Student's Choice/End of Semester

To close out the semester, the students suggested what they wanted to make. One said pork dumplings, another said fried calamari, the third suggested brownies, to which I steered to the next step up in elegance: flourless chocolate cake. One three students suggesting 2 appetizers and a dessert does not a meal make, so I rounded it out with a dish I wish I had hit up on grains day: risotto.

First up was making the cake. Flourless chocolate cake was trendy a few years ago, but now that everyone has taken a crack at it, people have recognized it for what it is: an extra dense brownie that doesn't have much chew.

FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE CAKE

Yield: 16 small serving

Semisweet chocolate 4 oz
Butter ½ cup
White sugar ¾ cup
Cocoa powder ½ cup
Eggs, beaten 3 each
Vanilla bean, scrapings 1 each

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease an 8” round springform pan, dust with cocoa powder.
2. Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler. Remove from heat, stir in sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla.
3. Stir in eggs. Pour into prepared pan.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes, turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

This is a VERY chocolaty and rich dessert, requiring something to compliment and mute it's strength. Vanilla ice cream (which I made at home and brought in -- not enough time and not enough equipment to make it at school) is a nice, straightforward companion, but a fruit sauce is also pretty classic.

RASPBERRY SAUCE

Yield: 2 cups

Raspberries 1 pint
White sugar ¼ cup
Orange juice 2 tbsp
Cornstarch 2 tbsp
Cold water 1 cup

1. Combine raspberries, sugar and orange juice in a saucepan. In a separate bowl, whisk cornstarch into cold water until smooth. Combine cornstarch mixture into the sauce pan, BTB RTS
2. Simmer for 5 minutes or so until the desired consistency, constantly stirring. Note: sauce will thicken further as it cools.
3. Puree in blender. Pour through fine metal sieve. Serve warm or chilled.


Fried calamari is as simple as simple can be. I didn't really do any deep frying in class because it doesn't take much skill or talent to do it -- monkeys run the deep fryers at fast food restaurants. But if we were going to do it, I'm glad it was squid -- I got a student to take whole squid and take them apart. And unlike somethings, calamari only needs a minute in the fryer. Our first few batches came out perfect, but the last was a flop -- the temp of the oil dropped, and instead of coming out light and crisp, the last calamari came out heavy, greasy, overcooked and nasty. Mistakes are a learning opportunity.

FRIED CALAMARI

Yield: 16 small appetizer portions

Peanut oil 1 gallon
Squid, tubes & tentacles 2 lbs
AP flour 1 cup
Plain cornmeal 1 cup
Salt to taste
Ground black pepper to taste

1. Place oil in appropriate vessel. Bring to 375˚, measuring with fry thermometer.
2. Combine flour and cornmeal in a mixing bowl.
3. When ready to fry, in small handfuls, dredge the squid in the flour and cornmeal mixture and shake off the excess. In batches, gently lower the squid into the hot oil. Cook for 1 minute. The squid will not be browned, but lightly golden in color. Remove the squid and transfer to a cooling rack turned upside down set over a newspaper-lined sheet pan. Season with salt and pepper, as desired. Repeat until all of the squid is cooked. Make sure to check the temperature of the oil before each batch to ensure it is 375 degrees F. Serve immediately.

Dumplings at their core are meatballs wrapped in dough. In this case, a Chinese-style pork dumpling involves pureeing the pork to make a mouse, spiked with a variety of Asian flavors like ginger, scallion, garlic, sesame, soy sauce and rice wine. We didn't have time to make the dough, but the premade goza wrappers were pretty good.

The dipping sauce was made on the fly, mixing ingredients from the recipe (soy sauce, sesame oil) and spiking it with a bit of vinegar.

PORK SHAO MAI

Yield: 60 dumplings

Pork, ground 2 lbs
Gingerroot, minced 3 tbsp
Scallions, mostly green, minced 4 each
Rice wine 1 tbsp + 1 tsp
Soy sauce 1 tbsp + 1 tsp
Sesame oil 1 tbsp + 1 tsp
Egg white 4 each
Cornstarch 3 tbsp
Fresh water chestnuts, fine dice 2 oz
Thin round dumpling skins 60 each

1. Hand mix pork, ginger, scallion, rice wine, soy sauce, sesame oil, egg white and cornstarch. In batches, place mix in a food processor. Pulse to mix further, then puree.
2. Once the entire batch in pureed, fold in the water chestnuts. Chill until ready to use.
3. Place approximately 2 tsp of the filling in the center of a wrapper. Bring sides up and push/pleat sides together so that the dumpling has an “Empire waist” and some of the filling pushes out the top. Place the shao mai on a cookie sheet and cover with a damp cotton towel until you are ready to steam them.
4. Place enough water into a wok or pan so that it comes up to inch below the steamer basket. BTB. Open the steamer and arrange the dumplings in the steamer basket with space between them. Steam until meat is cooked through, about 5 to 8 minutes. Serve immediately with dipping sauce.

Risotto is a very interactive method. Once you have sauteed the aromatics and the rice andcooked off the wine, it's all about stirring while adding small portions of the liquid, to bring out the starch in the rice to make that thick sauce between the grains. Finished with lots of fatty things, it doesn't take a lot of add ons (in this case asparagus) to make a loud flavor.

CHICKEN ASPARAGUS RISOTTO

Yield: 14 servings

XV OO ½ cup
Onion, medium, dice 2 each
Garlic, minced 1 tbsp
Asparagus, peeled, diced 2 bunch
Asparagus spear tips 2 bunch
Rice, Arborio 3 cups
White wine 1 cup
Chicken stock, hot 16 cups
Butter, cold 8 tbsp
Parmegano-Regiano, grated 1 cup
Mascarpone 17.5 oz
Parsley, minced 3 tbsp
Chicken breasts, large dice 6 each

1. Sautee cubed chicken until medium rare. Set aside. Deep fry asparagus spear tips for 1 minute in 375˚ oil, set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large rondeau, add onion and asparagus, sweat until translucent. Add rice and cook until toasted and opaque, 3-4 minutes.
3. Add wine and cook until alcohol smell dissipates.
4. Add 1-2 ladles of stock at a time until absorbed, constantly stirring. Keep adding ladle by ladle, absorbing fully each time, until all is gone.
5. Remove from heat. Add butter, cheeses and parsley. Stir 30 seconds. Season. Add cooked chicken. Garnish with more grated cheese, parsley and fried asparagus spears.

And that was that. My wife and child came to the school, a few extra staff joined us, and rather than do family-style, I did some plating with the students, using garnishes to decorate appropriate sized portions.

After eating and clean up, I thanked the students, and told them that they were better than the other 7 students who dropped out over the semeseter -- in their professional lives, just being consistent and showing up will be a large part of what proves them to be successful, more than the flakes and the fakers.

There was some talk of starting a new semester in March, perhaps twice a week -- we could get through a lot more recipes and methods, and drill much deeper into theory and directed experimentation. So until then, have a happy new year!

I wanna pizza all day, and pizza each and every night

I don't know if learning the ephemera and details of making proper pizza will help these kids figure out how to deal with the world at large, but it may help them appreciate good pizza just a little bit more.

I brought two pizza stones from home and immediately started preheating them in the convection oven full blast -- 550˚. Yeast, flour, honey,everything was laid out as orderly as possible to make dough by hand...

PIZZA DOUGH

Yield: 4 7-8 inch rounds

Warm water 2 ½ cup
Active dry yeast 2 1/2 tsp
Honey ½ tsp
Olive oil 1 ½ tbsp
AP flour 5 ½ to 6 cups
Kosher salt 2 tbsp

1. Make sure water is warm to the touch – not luke warm and not painful to the touch. Sprinkle yeast in water and let the yeast soften for a few minutes. Stir the yeast to dissolve it completely. Add the honey and the olive oil. Mix to combine.
2. Add flour one cup at a time to liquid and mix with spoon, fork or hand until a sticky mass. Add salt and knead to combine.
3. Turn out onto a dry, lightly floured surface and knead until you have a smooth, elastic ball that can be kneaded easily. Place in an oiled bowl, covered with a towel, and put in a warm place and rise until doubled.
4. Deflate dough and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Cut into 4 equal portions and roll each into a ball. Let rest covered with towel for 15 minutes.
5. Stretch into a round disc about 1/8” thick.

The kids complained about how hard it was to knead the dough, I didn't have the heart to tell them that no one does this by hand -- it's all done in a mixer, either at home in a small kitchen aide or in a Hobart floor-model in a restaurant. Still, it was good to work it to a smooth state.

The dough had to rise, so during that time we mised all the toppings -- sliced and grated cheeses, made some simple tomato sauce (sent canned whole tomatoes through a food mill, seasoned with salt, balsamic and sugar to taste), loosed up some raw sausage, cleaned some raw shrimp, sliced pepperoni, roasted green peppers on the stove top, slowly caramelized onions in chicken fat, and arranged a toppings area that included all that plus prosciutto, red pepper flakes, salt, olive oil and ground pepper.


