January 31, 2012


A long, tiring but fun day with Chef Jean-Jacques Paimblanc. No time to take a breath or a bathroom break! I swear some of these French older chefs have more energy than i do.  Chef JJ is a charismatic man with a vast of knowledge and experience.  Not only does he speak with authority and a French accent but he engages people with his comical and daily life stories.  Watching him cook, makes cooking seem seamless and natural. Today was all about braising and stewing. I knew the terms stewing and braising, but never really understood the meaning of each and how to differentiate them.  I knew a stew had more broth and braising i associated with larger meats. We spent the morning learning about braising a brisket and then in the afternoon we made a seafood stew, a lamb curry, braised Belgian endives and a Ratatouille ( a vegetable stew - not the movie).

Key concepts:
-stewing and braising can relate to fish, chicken, meat and vegetables
-always USE the right size pan.  too much space will burn your food, too cluttered will steam your food.
-why do restaurants have pots and pans hanging over the stove? because the pots and pans heat up and when they need to be used they take less time to reach their desired temp.
-Short sauce is a GOOD sauce.  Having too much sauce and not using it all, means that you left flavor in your pot.  Reduce it! Never waste flavor.
-if the meat has a gamy flavor, place in cold water and bring it to a boil and drain. the gaminess will be less intense.
-alot of oil is not needed when browning meat and sweating veggies

Fish Stew Base - needs more tomatoe, but yummy

Brisket

Chef JJ

Ratatouille with poached eggs and cheese

Ratatouille - can cut in small or medium pieces

Fish Stew completed

Brisket sandwich 

Lamb Curry

January 30, 2012

Today was vegetable day with Chef Jeremy Sewall of Island Creek Oyster Bar here in Boston.  His recipes stressed the importance of having the main vegetable be the center of the dish. Cooking with vegetables is not easy and there are many techniques we experienced today from how to correctly blanch and shock asparagus to how to roast beets and boil carrots.  In the past, I have cooked many vegetables, but it was great to see how a restaurant chef cooks the vegetables.  My key concepts below basically reflect the lesson of today's class.

Key Concepts:

-to blanch, make sure the water tastes like the ocean.  Salt, salt, salt!

-the water should be at a rolling boil

-take out the veggies when color is bright and tender, shock them in COLD, ICE water - leave them until they are cold

-Cut vegetables the same size so cooking time is the same - prevents some undercooked and overdone pieces

-The simplest dishes are the hardest to perfect - we did mashed potatoes.  lets say to make them perfect you need a lot of salt, butter and cream...A LOT

-When making a vegetable soup like carrot, mushroom or broccoli, make sure you use the ratio...2 times more of the vegetable you are showcasing then others.  For instance 2 cups mushroom and 1 cup of onions, leeks, and celery. Just think, would you want a mushroom soup with hardly any mushrooms? Logic!

Blanched asparagus

Brussels Sprouts and butternut squash

Chefs 

Potato and rutabaga gratin

Mushroom Soup

Beet and herb salad

January 26, 2012


Saute day...and what a day.  We went from 10 - 5pm and then I helped with the culinary lecture prepping and plating (a wonderful experience).  Home by 8pm...

I learned that to saute means to not over heat the pan but to get the oil hot and not too hot to brown to quickly.  A lot of butter is used and cooking chicken, skin on is preferred to help give a nice flavor and crisp.  We used a similar technique to cook catfish, a delicate thin white fish that will not fall/flake apart in the hot pan.

Today, i am just exhausted and hopefully the pictures will speak for themselves.

Quick hints and lessons:
- always start to saute with presentation side down ( skin side down for chicken and flesh side down for fish)
- always start with a hot pan
- remove the chicken before deglazing the pan - this will help chicken from drying out, but add the chicken back before serving
- plating is difficult - not as easy as it looks! Must be pretty and tasty

- There are many ways to roast a chicken 

Classic Saute Chicken, butter, tomato, basil, onion and garlic

Classic Saute Fish, butter, parsley, lemon

My creation using a chicken breast...

Sarah's creation

Class creation

Beet, cream cheese and chives

January 25, 2012

Today was classical French sauce day.  Even though many classical French sauces are not used today due to the time and ingredients needed, the techniques and flavors are imperative for every chef to know.  We each made the classic white sauce, Bechamel, that inclides, a white roux, milk, onion piquet and salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.  This sauce is used to make tasty mac and cheese, just add gruyere and parm to make the Mornay sauce and you have a perfect creamy cheese sauce to use.  The theme of today was all about how to make a sauce and turn it into others by simply adding different ingredients.  Amazing how many sauces you can make from one simple base. Everyone tackled the scary sauce, the Hollandaise -Make sure not to scramble your eggs!  Made correctly, the sauce is delicious and tangy and not at all heavy and goopy.  By adding shallots and other ingredients we turned the hollandaise sauce into a bearnaise and then into choron by adding some tomato paste.  The French had it all figured out.

onion piquet - half onion, 1 bayleaf, 2 cloves

                       

My Hollandaise

Hollandaise + Bearnaise + tomatoe paste = choron
 (would be great with cold crab)

My Bechamel Sauce

January 24, 2012


Today was all about meat. We arrived at the Kinnealy's meat processing plant where we saw how meat was cut, sliced, diced and packaged for shipment.  Unlike old fashioned butcher houses, the processing/butchering plant is very clean and only receives pieces of the cow, lamb etc. to butcher into smaller and specific cuts.  There are no cows hanging from hooks, and there is actually very little blood throughout the whole plant.  A great discovery that some people do treat meat well.

