I got dressed in my chef outfit, and drove up to the school. No frost on the car this morning, thank goodness, the temperature was above freezing. Weatherwise, the area got a lot of rain today, so the temps were higher, which also might explain my allergy situation last night as the front moved in.
I went to Roth Hall, K16 for breakfast. I was hungry, but I decided to go kind of light, so I just had some rice chex cereal and banana with milk. Nothing fancy. I know I should've taken advantage of the hot breakfast, but I just needed something light. Maybe tomorrow morning.
We all met in our lecture room, and we had a new chef instructor today, Chef John DeShetler. We spent the morning in the lecture getting briefed on the methods of dry-heat cooking with fats and oils, thickening agents, and classic and comtemporary sauces. The first technique we talked about was Saute. We also talked about Stir Fry, Pan Fry, and Deep Fry. We talked about this because all the food we were making today used the variety of dry-heat cooking methods.
We talked about thickeners for sauces, such as reducing the sauce, using a beurre manie, roux, starches, and a few other ways. We also talked about how there are a lot of classic sauces in French cooking that literally take days to make, compared to more modern sauces that are no where near that lengthy in time to make, although I think they still involve a high level of skill to do them well. One thing I learned with contemporary sauces is that relishes, chutneys, salsas, flavored butters are considered sauces. Very cool. I did not know that.
For the rest of the morning, we were divided into teams, and we had an assignment of the food we were to make. We started around 9:30 am, and we were to finish at 12:30 pm. I am on Team Two. Our menu was the following:
- Frisee with Almonds, Apples, Grapes, and Goat Cheese
- Sauteed Berkshire Pork Cutlets with Wild Mushroom Ragout
- Potato Gnocchi
- Sauteed Spinach
For the pork, they gave us a full piece of pork loin with the bones and fat still attached, so we had to break that down. The chef helped to show me how to slice the meat into cutlets which I did, and then another team member pounded them out. We also had a lot of chopping to do for all the components of all the dishes. I assisted with preparing the spinach, which was dirty, sandy, and felt like it had just come up out of the ground. We had to wash it 3 times to get all the grit off.
When we first got to the kitchen, we put the potatoes in the oven to bake for the gnocchi. We peeled them and put them through a food mill to get them mashed. We added butter, an egg, egg yolk, and then flour to create a "dough". We rolled out the dough piece by piece to form a snake, and then cut the snake into about an inch and a half pieces. Then the chef showed us how to make indentations on them with a fork -- this helps to hold the sauce. We boiled them and then put on melted butter and parsley. I had never made gnocchi before, and they were really easy to make, and they tasted good, like a light and airy potato. We should have put more salt in them, though. They needed some seasoning. Also, we did over-cook them, but they still tasted good, they just were kind of falling apart.
We pan fried the cutlets, and I got to do the mushroom ragout, which turned out good -- although I should have added more salt too. I think we under-seasoned all our food, I should have tasted it as it went along, just like they say. But it was so hectic that you forget to do these things.
The thing that got finished last as the spinach. With all our dishes done, we created our presentation plates for the meal and the salad on separate plates. Then we put everything else on large platters for the lunch service.
The other teams were making completely different menus at the same time as my team, so when all this was done, the table with all the food looked really great! All the teams did a really good job on their food. We finished exactly on time, amazingly, and then we made up our plates and ate the food. I tried to take a little bit of everything so that I could try all the dishes. I think my favorite thing was the gnocchi, but again, it needed salt! I also really liked the frisee salad, the combination of the frisee, with the vinaigrette, and the almonds, apples, grapes, and goat cheese was fantastic. So, althought there were minor flaws in all the food we produced, it was all very edible and as good as anything I have eaten on other buffet lines, such as at conferences I have attended, or hotel buffets.
After lunch, we got our group picture taken in the kitchen. (I hope that it looks good!) We had an afternoon lecture on food presentation guidelines, basically, how to plate your food, either on a plate or on a platter. Obviously there is a science and an art to this kind of thing, but I liked going over the science part of it. Some of the concepts were balance, unity, focal point, and flow. You try to create a focal point on the plate, such as the meat on top, with the side dishes somewhat under the meat. This also creates the untiy and shows how the food goes together. Using a variety of colors and textures is also an important thing to do here.
Another thing I learned with plating, is to use the edge of the plate like a frame. Don't put food on the edges of the plate. Make sure you keep your frame.
We talked about garnishes next. The biggest thing here that I learned was: avoid non-functional garnishes. All the garnishes on the plate should be edible and be in harmony with the item. If something is non-functional, like a rosemary stem or a tomato rosette, what is the point? You spend all your time creating a rosette, and it just gets thrown away. You can't eat a rosemary stem -- so why is it there? Better to spend your time on a garnish that can be eaten and enjoyed. Also, I think it is confusing to a person eating the plate if they don't know what to do with the garnish. All this made a lot of sense to me.
After the afternoon session, we were done around 3:30 pm. Luckily I did not have the headache of yesterday, so this was a big improvement. I needed to go back to the hotel and get some alone-time and recharge. We have a dinner tonight together at the restaurant on the campus, Caterina de Medici. Also, it felt good to get a shower and feel refreshed.
So that's all for now. I will let you know how dinner was in another posting. Later!
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