Black Box was Red

This is the last week in this rotation, so all of my final exams and assignments are scheduled through the week.
I had my black box practical exam in Stocks, Soups, & Sauces today;  I drew Tomato Sauce. That was a lucky draw, since I made a batch of tomato sauce at home on Saturday (I'll post the step-by-step when I have more time). So I replicated my method from Saturday and made 3 litres of tomato sauce. I liked how the sauce turned out today....now to see how well Chef Wicki liked it. The black box practical is worth 15% of my overall mark. 
Tomorrow I have a written test on sauces, group presentation on Wednesday on Espagnole sauce, and the final exam on Friday. I did the majority of the Powerpoint presentation for Wednesday and it is going to be a visually appealing, dare I say, kickass presentation.....now to get the others in my group up to speed tomorrow and we'll be in good shape.

My other course this rotation is Nutrition.....100% on my first report/presentation and 92% on my midterm exam. Coming up this week: Assignment #2 and final exam, both on Wednesday, worth a combined 55% of my final mark. I should probably get on those.

What I had for lunch today:
Soup: Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato Puree
Pork Ribs
Starch: Roasted Garlic Risotto Cake
Veggies: Drunken Leeks & Ratatouille
French Bread
Coffee
(I had the dessert at break: Bread Pudding with Creme Anglaise)

In addition to my black box practical, I was on the stocks station today. Every year the Culinary Institute prepares 300 litres of PEI Potato Chowder for a minor hockey tournament. The stocks station prepares this, so I split my time between making tomato sauce and peeling and slicing buckets and buckets of potatoes.

Off to study.  

Week 4 Wrap Up

Well, that week flew by...wha' happened??

This module of Nutrition and Stocks, Soups, & Sauces is winding down, and that means that the assignments, reports, and tests are coming at a blistering pace.

Week 4 was much like week 3, just a lot more studying. My black box practical test for Stocks, Soups, & Sauces is on Monday. This is where I go into the kitchen, draw a stock or a sauce out of a pot (stands to reason), and then I prepare what I've drawn. No recipes, no help from anyone else. The possible choices are:
Stocks: brown, white, or vegetable
Sauces: bechamel, veloute, espagnole, or tomato

I have step by step instructions on a brown stock in this blog, so I think I will do ok with a stock. I'll do all right with bechamel and veloute sauces. The two iffy choices right now are espagnole and tomato, since these are fairly involved either in ingredients list and/or technique.
With recipes, this practical test would be a snap. I've made these sauces so little that I haven't had the time/practice to make them "automatically" yet. I might try making a tomato sauce this weekend to get a fell for the technique and ingredients list. One of my classmates made the tomato sauce on Thursday night, and drew tomato sauce for his blackbox on Friday.....worked for him.

Lots of great lunches this week, but because I've been delinquent in keeping up the blog, I'll just list yesterday's lunch. Here is what I had:

Turkey Vegetable Soup
Madras Chicken Curry (my group made the curry sauce)
Starch: Coconut Rice (on its own this would not be my first choice,  but it went well with the curry sauce)
Veggies: Honey Glazed Parsnips, Green Beans with Shallot Butter
Raisin Bread
Coffee

In the kitchen my group made a creamy tomato basil sauce, a maple glaze, chicken gravy, and we clarified a pound of butter each.
Clarified butter is removing the milk solids and water from butter, leaving behind only the purified butterfat. This is accomplished by heating the butter to a simmer. As it simmers, the water is evaporated of and the milk solids fall to the bottom. At just the right point of caramelization of the milk solids, the pot is removed from the heat, set aside to cool slightly, and then strained slowly through a fine mesh strainer.
The tricky part is knowing exactly when to remove the butter from the heat. Caramelizing the milk solids slightly gives the clarified butter a rich, nutty taste; caramelizing the milk solids too much gives the butter a burnt taste and ruins $5 worth of butter.
Clarified butter is used in veloute, espagnole, and hollandaise sauces as it gives a far more stable sauce than if whole butter is used.

Ok, it's Saturday morning, the coffee is kicking in, time to get an assignment done, then off to the engraving shop to pick up my newly engraved knives. Someone suggested engraving on the first day in the kitchen and after a few instances of "Is this your knife or mine?" I thought I'd better get it done.

Week 5 is going to be like flying into Charlottetown on a Beech 1900 on a windy day, but bring it on!

