Brownie FAIL

Today was the first half of a two-fer: tomorrow is Parent Teacher Conferences, so we cooked in preparation for setting up a buffet tomorrow. It spring instead of fall, so rather than exactly repeating last semester, we're skipping the mac n' cheese in favor of a lighter pasta salad. (Though now that I think about it, I think I'll do mac n' cheese next week to demonstrate sauces.) Today we finished our vegetable soup, made mayonnaise and Cesar salad dressing, then 3 different kinds of brownies. Recipes can be found earlier on the blog here and here.

We started the class with a little lecture about the brigade system, the traditional organization of the kitchen roles, from Executive Chef to commis (trainee), but I could see the kid's eyes glazing. I did a demo of whisking oil and vinegar alone, and watching it separate, then whisking with a little mustard, and watching it stay set -- a simple emmulsion.

The kids set about processing a whole host of vegetables for the stock we made last week to make vegetable soup, including the the blanched, shocked peeled and scooped out tomato concase. We turned over, and I demoed mayonnaise before setting the kids out in teams to make it themselves. Some of the kids are sharper than others, and when I tried to get them to set up their mise-en-place before I demoed, one kid didn't understand the concept of pouring two oils into the same measuring cup, and didn't understand that mise didn't mean dumping everything into one bowl, but grouping stuff together in a way that makes sense -- the oil and everything else must be in two containers, as the method of making mayonnaise involves a lot of whisking while pouring oil slowly into the bowl.

I had two students that I had last semester go nuts on the Cesar salad dressing, making an evil mash of garlic and sardines, before making the emulsion that would be joined with a lot of Parmesan. Both the mayo and the dressing would be held until tomorrow.

We reset and I broke the class into two teams. One would make normal fudge brownies, one would make a batch with macadamias and chocolate chunks. I demoed with a third batch -- mint brownies. I never tried this method before, I just made it up, and I suspected it would fail, though I wasn't sure how. I replaced the 2 cups of sugar with 2 cups of mint simple syrup -- Boil two cups of sugar with one cup of water, then place a bunch of mint and let it steep for about 30 minutes. The problem is you are adding a cup of water. We tried the brownie immediately after and while it tasted good, it had the tough consistency of jello -- despite minimally folding the flour in, the extra water really developed the gluten to make it very non-flaky and weirdly elastic.

I demoed how to make powdered sugar, simply by putting normal sugar in a blender for a few minutes, and added a few drops of food dye to turn it green, green to sprinkle over the mint brownies and green because it was St. Patrick's day. We sat down to eat the soup and the inferior brownies, and we went around the table discussing what was good and what was bad about today's session. Most mentioned the brownies as a highpoint, despite it tasting inferior. Many mentioned that the soup didn't have enough salt, though it tasted salty to me -- it gave me an opportunity to talk about salt -- it's easy to add more, but impossible to take it away without a lot of complexity. That's why you have salt on the table of restaurants -- it's left up to the customer to season to taste.

Tomorrow, we bang out salads and sandwiches....

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.

Soups (Lobster Back Atcha)

This morning's exam was for the first hour, and those of us who completed it early congregated in the library next door to compare notes and chill. At nine, Chef M gave a very brief lecture about a few kinds of soup -- particularly bisque (puréed and strained shells) and flambée techniques (drop liquor into a hot pot, face-out and away from the flame...or risk a trip to the burn unit).

We broke into teams to tackle Gazpacho, Onion Soup Gratiné, and Lobster Bisque. First up was putting 1.5 lbs of onions on the fire with some butter to thoroughly caramelize into a brown/black stringy paste for a solid 45 minutes.

The Gazpacho was easy, no cooking involved, just assembling the raw veggies in a pot to be puréed, then adding some crustless bread to purée some more to thicken. Cilantro and jalapeno gave it a nice kick.

Once that was set up, the lobsters came out. Fortunately, neither RH or SH had any queasiness dispatching the lobsters with the twisting-apart method that Chef M requested we use. I noticed that these lobsters did not move much as my team killed them -- perhaps they were well-chilled, or just not very alive. Once dispatched, we removed the tails and claws, which we then held aside for garnish. Once we removed the guts and broke the remaining shells down to small pieces, they were then put in a large pot to simmer with mirepoix for a while, until a nice, crusty fond developed on the bottom of the pan.

Tomato paste, rice, and paprika were added, and a shot of brandy was tossed in to deglaze, but unfortunately did not burst into flames. Fish stock was added, simmered 45 minutes, puréed and strained, finished with cream and garnished with par-cooked lobster meat, which finished cooking in the soup. And yeah, it tasted damn good. I have a quart in the freezer, and it contains the meat of 1 entire lobster.

Finally the onions were completely caramelized, and a shot of liquor was thrown in to release the fond from the bottom of the pan. Veal stock was added and simmered, salted then put into small metal cups and topped with slices of bread I toasted in clarified butter in a pan. That was topped with grated Gruyère and put under the broiler. Again, a quart of this soup (sans cheese and bread) came home with me.

