It's called Skill Development I, and our teacher was Chef David Barry. There are 18 people in our class, and it was intense.
In Skills, we learned how to make proper knife cuts, such as brunoise (1/8 inch cube) and julienne (long, thin strips). We also learn vegetable cookery, stocks, soups, and sauces. Stocks are made by taking an animal's bones and adding water and aromatics (carrots, celery, onions, peppercorns, etc.). Then you simmer it and periodically skim the grease and impurities from the surface. The length of time you need to simmer the stocks varies based on the type of bones used, and some examples of stocks are chicken, white beef, brown veal, ham hock, and fish. Commercial stocks are often found in supermarkets as "chicken base", which is in a small jar. They are used as bases for soups and sauces, and replace water to make the liquid in recipes more flavorful.
We have three giant stock kettles in our classroom:
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| Stock Kettles |
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| White Beef Stock |
The soups we make include broths (stocks with more meat on the bones), hearty broths (using a 2-1 ratio of liquid to garnish), consommés (crystal clear broths), cream soups (cream of broccoli), puréed soups (puréed lentil soup, vichyssoise), and specialty soups (don't fit in other categories, common to a specific area; gumbo, New England chowder).
The sauces we make are called grand or mother sauces. They are as old as fire, and they are what modern sauces are based of off. These include bechamel (white sauce), velouté, espagnole, and hollandaise.
On a normal day, I go to class at 5:50. I then set up my station and perform my AM task. When the tasks are done, we start our knife trays. When knife trays are done, we clean up. When Chef is ready, he does his demo. When demo is over, we start our individual production. When Chef is ready, he does his second demo, and then we continue and finish individual production. When we present our knife trays and products for evaluation, we start to clean up. When everyone has been evaluated, we go to lunch. When lunch is done, we go back to class, perform our PM tasks, and finish clean up. When the class is cleaned, we go to lecture. When lecture is done, we leave. I then do my homework, eat, and sleep. Repeat.
Class can be brutal. We have to do an enormous amount of work, and it's stressful. Here is a picture of the classroom:
Knife trays are where we practice our production knife cuts. We have to do an array of knife cuts in a very short, timed period. On our first day, we had 90 minutes to do everything. The next day it went to 65. Slowly it went to 60, then 55, 50, and it will go to 35 by Wednesday (our last class). In that span of time, we have to do all of this:
- 2 Onions, julienne
- 2 Onions, small dice
- 1 Potato, brunoise and julienne
- 1 Potato, small dice and battonet
- 2 Tomatoes, concassé into petals
- 3 Garlic Cloves, minced
- 2 Shallots, minced
- 1/4 Bunch Parsley, chiffonade
- 1 Sachet d'Epice
- 1 Bouquet Garni
We stopped having to do bouquets after a few days, but everything else is a constant. Concassé means peeled, seeded, and chopped. You cut off the stem and score (cut an X) the other ends of the tomatoes. Then you place them in boiling water for 15-20 seconds to loosen the skin. They are then removed from the water and placed in an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Then they're peeled, cut lengthwise in quarters, and seeded. Chiffonade is a kind of cut meaning thin ribbons. Sachets and Bouquets are aromatics used to flavor stock and soups with easy removal. The bag thingy is the sachet, and it contains a bay leaf, thyme sprig, 8 crushed black peppercorns, 3-4 parsley stems, and a crushed garlic clove. The bouquet is the green thing tied with string, and it is a leek layer containing celery, a bay leaf, a thyme sprig, and 3-4 parsley stems. While we do knife trays, we also have to skim and degrease the stocks. More recently, we've had to roast veal bones for brown veal stock as well. Demos work as follows:
Let's say we have to make cream of mushroom soup today. Throughout the morning, while we're doing our knife trays, Chef will get ready to do the first half or so of the process to make the soup. When he's ready, and we're done, we watch him make the first half of it. When he's done, we go off an repeat what we watched. When he's ready to do the last half, we stop what we're doing and watch him finish the soup. Then we finish it ourselves the best we can. When we're done, we write our names on the whiteboard. The first person will be "up", the second person will be "on deck", and the third will "start plating." This is pretty self explanatory.
By the way, if Chef asks a yes or no question, or if he tells us something in general, we have to answer with "Yes, Chef" or "No, Chef." It's pretty militaristic.
Baggers put the stock into plastic bags while the taggers seal the bags shut and label them correctly.