Week 3 Wrap-up

Just wrapped up week #3. Things are going very well. My confidence level is doing something it hasn't done in ages.....growing.

This week:
Soups test: 92%
Assignment #1: 90%
Terminology test: 97.5%

Coupled with the 100% last week...this has been a pretty good 3 weeks.

Chef Wicki prepared another meal for us today....and it didn't include odd parts of a cow. He (and another student) made some Andouille sausage on Wednesday. I helped on Thursday with the smoking process. Today the sausage was ready. Andouille sausage is a smoked, spicy sausage, excellent in Cajun dishes such as Gumbo and pasta sauces.
Chef wanted us to enjoy his sausage try the Andouille sausage, so he made a pasta sauce and penne which we got to try during the afternoon break. Most excellent. (I hope my praises of his food will make up for my corny jokes, should he ever find this blog.)

Today my group made a tomato coulis, Marchand de Vin sauce (red wine sauce with a demi-glace base), and a fish veloute (to make a Vin Blanc Sauce on Monday).

Lunch was much better today; (I think I just chose the wrong combination of choices yesterday). Here is what I had:
Beef Barley Soup (excellent)
Rustic Tuscan Pasta with Turkey Sausage (The sauce:  Roasted Garlic Tomato Concasse...the one we made yesterday)
Veggies: Macedoine of Vegetables
Bread: Focaccia
Coffee

Looking forward to week #4.

Into the Sauce

I started on the sauces station today. While stocks and soups were interesting, sauces are a whole other thing. A stock is forgiving, a soup is pretty straight forward as long as you follow the recipe, but a sauce demands proper technique and attention.

We start all of our sauces with one of the mother sauces (or leading sauces) and then make derivative sauces from the leading sauces.

Sauces start out with a roux, an equal mixture of fat (typically clarified butter) and flour. As the flour cooks, the roux goes from a white roux, to a blond roux, to a brown roux. When the roux reaches the stage you want, you add the appropriate liquid. A liquid + a fat/flour mixture = a thickened sauce. The sauce is then simmered to reduce to the appropriate consistency.

Today my group made: Roasted Garlic Tomato Sauce, a Veloute (to eventually make a Vin Blanc Sauce), a Chicken Gravy, and we finished a demi-glace (to make a Marchand de Vin Sauce tomorrow).  

Terminology test went well.

Today for lunch....hmmm....I'm usually not picky, but I found it to be not great. Then again, I usually find lunch to be excellent, so my "not great" might be someone else's "ok".
Here is what I had:
Lemon Okra Tomato Soup (should have had the artery-blocking Zucchini Bisque)
Pan Fried Salmon with Roasted Red Pepper Coulis
Starch: Kasha Pilaf (not a fan)
Veggies: Honey Glazed Parsnips, Bok Choy
Bread: Baguette
Coffee

Tomorrow: more sauciness

Another Test

Another quick update since I am studying for a terminology test...might as well be a French test with all those crazy French terms. Last weekend I was explaining to John what I was up to in the kitchen and realized that I was sounding like a pretentious ass with all the French terms. What I probably looked like:

Lunch was pretty good today. Here is what I had:

French Onion Soup (again with the French; I don't usually do French Onion Soup, but my group made this and I sliced many pounds of onions for this)
Grilled Lamb Souvlaki with Tzatziki Sauce and Lamb Jus Lie (Lamb Jus Lie on top, Tzatziki on the side)
Starch: Lebanese Couscous
Veggies: Sautéed Corn and Broccoli Almondine
Vienna Bread
Coffee

Today in the kitchen my group made Lemony Chicken Okra Tomato Soup and Zucchini Bisque. The bisque tastes awesome, but in 16 litres of soup, we used 5 cups of butter and 10 cups of heavy cream. I think I'll skip it tomorrow since I don't want my arteries clogging during the test.

Ah yes, the test.....must go study.

Soup's On

Ooops...missed Monday's posting. Monday was kinda hectic and I only had about 10 minutes for lunch, so I basically inhaled it. Poached salmon with Newbury sauce, some kind of roasted potato and acorn squash. I barely had time to taste it.

