out. At the end of class, I slipped her a note with the address of this blog and whispered, "Check this out, it's a secret here!"

ADDENDA:
Foodcandy featured CSC on their front page! Hi! Please feel free to post to comments with questions or, uh, your comments.

The food today in class was tasty, but not the healthiest. Nothing was organic, the potatoes were nutritionally void, and did I mention there were no vegetables? I balanced it a bit later with a nice falafel platter and some baby carrots, but still. I guess if I'm going to be uptight about it, I should of gone here for school.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, small bowl of good yogurt with vanilla, raw cashews and local honey, organic banana, .75 bowl, hunger 2/5

AM SNACK: 11am, small piece of french bread, hunger 4/5
Just so hungry!

LUNCH #1: 11:30am, roast chicken breast, roast duck breast, country style mashed potatoes, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

LUNCH #2: 4pm, falafel platter, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, baby carrots, small piece of raw-milk talegio, 1 piece superhippy bread with the good butter, quart of water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Could of eaten more, but just too tired. Got to bed at 9pm.