Grand Buffet (Graduation)

Today was the final day of class, a double day from 8am to guest-arrival at 5:30. Everyone prepared two hors d'oeuvres, and Norbit cooked off a bunch of roasts for a carving station. As usual, I put my head down and got my work done.

I finely chopped onion, garlic, Thai basil, parsley, and cilantro and mixed it in with yesterday's chopped vegs. Folded it into the batter made yesterday, then into the fridge. I reserved a handful of purple basil and zucchini for garnish.

I prepped the pizza topping -- thin slices of plum tomatoes, tiny dots of fresh mozz, cooked off and chilled a long link of school- made sausage, chiffonaded Italian basil. By this time, it was 10:30, and didn't want uncooked topped pizza to sit all day, so I jumped in and helped other students whose chosen preparations were a bit more involved. Dirty Dave had meatballs to shape, Natasha had mango sorbet quennels to shape, the Long Island Lolita had bacon masa dough to ball, Stalker Kawalski had mini eclairs to eat (damn, they were good!)... By 1pm, Dirty Dave helped me roll dough and cut it with a ring, to which I oiled it, topped it, and refrigerated it.

With some extra mini-pies, I baked off a bunch to see how they were. In the name of efficiency, I actually left all the little pies on the aluminium sheet tray, and placed the tray on the stone in the oven. In 10 minutes, the cheese started to brown nicely, and out it came. The crust was pleasingly cracker-like, and the tomato had cooked nicely, bonding with the fresh mozz for a pizza-like experience. The dough didn't char at all due to the pan and the relatively low temp of the oven -- had I added a little sugar to the dough, it would have been much more visually satisfying.

The pakora fritters involved deep frying. At 3:30pm I went to fry off about half the batch and keep them in a warming oven for service. A lot of liquid leached out of the vegetables into the batter, giving off a lot of little bits when it hit the hot oil. In retrospect, just throwing in more chickpea flour would have made this a much more efficient dish. I got off 60 pieces, though maybe 15 worth of bits went into the trash.

At 5:30, Chef A called for the hot food to plate, and my pakoras were out in a jiff. Two trays of pie went in, and they were out in another 10. My best friends, my wifey, my HVS, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, my girlfriend-in-law, and my Ilsa all came to snack and give props -- it was really nice, though it took me a few minutes to unwind from 10 hours of work culminating in that one moment. That's the cool thing about cooking in a professional way, when the food is fired and leaves the kitchen to the person receiving your work, it's a culmination, a high point, a place to go, an orgasm, a reason to keep going. It's great when the food is good (the pakoras, fresh tasting, veg came through, spiced right), kinda sucks when the food is bleah (the pizzas needed more heat, a lighter crumb) but that's just being persnickety.

The director of student affairs gave a little speech, Chef A said a few words, and Chef M from Mod 1 and part of 2 was there, which was cool. Students were called up one at a time and given a book (of French recipes, of course), crowned with a toque, and a whole lot of back slapping and picture taking, it all felt a bit goofy. A beer definitely settled my mind, though all the food I had been popping in my mouth all day guaranteed a lack of hunger.

A few friends and the wifey got together and got me a 10" Global chef's knife -- one of the most notable things from school was when I took a knife skills tutorial, using a longer heavier knife was so much easier than a shorter, lighter one. As long as it's balanced and you're holding it correctly and your stroke is just right, you can let its weight do a lot of the work for you.

This coming Tuesday, my externship starts. A lot to think about. This weekend, I will conclude this blog with my final thoughts and discuss some plans for the future. Stay tuned!

ADDENDA:
All you mystery readers out there, feel free to leave comments and congratulate me! ;) Judging from the meter, there are about 10 regular readers and maybe another 20 occasional indulgers. Thanks for reading!

Slept poorly the night before, maybe getting 5 hours of sleep. When I got home around 9pm, it felt like 4 in the morning. I slept like a baby, with visions of mini eclairs and pizza dancing in my head.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, a large portion of homemade vanilla ice cream, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5
Not a healthy breakfast, but needed a sugar kick to get moving.

ALL-DAY TASTING: 8am-7pm, including several pakoras, a handful of mini pizzas, handfuls of chocolates, mini-eclairs, a few mini burgers and meatballs, shrimp cocktail, a beer, a slug of Guinness, chicken sate, almond cookies, a few bowls, hunger varying all day

Grand Buffet Preparation (Cooking for My Peeps)

Today's class was spent preparing for tomorrow's Grand Buffet, our graduation send-off. We placed our food orders last week, and today's biggest challenge was finding everything amid the bins of everyone's ingredients. The pull was like a visual syllabus of the past 6 months of c-school.