Stretching is not something that can be lectured about or written about, it must be shown, then repeated. There are many techniques, but there are certain commonalities. NO SLAPPING -- it knocks the CO2 right out of the dough and makes it more wafer like than pizza like. Spinning and throwing is fun and cool, but does not make for good pizza. Stretching, pushing, but not too much pulling, tearing is a no no.

I only distributed one recipe, and demoed it....

MARGARITA PIZZA

Yield: 1 8” pizza

Stretched dough disc 1 each
Tomato sauce to taste
Mozzarella cheese to taste
Parmesan, grated to taste
Oregano to taste
Olive Oil to taste
Salt to taste
Basil to taste

1. Place dough disc on peel. Pour sauce directly on the center of dough disc and spread evenly with back of spoon until there is more sauce towards the rim than the center.
2. Place cheeses on top of sauce, taking care to be light towards the center
3. Sprinkle with oregano.
4. Apply olive oil in a spiral, starting with a big loop by the cornicone and coming short of the center.
5. Sprinkle with salt.
6. Place pizza in a preheated 500˚ oven on a stone. Bake until crust is golden. Check bottom, as it may cook faster than the top. If the bottom gets dark golden first, it is done regardless of the top.
7. Apply basil, either whole, torn or chiffonade. Hit with more olive oil if it looks dry. Serve immediately.

With all the other toppings available, I let them go at it with just a few rules:

• Less is more.
• Heavy on the outside, light on the inside. Too much in the middle makes for a wet, uneatable pie
• Finish with olive oil and salt, unless you're using a fatty, salty topping like pepperoni
• It's easy to under cook a pie. It's hard to get it to the point where it looks a little burnt but not yet carbonized and bitter.

The school was hosting some representatives from some companies of some sort, so we provided several trays of miscellaneous pizza for the people, about 30 in all. The students did ok -- I had to correct a lot of stretching jobs -- mostly understretched. I let one go in and when it come out, it was a small, fat bready disc with toppings. A few undertopped their pies, leaving patches with nothing on it, not even oil or salt. But by the time each one of them got 7 or 8 under their belt, they seemed to get a feel for basic balance.

The next day, I met the kids and the counselor at the pizzeria I consult at for a tour and a snack. The kids were pretty into seeing a restaurant kitchen and talking to L, the chef/owner who is a bit of a character.

Next up, the final class of this group. I asked the kids to suggest what they want to cook, and we're gonna make a meal of it...

Meaty Meat

How does one teach about the entire world of meat in one three hour session, when an hour of it is dedicated to lecture and clean up? One can not. On top of that, half the class was absent, probably due to a combination of being burned out of the two intense days it took to get Thanksgiving lunch out to 150 mouths and the pressures of the holiday season. One thing for certain -- they didn't flake because of the menu: they all love their meat.

Meat is edible animal product, typically muscle, fat and bone. Other animal products, such as skin and offal (organs), are edible but not "meat", and then there are certain animal products, like hair, leather and waste, which are neither meat nor edible.

The USDA recommends all meat be cooked to an internal temperature of 165˚. That would guarantee all meat to be at best well-done, at worst barely edible shoe leather. Meat loses flavor, texture, and color at these temperatures. If meat is sourced from a reliable (read: not dirt cheap), known vendor, is treated correctly, and cooked correctly, illness from meat (in this country) is very overhyped.

The exception to that is ground meat: Because the outside of the meat is where all the filth is -- and where it can be cooked away at temps well above 165 without destroying the meat, is broken up and mixed in, right to the middle and the sides. But won't ground meat be inedible if cooked well above 165˚? Well, not necessarily, because we can mix stuff in to help it retain what we like about it. Take this meatball recipe, for instance....

ESTELLE’S MEATBALLS

Yield: About 85 balls

Chopped Meat 10 lbs
Italian bread, chopped, soaked 2 loaves
Onions, finely minced 4 each
Romano, grated 3 cups
Parsley, with stems, chopped 1 bunch
Breadcrumbs ½ cup
Salt 4 tablespoons
Pepper 2 tablespoons
Eggs, beaten 4 each

1. Oil two hotel pans. Preheat oven to 550˚. Press chopped, soaked bread through colander to remove as much moisture as possible.
2. Loosen chopped meat in a large bowl by hand. Mix in soaked bread, onion, Romano and parsley. Mix by hand until just combined.
3. Add breadcrumbs, if needed, if mixture is too moist.
4. Add salt, pepper and eggs until just combined.
5. Roll lightly into 3 oz. balls – DO NOT OVERROLL.
6. Bake in oven until done, 10-15 minutes.

This recipe comes from the mother of the chef for whom I worked before my baby was born. While meat becomes gray, chewy, and dry if cooked at a high temperature in an oven, the feel of the ball is retained by the mushed bread and the mushed moist onion. Cheese and eggs also serve as binders and replace some of the fat that runs out of the meat during cooking. When these came out of the oven, they were very mushy to the bite; once they came close to room temperature, they firmed up to just the right consistency.

It's important in this recipe not to overroll and not to overmix, or your balls will turn into lead pellets when they cool.

And what's a meat ball without some nice tomato sauce...

BASIC TOMATO SAUCE

Yield: 4 cups

EVOO ¼ cup
Onion, small dice 1 large onion
Garlic, minced 4 cloves
Thyme, chopped 3 tbsp
Oregano, chopped 2 tbsp
Carrot, grated 1 each
Basil, chiffonade 3 tbsp
Whole peeled tomatoes, milled 2 28oz cans
Salt to taste

1. Heat olive oil in saucepan. Soften onion, then add garlic for 1 additional minute.
2. Add thyme, oregano and carrot and cook until carrot is soft, about five minutes
3. Add tomatoes and basil. Simmer until thickened, about 30 minutes.

I adapted this recipe from Batali, a nice simple sauce. He just adds thyme, which I find a bit one-dimensional, and I mill my tomatoes while he hand-smushes them, which I find makes for a very watery/chunky sauce.

Sauteed meat is an a la minute preparation -- once it's out of the pan and rested for half the time it took to cook, it needs to be served. So we made a simple polenta before we got our steaks on...

POLENTA

Yield: 8 servings

Water 4 cups
Yellow corn meal 1 cup
Salt 1 tbsp
Parmesan, grated ½ cup
Olive oil 2 tbsp

1. Grease a 9 x 12 pan. In saucepan, bring 2 cups of water to a boil.
2. In a bowl, combine 2 cups of cool tap water with cup of corn meal.
3. Slowly whisk water/corn meal mixture into boiling water. Add salt. Continue whisking until it comes to a boil.
4. Reduce to simmer. Cook polenta, stirring occasionally 35-40 minutes, until thick, creamy and no longer gritty.
5. Stir in Parmesan until incorporated. Pour into pan. Chill 30 minutes or until firm.
6. Cut into triangles. Reheat in oiled sauté pan, brown on each side.

Unfortunately, we were rushed and didn't have time to try to cook each steak to different degrees of doneness, which is more of an eye/feel/experience thing that can only be learned by doing. Basically, if you salt correctly, if your flame is at the right hotness, a nice brown layer will form on the surface of the meat, indicating deliciousness.

SHELL STEAK WITH SIMPLE PAN SAUCE

Yield: 1 serving

Steak 1 each
Salt to taste
Shallots, minced 2 tbsp
Red wine ¼ cup
Beef stock ½ cup
Butter 1 tbsp
Salt to taste

1. Heat sauté pan, add oil, medium high heat.
2. Rub down steak on both sides with salt right before cooking. Place steak in center of pan. Cook 3-5 minutes on each side, depending on size of steak. Cook to medium rare.
3. Set steak on resting rack.
4. Add shallots to pan, soften in pan while scraping up fond.
5. Add wine. Cook until au sec.
6. Add beef stock. Cook away half of liquid, or until thick.
7. Add butter. Add salt.
8. Serve steak with pan sauce pour over top.

Next week, we spend the day dedicated to my personal hero, Pizza...

Thanksgiving for 150

We held class on Tuesday at the normal time, around 3:15. Only one student showed up on time -- after loading in 100s of lbs of food only minutes before, it sent a chill down my spine. Will all the labor of setting up a meal for 150 fall on my shoulders? Fortunately, 3 were outside smoking, and 2 more showed up late due to a conflicting class trip.

Tuesday was all about prep and cooking off what could be held. The mac n' cheese was made, but not baked. I had never held an unbaked mac n' cheese before. We saved the topping of the bread crumbs for the next day, too. Yams were scrubbed, forked and wrapped in foil, then put on the shelf. White potatoes were peeled, chopped, and put in acidulated water. Sausage was cooked off, stuffing was assembled, then refrigerated without the final baking.

