Italian with Mario

I started today's lesson with a personal story, which seems to be an effective way to start a class -- seems simple, why didn't I figure this out sooner? A few years ago I was visiting an old friend outside of London, England, where she took me to her best friend's house for dinner. The friend made a lasagna "from scratch". It certainly looked like a normal lasagna. When I cut a piece off with a fork (felt right), I placed the bite in my mouth and tasted...nothing. At all. I was not sick or stuffed up, but I took a paper napkin and quickly blew my nose to make sure it was clear -- the only time I ever had an experience like this was when my nose is stuffed, preventing nerve ending in the nasal cavity from detecting taste. Nope, the lasagna tasted like nothing.

I politely said it was great, and helped clean up. At this point I was able to do some detective work. Premade sauce from a jar. No-fat diet ricotta cheese. Pre-cooked lasagna pasta sheets from the refrigerator section. No-fat diet mozzarella cheese. Dried herbs, probably been sitting in a jar for years in her spice rack. No sign of salt or olive oil. Wow. That pretty much explains it.

Today, we would make an Italian baked pasta dish, truly from scratch. But to make something like a Baked Ziti, you don't just go and buy the components, some of them you should make... particularly the bescamela sauce, the bread crumbs and, of course the tomato sauce....

BESCIAMELLA

Yield: about 5 cups

Butter ½ cup
AP flour ½ cup
Whole milk 1 quart + ½ cup
Salt 1 tbsp
Nutmeg, freshly grated 1 tsp

1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and stir until smooth. Cook, stirring until light golden brown 6 to 7 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in another saucepan, heat the milk to just under a boil. Add the milk to the butter mixture about 1 cup at time, whisking constantly until very smooth, and bring to a boil, whisking. Cook, whisking, until thickened, about 10 minutes; remove from the heat.
3. Season with the salt and nutmeg. Transfer to a bowl and let cool, then cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

BASIC TOMATO SAUCE

Yield: 8 cups

EVOO ½ cup
Onion, small dice 2 large onion
Garlic, minced 8 cloves
Thyme, chopped ¼ cup
Oregano, chopped ¼ cup
Carrot, grated 2 each
Basil, chiffonade ¼ cup
Whole peeled tomatoes, milled Four 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.

BREAD CRUMBS

Yield: about 4 cups

Italian bread, thickly sliced 1 loaf, fresh

1. Place bread slices on a sheet into a cold oven. Heat to 200˚
2. Remove when bread is dry but not too browned. Place in a food processor and pulse until only crumbs remain – not too chunky, but not a fine powder, either.

I had three teams of two bang out these three, and as they finished, I had them work on the other components of the ziti -- pasta that is undercooked then chilled fast, grate the cheese (NOT pregrated, of course) and good imported buffala moz chopped into cubes.

ZITI AL TELEFONO (BAKED ZITI)

Yield: 8 servings

Ziti 2 lb
Tomato Sauce 4 cups
Besciamella 4 cups
Buffalo mozzarella 2 lbs
Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated 1 cup
Bread crumbs, fresh 1 cup

1. Preheat oven to 425˚.
2. Bring 3 gallons of water to a oil in a large pot, and add 2 tablespoons of salt. Cook the ziti for 2 minutes short of the package instructions; it should be too al dente to eat. Drain and rinse under cold water until cool. Drain a second time and place in a large bowl.
3. Add the tomato sauce, besciamella, mozzarella and Parmigiano to the ziti and stir to mix well. Sprinkle with the bread crumbs.
4. Bake for 20 minutes, until bubbling and crusty on top. Serve immediately.

When all six components were laid out in front of us in mise bowls, I called the students over and gave a short lecture about Italian cooking. These six ingredients -- pasta, tomato sauce, cheeses, white sauce and bread crumbs -- are all not only simple common things, but used in thousands of configurations to make hundreds of different regional styles. Italy has literally had thousands of years to develop their cuisine, while being limited to a relatively small group of ingredients. Pasta alone, there are hundreds of shapes that grab sauce in particular ways, changing the taste, texture and experience of a dish. Angel hair pasta in tomato sauce can have the same exact ingredients as spirals in tomato sauce, but will be quite a different dish.