The class makes a lot of stock, and the stock is sold to the storeroom. From there, restaurants on campus order them for their menus. It's a neat system.
So now you have an idea of what each student has to do. We have to get there early, set up, do our jobs, knife trays, roast bones, manage stocks, make anywhere from 2-6 recipes, clean as we go, and not pass out. The girl who was next to me for the first nine days of class almost passed out twice. I got to call campus safety.
This is the point where I messed up. This stupid blogging web site has a feature where it automatically saves around every five seconds. I clicked the undo button to correct an error I made, and it just got rid of everything I'd typed so far. Then it saved.
I got back to this point, thank guava melons.
OK, now the fun part. I'm going to show and explain the foods I made. WOOOOO.
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| Chicken Glace |
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| Consommé Raft |
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| Chicken Consommé with Carrots, Celeriac, Rutabaga, and White Turnip |
When it's cold, you add it to the stock, and put the pot on a medium-high flame. Keep stirring the consommé until it reaches 135 degrees. At this point, the sides will start to foam and the mixture of stuff will start to become solid and stay on the top. When that happens, you turn the heat down to medium, so that it simmers, never boils, and you make a window. The window is made by taking a ladle and scooping out a hole in the mass of ingredients. It's crucial that the window is made before the mass becomes completely solid. The mass of gross food is called a raft. The raft is made mostly of proteins and things that contribute flavors. The raft does the all-important job of trapping all of the impurities and fat in the liquid.
From that point on, just simmer it. Every fifteen or so minutes you will need to baste the top of the raft with liquid attained from the window. This makes more flavors seep down into the consommé. When it's simmered for at least 45 minutes, you set up a straining station and ladle liquid from the window carefully into the strainer. Then it's done, and it looks like my picture.
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| French Onion Soup with Gruyere Croutons |
This is my favorite recipe so far. To make it, we sauteed onions in butter on a low heat for about forty minutes, until it was all caramelized and sweet. During the sauteing, we sliced baguettes and sauteed them in butter until golden brown. Once they were done, we sprinkled Gruyere on them and baked them in the oven until the cheese was melty. Then we added stock to the onions and simmered it for a little while. When it was done, we ladled some into a soup cup, added two croutons, then put three slices of Swiss cheese over the top. It went in the salamander (broiler) for about a minute, and then we plated it with two more croutons.
Man that was good soup.
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| Vichyssoise |
Side note: my roommate just talked in his sleep. He said, "We need an ice bath." Skills is taking over.
There are four other things we made that I didn't take pictures of. We made mashed potatoes, cooked black beans, made purée of lentil soup, and made beef and vegetable soup. The beef and vegetable soup was on our second day, and it was the first thing we cooked in school at the CIA. It was a hearty broth, and contained small diced potatoes, aromatics, and beef shank in white beef stock.
OK. The purée of lentil soup was a delicious soup, but it was my worst day. I was pissed that day. People were crotchety and stressed, and I sucked at making my soup. I didn't cook the lentils long enough, so they were still too hard. I tried to pass them through the food mill, but it wasn't coming out as fine and smooth as it should. I was upset, but then I realized that the grate on the food mill was coarse, so I changed it to a fine grate, and it started working. At this point, I was late, my soup was cold, I was excited that it looked the way it should, and I didn't care about anything else. I served the soup cold, on a cold plate. The soup had perfect consistency, color, flavor, and body, with perfectly cooked small dice croutons. It didn't matter. Chef wasn't happy that he got "ice cold soup." I could've avoided that by heating it up, but I wasn't in the mood.
That day finally finished, and I came to class the next day determined to serve him a hot soup on a hot plate.
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| New England Hake Chowder |
In our class, we use clarified butter for just about everything where we need fat. You stir it together in a pan off the heat until it becomes a light tan, smooth paste. Then you cook it for a little until it has a cookie dough smell. That is called a white roux. Cooking it longer until it is darker tan and has a fresh bread smell is called a blond or pale roux. Cooking it even longer until it's brownish is called a brown roux. The longer a roux is cooked, the less thickening strength it has. White roux would be used in light sauces to maintain color. For the same principles, brown roux is used in dark sauces to maintain a dark color. Roux can add color, thicken, and provide flavor. The butter is what adds flavor. To rid the liquid of the flour taste, you must cook the liquid with the roux in it for 20-25 minutes.