The only things that were 99% cooked and ready to go were the drinks, but even that I held back. A whole case of lemons were squeezed with a rotating Kitchen Aid mixer attachment. Pots of syrup were made, one infused with mint. A gallon of strong tea was infused. I left them with out a lot of additional water, left them strong, because....they took up so much damn space! Watering them down with cold water to taste right before service made sense.

Smoked turkey necks came whole, so they had to be hacked apart. Placed in water and boiled to make a nice stock, but not enough time to cook off collards, so the whole pot was placed in the fridge along with bowls full of sliced up greens.

Before class, I took the two turkeys, stripped them of packaging, giblet bags, necks and plastic doohickies, and dropped them into large containers full of salt solution and got them in the walk-in. At the end of class, I had students remove them, pat them down and place them back in the fridge. The glaze for the hams were made and placed into large bags with the hams, then into the chilly walk in. Fresh pineapples were demoed then hacked up.

We were cleaned up by 8pm, and eating some pumpkin pie, cornbread and strong sweet tea. It flew by, everyone was busy. The potatoes were a lot of labor, but everything went smoothly.

I was back in the kitchen by 6:30am, cooking off yams. The first student joined me at 7am, and I had her doing fun stuff, like making additional cinnamon butter and making dessert arrangements. Some things were simple -- get the stuffings and mac n' cheeses in the oven, out, cover in foil, hold in a warm oven or above the ovens until service. The white potatoes were boiled off, then run through a food mill and folded into hot cream and butter and salt. The turkeys were rubbed down with butter, stuffed with chopped mire poix and fresh herbs, stabbed with an electronic thermometer, then off to the races. The hams were studded with cloves and pineapple, then placed in the oven to heat through -- being a smoked meat, it's already cooked. Cinnamon butter plated, drinks watered down to taste then bottled. Collards boiled in the turkey neck stock, spooned out and slathered in chicken fat.

Service was at 12:30, and everything except the turkey was locked and loaded by noon.
The only thing I was really unhappy with was the turkey -- I've never actually roasted a turkey before (because, well, I don't like turkey and we roasted plenty of other meats in c-school) and I now know why it has such a bad rep. I don't mean bad rep, like evil factory farms, animals bred into unwalking, unhappy mutants or unhealthy hormones, antibiotics and chemicals stuffed into these poor birds. I mean it's REALLY difficult to roast a bird this size AND have it all come out good. If you get the center of the meat to 165˚, the outside is gonna overcook, period. Brining only got us so far. Looking at the pic above, yes, it's a nice color and yes, the butter basting let the skin come out nice n' crackly, but about 1/4 of the dark meat and 1/3 of the white was dry and tough, despite me following every method and maxim drawn from my experience.

If I were to do the bird again, I would either a) forgo roasting the bird all together and fry the mother or b) choose 3 smaller birds instead of 2 large, brine for 8 hours instead of 4 and baste twice as much. Oh well.

Speeches of thankfulness were given, then the food rolled out finally by 1pm. It was pretty organized -- 5 big tables of about 20 people each, so each dish was either baked in or divided into 5 big portions. The amounts were pretty spot-on except for two dishes -- I should have doubled up on the mac n' cheese, and I should have done a different yam recipe, as they were nearly untouched. I think this population was used to a mashed, very sweetened yam preparation, and a simple baked yam with butter (albeit sweet, jazzed up butter) was a step too far to take with them. And by 1:30, it was over!

Only three more classes left: next week is meat, then pizza, then students' choice....

*

MACARONI & CHEESE

Yield: 30 servings

Elbow macaroni 4 lbs
Butter 1 ½ cups
Flour 1 ½ cups
Whole milk 1 ¼ gallon
Salt & pepper to taste
Worcestershire sauce to taste
Cheddar, cubed 1 ½ lb
Mozzarella, cubed 1 ½ lb
Monterey jack, cubed 1 ½ lb
Bread Crumbs 10 cups

1. Preheat oven to 350˚. Warm milk, but do not boil. Grease 5 large aluminum pans. Bring enough salted water to a boil. Add pasta, cook until very al dente – 2 minutes shorter than package suggestion.
2. Melt butter and stir in flour to make a roux. Whisk in warm milk a ladle at a time to make white sauce. BTB RTS. Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Remove sauce from heat, stir in three cheeses. Combine with pasta and stir well. Pour into 5 baking dishes.
4. Sprinkle tops with breadcrumbs to coat.
5. Bake 45-60 minutes, or until top is desired crispiness. Rest.

*

CORNBREAD & SAUSAGE STUFFING

Yield: 100 servings

Sausage, casing removed, crumbled 10 lbs
Onion, finely chopped 8 each
Celery, finely chopped 2 head
Salt & pepper to taste
Cornbread, cubed 10 lbs
Fresh sage, minced 10 oz
Eggs, lightly beaten 30 each
Chicken stock 10 to 12 cups

1. Brown sausage in large pot until browned and cooked through. Transfer to a bowl with a slotted spoon.
2. Add onion and celery to pot with hot fat in it. Cook until vegetables soften. Season generously with salt and pepper.
3. Toss sausage and vegetables with cornbread in a large bowl. Moisten with stock until correct texture is achieved. Divide into 5 baking dishes.
4. Cover and refrigerate until ready to bake – 350˚ for 45-60 minutes until top crust is achieved.

*
COLLARD GREENS

Yield: 50 servings

Smoked turkey necks, chopped 5 lbs
Collard greens, chiffonade 5 bushels
Salt to taste
White vinegar to taste
Chicken fat 1 cup

1. Cover necks in cold water. BTB RTS
2. Add greens, fat, salt and vinegar.
3. Simmer until greens are soft, 45-60 minutes.
4. Strain, refrigerate until service.
5. Before service, reheat in pans with chicken fat.

*
CREAMED POTATOES

Yield: 100 servings

Russet Potatoes 40 lbs
Butter, room temperature 8-10 cup
Milk, hot 1 g
Heavy cream, hot 1 g
Ground black pepper to taste

1. Scrub, peel and cut potatoes into large pieces.
2. Boil or steam until tender.
3. Drain and dry over low heat or on a sheet pan in a 300˚ oven until no steam rises from them.
4. While hot, puree potatoes through a food mill or potato ricer into a heated bowl.
5. Add butter and mix into potatoes by hand or with the paddle or whip attachment of an electric mixer until just incorporated. Add milk, cream, salt, pepper by hand until smooth and light
6. Spoon potatoes onto heated plates or transfer to a piping bag and pipe into desired shapes.

*
BAKED YAMS

Yield: 100 servings

Yams 100 each

1. Wash and scrub each potato. Fork each several times. Wrap in foil.
2. Bake 1 hour at 400˚
3. Test with fork – if fork meets no resistance, it is done.
4. Can be held, uncovered, for one hour. Serve with sweet cinnamon butter.

*
SWEET TEA

Yield: 5 gallons

Sugar 10 lbs
Cold water 3 quart
Loose black tea 1 lb
Hot water 2.5 gallon
Room temp water 2.5 gallon

1. Combine sugar and cold water. Bring to a boil. Allow to cool.
2. Infuse loose tea into hot water for 4 to 5 minutes. Strain into room temperature water.
3. Sweeten tea with simple syrup.

*
MINT LEMONADE

Yield: 5 gallons

Sugar 10 lbs
Cold water 3 quart
Mint 10 bunches
Lemon juice 1 gallon
Cold water 4 gallon
Salt to taste

1. Combine sugar and cold water. Bring to a boil. Add whole mint, stems removed. Simmer 30 minutes. Remove from heat. Let cool.
2. Combine lemon juice, mint syrup and cold water. Season.
3. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

*

GLAZED HAM

Yield: 100 servings

Smoke ham 2 each
Pineapple juice 1 g
Cherry juice 1 g
Mango juice 1 g
Lemon juice .5 g
Smoked hams 4 each
Salt & pepper to taste
Brown sugar 4 lbs
Fresh pineapple, sliced 4 each

1. Boil juices until reduced to syrup
2. Place hams in high-walled pans. Rub with brown sugar, salt and pepper.
3. Place hams in plastic bags. Fill with syrup. Refrigerate overnight.
4. Remove from bags, place excess syrup in pans. Place pineapple slices around the ham.
5. Bake until heated through, occasionally basting with syrup.
6. Rest 30 minutes, then slice and serve.