Today I had a whopping 20 minutes, but I did manage to enjoy lunch immensely. Here is what I had:

Soup: Scotch Broth (My group made this)
Baked Ham with Grilled Pineapple and Maple Raisin Sauce
Starch: Gratin Dauphinoise (excellent layered potato dish)
Veggies: Carrot Flan and Harvard Beets
French Bread
Coffee

I had my test on soups today....not triple digits like the stocks test, but Chef Wicki told me after kitchen duty today that he had already marked the tests and was pretty sure I only had one or two wrong.
Tomorrow is my last day on the soups station....on to the sauces station on Thursday.
Also on Thursday, my terminology test. 41 definitions out of a possible 114 definitions. He gives us the word, we write out the definition. We use quite a few of the words on a daily basis, so it shouldn't be too bad.

Oh, and just for the record, the 5 Mother Sauces are:
Bechamel
Veloute
Tomato
Espagnole
Hollandaise

Two months ago, Maureen asked me about the 5 Mother Sauces, so I had to look them up online (and in hindsight, they weren't even correct). Now I live, breathe (and eat) these sauces on a daily basis.

Stock to Remouillage to Glace

It took a little under 24 hours, but I've done just about everything you can do with 5 lbs of beef bones. In the previous post, I ended at the waiting stage.

After simmering for a little over 7 hours, I strained the stock through a cheesecloth, chilled it quickly in an ice water bath and then refrigerated it.

I ended up with about 2 litres of stock. Not cost effective, but excellent practice for me.

I decided not to stop there. I took the left over beef bones and added a new batch of cold water, brought to a boil and let it simmer overnight. This second use of the bones is called a remouillage. The end product will be weaker, but can be reduced further to make a glace de viande.

The next morning, I strained the remouillage, and put the liquid into a pot and started to reduce the liquid.

Since a glace is reduced by a factor of about 20, I will be reducing this from 2 litres to about 100 ml of concentrated liquid, so I have to reduce the size of the pot as the liquid reduces.

The glace is ready when it coats the back of a spoon.

I chilled the glace in an ice water bath and poured the liquid into a shot glass lined with plastic wrap.

After it was chilled, I removed it from the shot glass. It is the consistency of gelatin at this point. (Basically, that is what glace is; the concentrated gelatinous portion of a beef stock.)

I wrapped it in plastic and put it in the freezer. This stuff is like gold to the culinary world. It can be reconstituted to make beef stock, or it can be used in sauces, or to flavour soups.

So, perhaps a little boring to read about, but after going through that process, I shouldn't forget the techniques or terms any time soon.

I'm off to the kitchen to make a beef stew with the original batch of beef stock.

Brown Beef Stock

Question: What do you do on a Saturday afternoon when your wife and daughter are 4,400 km and 4 time zones away?
(Note: Andrew is not allowed to answer this question.)

Answer: Might as well practice making a brown beef stock.

I started out with 5 lbs of frozen beef bones, placed on a roasting pan. (By the way: 5 lbs of bones will yield about 3 litres of beef stock when this is all done. Opening a box of OXO powder would be much quicker, but I thought I'd better practice this technique for my practical test in Stocks, Soups, and Sauces.)

They went into the oven initially at 475°F (for about 10-15 minutes), then down to 375°F until roasted with a nice caramelization (about another 45 minutes).

While the bones were roasting, I made my mirepoix. A brown beef stock uses a coloured mirepoix, in this case 40% onion, 20% carrots, 20% celery, and 20% leeks (by weight).

Since this mirepoix will simmer for about 8 hours, I chopped the vegetables into roughly 3/4" pieces.

I kept the leeks (on the right) separate from the rest of the mirepoix because they will not be roasted, but later added directly to the beef stock.

Next I made my sachet. This is a classic sachet containing a bay leaf, dried thyme, cracked peppercorns, and parsley stems. I also added a smashed garlic clove (optional). This all gets placed in cheesecloth and tied up with kitchen twine.

 Here is my mise en place for the brown beef stock: tomato paste, mirepoix, and sachet.

By this time the beef bones had a nice caramelization, so out they came.

They went into a dutch oven and covered with cold water.

Next, I drained the fat from the roasting pan, leaving a little on the bottom, added my mirepoix (onions, carrots and celery only; the leeks would burn if I tried to roast them), and put them in the oven to caramelize.

After about 20 minutes, they had a pretty nice caramelization, so I added the tomato paste and back into the oven to roast the tomato paste.

After about 15 minutes, the tomato paste darkens into a pince; a sweetened aromatic rust colour. 