And then we got all Grandma with it and mixed everything together, topped with crumbs and slammed in the oven.

Last weeks, one of the kids requested fried shrimp, and pretty much every cuisine will have a version, and here is an Italian one...

FRITTO DI GAMBERONI (FRIED SHRIMP)

Yield: 6 servings

EVOO Enough for deep frying
Large shrimp, cleaned 3 lbs
Lemons, 1/8” slices 2 each
Cornstarch 2 cups
Wondra flour 2 cups
Salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
Lemons, wedges 2 each

1. Set up deep saucepan with fryer basket. Heat oil over medium heat to 375˚.
2. Place shrimp in a bowl. In another bowl, combine flour and cornstarch.
3. Combine half the shrimp, half the lemon slices and half the flour mixture in a 3rd bowl. Toss quickly with hands to coat, then toss in a colander and bat against your hand to remove excess flour mixture.
4. Place coated shrimp and lemons in fryer basket and gently lower into hot oil. Cook until golden brown and crisp, 1 ½ to 2 minutes. Transfer to a drying rack to drain.
5. Once oil returns to 375˚,immediately repeat with remaining shrimp and lemon slices.
6. Season with salt and pepper, serve with lemon wedges and tomato sauce for dipping.

The kids were a bit freaked out by the deep fried lemon slices, they didn't like the pale color of the final product or the lack of crunch, BUT they liked it anyway. They're used to the fried shrimp out of the Chinese takeaways, but appreciated this different spin.

BROCCOLI AL FRASCATI

Yield: 6 servings

EVOO 3 oz
Garlic, sliced 4 cloves
Broccoli, cut into spears 3 lb
Frascati or other dry white wine 1 cup
Hot red pepper flakes 1 tbsp
Lemon zest 1 each
Orange zest 1 each

1. In a large sauté pan, heat olive oil with garlic over medium heat until just sizzling.
2. Add broccoli and cook, tossing frequently and gradually add the wine to keep the garlic from browning, until stalks are tender, 8 to 10 minutes.
3. Add red pepper flakes and zests, tossing well.

I was impressed by this recipe, but I had never made it before, and unsurprisingly the kids didn't dig it. Redolent of wine and fruit without being sweet, the broccoli was tender but crisp, and nice spicy kick that made the wine and fruit flavors pop.

As I was doing the final cleanup after the students ate and left, I found this copy of the recipes, from a student who I assumed was not paying attention, because she stared at her sheet and doodled through my entire lecture. As it turns out, she was taking notes AND drawing little hearts!

Sugar All Around

Today was the first completely new lesson of this round. The semester was two classes shorter last time, and we dedicated two classes to Thanksgiving. While one could argue this lesson deviates from our mission to teach how to cook with nutrition in mind, one also must be a realist -- we eat sweets, even if our bodies don't need them to live, because they are delicious. Better to eat sweets that are made by your own hand than by the industrial complex.

Cheesecakes take a long time to bake -- after baking off and cooling the crusts, the filling must go into a hot 475 degree oven for 10 minutes before being turned down to 200 degrees for two hours, then sitting in the turned off oven for another hour. Why? It's all about getting all the eggs in the recipe setting without getting tough, to get that unbelievably silky cheesecake texture, rather than bits of cheese sitting in little granules of scrambled eggs...

NEW YORK CHEESE CAKE

Yield: 3 Cakes, 48 servings

Butter, melted 2 cup
Graham cracker crumbs 4 cups
Sugar ¼ cup

Cream cheese, softened 5 lbs
Sugar 3 ½ cup
AP Flour ¼ cup
Eggs 10 each
Egg yolks 4 each
Vanilla 2 tbsp
Orange zest ½ each
Lemon zest 1 each
Heavy cream ½ cup

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 3 10” spring form pans, line with parchment. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
2. Make the crust: Combine butter, graham cracker crumbs and sugar. Spread to the edges of the pan. Prick all over with a fork, bake 15 minutes. Allow to cool.
3. Increase over to 475 degrees. In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, flour, whole eggs, egg yolk, zests and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Add cream and mix only enough to blend.
4. Place boiling water in a pan that will fit on the bottom of oven. Pour filling over crust and bake for 10 minutes at 475 degrees. Reduce temperature to 200 degrees and continue to bake for 2 hour. Turn off oven and leave cake in for another hour. When done, it may look a little jiggly in the center.
5. Chill overnight.