SH and RH had an easy rapore with me today, though I felt a bit bad about asking them to dispatch the lobsters -- we all should have participated in this unattractive task, but I felt my gorge rising as I stared at the lobsters when they came out.

Tomorrow is no lesson at all, but a practical exam. Everyone will be cooking solo tomorrow: 12 pieces of perfectly diced potato, a 4oz cup of mayonnaise, and a presentation-worthy bowl of cream of broccoli soup.

ADDENDA:

I got to school almost an hour and a half before class started to study, but forgot to bring my lock and cable. After quickly returning home, I was still 40 minutes early. The test was a little disappointing -- 10 short answers, 10 short essays, but were given 4 alternate questions for the first part for the ones you didn't know, and given 3 alternate short essays if you couldn't answer 8 of the 10. I'm gonna feel a little silly if I don't get a near perfect score.

BREAKFAST: 5:30am, organic cornflakes with the good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

Rufus (whoops, I mean Anonymous Cat) kept walking on my head this morning, so I was up at 4pm to study a bit. After riding back and forth, wish I ate a bit more.

AM TASTING: 11:30am, small onion soup gratiné, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Deep rich onion and veal broth flavor, sent over the top by the clarified-butter-toasted slice of bread and melted/browned Gruyere.

LUNCH: 2pm, several slices of bread with tomato sauce, assorted appetizers including calamari, prosciutto, mussel and hard cheese, 2 small slices of pizza, water, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Went way uptown to a new fancy pizza/pasta place to celebrate the new Ph.D. of B's friend. The restaurant has only been open a month, and clearly does not have its act together. The waiter asked me for the name of the pizza I ordered, as he claimed not to know the menu yet (I asked for the Buffala mozzarella pizza -- there is only one buffala moz pizza on the menu and it is called the "Buffala") Water was not presented till mid-meal, the pizzas came a full 10 minutes before others of our party's entrées, and worst of all, the cheese on my pie tasted slightly soured, and I could not eat it. Is my palate-refinement going to work against me?!

PM SNACK: 4:40pm, chocolate soy ice cream, 2 cream filled local organic donuts, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
I was snacking on a reasonable bowl of soy ice cream when B trolloped in and laid 2 very rich donuts on me, which had to be snarfed immediately.

DINNER: 7:15pm, split pea soup, small amount of corn chips, water, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5

Soups (Raft: The Culinary Waste Treatment Plant)

Soup is traditionally the opening of a meal. In a restaurant, this will be a customer's first impression. It's an excellent place to use trim; most soups are simmered, strained and/or puréed. The main ingredient in a soup-base is water -- it does not get much more profitable than charging ten bucks for a bowl of flavored hot water.

Broth is defined as a liquid made by simmering vegetables, bone, and meat to extract flavor. Specifically, a consommé is a crystal clear highly seasoned broth made by the method of clarification. This method requires one to build what is called a "raft" (see picture above). Basically, a mush of egg whites, tomato product, ground meat, and mirepoix is boiled in stock until it congeals into the ugliest pale meatloaf you've ever seen. At this point, you leave it alone and let the lump sit on top of the simmering stock. In this way, the raft acts as a filter, sucking up all the impurities in the stock, while imparting the flavors of its ingredients. When straining, the goal is not to break the smog-monster-looking raft, or your consommé will turn cloudy.

Cream soup is defined as a velvety sooth soup which takes its name and color from the main ingredient. It is always thickened with roux and is always puréed and strained. It should have the final thickness of heavy cream.

Purée soup is one that's thickened by starchy vegetable; it's not roux and therefore is not strained, and turns out slightly thicker than heavy cream.

Finally, a soup garnish must relate to the soup, fit on a spoon, and should be hot on a hot soup and cold on a cold soup.

Then the knives came out:

Chef M broke us up into new work groups. I was paired with two guys I haven't had much interaction with, as they are quiet. They're both pretty passive, and to be on the PC tip, I'll call them RH (Round Head) and SH (Square Head). As we started our knife skills, neither of them were talking, just chopping -- if we were going to get through our three recipes (Chicken Consomme, Cream of Broccoli, and Purée of Split Pea), the three of us would have to coordinate. So I said, "OK, fine members of Team 5, let's figure out what we're doing next" and for the next 4 hours I became the defacto leader, telling RH and SH what do, coordinating our mise collection, sorting our pots, deciding what we were doing next, and approaching Chef M for his opinion on our productions as we went through.

First up was the Cream of Broccoli, which will also be the centerpiece of the practical exam we will be taking on Thursday. It's a little bit involved, as it takes making a velouté (mother sauce) first before making the soup base, and blanching and shocking evenly cut florets for garnish.

Second up was the Consommé, whose raft just looked nasty. As we're stirring, the egg whites start to turn into ugly little strings. At this point we stopped stirring as the eggs congealed and all the pale boiled meat, boiled vegetables, and scum formed a big floating patty. After simmering for a couple of hours, we carefully ladled out the golden clear consommé, which would make any Jewish mom proud to make chicken soup with.