While all this has been going on, the beef bones are being brought slowly up to a boil, and I skimmed the surface of the water, removing fat and impurities. This is called depouillage.

When the beef bones came to a boil, I reduced the heat to a simmer, continuing to skim the surface of the water. Then I added the roasted mirepoix, leeks, and sachet.

I deglazed the roasting pan by adding some cold water to the pan and heating on the stove, scraping all those brown bits from the bottom of the pan. This all gets added to the stock.

Now with all my ingredients in the dutch oven and the heat brought down to a simmer, I play the waiting game for 8 hours.

 The waiting game sucks...I'm gonna go play Hungry Hungry Hippos.

So, sometime around 10pm this evening, I'll be straining the beef stock through a cheesecloth, putting in an ice water bath to cool quickly, then into the refrigerator for storage. I'll post a few photos of that process tomorrow. I'll most likely use the beef stock for a beef stew that I will make tomorrow. Yummy.

w00t!

What a way to end the week.

We wrapped in the kitchen at about 4:45pm today, and being Friday, everyone was out of there in about 2 seconds. I was still packing up when Chef Wicki came over and told me that the score on my test earlier this week was "pretty good". I replied that I hadn't had a chance to look up my mark yet. (They are posted online.) He informed me that I got 100%! The only one in the class. 

In the kitchen my group made: Oxtail consomme and tomato bisque.

Interesting tidbit from today: A consomme is a a stock or broth that has been made clear. A stock or broth is usually cloudy, and you clear it up by adding a "clearmeat" and bringing it to a simmer. In this case, the clearmeat consisted of egg whites, ice water, and vinegar. The science behind it: the egg whites in the clearmeat coagulate as the broth heats up, collecting all the suspended solids. The clearmeat rises to the top of the leaving a clear consomme, which you strain through coffee filters.

What I had for lunch today:
Chicken Gumbo
Pork Picatta with Tomato Basil Sauce
Starch: Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Veggies: Mixed Vegetable Julienne with Herbs
Bread: Challah

Interesting Day

We had a snow storm last night; 20cm of wet, heavy snow. It was mostly done by 7am, so the majority of businesses, government offices, and schools were delayed opening until 10am. The Culinary Institute was on that list. I should have figured out that since the building was closed until 10am, there would be no lunch because the students that prepare lunch weren't there. Hindsight is 20/20, live and learn, etc, etc.

Also due to the storm, a lot of students didn't show up for Stocks, Soups, and Sauces which runs from 12pm-5pm. Out of a class of 18, only 8 showed up, myself included. Chef Wicki told us that since there was no lunch service today that he would prepare something for us to have at the 3pm break.
Awesome! A meal prepared by a European chef with CCC designation. (CCC = Certified Chef de Cuisine, the highest professional culinary recognition and accreditation in Canada.)

Well, Chef took advantage of the small, intimate gathering and slipped us some tongue prepared cow's tongue.

I made a silent pact with myself when I started this course that I would be open to trying whatever I needed to in order to have the full experience.

While I wouldn't go out of my way to have it often, it wasn't too bad....think spongy roast beef. I had three slices since, as mentioned above, I didn't have lunch. Chef also made us a wild mushroom risotto and a Marchand de vin sauce (red wine sauce) for the cow's tongue. The risotto more than made up for the boiled cow's tongue.

A few days ago my group made an oxtail broth, so Chef had us all try some oxtail meat that day. (I'd take oxtail over cow's tongue.)

So in summary,  the week isn't even over yet and I've eaten parts from both ends of a bovine. 

The weather forecast doesn't look too bad for the next 24 hours, so the "What I had for lunch today" section should be back to normal tomorrow.

BusyBusyBusy

The vision: This blog was supposed to have daily entries.  
The reality: This new venture is keeping me REALLY busy.

While the TV shows pile up on the DVR, I find myself either spending the evening studying for a test or doing an an assignment. Even on the days that I have neither test or assignment, I still have to know what to do in the kitchen for that day, so every day is like an unofficial mini-test. Plus the added degree of difficulty....I have to do all this while trying not to cut my fingers off or burn myself on the multiple hot surfaces/open flames I am exposed to when not at the cutting board. But for the first time in a long time.....I'm not complaining.

My first assignment and presentation went really well. My first test also went well. I have no marks back on any of these things, but this is also a change for me....I actually feel confident that I did well on these things before I get official word.

