Grains and Rice (Sausage is a grain!)

Today's brief lecture was about rice, but Chef C's forte is not lecture, so no need to bitch about it here. Suffice to say, rice is the #1 staple crop that keeps mankind alive, and if we were studying how man eats and cooks and not from a very French angle, there would be a lot less meat and diary in our kitchen and a whole lot more rice.

Again, we divvied up the recipes. Speedy and Chef Jr took on the Farro & Sausage, 2nd Language Girl took on the Quinoa Salad, Round Head took on the Wheatberry Salad, and I assisted the last two by making the vinaigrettes for both then whipping up a dead simple rice pilaf. RH was unfocused and confused, not quite listening to me and attempting to duplicate others' agendas; I had to kind of snap at him a little, catch his eye, and repeat several things about his recipe, like, "RH, the wheatberries need to soak for an hour. Now." There is no point in doing mise THEN soaking for an hour -- of course something that needs to sit still for an hour can be set up first, but he just wasn't prepared with his recipes.

Pilaf is ridiculously simple. Sweat onion and garlic in fat in a sauce pan. Through in long grain rice to coat. Add a sachet (cheese cloth baggy) of aromatics and chicken stock, season, cover and simmer till dry. Despite scorching a little on the bottom and wasting some rice, it tasted light, bold and a much bigger cleaner taste than any pilaf mix my momma used to make me. Through on some chopped cilantro for a counter point, flavor-wise and visual. Yet another dish I would of taken huge pleasure in making for my mom.

I assisted CJ and Sp in the farro dish. Farro is a weird grain From Wikipedia:

Emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccon), also known as farro especially in Italy, is a low yielding, awned wheat. It was one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. It was widely cultivated in the ancient world, but is now a relict crop in mountainous regions of Europe and Asia.

Kinda looked like puffed wheat when cooked, but firmer. I slit open a bunch of Italian sausages and mashed the loose meat up to brown and caramelize. The final dish, chicken-stock based, had red beans that went nicely with the sausage chunks and matched nicely with the chunky firmness of the grain.

Last part of class was risotto. According to Chef C, risotto is one of the benchmarks of how well you can judge a cook -- if a cook can't do good risotto, cook ain't no good. Risotto is labor intensive and calls for judgement and feel. In a restaurant, a simple risotto will be made 90% of the way, then cooled on large sheet pans. When ordered, a serving is plopped into a pan with hot stock, then finished with whatever flavoring and garnishes the final recipe calls for.

Risotto starts similar to pilaf, but used short grain rice, which has a higher starch load. Sweat the onion (cut smaller than rice grains) in fat, coat the rice. Then you add white wine and reduce to dry. Add small amount of stock while stirring constantly, until it is 2/3 dry, then add another small amount of stock. For 1 cup of rice, we used four cups of stock, took me about 20 minutes to incorporate. Once as the right tenderness, finish -- I used grated parmesan, marscapone cheese, parsley and salt. It tasted quite rocking, and Chef C agreed.

I chatted a bit about risotto with Chef C, about how he does it at home, what pan he uses, etc. He said for the most rocking risotto (and he's made it at restaurants all over NYC, from Blue Hill to Per Se!) the best flavoring method is to add a purée at the stage where all the stock is incorporated, then garnish. I just made asparagus risotto the other day, adapted from a Batali recipe for squash risotto, but there was no call for a purée. If I had puréed the blanched asparagus then mixed it in, abd then garnished with small little slices and finished with the deep-fried tips, MAN, it would of been SO much better. Chef C said eh, Batali is not so much a chef as much as a star. I had to agree, as I suspect Chef C just greatly improved on Batali's cook book recipe.

Tomorrow there is no school, as our classroom is being used by an afternoon class who is taking the whole day to prepare for their graduation dinner, a grand buffet. On Monday starts a few day of method review, where we will be mixing up grilling, braising, roasting, frying and poaching.

ADDENDA

Came back to school after hanging out with friends in Brooklyn for a 3 hour knife-skills seminar with a cute little old wizened chef instructor who I kind of wanted to put in my pocket and take home. Like many chefs, he started out trying to be all hard-ass and shouty, but once we got into it, he clearly loved teaching about how to handle a knife and more specifically, loved teaching. It was a pleasure to be in his presence for 3 hours and probably got the most out of this seminar than any other yet. Unfortunately, I think he ruined me for my fancy home knife set. I have a very pricey set of Globals that may have to go on E-bay (or be regifted!) when I get the set of categories he introduced me to.

AM SNACK: 5:15am, small handful of dark chocolate pistoles, hunger 2/5

Starting to adjust sleep schedule to wake up at 3am on Saturday. Really felt the need for a kick when I woke up.

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

AM TASTINGS: 10:30-11am, bowl of simple rice pilaf, small bowl of marscapone risotto, bite of farro & sausage, bite of wheatberry salad and quinoa salad, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

The rice pilaf was simple but between the sachet of aromatics and the chicken stock, was fabulously clean and simple and tasty.

PM SNACKS: 2:30-4pm, small bowl of farro & sausage, 5 whole wheat crackers with hummus and olives, black and white cookie, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

Over at Corinna's house and a few of her friends, I brought over all my school products. We really enjoyed the farro & sausage, but how can you go wrong with lots of good stock and fresh Italian snausage?!

PM SNACK: 8pm, cheese and bread, peanuts, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
At the knife workshop

DINNER: 9:30pm, 1 slice streetza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
I knew I'd be in danger of binging if I didn't eat anything. Stopped by the place on the corner of A and St. Marks, remembered the last time I ate pizza there was the night my mother died. A bit of a flashback. What I wrote a few years ago:

When she died I had to take her wheelchair home, so I left my bicycle locked up in front of the hospital. After midnight, with B sleeping, I got up and wandered out of the house in sweatpants, slippers, a sweater and keys - probably the first time I've neglected wallet and cellphone. I walked down Grand Street, abandoned and quiet. In an empty lot, a little stray kitten poked it's head out. I stopped, kneeled, and said to it, "If you come out and need me, I will name you Edna and take you home with me." It scurried away, and I scurried away, too. Walking up Avenue A, people were exiting bars, loudly enjoying their drink and each other.

Across from Tompkins Square, between 7th and 8th streets, a couch put out for the trash was on fire, belching oily smoke. I popped in to the pizza shop on the corner of St. Marks, then crossed to the park to watch the impromptu bonfire with my slice. A minute later, a city-services car pulls up, a man gets out and pops open the trunk. He takes out a small fire-extinguisher, and in seconds the fire disappears in a 'pffffft!' of puffy white mist. I kept walking. Close to 12th street, fire engines tear down A sirens-blazing. On 14th, it's abandoned again, until I get close to the hospital. Hospital staff coming and going, eating in the 24-hour restaurants. My bike is there. I consider riding around for a while, but the sweat pants and slippers aren't conducive, and the hot pizza starts to recede against the cold.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, 3 spoonfuls of peanut butter, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5