*
ROASTED TURKEY

Yield: 1 turkey

Turkey 1 each
Salt 1 cup per gallon of water
Onion, chopped 3 medium
Carrots, chopped 7 each
Celery 5 ribs
Thyme, fresh 4 sprigs
Butter, melted 6 tablespoons

1. Remove giblets and neck from cavity. Prepare bringing solution of 1 gallon of water to 1 cup salt and cover turkey in non-reactive container. Refrigerate minimum 4 hours.
2. Remove from solution, rinse turkey in fresh water. Pat dry, place on pan and allow drying in refrigerator overnight/8 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 400˚.
4. Coat vegetables and thyme with melted butter, reserve some butter for brushing turkey. Place in cavity of turkey. Bind legs, wings and body of bird with cooking twine.
5. Place bird, breast side down, on wire rack in roasting pan. Brush back of turkey with butter. Pour 2 cups of water in pan. Place in preheated oven.
6. At 45 minutes, baste.
7. At 1 hr, 15 minutes, turn over and baste.
8. At 1 hr 45 minutes, check temp with thermometer. Breast should be 165˚, deepest part of the thigh 175˚
9. Rest turkey for a MINIMUM of 30 minutes. Carve and serve.

Sweets for Thanksgiving

Today's class was dedicated to preparing for (and storage of) next week's Thanksgiving meal. The meal is for the school -- about 150 mouths to feed; the logistics are a bit different than for serving 5 or 15. Desserts, whose high fat content makes them very freezable, were knocked off, as well as a special butter for yams and the corn bread for stuffing, which does not need to be fresh to be absolutely delicious.

There were a lot of recipes to get through, and only 6 students. I wanted to be out of there in a reasonable amount of time, I knocked off the easiest recipe off before the students came, a compound butter:

SWEET CINNAMON BUTTER

Yield: 2 pounds

Butter 2 lbs
Powdered sugar ½ cup
Cinnamon 3 tbsp
Salt 1 tbsp

1. Cut butter into uniform chunks.
2. Beat butter in mixer with paddle until soft. Scrape down sides with spatula. Add sugar, cinnamon and salt.
3. Continue beating until fully incorporated. Remove from mixer bowl onto center of large parchment paper square.
4. Roll into tight log, wrap in plastic, refrigerate minimum 2 hours.

This is probably the first (and will probably be the last) recipe that I simply made up. In conversations with the students last week about what was good and bad about last year's Thanksgiving meal, they described some sort of yam dish that involved marshmallows, which personally made my stomach tighten and twitch in a bad way. Next week, we will simply bake yams and serve them with this butter -- a candied, sweet element. At the end of class, we had an extra box of graham crackers and I served a little bit of the butter on them -- everyone really dug it.

The first recipe I had the students work on was the cheese cake. It can be complicated to make -- a batter of cream cheese and flavorings, slowly firmed by eggs.

PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE

Yield: 16 small servings x 5

X1 x5
Butter, melted 12 tbsp 2 lb
Graham cracker crumbs 2.5 cup 12.5 cup
White cane sugar 2 ¾ cup 14 cup
Cream cheese, room temperature 2 lb 10 lb
Sour cream ¼ cup 1 ¼ cup
Pumpkin puree 1 15oz can 5 15oz cans
Eggs, room temp, lightly beaten 6 each 30 each
Vanilla extract 1 tbsp 5 tbsp
Salt 1 tsp 5 tsp
Cinnamon 2 ½ tsp 3 tbsp & 1 tsp
Ground ginger 1 tsp 1 tbsp & 2 tsp
Ground cloves ¼ tsp 1 ¼ tsp

1. Preheat oven to 325˚. Brush 5 (five) 10-inch springform pans with some of the butter. Stir the remaining butter with the crumbs, 2.5/12.5 cups of the sugar and a large pinch/2 tsp of salt in a bowl.
2. Press the crumb mixture into the bottom and up the sides of the 5 pans, packing tightly and evenly.
3. Bake under golden brown, 15-20 minutes. Cool, wrap the outside of the five pans with foil, place in hotel pans.
4. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, beat cream cheese in mixer until smooth. (Do 2 cakes in one machine if necessary, by doubling the ingredients of the “X1”column.) Add remaining sugar and beat until just light, scraping down the sides of the bowl and beaters as needed.
5. Beat in the sour cream, then add the pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, salt and spices and beat until just combined.
6. Pour into cooled crust.
7. Gently place the hotel pans with the springform pans in them into the oven and pour boiling water into the hotel pan until in comes about halfway up the side of the springform pan.
8. Bake until the outside of the cheesecake sets but the center is still loose, about 1 hour 45 minutes. Turn off the oven and open the door briefly to let out some heat.
9. Leave the cheesecake in the oven for 1 more hour, then carefully remove from the hotel pans and cool. Refrigerate at least 8 hours.
10. Bring cheesecake to room temp 30 minutes before serving. Remove from springform pan.

First thing were to press buttery graham cracker crumbs into pans and blind bake them for 15-20 minutes, until they were nice n' toasty. I made the students really look at the recipe and make batches of the mix-ins (everything that went in together, the pumpkin, the eggs, the spices) while another started whipping the cream cheese and the sugar. The crusts came out and went into the freezer to cool fast while the batter waited for its home.

While the students got on with the other recipes I put the batter into the shells, got the pies into water baths, then the water baths into the oven for a long bake time; then set to cool.

*

Brownies, revisited. I let one student, who was so proud of his brownies last year, go with it. I was a bit disappointed; he didn't set up his mise, and got slowed down by having to crack eggs after he mixed sugar into his melted chocolate and butter...

FUDGE BROWNIES

Yield: 120 small servings

Butter 5 cup
Unsweetened chocolate 20 oz
White cane sugar 10 cup
Eggs 20 each
Vanilla extract* 5 tsp
Salt 2.5 tsp

1. Preheat oven to 350˚. Grease a hotel pan
2. In a large pot, melt butter and chocolate over low heat, stirring constantly until fully melted and incorporated.
3. Remove for heat, stir in sugar. Allow to cool slightly.
4. Beat in the eggs three at a time, mixing well after each.
5. Add vanilla and salt, stir well.
6. Fold in flour, mix minimally. Spread batter into pan.
7. Bake 30-35 minutes. Brownies are done when toothpick is inserted into center and comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack.

*Can be replaced by scrapings of 3 vanilla beans

*

Apple crisp: A recipe I've been making for years at home, revising it slowly. Things I learned: Tart green baking apples work best. Butter has to be cold going in to yield proper crumble and crisp. And even when the dish comes out over-baked, it's still kinda good.

I found that we were running out of hotel pans, so we divided this up into 6 10" cake rounds.

APPLE CRISP

Yield: 100 servings

Sugar 3 cup
Lemon juice 1/4 cup
Water 1 1/2 cup
Cinnamon 2 tbsp
Apples, peeled, cored and sliced 36 each

Flour 4.5 cups
Sugar 3 cup
Salt 1 tbsp
Butter, small cubes, cold 2 ¼ cup

1. Preheat oven to 375˚. Combine 3 cups sugar, lemon juice and water in a hotel pan. Toss in apples, coat well.
2. In mixer beat flour, 3 cups sugar, salt and butter until crumbly.
3. Spread flour mixture over apple mixture, pat smooth.
4. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until apples are tender and crust is browned. Serve warm.

*

Cornbread stuffing (with sausage), a fundamentally simple method that depends very much on the quality of ingredients more so than skill. The last time I made cornbread at home, it was a flop because I used stale cornmeal that was in my cupboard for years. No such problem this time. This bread came out moist, delicious and got raves when we sampled it at the end of class.

BASIC CORNBREAD

Yield: 70 servings

Butter 2 lb
Sugar 5 ¼ cup
Eggs 16 each
Buttermilk 2 quart
Baking soda 1 tbsp & 1 tsp
Cornmeal 8 cups
AP flour 8 cups
Salt 1 oz

1. Preheat oven to 375˚. Grease a hotel pan.
2. Melt butter in a large pot. Remove from heat and stir in sugar.
3. Quickly add eggs and beat until well blended.
4. Add buttermilk and baking soda and stir into mixture.
5. Stir in cornmeal, flour and salt until only a few lumps remain. DO NOT OVER MIX.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan.
7. Bake in over 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

*

The class went well, only 45 minutes late after making a selection of desserts for 150. Next week will definitely be a challenge, on every level from organizing the sourcing of ingredients to the serving...

Grains: Kickin' it with Kasha, Farro & Sausage revisited

Today was a lesson on grains. I gave a quick lecture before reviewing the recipes. Sure, there is meat and veg, but a huge part of what we eat is something else. What do you eat during the day that comes from grain? Bread, cereal, and pasta are primarily grains, but when you start talking about foods with grain product in it (corn and its many many forms), it's a cornerstone of our diet.

The definition of a grain is the small, dry single-seeded fruit of a cereal grass; fruit and seed is one in the same. While we are familiar it being bought and sold in massive quantities on the commodities market produced by industrial farms -- wheat, rice, corn -- there are literally thousands of other grains and varieties out there in the world.

