Teaching, Cycle 2

Hello, everybody! I was at the high school today, recruiting student's for the second semester of culinary classes that I'll be teaching starting in March. Again, I whipped out a batch of brownies based on this recipe, and put them side-by-side with some bodega-purchased Lil' Debbie brownies.

Again, I put this info sheet out:

Spoke to about 15 interested kids. Talking with the supervisor about coming back in a couple of weeks to do a meatball demo class to further recruiting.

Basically, I'll be basing this round of classes on the curriculum I've developed, based on the C-CAP literature, but take it a step further. Now that I've done it once, I kind of know what works and what doesn't, what can be done in how long, etc. Should be interesting!

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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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