Sauté and Pan Sauce (Bad Meat Meets Good Sauce)

Today marked the second module of our 6-module education, again with Chef M. He started by giving a stern warning about how he'll be increasing his monitoring of sanitation and safety, as our kitchen is about to become increasingly hectic. I was reminded of the stern warning my elementary school teacher gave on the first day of the 5th grade, while we were lined up in the hallway, about to enter our new classroom for the first time -- we had it easy in 4th grade, we were told; but now we're really going to have to work hard...and make superior macaroni-art photo frames. Or something.

Sauté is defined as a high-heat, dry-cooking method using a small amount of fat to cook a tender cut of meat. Pretty much all sea food other than cephalapods fall into this category. This preparation is done in a heavy-bottom pan on the stove top (unless the meat is thick, in which the meat and pan can be placed in an oven to finish.) While sautéed dishes are popular on the restaurant menu, they can be a bit of a nightmare in the kitchen. Sautéed food is lightening quick, involves the more expensive cuts, and makes it easy to to ruin many dollars fast. A line cook's sauté station must be organized and everything close on-hand in order to reach the proper state of doneness (rare, medium rare, medium, medium well, well-done.)

The proper pan for sauté is either a sauteuse (a sauté pan with rounded sides) or a sautoir (straight sides.) Chef says the sautoir is more for pan-frying; the straight sides have less surface area and collect moisture that drips back into the food (the purpose of sauté being the elimination of moisture.) Correct size is key: the pan should be filled, but items should not touch one other. Too much space will cause the fond (the yummy caramelized bits on the bottom of the pan) to burn.

There is no hard and fast definition of "high heat". It depends on the thickness of the meat, the type of fat used and its smoke point, the coating of the meat, the personality of the stove, etc. etc -- in other words, something that is learned only by feel and experience.

For class purposes, all red-meat is to be cooked medium rare, all poultry to be cooked well-done, and all pork to be cooked medium to medium well.

The purpose of a pan sauce is to recapture all the flavor that would otherwise be lost to the pan and add moisture back to the finished dish.

Then, we broke into teams. RH, SH, and I prepared our mise -- shallots finely diced, pans of chicken (huge and full of hormones), and steaks (chuck steaks, tough and cheap, good for practice); red and white wine in squeeze bottles; one pan of salt and another with butter; clarified butter, chicken stock. and veal stock kept on the stove hot.

The metal table was pulled close to the oven, so we could cook and only turn around half way to reach our mise. We started with chicken. First, heat the pan to make sure it's dry. Add enough clarified butter to cover the bottom, make sure it's hot and wavy. Salt the meat, then place in pan, south to north to allow the splatter to head towards the back splash. Do not move meat, allow to form fond. When the cooked color crawls up over the sides of the meat, time to turn over. Both sides should cook the for approximately same time, with no line of pink on the side. If there is, it needs to be finished in the oven.

Take meat out and place onto a rack to rest -- if it's not on a rack, it'll sit in its own juices and get mushy. Add a few spoonfuls of shallots in the pan and soften. If there is not enough fat in the pan from the chicken, add clarified butter. Soften, then deglaze with a few squirts of white wine. Reduce by half, then add a few ladles of chicken stock, and reduce to nappé (thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon). Season to taste with salt, then plate. Straining the sauce will give a more formal appearance; save the sauce for possibility of burning a few bits of fond. Never sauce over the meat, always around and/or below it.

The steak is a similar method, except red wine and veal stock are used, the meat has a lot more fat in it, and cooks a lot quicker. These simple pan sauces were surprisingly delicious, which drives the point home of how important good stock is to this cooking. Someday, I may have to ask a butcher if he'll sell me a bag of bones, and then I can practice making my own stock, followed by ice baths and rearranging the freezer. The cuts of meat we used were crap, but if I were to get a top-shelf cut, making this at home, then wowing the pants off of anyone (well, my wife) would be pretty cut and dried.

After the break, more sauté and more involved pan sauces....

ADDENDA:
I participated in a City Harvest Volunteer Training session in midtown this evening. The specific program, called Operation Frontline, sets up series of classes in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods at schools, community centers, and the like. Run by three volunteers each -- a class manager, a nutritionist, and a chef -- the session gave us a basic appreciation of the hows and whys of healthy food are taught to kids, teens, underage moms, parents, and adults. Of the 15 people in the session, a solid half had nutritional educations or careers, one was an actual chef in the NYC school system, and 4 others had culinary degrees AND nutritional backgrounds. A little bell in my brain rang -- hmmmm, nutritional education. I should quiz Ilsa on her educational experience.

Speaking of my nutritionist Ilsa, today I began my 24 hour master cleanse -- no food for 24 hours except for a cup of laxative tea (a concoction of 14 oz water, 2tbsp fresh lemon juice, 2tbsp maple syrup, and a pinch of cayenne) before bedtime. My cynical side thinks this is a bunch of hooey, but my curious side wants to see if there is anything to it. I guess that curious side is going to land me in a cult some day!

If any readers out there have any experiences with this method, please chime in!

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, small bowl of granola with good milk, banana, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

TASTING: 10:45, sautéed chuck steak in pan sauce, 1/4 of a chicken breast in pan sauce, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Chuck is shoulder, not a tender cut of meat. The sauce helped make it delicious, but after that and the few bites of the (definitely not organic) chicken breast, felt a little queasy.

LINNER: 4:30pm, seiten, millet, hijiki and tahini sauce, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Lunch at the studio cafe with the HVS after a yoga session. Needed some balance after the morning meat festival

EVENING TEA: 12am, cup of 'smooth move' hot herbal tea
Tasted too much like licorice.