Most grains are made up of:

Husk – inedible sheath of some grains
Bran – outer layer, what makes brown rice brown. Full o' fiber.
Endosperm – carbohydrate inner layer.
Germ – small inner core, contains vitamins and fat

Long grain rice is the #1 grain in world, which cooks up separate and fluffy. Short-grain rice is more starchy and cooks sticky -- hello, sushi rice, and risotto's arborio rice!

First recipe was one of my favorite from c-school. It's based around farro, a kind of heritage Italian wheat which, when cooked with chicken stock, just comes alive. Add to that the flavor of sausage and a wallop of fresh licorice-like fennel, and the whole dish sings. A lot of starch comes out the farro, and it's helped along with potato and kidney beans. The kids liked the dish, and I think the ones who took some home are in for a treat -- it gets thicker the longer it sits.

FARRO & SAUSAGE

Yield: 16 servings

Sweet Italian sausage 2 lbs
EVOO 1 cup
Spanish onion, diced 4 each
Chicken Stock 1 gallon
Idaho potato, cubed 4 each
Tomato concassé 8 each
Fennel 2 bulbs
Farro 2 lbs
Red pepper flakes to taste
Water as needed
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Red kidney beans, cooked 32 oz

1. Brown sausage meat in olive oil. Add the onion and sauté until onion is soft.
2. Add the stock, potato, tomato, fennel, farro and red pepper flakes.
3. Cover the mixture with cold water. BTB RTS, season to taste, simmer for 30 minutes. Add more water if needed.
4. Add the kidney beans and continue to simmer for an additional 15 minutes
5. Serve hot or at room temperature, drizzled with additional EVOO.

*

Pilaf: Saute the grain before simmering it in a covered pot to absorb all the liquid. The sauteing of the fat does two things: it gives the final dish both a slightly nutty flavor and a richer undertone to the whatever fat that's used, allowing the grain to cook faster. We used a very plain straight-ahead recipe, which came out tasting very buttery and lightly floral.

RICE PILAF

Yield: 2 servings

Spanish onion, small dice 2 oz
Butter 2 oz
Long-grain white rice 14 oz
Chicken stock 14 floz
Bay leaf 2 each
Thyme sprig 2 each
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350˚. Heat sauce pan. Melt butter, sweat the onion to translucent
2. Add the rice and stir to coat well with the butter, cook for a minute while constant stirring
3. Add stock, bay leaf, thyme, salt and pepper
4. Bring liquid to a boil. Cover the pot and transfer to oven. Cook 18 to 20 minutes until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender.
5. Remove bay leaf and thyme sprig. Use a fork to separate the grains of rice and release the steam.

Half the class made pilaf and the other half made a dish that I've never actually made myself but ate many times growing up. Originating in the shtetles of Eastern Europe, Kasha Varniskes is Yiddish soul food -- egg noodles tossed with buckwheat and caramelized onions and finished with a healthy dose of black pepper, it packs a big flavor of the funky buckwheat.

KASHA VARNISHKES

Yield: 8 servings

Onion, diced 4 cups
Chicken fat 1 cup
Chicke stock 3 cups
Buckwheat 1 ½ cups
Salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
Bowtie egg noodles 1 lb

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, saute onion in fat slowly, until dark golden.
2. In a separate medium sauce pan, bring 3 cups of stock to a boil, stir in buckwheat and about 2 teaspoons of salt. Cover and simmer until kasha is soft and fluffy, about 15 minutes. Let stand, covered.
3. Salt large pot of boiling water and cook noodles to al dente. Drain, combine with kasha and fatty onions. Season with more chicken fat, salt and extra black pepper.

*

Next Wednesday is Veteran's Day, but we will continue in two weeks with early prep for Thanksgiving.

Banging out a buffet

The class reconvened with four students to present a buffet for the parent-teacher conferences. When I arrived, I took the chicken stock out and scooped off the hard layer of fat to find chicken jello -- just what you want. This is some triple-strength stuff, and will go a long way when we cook grains next week. I rendered the fat in a saute pan and put it away.

The mac n' cheese just got warmed in the oven and presented in the hotel pans, no fuss no muss. The brownies were a little over-cooked, so I had them trimmed of their edges -- voila, every piece is a center piece. Put on a shiny silver plastic tray and sprinkled with powdered sugar, it looked just as good as any fancy catering outfit. Salads were put out from yesterday, but yesterday's vinaigrette was rushed and not very good, so I had the students do it again.

SIMPLE RED WINE VINAIGRETTE

Yield: 2 cups

Red wine vinegar 4 oz
Dijon mustard 1 tsp
Olive oil 12 oz
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Sugar to taste

1. Combine vinegar and mustard in an anchored bowl.
2. Whisk in oil gradually.
3. Season with salt, pepper and sugar.

This time, I had them season it correctly -- meaning, a lot more than just a pinch. We tasted and tasted, and eventually the right sugar and salt balance made the flavor explode. At first it just tasted like oil, then suddenly....vinaigrette.

We received two 3-foot hero rolls; a lot of prep went into breaking down all the vegetables to go into the sandwiches -- tomatoes, onions, iceberg lettuce, etc. We took romaine leaves and made a bed for the sandwiches and, when one student suggested hard boiled eggs as a garnish, we knocked those out, too. We made mayo again -- always good practice.

HERBED MAYONNAISE

Yield: 2 ½ cups mayonnaise

Egg 1 each
Egg yolk 1 each
Salt ½ tsp
Ground pepper ¼ tsp
Olive oil ½ cup
Vegetable oil 1 ½ cups
Lemon juice 2 to 3 tsp
Chopped fresh herbs ¼ cup
(Parsley, chives, dill, etc.)

1. Place egg, egg yolk, salt, and pepper in an anchored mixing bowl. Whisk until blended
2. Whisking constantly, drizzle in the oils, gradually increasing the amount added as the sauce thickens
3. As soon as the sauce is very thick, thin with 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, followed by the remaining oil.
4. Add herbs, whisk to combine.
5. Taste. Add more lemon juice, if necessary. Season to taste.

It was fun talking about sandwich theory, it's something you kind of forget after c-school. Rather than get anal and give a sandwich recipe, we talked more of method...

SANDWICH FORMULA

Four elements: bread, filling, spread, garnish

• Bread: Open or closed. The base is the only element compulsory.
• Spread: fat-based spreads applied directly to the bread provides barrier to keep bread from getting soggy
• Filling: Focus of sandwich – hot or cold, substantial or minimal. Determines other elements of sandwich.
• Garnish: Should compliment or contrast the filling. Either on sandwich or as a side garnish.

I showed them all the meats we had and discussed them: turkey, roast beef, Genoa salami, and prosciutto. We tasted and discussed each, and I gave a quick anatomy lesson about the leg of a pig (where prosciutto comes from), versus the belly (bacon). The ideas of balance, over-stuffed versus minimal meat, and spreads as a cohesive element that brings a sandwich together both physically and flavor wise were covered. Could not forget to show how to lay meat, with a fold to add spring and air rather than just stacks of flat stuff.

We did the sandwiches last; we were done with half of them when the crowds started to file in. The supervisor had to run out and get more bread (the sandwiches were very popular!), and we had enough fillings to keep going. It was nice to see the kids under a bit of production pressure, and pull through.

Next week, some rice dish, another grain, and using that jellied stock...yum.

Cooking in Quantity

I really don't know what this poster in the school cafeteria was about. My supervisor didn't know, either. Something tells me I really don't want to know. Yum-o, I say. Yum. O.

The syllabus was all about stock and sauces, but we also needed to cook for PTA parent-teacher conferences tomorrow. Rather than be capped at 3 hours, we took 4 and a half to get it all done.

We started with a short lecture about mother sauces and the danger zone. The danger zone is 60 through 140 degrees -- the zone where bacteria will grow and multiply if given the three elements it needs: protein for food, moisture for environment, and low acidity. Stock has all three.

Bechamel, veloute, espagnol, tomato, hollandaise -- today we were making bechamel -- warm milk thickened with a roux. Roux is equal parts fat and flour, whisked while cooked to turn it into a paste. The darker it goes, the bigger flavor it'll have. This would be the base of our Mac n' Cheese....

MACARONI & CHEESE

Yield: 30 servings

Elbow macaroni 5 lbs
Butter 1 ½ cups
Flour 1 ½ cups
Whole milk 1 ¼ gallon
Salt & pepper to taste
Worcestershire sauce to taste
Cheddar, cubed 1 ½ lb
Mozzarella, cubed 1 ½ lb
Monterrey jack, cubed 1 ½ lb

1. Preheat oven to 350˚. Warm milk, but do not boil. Grease 4 large hotel pans. Bring enough salted water to a boil. Add pasta, cook until very al dente – 2 minutes shorter than package suggestion.
2. Melt butter and stir in flour to make a roux. Whisk in warm milk a ladle at a time to make white sauce. BTB RTS. Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Remove sauce from heat, stir in three cheeses. Combine with pasta and stir well. Pour into baking dishes.
4. Bake 45-60 minutes, or until top is desired crispiness. Rest 20 minutes before serving.