So when the kids arrived a little after 3, instead of waiting until 3:15 to lecture, I grabbed them as they came in and started them on the cheesecake. The first tow just did the crusts, greasing pans, processing cookies, melting butter, cutting parchment and getting it into the oven. I had two teams of two each make a half batch of cheesecake batter in the mixers. It's amazing that even though the recipe is basically throw everything in the mixer EXCEPT the cream, I had to catch one of the teams about to throw the cream in before turning the thing on. During this lesson, when asked simple questions, a lot of the time I said, "The answer is in the recipe, you just need to read the recipe before touching anything."

While the crusts baked, we quickly cleaned then sat for a lecture. And being that today was about sweets, the lecture was primarily...a chocolate tasting!

To paraphrase Tropic Thunder, we were in danger of going "full retard", but I stopped myself from serving 100% baking chocolate, which is bitter and painful to eat straight. I put out a spread from 86% down to white chocolate, and two milk chocolates -- a Giradeli and a Hershey's.

Chocolate is made from the cocoa bean, the seed of the fruit of the cacao tree. It must be 'conched', or processed by grinding into a paste called "chocolate liquor". This is pure chocolate, which can be processed into bars. 100% chocolate liquor is baking chocolate, and as you add sugar, it becomes dark chocolate. A 65% chocolate content means that the bar is about 35% sugar. Chocolate liquor is basically made up of two things, the cocoa which can be processed out into a dry cocoa powder (good for drinks, deepening the flavor of baked goods) and cocoa butter, the fat of the liquor. White chocolate is not actually chocolate at all, as all the cocoa (the flavor of the chocolate) is all removed -- it's just cocoa butter and sugar.

The kids hated the darkest chocolates, too bitter and it made them screw up their faces. The darkest most seemed to like was the 50%. The two milk chocolates were a revelation for them -- they were all used to the Hershey's style of slightly sour-milk flavored chocolate, but when they tasted the other high quality milk chocolate, I really got them talking about why it was better. It melted smoother in the mouth, it was less sweet and more chocolaty in a mellow way. One put it, "It just tastes more elegant!"

As they gobbled the rest of the not-too-dark chocolate, I spoke to the importance and reasoning behind creaming butter and sugar, when a recipe calls for the butter and sugar to be put into a mixer and paddled until it's, well, creamy. Creaming allows the fat of the butter to envelope every grain f sugar, while taking in millions of tiny air bubbles that will end up in the final product. When all these millions of air bubbles get into the oven, the air expands and makes everything more light n' fluffy.

To take in air, the butter most be soft at room temp, not hard and not melted. Sugar firms it up, by just beating the butter alone you'd get very very delicate bubbles that would dissipate with the addition of other ingredients. Using vegetable shortening will get you a lighter, fluffier product because unlike butter, it's 100% fat, but then you won't get the great flavor of butter.

From here I had two students do the donuts and glaze, and two teams of two do the chocolate chip cookies. The cookies were the standard Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe, and yet the two batches came out quite different...

CLASSIC CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Yield: about 16-24 cookies

AP Flour 2 ½ cups
Baking Soda 1 tsp
Salt 1 tsp
Butter, softened 1 cup
White sugar ¾ cup
Brown sugar ¾ cup (firmly packed)
Eggs, room temp 2 each
Vanilla extract 1 tsp
Chocolate chips 12 oz

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl.
3. In a mixer, beat butter, white sugar and brown sugar until creamy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in vanilla.
5. Turn off mixer. Gently beat in flour mixture and chocolate chips with a spatially until just combined.
6. Spoon rounded tablespoons of dough on a parchment lined baking sheet, a few inches apart. Bake 9-11 minutes until golden brown. Cool for 2 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

After I blathered in my lecture about why we cream, why creaming is important, etc etc, one of the two teams added an egg to the creaming butter and sugar. To the left of the pictures are light, cookie-looking cookies. To the right are smooth rock-like orbs, much tougher due to the egg-proteins developed into long strands.