Main aromatics are called mirepoix. Standard mirepoix is 25% carrots, 25% celery, and 50% onions. There are various forms of mirepoix, such as white mirepoix and matignon. White mirepoix is used when you don't want the aromatics to add color, so in this case, we used white mirepoix. It consists normally of onions, leeks, parsnips, and mushrooms. We just used onions, leeks, and parsnips. Matignon is also called edible mirepoix, because it contains a pork product such as ham and is often used as a garnish.
The mirepoix is sweated off, added to the fumet, and thickened with the roux. Once that's done, you add small dice potatoes. Once the potatoes are tender, we add the fish. The fish we used was hake. From fish kitchen, we learned that the cod family consists of Atlantic cod, hake, cusk, pollock, and haddock. They all have similar tastes, colors, and textures. The fish is only added soon before service, because fish cooks very quickly, and we don't want it to overcook. Once the fish is cooked, lemon juice, tabasco, and salt and pepper are used to season the soup. I'd never actually had a chowder, and it was delicious. I was so proud of myself.
The comment from Chef was that it needed a little more lemon juice. When he gives critiques, it's normal. When he gives few, it's good. When he gives one, you almost nailed it. When you're perfect, you're perfect. The plate was so hot this time that I actually burned myself with it. There was no way I was going to give him a cold plate again.
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| Cream of Broccoli Soup |
It was made by taking a veloute (sauce made from stock thickened with roux) and adding aromatics and broccoli. The top, green buds from the broccoli were shaved off and reserved. The rest of it was thinly sliced and cooked in the sauce. After the roux flavor was cooked out enough, we added the green buds and blended it in a blender. It became a vibrant, velvety smooth green. It was then seasoned and placed with a garnish of boiled broccoli fleurettes.
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| Duxelle in Tomato Boats |
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| Cauliflower au Gratin |
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| Creamed Spinach |
This was all done today. We did knife trays, bones, jobs, and then started all of this crap. We had to make bechamel sauce. It's also called white sauce, and it made by mixing milk with white roux and onion piqué. Onion piqué is a form of aromatic that is straight out of classical French cuisine. It is traditionally half an onion studded with three cloves and a bay leaf. We used the same ingredients, but just used the diced onions from our knife trays and threw in the rest.
Once the sauce has simmered long enough, you strain it to get only the smooth sauce. I added it back to a double boiler (bowl on top of pot of boiling water to prevent scorching). I then reserved two ounces of it for the spinach. As for the rest of the bechamel, I added two ounces each of shredded Gruyere and Parmesan cheese. I gradually mixed it into my sauce, and voila! It became a sauce Mornay. The cauliflower was cut into fleurettes and boiled in acidulated water to retain it's bright white color. When the sauce Mornay was ready, I added the cauliflower to the dish and ladled the sauce onto it. Then I put it under the salamander until it browned the top.
For the spinach, I sauteed some shallots in butter and added the spinach. Then I cooked it down for under a minute and seasoned it off the pan. I then added the two ounces of reserved bechamel to the pan, as well as an ounce of heavy cream. The mixture is then put on the plate for service.
The duxelle is different. Duxelle is a preparation of finely chopped mushrooms and shallots. We made a wet duxelle. It was made by sauteing a bunch of finely chopped mushrooms in butter until golden brown. Then we added shallots, deglazed the pan (get the stuck-on bits off of the bottom and sides of the pan) with white wine, reduced the wine, added cream, and reduced the cream. The mixture is then binded with some mie de pain. Mie de pain means fresh, white breadcrumbs. All you have to do is grate some white bread. The mie de pain soaked up lots of the liquid, and then we put the mixture aside. Meanwhile, I had a plum tomato cut lengthwise in half, stem removed, innards scooped out, and seasoned with salt and pepper. I took the duxelle, spooned it into the tomatoes, sprinkled more mie de pain on top, and baked it until the tomato was cooked. This was fantastic, and I'm making it over the holiday break.
We make so much damn food in this class. We also have to practice tournes. A tourne is a special and widely hated/feared production cut. It's when you take a vegetable and turn it into a seven sided football. Sounds bad. It is bad.
I can't really explain how to do it, but it involves precisely widdling down the vegetable in a special way. It did not come to me very fast. I hate those little buggers. I am determined to get good at it, so since we started practicing them, I've taken home six potatoes every night to practice. No one else does that. I hate them. I want to do them.
This was from a few days ago, I've gotten better.
Well, that was a lot of typing for me. I'm going to bed.
Until the next post,
Eat well, then eat more
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