I had the kids taste the cheese sauce before and after adding salt and Worcestershire, really bringing home the importance of NEVER forgetting seasoning.

This was my own recipe -- the syllabus had a horrible recipe involving mustard powder. The teacher who lead this program the last two cycles stopped by and ate with us, and confided that the first time she taught this program, she stuck closely to the syllabus and all the kids pretty much were grossed out by the mac n' cheese. This recipe is pretty solid, except this was the first time I was using the ovens in this kitchen -- they ran hot, and they ran uneven. The final product was a little over-done, but still very edible, very rich and decadent, if not as loose as I would of liked.

Before class, I got chicken stock on the fire. We just had too much to do and this is a 4 hour affair, and I got whole chickens that had to be broken down without fuss or drama.

CHICKEN STOCK

Yield: 1 gallon

Chicken bones 8 lbs
Cold water 1 gallon
Salt 2 tsp
Mire poix, medium dice 1 lb
Sachet d’Epices 1 each

1. Rinse bones, place in stockpot, add water and salt.
2. BTB RTS
3. Simmer 2-3 hours
4. Add mire poix and sachet, continue to simmer 1 more hour, skimming scum as necessary
5. Strain. Use immediately (degrease by skimming if necessary) or rapidly cool and store for later use.

The mac n' cheese was done in one huge batch broken into three hotel pans. Once into the oven, I demoed the brownie recipe. One kid asked why we didn't use a double-boiler to melt the chocolate -- an excellent question. Because we were melting it with butter, it was protected by the water content in that fat. As long as we didn't boil it, we were safe over an open flame.

FUDGE BROWNIES

Yield: 12 servings

Butter 1 cup
Unsweetened chocolate 4 oz
White cane sugar 2 cup
Eggs 4 each
Vanilla extract* 1 tsp
Salt ½ tsp

1. Preheat oven to 350˚. Grease a 9x13 baking pan
2. In a 3-quart saucepan, met butter and chocolate over low heat, stirring constantly until fully melted and incorporated.
3. Remove for heat, stir in sugar. Allow to cool slightly.
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each.
5. Add vanilla and salt, stir well.
6. Fold in flour, mix minimally. Spread batter into pan.
7. Bake 30-35 minutes. Brownies are done when toothpick is inserted into center and comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack.

*Can be replaced by scrapings of 1/2 vanilla bean

Since there is only four burners that are accessible at once, we broke into four teams and they made the brownies, with me looking over and giving guidance as we went. Soon enough, five trays of brownies joined the mac n' cheese in the oven.

Two students took on the Caesar Salad, and four students got to work on the green salad. The Caesar was pretty straight forward. First step was making the croutons...

CROUTONS

Yield: 1 lb

White bread 1 lb
Butter, melted 4 oz, or as needed
Salt 1 tsp, or as needed
Black pepper, ground ½ tsp (optional), or as needed

1. Remove the crust from the bread if desired. Slice and cube the bread into desired size. If bread is fresh, dry out cubes in over for 5 minutes before continuing.
2. Toss the bread, fat and season together on a sheet or hotel pan.
3. Bake at 450˚ until lightly golden, 8 to 10 minutes

The great thing about this was that it was super simple, and the end result was INSANELY better than the crap you buy in a box, industrial croutons that are designed to be shelf-stable forever and taste like weird chemicals. The student who I was directing to flip and stir the croutons said she really did not like croutons. I picked one up and put it in her mouth by hand, and I could see the lights turn on in her eyes. THIS is why we cook from scratch and not buy a box. Sure, it's cheaper, but the real reason is that it is so much better. Rather than an industrial interpretation of what a crouton is, here she had the REAL thing for the first time, just as they were made when they were invented. True dat. Hollah.

CAESAR SALAD WITH CHICKEN

Yield: 10 appetizer servings

Romaine lettuce, chopped 1 lb
Croutons 12 oz
Sliced chicken breast 25 oz

Garlic. minced 1 tsp
Anchovy fillets 5
Salt ¾ tsp, or as needed
Black pepper, ground ½ tsp
Egg yolks 2
Lemon juice 2oz
Olive oil 10 floz
Parmesan, finely grated 6 oz, or as needed

1. Separate romaine leaved. Clean and dry thoroughly. Tear or cut into pieces. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
2. Prepare croutons and hold at room temperature until ready to serve
3. To prepare dressing, mash together garlic, anchovies, salt and pepper in a bowl to form a relatively smooth paste. Add egg and lemon juice and blend well. Gradually add olive oil, whisking as it is added to form a thick emulsion. Stir in Parmesan. Adjust with salt and pepper as necessary.
4. Pan-sear chicken right before service. Slice when rested.
5. For each serving, combine 2 oz greens with 1 floz dressing, tossing gently until evenly coated. Garnish with a few croutons. Top with 2.5 oz sliced chicken.

The dressing's key is to mash the anchovies and garlic until it is homogeneous (a word I had to define for my student, which was cute!) before making the emulsion. Because of a student allergic to seafood, we had to serve the salad with the dressing on the side.

The other four got to work on the tossed salad for the meeting tomorrow. A lot of knife skills involved here, and I demoed how I wanted each element. I had them peel the celery, just like my wife likes....

SIMPLE GREEN TOSSED SALAD

Yield: 20 servings

Boston lettuce, chopped 3 head
Romaine lettuce, chopped 3 head
Carrots, peeled, rounds 2 lb
Cucumbers, peeled, sliced, quartered 4 each
Red onion, diced 2 each
Red peppers, diced 2 each
Celery, peeled, sliced 1 head
Simple red wine vinaigrette 2 cup

1. Toss all vegetables together in a large bowl.
2. When ready to serve, pour vinaigrette over, toss, serve immediately

We made the vinaigrette almost as an afterthought, and the student muffed it, with too little seasoning....

SIMPLE RED WINE VINAIGRETTE

Yield: 2 cups

Red wine vinegar 4 oz
Dijon mustard 1 tsp
Olive oil 2 lb
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Sugar to taste

1. Combine vinegar and mustard in an anchored bowl.
2. Whisk in oil gradually.
3. Season with salt, pepper and sugar.

We didn't have time to muck around with it, but will remake it tomorrow when we prep for the event.

The class ended with the four burners given over to saute pans. I demoed how to butterfly a chicken breast by cutting it length wise but leaving the two halves attached, so it could be opened like a book. Uncut, the cutlets would be too thick to cook all the way through and would have to be finished in the oven, which we just did not have time for.

SAUTEED CHICKEN BREAST

Yield: 1 serving

Chicken breast, boneless, skinless 1 each
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Vegetable oil ½ floz

1. Season chicken cutlet with salt and pepper
2. Heat sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add oil
3. Saute cutlet for 2-3 minutes per side or until done.
4. Rest ½ the time of cooking before serving or slicing.

The magic moment is when you turn the meat over and everyone sees the browning. A typical home cook will keep on moving the meat and no browning happens. It's a sexy "ooo" moment. Every one cooked at least one breast, and another student sliced the meat, to which I had to hold her up as to not cut unrested meat.

I dashed out a bit of whipped cream to go with the brownies as the kids cleaned up.

WHIPPED CREAM

Yield: 16 servings

Heavy cream 1 cup
Vanilla extract* 1 tsp
Confectioners sugar 1 tbsp

1. In a large bowl or mixer with whip attachment, whip cream until stiff peaks are just about to form.
2. Beat in vanilla and sugar until peaks form. Make sure not to over beat, cream will then become lumpy and butter-like.

*Can be replaced by scrapings of 1/2 vanilla bean

We sat, ate with the supervisor and last year's teacher, and everyone seemed pretty happy with the food. I didn't like the over-doneness of the baked goods, but in the end, every one dug it so I didn't want to disrespect the student's efforts. Just because I'm hard on my own cooking doesn't mean I should be a spoilsport. Tomorrow we reconvene to make sandwiches, dress the salad, reheat the baked goods, plate the food and try to impress the parents...

Composing, with Salad

Again, six students, a really good number. We started with a brief lecture. Today, the central portion was salad, the dish the Garde Manger (pantry cook) would make in a functioning restaurant, so we reviewed the brigade system. The Chef de Cuisine, the big boss, the man, the guy or gal who gets famous as a TV chef and doesn't actually cook in their restaurants anymore. The Sous Chef, the assistant chef, the boss when the Chef is out, who really makes sure the cooking gets done. The Chef de Partie, the line cooks, the cooks who cook your food. The Pastry Chef, who does baking and answers directly to the Executive Chef. And the Garde Manger, the cold pantry cook. Let's not forget the Stages, the assistants, the up and comers.