I had never made donuts before, and teaching students how to make them is not the ideal situation to learn, but hey, whataya gonna do -- I don't typically bring a few gallons of hot lard to scalding temps in my kitchen to make many dozen donuts...

CINNAMON SUGAR CAKE DONUTS

Yield: 24

AP Flour 4 cups
Sugar 1 cup
Salt 2 tsp
Baking Powder 2 tbsp
Cinnamon 1 tbsp
Nutmeg ½ tsp
Butter, melted ¼ cup
Milk 1 cup
Eggs, beaten 2 each
Oil for frying
Sugar enough for dredging
Cinnamon enough for dredging
or
Vanilla glaze enough for dipping

1. Heat oil in appropriate vessel to 375 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix in butter until crumbly. Stir in milk and egg until smooth.
3. Knead lightly, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll or pat to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with a doughnut cutter, or use two round biscuit cutters of different sizes.
4. Carefully drop doughnuts into hot oil, a few at a time. Do not overcrowd pan or oil may overflow. Fry, turning once, for 3 minutes or until golden. Drain on paper towels.

VANILLA GLAZE

Yield: about 2 cups

Powdered sugar 1 ½cups
Milk 2 ½ tbsp
Salt ¼ tsp
Vanilla extract ½ tsp
Butter 1 tsp

1. Melt butter then add rest of ingredients. Mix until creamy

A gallon of peanut oil met with a few pounds of solid beef lard and with a thermometer, got it up to about 400 degrees (the donuts would bring the temp down to 375). The dough of the donuts were pretty straightforward to make, and rolling and cutting was simple. The frying, on the other hand, was a bit tricky.

The quarter inch rounds pretty much expand into donut-shape pretty quickly, then you go for the color you need. We did about 3 minutes on each side, and it was clearly over-cooked -- very crunchy, almost no chew in the middle. The finesse of this procedure is to make the donuts the right size consistently (we were using a combination of round cookie cutters, and getting all sorts of shapes) and a consistent heat of oil.

The sugar was fine, but we didn't make enough glaze, which was the most popular. By the time we sat down to eat cookies and donuts with milk (the cheesecakes were cooling, will have to be for next week), the kids were coming down from the chocolate high and weren't that hungry, he he he.

Next week, another new lesson -- explorations in Asian cuisine.

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!

Deep-Frying (Would You Like Fry With That?)

What can be said about deep-frying? Americans love it, it yields a super crispy exterior and a moist juicy interior. And unlike sauté and pan-frying, it's so easy a blind monkey can do it with just a little mechanical assist.

Easy is key. Lower-scale restaurants love the deep-fryer because it's simple to control, with virtually no education required of the cook. Lots of fast-food places almost completely automate their deep-frying. Everything is cut and prepped into precise portions cheaply off-site, the fryers are electronically controlled, and the minimum-wage slave doesn't have to think. It goes beep, it's done.

The training kitchen, however, is not set up like a McDonald's; the students have to be the machines that go beep. Thermometers in the deep oil are key at all times. Smaller items (like a stem of brocolli) fry faster at higher temps, bigger items (like a chicken breast with rib-cage attached) must fry slower at lower temps to reach doneness all the way through.

According to Chef, lard and tallow are far and away the best fats to deep-fry in. They make the crispiest food, leave the least amount of grease on the items, and they are reusable the most. However, people (vegetarians, Buddhists, health nuts) are afraid of it. Peanut oil is second best, but there are a lot of allergic people out there. Canola and vegetable oil (a blend of soy, corn, and canola) are popular and cheap, but are probably the least healthy, outside of the industrial artificial hydrogenated fats ("melfry" and "frymax" are two popular ones) that fastfood chains use.

Reusing deep-fry fat is fine, as long as it (a) is still light in color, (b) strained of all particles, and (c) is not used for other food items. Fish in particular will give its taste to oil, and anything cooked in it afterwards will taste fishy.