Last night, I wrote up my recipe cards for pizza dough, mozzarella cheese, pakora fritters, and tamarind chutney. I made an additional card outlining what my goals should be for today's class -- what makes sense to make the day before the buffet, what can be done first thing tomorrow, what needs to wait until right before service. (With around 80 mouths to feed, each item had to be about 120 pieces.)

First thing, I made tamarind chutney. A half-cup of tamarind past got dissolved into a quart of hot water, then sautéed some golden raisins and ginger to soft. Threw in some cinnamon and a few other spices, sautéed until fragrant, then poured the tamarind liquid over it and brought it to a boil. Once it cooled, blended it to a purée and added water until it had the right consistency. Looking for the right balance of sweet and sour, it was still a bit too far on the latter; so, I added some jaggery sugar (palm sugar of the subcontinent, has a wonderfully funky sweetness), which hit the right note after I smacked it upside the head with a few pinches of salt. Into a quart container and into the fridge, done.

Next up was pizza dough. Got out the mixer, got the yeast dissolved in water with some olive out, then mixed it with Italian double 00 flour and a dash of salt. Let it go for about 10 minutes until it looked nice 'n bouncy, then scaled it out and balled it up on to a greased sheet. Covered it in plastic, into the fridge to proof over night, done.

On to the fritter batter, the base of the wheat-free, animal-product-free dish of the day -- chickpea flour mixed it dry with turmeric, garam masala (a specific curry spice blend), coriander, salt, and a few other spices; add water and a whisk until nice and thick. Let stand, covered, for an hour to develop and really get fully bloomed, then into plastic containers and into the fridge.

I boiled a gallon of water with a cup of salt in it, put on 5 layers of plastic gloves, then placed three pounds of curd. Once it got soft, pulled out the curd into boil, poured boiling water over it and pulled and stretched until the curd magically became smooth, stringy mozzarella. Balled it up, iced it, wrapped it in plastic, then into plastic vessels surrounded by the milky salt water. Fridge it goes.

By now it was 10:30, and we were aiming to clean by 11. I pulled peas, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and a huuuuge zucchini and got choppin' (these are the vegetables for the pakora). Potatoes peeled and diced, the cauliflower was put into the robocoup for a nice powdery consistency, and the zucchini diced with skin on. A big bowl o' veg, covered and into the fridge.

Tomorrow, need to mince all the herbs for the pakora, then I will mix the veg and herbs into the batter an hour before frying (since I don't want the veg to take in too much moisture from the batter). The dough needs to be rolled out, stamped into rounds and topped a few hours before baking. I think I may have a bottle neck at service -- baking and topping with basil, frying and plating the pakora. We'll be in from 8am until service at 5:30, a long day. I wonder what I'll be eating for lunch...

ADDENDA:
Yesterday I made dinner for B, the first time in quite a while I focused on just making a nice meal for the two of us at home. I made seared diver scallops on a bed of broccoli risotto, garnished with lightly battered broccoli florets, and a dessert of crème anglaise ice cream made with real vanilla bean. As I cooked, I could see how much my schooling has influenced my cooking.

The large scallops were sliced in half lengthwise, and right before it hit the hot fat, I dredged in salted flour -- before I would have just thrown the whole thing in, overcooking the outside and leaving the inside raw. The flour yielded a nice browning, and the thinness allowed it to cook evenly with one flip. By look and feel I just vibed when it was cooked.

The risotto took an hour of stirring and, rather than just make plain generic risotto, I had beforehand blanched and shocked a head of broccoli, and then puréed it with some water to smooth. Because of the blanching and shocking, it locked in the color; when I mixed it with the grated cheese into the risotto at the end, the finish product took on the most brilliant emerald green shade, not a bit of brown -- and it had a pure, direct broccoli flavor livened by the saltiness of the stock and cheese, clarified by the butter finish.

I plated it in a nice wide bowl; it looked beautiful. It tasted as good as I hoped it to be, and if I got it in a restaurant, I would have been very pleased to pay $25 bucks for this dish. To be able to whip it up without too much forethought for my wifey and me, it was a good feeling.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, banana, quart of water, .25 bowl, hunger 2/5

AM TASTINGS: 10-noon, spoonful of tamarind dipping sauce, handful of chocolate, handful of almond cookies, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
So many ingredients lying around, I was drawn like a magnet to the chocolate.

LUNCH: 2pm, 1 slice fresh moz pizza, Boylan's grape soda, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Emotionally satisfying. Very light on the cheese, the soda the same fake-tasting but purely sweet tasting grape from my childhood. Welch's tastes way too acidy and sweet, Boylan's has the more mellow balance of my memories.

PM SNICKLE SNACK: 5pm, quinoa, seitan, hijiki with tahini, grape fizzy lizzy, half a vegan brownie, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
After yoga feed with the HVS. Brownie surprisingly rich, made me think I may have OD'd on the sugar today.

DINNER: 7:30pm, broccoli risotto, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Microwaved and still delicious.