There are three kinds of salads -- tossed, composed, and bound. Tossed is usually greenery tossed with dressing. Composed is a body ingredient, usually a protein, on top of a base of greenery, surrounded by garnishes. The bound salad is an ingredient or ingredients within a theme, bound together by mayo, jello, or the like.

First thing out, we got down to knife skills, getting the vegetable soup on and out of the way...

VEGETABLE SOUP

Yield: 1 gallon

Olive oil 4 tbsp
Chopped leaks, whites only 2 cups
Salt 1 heavy pinch
Garlic, minced 2 tbsp
Carrots, thin rounds 2 cups
Potatoes, large dice 2 cups
Green beans, ¾” pieces 2 cups
Vegetable stock 2 quarts
Tomato concasse* 4 cups
Corn kernels 2 ears
Ground black pepper ½ tsp
Parsley, chopped ¼ cup, packed
Lemon juice 1 to 2 tsp
Salt to taste

1. Heat oil in large rondeau or stockpot and add leeks and a pinch of salt.
2. Cover and sweat the vegetables until softened, stirring occasionally, 7-8 minutes.
3. Add garlic, carrots, potatoes and green beans and cook for 4-5 more minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add vegetable stock, BTB RTS*
5. Add tomato concasse, corn and pepper. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until vegetables are fork tender, approximately 25-30 minus.
6. Remove from heat, add parsley and lemon. Season to taste. Serve immediately
*Tomato Concasse: peeled, deseeded and chopped flesh of tomato BTB RTS: Bring To Boil, Return To Simmer

While that was happening, I had a student boil some eggs properly, a garnish for our composed salad...

PERFECT HARD BOILED EGGS

Yield: 6 eggs

Egg* 6 each

1. Place eggs in a single layer sauce pan, cover with cold water by 1” to 2” minimum
2. Bring to a boil, then turn off heat and cover for 15 minutes
3. Remove, shock in ice water, peel

* Eggs that are NOT fresh will peel easier, ideally a week old

After soup, I had everyone set up their stations to make mayo. I spent several days learning to make proper mayo in c-school. The trick is to move fast -- the faster you get an even stream of oil into your eggs, the faster you beat it with a whisk, the faster it'll come together and thicken without a lot of drama.

HERBED MAYONNAISE

Yield: 2 ½ cups mayonnaise

Egg 1 each
Egg yolk 1 each
Salt ½ tsp
Ground pepper ¼ tsp
Olive oil ½ cup
Vegetable oil 1 ½ cups
Lemon juice 2 to 3 tsp
Chopped fresh herbs ¼ cup
(Parsley, chives, dill, etc.)

1. Place egg, egg yolk, salt, and pepper in an anchored mixing bowl. Whisk until blended
2. Whisking constantly, drizzle in the oils, gradually increasing the amount added as the sauce thickens
3. As soon as the sauce is very thick, thin with 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, followed by the remaining oil.
4. Add herbs, whisk to combine.
5. Taste. Add more lemon juice, if necessary. Season to taste.

Funny, most of the kid's mayo came out a little bit thin, and I had to show them how to lay in some "elbow grease" to make it come back to life.

After cleaning, everyone got a mound of shrimp to shell and de-vein. Some shrimp still had their last meal in them, which lead to a bit of twittering about not having doo doo in our food. Once collected, dropped into lime-squirted boiling water for a few minutes then ice. Everyone chipped in on getting the garnishes together.

SHRIMP LOUIS

Yield: 4-6 servings

Shrimp 2 lbs
Salt to taste
Bibb or Boston lettuce 2 heads
Tomatoes, sliced 2 each
Eggs, hard cooked, quartered 4 each
Lemons, quartered 4 each
Black olives 8 each
Bell peppers, thin rounds 2 each

Herb Mayonnaise 2 ½ cup
Chili sauce 4 tbs
Grated onion 2 tbs
Parsley, chopped 2 tbs
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Heavy cream 1 _tbsp +/- to adjust thickness
Worcestershire sauce 2 tsp, or to taste
Tabasco a few drops, or to taste

1. Defrost, deshell and clean shrimp if necessary. Set up ice bath
2. Bring large pot of water flavored with salt and lime juice to a boil.
3. Cook shrimp until just pink, 1-2 minutes. Remove and shock in ice water. Drain, place in bowl, cover and refrigerate until service.
4. Combine mayonnaise → Tabasco. Stir until blended. Cover and refrigerate until service. If too thick after chilling, add more cream.
5. Arrange lettuce leaves to cover large serving plate. Place mound of shrimp in middle. Place tomatoes, quartered eggs, lemon wedges, olives and pepper slices decoratively around the shrimp.

After eating the soup and salad, I found a big jar of Hellman's mayo in the back and we did a taste test of it versus ours. Hellman's tasted MEGA salty, and strangely rubbery compared to ours.

Next week, a tossed Caesar salad with chicken, proper mac n' cheese, and chicken stock.

No, that's not ice cream....

Above is a picture of cold shmaltz, a.k.a. rendered chicken fat. A byproduct of making chicken stock, it floats to the top and, when refrigerated, solidifies, and is easy to remove. It's then reheated again over the stove; all non-fats evaporate and all non-fat solids burn and float to the bottom. Pour off the hot fat, refrigerate, and it's good for a year or so (if kept in the back of the fridge). And what better way to make some icky bitter greens magically delicious than adding a wallop of chicken fat...?

Today's class was about vegetable cookery, but really, how many vegetables can you really get into on 3 hours? First thing, we sat and I briefly lectured. What is cooking? Applying energy via heat to food to change its composition. There are only two classes of cooking: dry heat (baking, roasting, broiling, frying in all its forms) and moist heat (boiling, steaming, simmering). There is a bastard third, combination heat (braising, stewing, where something is browned in dry heat then moisture is added to finish).

Then we went quickly from abstract to solid, reviewing the recipes of the day...

“MASHED” POTATOES

Yield: 10 servings

Russet Potatoes 4 lbs
Butter, room temperature 6-8 oz
Milk, hot 12 fl.oz.
Heavy cream, hot 12 fl.oz.
Salt to taste
Ground black pepper to taste

1. Scrub, peel and cut potatoes into large pieces.
2. Boil or steam until tender.
3. Drain and dry over low heat or on a sheet pan in a 300˚ oven until no steam rises from them.
4. While hot, puree potatoes through a food mill or potato ricer into a heated bowl.
5. Add butter and mix into potatoes by hand or with the paddle or whip attachment of an electric mixer until just incorporated. Add milk, cream, salt, pepper by hand until smooth and light
6. Spoon potatoes onto heated plates or transfer to a piping bag and pipe into desired shapes.

The class started with knife skills. To save time, we didn't peel the potatoes; we just turned dirty round potatoes and rectangular skinless beauties into large dice. I already had a large pot of boiling water on, we dumped the potatoes in and I assigned a student to watch the potatoes, taste a cube for tenderness ,and call me when ready. I had the other students start the knife work for the next recipe -- while others drained the potatoes and pushed them through the food mill into a bowl heated from the ledge on top of the oven. I showed them the correct way to fold (with a rubber spatula, from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock around the edge, then flip to the middle. Turn the bowl clockwise 90 degrees, repeat). Then came the butter and half-and-half...and finally the consistency was right. I had everyone taste; then I salted th dish and everyone tasted again and...what they tasted blew their minds. As I had promised, these were the best mashed potatoes they'd ever had!

VEGETABLE STOCK

Yield: 1 gallon

Vegetable oil 2 fl.oz, or as needed
Mire Poix*, large dice 3 lb
Nonstarchy vegetables* 3 lb
Salt 2 tsp
Cold water 1 gal
Sachet d’Espices* 1

1. Heat oil in large rondeau or stock pot and add mirepoix, vegetables and salt.
2. Cover and sweat the vegetables 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add water and salt. Simmer 15 minutes.
4. Add sachet, simmer 10 minutes.
5. Strain the stock. Degrease by skimming if necessary. Use immediately or cool rapidly and store for later use.

*Mire Poix: 2 parts onion, one part carrot, one part celery
Non-starchy vegetables like leeks, tomatoes, garlic, etc.
Sachet d’ Espices: Enclose the following in cheeseclothe, bound by kitchen twine
3 to 4 parsley stems,
1 sprig of thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme,
1 bay leaf,
1 tsp cracked peppercorns

In the lecture I told them about mire poix, the mix of vegetables that are sauteed first before adding other things to add a certain flavor. It's French, but every culture has a version, like Spanish Sofrito (onion, green pepper, garlic) and New Orlean's Holy Trinity (Onion, bell pepper, celery) and the idea of stock -- a flavorful liquid that can be cooked with that brings an intensity of flavor rather than a dilution of flavor. A lot of soup-chops, and another student assigned to turning the veg in the stock pot until soft. We made a sachet, covered in cold water, then we were off on the next recipe. (Next week, we're going to make vegetable soup with the stock...)