Proper french fries are "blanched" in fat -- 280 degrees is hot enough to render out moisture, but not hot enough to brown. Once the bubbles slow down, the pale fries are taken out and drained on paper. Then they are resubmerged in 350-degree oil and browned. Because the insides are dry, they won't get soggy once they cool a little.

First up: using a mandolin for the potatoes. Despite 8.5 hours of sleep, I was a bit tired and on my first stroke of cutting the potatoes my palm got two nicks from the blade -- there are lots of opportunities for a sleepy person to hurt themselves in a kitchen, I learned. (The cut didn't bleed, but left 2 little red lines.) Anyway, N was back on the team, and I assigned sauces and chicken batter to the three of them, while I prepped the fish beer batter (using nice New Orleans Abita) and fabricated the cod. I had a large fillet that again seemed to have thick skin, but I was able to pull it off without too much damage.

Once the mise was done, the rest of the day was spent putting items in the fat, watching them and the temp and taking them out, hitting with fine salt and getting them to Chef M pronto. Rather than every team work at one range, each range was assigned an item and we went around the room. We first blanched our fries and set them out on paper to drain. For all fried food cooked in this method, the way to tell doneness is a) the nice brown golden color, b) it floats, c) it bubble less because moisture is gone and d)the temp starts rising all of a sudden.

While the fries cooled, we used Standard Breading Procedure on the oysters, some with breadcrumbs and some with cornmeal. 2LG made the cocktail sauce we served them with, and Chef dug 'em. You really need to pop them in your mouth whole, because even though they taste great and oceany, a half-eaten one looks very much like breaded moose-snot.

We went back and quickly dipped our fish fillets in our beer batter and dropped them in the oil, then the blanched fries right on top. When everything floated and looked golden, we removed onto racks. Our batter was a bit too thick, and remained a little gluey on the inside, despite the fish itself being cooked perfectly. Chef M recommended just adding a little water to make the batter more manageable.

Broccoli was dipped in a thin tempura batter (corn starch and rice flour mostly), thrown into the oil and was done in literally 10 seconds. Served with a wasabi soy sauce, it tasted a bit overdone to me.

Last item up was the fried chicken. RH broke down 2 chickens into 10 pieces each, and N made the marinade, with had 8 different herbs and buttermilk, all puréed smooth into a nice green color. After marinating for an hour, it was dipped in flour, dipped back in the marinade, a second time in flour then into the oil. Due to its size, this item took the longest. The thing about deep-frying is that you must keep the right temp as long as possible; but, the more stuff you put in, the lower the temp goes...and you really have to crank up the heat fast to get back in the good zone. Too low and it'll absorb grease, too high and you make a scorched mess. Chicken was good, though not something anyone should eat every day.

Today was the first day that I rolled down the sleeves of my chef's jacket, as I kept on getting hit with hot burning splatter. That shouldn't be the case on Monday, when we leave the oil behind for a method more nutrition-friendly, grilling.

ADDENDA
Blood pressure was 132/83 this morning. Long day ahead of me, with school, work, dinner out with B and her cuz, then the Bicycle Film Festival downtown....

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, good yogurt with honey and vanilla, banana, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM TASTINGS: 10:30-11:30am, deep fried breaded oysters, deep fried beer-battered cod and french fries, deep-fried broccoli tempura, 1 bite of Southern Fried Chicken, water, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
The fish was absolutely puffy and delicious, the fries just crunchy and tender, the oysters surprising in their little pockets of ocean flavor, the broccoli bursting with flavor. By the time we got to the chicken, was feeling a bit queasy.

DINNER: 5pm, bread and white beans, tuscan panzanella, prociutta de parma, spaggetti al limone, 1 glass prosecco, water, vanilla ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over it, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Excellent dinner at Supper on 2nd St off Ave A, though the service is really surly. Interesting Northern Italian menu. The pasta was simply spaggetti in a butter/lemon sauce, with a hint of white wine. It sounds like it should be gross but just the right amount of acid makes the wheat of the noodles taste....wheatier.

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, lobster bisque with tortilla chips, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Not your typical evening snack, but I just got so hungry, guess the deep-fried morning wasn't as all-consuming as I thought. Needed to eat this before it went bad, and almost ALL the lobster meat of an entire lobster was in this portion.