-side note - more women were butchering than men

In the afternoon, Jamie Bissonette, the part owner of Coppa and Toro, came in to teach us the methods of butchering a whole lamb, a slab of sirloin and how to perfectly cut up a chicken.  His philosophy is novel and really got me thinking about the meat we eat.  He believes in buying local products, knowing where the animals come from, what they eat and how they are treated.  Knowing that they were treated well, not only gives peace of mind, but also you really are able to get quality - plus you feel better about eating the animal.  Furthermore, Jamie told us how to utilize every part of the animal and how to make the most money out of it.  Buying a whole animal is only good if you know how to butcher it and use it to create a value.  But wonderful flavors and dishes can come from creativity and knowledge of how to use every piece: from rendering down extra fat, to making stock, to skewering and curing pieces that are tougher-endless possibilities!

Quick facts:
-chicken breasts should be the same size as thighs
-never wet age meat - sitting in own blood is not good
-use the tip and end of knife for cutting meat and the whole knife for cutting up chicken
-a lamb has a t-bone
-its better to trim fat off the sirloin than to leave tough fat on for the consumer
-grades of meat are based on fat marbling - select, choice, prime
- supermarkets have select, restaurants have choice, and some restaurants have prime (2-3% of all meat are considered prime) - see a picture below

Aging Beef (Dry)

Woman cuting fat and connective tissue

Select, Choice, Prime

Jamie and the lamb

The Lamb T-Bone

Lamb Belly

January 17, 2012

Today was the first day of culinary class.  The resources in the kitchen that we have access to are amazing and I am looking very much forward to learning how to use them and actually work with them. 

Chef Vhynanek began teaching us about the basis for brown sauces and the difference between a white and brown sauce/stock.  I never really knew what the main difference was.  The basis for the brown sauce are roasted bones that are browned, hence giving the stock the brownish color, white sauces do not contain roasted bones.  Furthermore, I knew that to make a stock you need bones, celery, onion, and carrots.  I was unaware of the 50% onion, 25% carrot, 25% celery ration as well as the type of bones that are preferred in stock.  Veal knuckles and cow necks (we received bone marrow bones instead of neck which usually contains more meat).

Overall a great day, a lot of learning and I am looking forward to working with the seven other students and the Chefs!

January 18, 2012

Stock day! We tackled chicken stock, fish stock, brown stock, and court bouillon. Today I took on the role of Sue Chef for my team.  I know how to follow recipes one at a time, but understanding how to manage time, assign tasks and to make sure everything was getting done was a new concept for me.  Instead of dicing carrots, celery and onions for the chicken stock, I assigned Kim to cut all the onions for the stocks, Franklin to dice the celery and to chop the chicken and fish and Sarah to make the sachets.  At times, we all had to pick up where someone left off if they needed to skim the stock or cut and clean the fish.  It was a stressful day since I usually am a planner and like to organize what needs to be done.  Being thrown into managing without having time to really plan, exposed me how to think on my feet and really work as a team.  Even though we were broken up into two groups, we all acted together to make the cooking process as seamless and timely as possible. 

Tasting, Smelling, Feeling the stocks – comparing them to each other.

January 19, 2012

Today, we finally finished a few dishes - SOUPS.  The process of making soups can range from easy to the most intense and time-consuming procedures. Making the beef consommé was eye opening to the possibilities out there to infuse flavors into liquids.  The broccoli soup also was time consuming and making the roux and veloute needed patience and needed to be perfect.  The numerous steps, procedures and ingredients that all go into some recipes are truly amazing.  I knew some recipes were difficult and involve many steps, but I never really practiced any of these types of recipes before.  This class is exposing me to not only the traditional French practices but also the skills, the numerous layers of flavors and the time and effort needed in every step to produce something amazing.  Furthermore, this class is giving me the opportunity to explore these recipes that I would have normally skipped over. Oh and salting is important!  I got perfects today on flavor and seasoning!

January 23, 2012

Poultry lesson.  We learned how to bone a chicken, take it apart, saute it roast it, bake it, and braise it.  The Chef’s teaching style was very different than Chef V.  He engaged more by walking around the room and checking on everyone’s dishes.  I have roasted, braised, sauteed and baked chicken before, but to really understand the purpose for each technique was fascinating.  Each part of the chicken was used in varying ways, each giving its unique flavors to the dish. We made chicken breasts in white wine, shallot, thyme and mushroom sauce. We used the carcasses to make chicken stock, which we used in the chicken mushroom dish.  My partner, Sarah and I roasted our chicken using lemon, onion, salt, pepper, and thyme.  The chicken thighs were braised in a tomato, chipotle and "darkened onion and garlic" sauce.  The thighs were served with homemade corn (masa) tortillas - so simple to make!
masa + hot water = play dough roll into circle, cook in hot cast iron skillet.  The tacos were served with sour cream, cilantro and cabbage.  Yummy!

Few pointers learned 
- start cooking meat at room temp.
-chicken must be 165 degrees to be cooked
- Never stuff a bird - bacteria !! because the stuffing also has to reach 165, but then your bird dries out - boo
- feel for the joints when cutting up the chicken