We made tomato concasse. How-to: Score the bottom of the tomato, drop in boiling water for about 30 seconds. Shock in ice water to prevent any serious cooking. Peel off skin, which now comes off easily. Cut into quarters and cut out all the jelly and seeds, so just bare solid tomato flesh is left. This can be used in stock and soup, without generating scum, papery skins or bits of seeds floating everywhere.

SWISS CHARD WITH CARAMELIZED ONIONS

Yield: 6 servings

Olive oil/Sesame oil/butter/ shmaltz 2 tbsp
Onions, thinly sliced 2 medium onions
Salt A pinch or two
Swiss chard, stems removed, 1” x 4” chiffonade 1 bunch
Kalamata olives, pitted, rough chop ½ cup
Salt to taste
Black pepper to taste

1. Bring a pot of well salted water to a boil
2. Heat large skillet over medium heat, add oil
3. Add onions, stir to coat with oil and salt
4. Continue to cook onions, making sure not to burn or brown. If they turn brown within 5 minutes, reduce heat. Cook 20-25 minutes until caramelized (a golden brown color). If they get to dry, add more fat.
5. When water is at a rolling boil, add Swiss chard. Cook to tender, 2-4 minutes
6. Shock chard in a bowl of ice water, drain and remove all excess water.
7. Stir chard into the onions, cook until excess moisture has evaporated and chard is heated through, 2-3 minutes
8. Toss with olives and salt to taste. Serve immediately.

Everyone sliced onions, then two students de-veined and made chiffonade of the chard. Chiffonade is rolling the leaf into a cigar-like shape and cutting it thin -- it results in more even, elegant cuts and prevents bruising of more delicate leaves. Four others got on the oven and I introduced them to the saute pan. Heat the pan first then add the oil. As I discussed in the lecture, one of the least healthy things you can do is eat scorched and burnt oil. Not only does it taste bad, it has all sort of cancer-causing substances. Heat the pan first, then add the oil. Test with a piece of onion, then go for it, constantly moving with tongs, paying attention to color, adjusting the heat if it's browning too fast or not fast enough.

For interest, I had each one use a different fat -- olive oil, butter, sesame oil, and chicken fat that I brought in from home. The butter took noticeably longer, due to the water content in this fat -- the others were all lipid, but butter is actually a mishmash of fat, proteins, sugars and water. I had them taste, looking for the sweet flavor. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go the full caramel, but they were good.

The chard was blanched and shocked, dropped into boiling water for 3 minutes, then drained and dropped in an ice bath. I explained blanching -- and how, in this case, doing so cooks the leaf and removes tge bitter elements. The shock of the ice stops the cooking abruptly, and locks in the bright green color. Squeezed out, it was tossed in the pan with the onions with some chopped olives, then seasoned.

After cleaning, we sat down to eat and it was a lot of fun eating each of the chards with the potatoes. Everyone was gaga over the potatoes and took some home, but no one liked the chards enough to take any home. To my taste, it tasted more like caramelized onions and olives which had greens in it as an afterthought, but STILL they didn't dig it. They did agree that chicken fat tasted the best, but not enough to finish the plate. You can bring a horse to water....and you can make a healthy vegetable extremely unhealthy, but a teen still won't dig it!

Next week, salads, which will be matched with sauteing of tender cuts of meat. And that damn vegetable soup. Soup n' salad!

First time teaching, nobody died or stabbed anyone!

Today went by in a flash. Woke up to a good fishy breakfast with sable I got from Russ & Daughter's yesterday. I spent the morning writing my first lesson plan and revising two recipes to fit the content of what I was teaching. By the time my momma-in-law came to take over Baby Birdie, I was getting nervous.

I shoved down a piece of rugellah then rode the bike through 50mph winds to a far corner of Brooklyn -- reminded me of the day in my cross-country trip riding through Kansas -- except those winds were steady across a plain, and I had to ride 50 miles through it, not 3.

I arrived early and helped the supervisor load in today's produce, which he got at a discount from a local market based on a list I gave him a few days earlier. A kid volunteer (not in the program) washed the bowls and utensils for me while I set up and checked things, then showed the kid how to use a wet stone to sharpen a knife. Soon, the kids arrived, I sat them down in the dining room, got them in aprons, and off we went.

The class went by in a quick fashion -- I had piled a little too much into our agenda, which meant constant activity....which, based on the feedback from the kids at the end of the class, was probably their favorite part of the whole thing.

We started with a lecture about food and kitchen safety: the definitions of physical, chemical, and bacterial contamination; and how touching a keyboard, a door knob, your face, your hair, or your ownbutt were all ways to get sickness into the food. So maniacal handwashing it was. The kids wanted to get into the thick of it, not hear a lecture, so I kept this lecture mercifully short.

Into the kitchen, basics of kitchen safety -- announcing yourself when passing behind someone, sharps, hots, how a hot pan should exist on a stove top (handle in, towel on handle if handle is hot). Everyone washed their hands and I noticed a bunch of dirty paper towels on the counter and floor. I had to channel Chef M, my mod 1 instructor, and barked, "I don't care you dropped the towels, but someone has to pick them up RIGHT NOW." And just stared at everyone until it happened. That's about as hard as I had to get.

First I demo'd a smoothie -- the basic flow of the class from here until they get comfy is: Me, doing a demo; then everyone mimics me. The curriculum had a horrible smoothie recipe involving juice and ice, thus I substituted my own:

FRUIT SMOOTHIE

Yield: 1 pint

Banana, ripe one
Mixed fruit* 1 cup
Greek yogurt ¼ cup
Whole milk ½ cup
Vanilla bean, scraped ½ bean
Salt to taste

1. Peel banana, break into 2”pieces and drop into blender
2. Drop fruit into blender
3. Add yogurt, milk, and vanilla to blender
4. Return lid to the blender jar and puree the fruit and liquid until very smooth
5. Season to taste
6. Serve immediately

*Use frozen fruit. If using fresh fruit, freeze the recipe’s ½ cup milk in ice cube tray

I had them all taste the smoothie before salt and after salt, and right there I saw I blew most of their minds. I think I won their trust at that point. All the kids used different combos of fruit; each smoothie came out differently. Using only two blenders for 9 kids, this took some time and cooperation, but I quickly got the idlers on dish and cleaning duty. Everyone was happy with their smoothies and when the supervisor came down, he said that compared to last cycle, these smoothies were vastly superior! I don't know if he was blowing air up my butt, but I'll take it!

After a bit of fiddle faddle tasting each other's smoothies, I went over knife safety -- how to hold, how to pass, how to carry, how to cut, then demo'd a simple salsa cruda.

SALSA CRUDA

Yield: 2 quarts

Tomatoes, chopped 2 ½ pounds
Jalapenos, minced 8 ounces
Garlic, minced 2 cloves
Yellow onions, diced 12 ounces
Cilantro, minced 1 ounce
Red wine vinegar 1 fluid ounce
Tomato juice 8 fluid ounces
Salt to taste

1. Mix the tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, cilantro, red wine vinegar and tomato juice.
2. Season to taste

This was a bit tricky to demo because though I requested one we had no scale. Salsa being a forgiving recipe, I eyeballed everything -- it was really about the knife skills anyway. By then we only had an hour left, so I put the hammer down. Two kids to dice tomatoes , 2 kids to dice onions, 2 kids to mince jalapenos, 2 kids to mince garlic, one kid to mine cilantro. I went around and corrected each as they went and approved each batch before being put into the communal bowl. I added tomato juice, red wine vinegar, salt and poof! Two gallons of fresh salsa.

After cleaning, I got the kids out into the dining room for chips n' salsa, as well as a cheese plate of 10 different cheeses, everything from Parmesan and mozz and cheddar to morbier, camembert and tallegio. Had them eat it both with french bread and a crisp, sweet apple. A few of the kid's minds were blown once again. Got a lot of compliments from both the kids and the supervisor, who popped in from time to time to see what was happening. Good times.

The kitchen is clean but a bit lacking in equipment. Though tighter in space than my culinary school kitchen it's a heck of a lot more space than any kitchen I've worked in. All the kids were pretty psyched to be there, and still seemed psyched by the end of class. Everyone helped with the clean-up, and a few just started sweeping and cleaning surfaces even though I didn't specifically ask any one to do those tasks. After the kids split, the supervisor and I finished putting the room away. Then we talked about how the first day went. He seemed really happy -- he was around at the end for the tasting, and was really pleased to see all the kids asking me questions, getting involved eating the cheeses, and sticking around even though we were 20 minutes after the ending time.

Next week, vegetable cookery, maybe some sweet fruit cookery too...