As for daily entries, I was thinking....at the bare minimum, I guess I could post what I had for lunch. One of the inclusions in my tuition is a "student tasting card"; the idea is that students taste what has been prepared (by students) that day. In other words, I get to eat a pretty fancy meal every day.
A meal consists of: one of two soups or salad, one of two entrees + starch + veggies, bread of the day, dessert, and a drink "off the line" (fountain pop, juice, coffee or tea). I usually skip the dessert because I don't want to weigh 450 pounds by April....but the desserts made by the pastry arts students and would easily run $8-$12 in a normal restaurant.
By the way....the cost of the above mentioned meal for the general public: $9.25.

Here is what I had today:
Vegetable Soup (I prepared the vegetable broth for this soup)
Blackened Salmon with Creole Shrimp Hollandaise
Starch: Pommes Chateau
Veggies: Spaghetti Squash, Mushroom Flan
Bread: Cuban Bread
Coffee

The dessert I skipped: Strawberry Bavarian Cream + chocolate walnut brownie

Mmmm....yummy.



 

 

Assign-what-ments??

For the first time in over 15 years, I have a couple of assignments to work on. Whose idea was it to go back to school again??

Assignment #1 is for my "Nutrition for the Culinary Professional" course. I have to write up a 2-page paper and do a 5-10 minute PowerPoint presentation about how nutrition has combined with the culinary world. (The example used in class was Jamie Oliver.) I think I'll take a Canadian slant and write about the Podleski sisters of "Looney Spoons" & "Crazy Plates" fame. Greta (chef) and Janet (registered nutritionist) were very influential in developing my culinary background many years ago.

The second assignment is for "Stocks, Soups & Sauces". I have to do a 3 to 6-page paper about 3 hot sauces and/or soups with their respective historical backgrounds. My original plan was to do Puttanesca Sauce (sordid history), Chicken Fricot (family history), and Gazpacho (just 'cause me likey). Issues: Fricot is a stew and does not qualify, and the gazpacho is cold, so when I re-read the assignment and realized it was about hot soups & sauces, that one fell out too. So I am back to looking for 2 hot sauces and/or soups to research. (HINT: I'm taking suggestions up to Wednesday.)

So, week #1 is under my belt (or apron, I guess). A hectic week, but manageable so far. My knife skills definitely need a lot of practice (and 15-years of deprogramming). Otherwise, the theory was all comprehensible.....unlike "entropy"; 20 years later and that concept STILL hasn't sunk in.  

I'll end with the 4 rules of making a stock:
1. Use only cold water
2. Never boil
3. Never stir
4. Never cover

On to week #2......and these assignment thingies.
      

I'll be speaking French in no time

With the amount of French words I have heard in an English-language setting, there is no doubt how much the French have influenced the culinary world. In the extremely short time I've spent in my stocks, soups, and sauces course, here is a handful of terms:
Mise en place: Preparation and assembly of all ingredients and equipment needed before a dish is cooked. (Literally: "everything in place")
Mirepoix: A 50/25/25% mixture of onions, celery, and carrots used to flavour soups and stocks.
Sachet: An aromatic mix of bay leaves, thyme, cracked peppercorns, and parsley sprigs wrapped in cheesecloth used to flavour soups and stocks
Bouquet garni: same type of deal as a sachet, except made from fresh ingredients such as celery, carrots, leek, and thyme sprigs all tied together in a bundle with kitchen twine
Roux: A thickener for sauces made by cooking equal parts of fat and flour
Remouillage: Re-using the bones from a stock a second time around to make a weaker stock, that is in turn used instead of water to make a new stock

I'm pretty sure if you make a remouillage too many times in a row you probably disrupt the space-time continuum somehow.

That is just the tip of the iceberg of the French terms swirling around in my head. All of this is being taught to me by Chef Hans Wicki, a chef from Switzerland (where French is an official language).

BTW, Chef: French for "chief"

At this rate, I should be bilingual by next week.

A New Chapte........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The "Observation/Fact of the Day" will have to begin tomorrow. All a can say now is:

Holy Moly....steep learning curve. Tired......must sleep.

Stay Tuned

Hi. The plan for this blog is two fold; to keep people up informed with what I am up to at the Culinary Insititute and to act as sort of a study guide for me.

Classes start the first week of January 2011.....stay tuned.