Unfortunately, what was left in the pot looked freshly thrown up. Chef M told me a story about how he used to work at a restaurant where they would take spent raft and brown it before serving it with rice for Family Meal, the meal served to the staff before service. I imagine with enough spices and browning, it could be decent...

Third up was purée of split pea, which began with rendering lamb bacon and a load of garlic -- you know something is going to be good when you start with bacon and garlic. After adding stock and split peas to simmer (to tenderize the peas), the entire pot was puréed with an immersion blender; then we finished it with salt, and more lamb bacon, as a garnish. Our team was first to finish on all three of our soups, and with the exception of the broccoli (tasted great but not green enough due to overcooking, garnish included), Chef M was highly complimentary.

After clean up, Chef spent some time reviewing key points for the written exam tomorrow. Tonight, I shall cram in facts like the butt of a pig is actually its shoulder. Mmmm, pig butt. In addition, we're doing lobster bisque -- I assume I'll be having my second confrontation with the bare-handed slaughter of sea-bugs...

ADDENDA
Looking forward to the end of the week when I take orientations at City Harvest and God's Love. Real experience outside of the classroom! Over lunch, B mentioned her friend who now runs a very well reputed contemporary gourmet pizza restaurant in Brooklyn -- perhaps this is where I would like to extern? I don't know if I want to run a pizza place when I grow up (guffaw!), but to help turn out some of the best pizza in NYC, how fantastic would that be?

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, farmer's market granola with the good milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:15pm, Panzanella Salad, gnocchi with pork sausage, water, 1.5 bowls, hunger 4/5
Went to lunch after class to a joint near B's office, with a shmancy Italian menu. They got a whole mess of stuff wrong. First, the Panzanella salad was on the menu as consisting of tomatoes, fried bread and cucumber. What we got had almost no tomatoes, absolutely no cucumbers, a mess of micro greens, radishes and small crouton-like squares of greasy bread, not the big cubes of lightly toasted-with-oil chunks I had come to expect elsewhere. And mealy white beans -- I know you get these in Northern Italian cooking, but it just felt jarring. And my gnocchi with pork sausage was a special not on the menu, described as smoked and with medium flavor, with little tomato. What I got was indeed gnocchi with pork sausage, with quite a mild flavor, and a brown sauce that had hunks of stringy dried braised meat and full sprigs of thyme, woody stalk and all. The branch and the tough meat chunklets were simmered in the sauce for flavor, but were never strained out. (Tough dry bits of meat among soft fatty sausage is NOT a good or interesting contrast.) This is the first restaurant meal that after having it, I thought, "Damn, I could cook this meal better than the shmoe in the kitchen." Chef M would have not been amused.

PM SNACK: 3pm, a few small cubes of dark chocolate, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4pm, overflowing ramekin of chocolate soy ice cream with dark chocolate chunks and salted freshly roasted cashews, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Wanted to make a dessert for B, who is feeling under the weather, and skipped the sweets yesterday. Unlike the 4 or 5 times I made this, this time I tasted the batter as I blended it and adjusted the amount of maple syrup and sea salt until it tasted right.

There is another century ride to Montauk on June 21st. Contemplating doing something I never did before - the 145 mile route. The idea makes me excited and squirmy at the same time, just like when I was contemplating c-school.

Looks like my schedule will allow me a 24 hour fast beginning after lunch Friday and ending for dinner Saturday. Will I hallucinate? Will I die? Will the laxative tea make me poo out a raft?

For those who care, here is the recipe, which I cribbed off the internet ages ago but now just do from sense memory. You need a blender, a double boiler and an ice cream maker (I use an ice cream attachment for the stand mixer.

• 1 brick of SILKEN tofu (non-silken doesn't make the batter as smooth)
• 1 cup of UNSWEETENED soy milk (less crap in the soy milk the better, making it easier to control the sweetness over all)
• 3/4 cup of maple syrup (or honey if you don't care if it's vegan -- just make sure it's a fluid sweetener, as we're not cooking it, and cane sugar would be gritty)
• 8oz unsweetened dark chocolate
• Pinch of salt to taste
• dash of vanilla to taste
• Cocoa powder to taste
• Up to 1 cup of mix-ins to taste, in small pieces, chilled.

Melt chocolate in double boiler. While melting, puree tofu, soy milk and syrup in blender. While blending, add melted chocolate (if it's not blending, the chocolate will solidify and create yukky chocolate powder in the batter.) Blend until no specks of chocolate can be seen. Add salt and vanilla. Taste. Add more syrup if not sweet enough. Add cocoa powder for a more chocolaty punch. Refrigerate 10-20 minutes to thicken. Put in ice cream maker according to it's directions. In the last minute in the machine, add whatever mix-ins you like -- make sure they are cold.

DINNER: 8:30pm, puree of spit pea soup, spinach salad with homemade vinaigrette, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
The lamb bacon pureed and garnished in the soup was both bacony and lamby, like a good lamb kabob. Really delicious, could be served in a high end restaurant no doubt.

Reheated the consommé with sliced carrots, onions and fresh pasta, with a few drops of basil oil for B, she freaked out because she said it was the best chicken soup ever. Huh. I hope she's not saying that just because she's my wifey...