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.

Brigade System/Executive Chef/Purchasing/Fats and Oils (Not My Mother's Scramble, ohmmmmmmm)

Yesterday, I had the day off from school -- I rode a bicycle all day and cooked up a storm in the evening, including my first-ever proper broiling of a crustacean. I also made this interesting ice cream recipe, which involved espresso. I had one serving around 7pm for dessert, and still hungry had a 2nd serving around 8pm. When I tried to get to bed around 10pm, I realized I was wired. I didn't hit the hay 'til around 1am. When I woke up at 6am, my stomach was tight -- OH NO, I had to eat scrambled eggs today! (See Addenda.)

First, however, was the day's lecture . Chef M reviewed the militaristic hierarchy of a large kitchen, starting with the 4-Star General, a.k.a. the Executive Chef a.k.a. Chef de Cuisine a.k.a. Boss of the Kitchen. The Sous Chef is the 2nd-in-command and can fill in for the boss. Under the Sous are several different Chefs dePartie -- section heads, which include Saucier (sauces), Grillardin (grilled items), Patisseur (pastry). Of these sub-commandants, the top would be the Tourenant, the one who can fill in at any station. The lowest, most junior would be the garde manger: cold prep. Things like salad can be worked up before service time and when the pressure is on, no cooking is involved -- just assembling. Having the new guy work garde manger is logical; without the heat of cooking, you can hurt yourself (and others) less.

After going on at length about the responsibilities of the Executive Chef (hiring, firing, purchasing, menu writing, payroll, marketing & PR, sanitation, training, delegation, getting face time on the Food Network), Chef M pointed out the drama of purchasing and dealing with purveyors, the salespeople who sell food and consumables to restaurants. "Always check everything," he told us, "they will always try to rip you off." The class took a walk to the purchasing department of the school, which is equivalent to the purchasing department of a mid-sized hotel. With a refrigerator as big as my bedroom, a pantry like a couple of well-stocked aisles at Wholefoods, a liquor cabinet that fills up a large walk-in closet and 50 and 100-gallon steam-kettles to make stock, this was something to behold.

After some basic knife-skill drills, we were shown the proper way to care for cast iron. Since it is porous, it will rust easily so never get it wet. To clean, heat and scrub with coarse salt repeatedly (my caste iron wok is gonna get some good luv from me next time I use it!). Then, he showed us the proper way to scramble an egg: 1.) whisk 3 eggs (less will cook too fast) until the yolks and whites form 1 homogeneous color. Hit with a healthy dash of salt. 2.) Heat cast-iron skillet and drop enough fat of your choice to coat the bottom of pan, no more. Do not let smoke. Put a drop of egg mixture in pan to see if it cooks quickly. If not, heat more. 3.) Drop in egg mixture and immediately start shaking pan AND stir rapidly with wooden spoon. Repeatedly scrape down sides and bottom. 4.) When the egg still slightly runny, after about a minute, plate and serve. It will continue to cook and firm up on plate.

My partner and I did three rounds of different oils to taste and see how they cook. The sesame oil tasted very strong, overwhelming the eggy flavor. The peanut oil was mildly pleasant, with only a faint peanuty aftertaste. The clarified butter, however, was very pleasant, giving a round, almost sweet mouth feel to the springy egg.

I made the first batch with sesame oil, and put it on the plate. I grabbed some bread while my teammate washed the pan for the next batch. I put a small amount of the egg on the spoon, brought it to my face and looked at it, and it looked nothing like my mom's scramble (again, see Addenda). I popped it in my mouth and....it wasn't that bad. Pleasantly poofy, not sulfurous at all. The chef brought out a brick of foie gras to accompany the eggs, and the two items slathered on french bread wasn't a bad snack at all.

Tomorrow, I visit the Dean of Student Affairs to talk volunteer opportunity. C-school is art school, but it's also vocational school. Where am I going?

ADDENDA:
On the bicycle ride up to school today, I listened to NPR podcasts and chanted out loud, "NOT MY MOTHER'S SCRAMBLE" over and over again. I would of said, "Not my mother's eggs", but that just had too many off-colored meanings. The little meditation was my nutritionist, Ilsa's, idea.

When I met with Ilsa Tuesday, I confided that I was a bit concerned: Thursday would be scrambled eggs. If I am to be a serious student of the culinary arts, I can't just dismiss such a major foundation ingredient as 'inedible.' Over the past year or so, eggs have started showing up in my fridge, mostly as ingredients in pancakes, ice cream, and various baked goods, but the smell of frying eggs makes me literally gag. Why?

It's all my mom's fault. She was a brilliant, successful, intelligent, loving woman, but she could not cook if her life (hell, my life) depended on it. She would cook breakfast quickly for my brother and me every morning and, 4 out of 5 times, it would be scrambled eggs. Eggs quickly beaten, thrown on a hot pan without much of a shake, and what would appear on my plate would be a little bit burnt on the bottom, a little bit raw on the top, and bits of white and yolk everywhere. No salt, not egg, fried in no oil but in a (now recognized as toxic) teflon no-stick pan. Literally looked like fried boogers. My mom would not tolerate waste, and eventually I learned to place the cut-up egg on a napkin between my legs when she was not looking.

As soon as I could get out of the house, the last thing in the world I would want to eat is an egg. Looking back, it was the lack of choice, the powerlessness of having to eat those eggs that has given me such a visceral reaction to even the smell of a frying egg. Being confronted by a properly made scrambled egg, however -- and made by my own had -- might just help me to get over this detritus that has hung around my brain for so long. Therapy Session, $35K, with Culinary School thrown in for free!

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, banana, .25 bowl, hunger 1/5

AM SNACK: 9am, small piece of French bread, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM TASTING: 11am, samples of scrambled egg fried in sesame, peanut and clarified butter, small piece of foie gras, french bread, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:45pm, good quality Margarita pizza, minus crusts, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
The pizza at Naples 45 at Grand Central is, surprisingly, probably in the top 20 of the city.

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, fresh shrimp spring roll, small quantity of seaweed salad, 2 inari, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Pre-made snackies from Wholefoods.

DINNER: 8pm, boca burger on whole wheat, 10 saltines with good peanut butter, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5