What we learned in culinary school this week - Weeks 21-22

Reviews!

This has been exhausting, especially since I don't like having things sprung on me. I like to be able to study and be prepared for tests, but that's not how it's done around here. But I survived. Here are pictures of various dishes I made during these two weeks of reviews.

What our assignments look like:

Get to work!

Herb Veloute with Biscuits.

Filet in a Red Wine Reduction Sauce. At this point
I can do reduction sauces in my sleep.

Pasta.

More marching orders!

Braised Beef with Risotto.

Ricotta Ravioli. This was unbelievably good.
The ricotta was sooo creamy.

Seafood Stew.

Airplane Chicken.

Chicken Pot Pie.

Coq Au Vin with Gratin Potatoes.

Meatballs with Polenta.

Overhead shot! It was really a pretty dish.

Pork with Black Beans, Rice and Slaw.

Get on it, people!

Arugula Salad.

I was out sick when we did Pizza, so I needed some
help. It turned out okay, I guess.

Grilled Salmon with Salsa Verde.

We celebrated Friday the 13th with a course in the basics of fermentation, presented by Ernest Miller of Rancho La Merced Provisions. Not my area of interest, but the instructor was great and it was fun. Living in L.A., I don't need to grow or preserve my own food (we have farmer's markets on practically every corner) but if you lived in a rural area and did grow your own, this would be an invaluable skill.

We made Sauerkraut and Giardiniera.

Supplies. Many, many supplies.

Next week, sadly, is our last week. More reviews, jam and canning, a field trip and then graduation day! Hard to believe. It went so fast.

The Salmon Cake

I'm going to post what we learned the past two weeks (lots of reviews) over the weekend, but I thought this deserved its own post.

Toward the end of the day today we were called into the other kitchen (the one we don't usually use) so the owner of the school could address us. Then we were presented with this cake:

The funny thing is that after yesterday's class, we were watching the school's pastry chef (who is amazing and will be the instructor for my upcoming Baking & Pastry Program) work on decorating this cake. We were told she was doing it for someone's birthday and of course we fell for it. We got a kick out of it when we found out it was actually for us!

The detail was boggling. The "scales" were made with a plastic straw cut in half:

Then we cut into it:

Just like a real salmon!

I'm really looking forward to Baking & Pastry now. Not that I wasn't before, but that is just so damn cool.

No, not Lord Flasheart, NOOOOO...RIP Rik Mayall

He may be best remembered by American audiences of a certain age and sensibility as part of The Young Ones, a subversive British comedy that could be found on MTV back in the ancient times when MTV was actually cool, but for Brit comedy lovers like myself, Rik Mayall will always be the fabulously outrageous and fabulous Lord Flasheart of the Blackadder universe.

One of my favorite lines ever: Flasheart explaining to Blackadder and crew how to treat their fighter planes like they treat a woman:

Flasheart: "Get inside her five times a day, and take her to heaven and back!"

Mayall was 56 and is survived by his wife and three children.

Food Service - Farm Box LA

Last Thursday evening the school hosted a private event by Farm Box LA, a fresh produce home delivery service. A couple of vendors from our Santa Monica Farmers Market field trip were there, Harry's Berries and Weiser Family Farms.

I volunteered to help work the event and along with a classmate was assigned to prepare and serve Zucchini Spaghetti with Tomatoes and Basil. This recipe, along with the others served, was included in a small booklet distributed at the event.

They got a good crowd and the food turned out great. As deceptively simple as the zucchini spaghetti was, it was a big hit with the guests. I lost count of how many batches we made. And the cherry tomatoes from Harry's Berries were to die for. I could have eaten an entire basket of them.

Zucchini Spaghetti Central.

Man your battle stations!

Zucchini Spaghetti with Tomatoes and Basil.
It was really good.

From Weiser Family Farms: Lakers Taters, so
named because of their purple and gold coloring.

FOOD SERVICE WIN #2!!!

Aka Family and Friends Pop-up Dinner #2.

This time around we got to have some input into the menu. We drew for our assignments and I was thrilled to draw dessert. We then voted on what kind of cuisine we wanted to combine with our classical French training. The winner was California.

One of the other students on Team Dessert came up with the idea of an orange creme brulee, then we thought it would be awesome to use fresh lavender in the brulee sugar. We ran it by Chef, who thought it was too many competing flavors in one dish. What she did do is suggest we go the traditional route of serving madeleine cookies along with the brulees and incorporating the lavender into that. I was especially excited about make creme brulees because it's one of my Mom's favorites, but unfortunately she wasn't able to make it. I'd been trying to set up getting her over here for this since the February pop-up, but there was a mixup in communications and a few other issues, but other than that everything went well.

Thursday we tried a trio of madeleine recipes, finding one that was far and away the best, then made our cookies. We then turned to calculating out brulee recipe for 50 guests. It turned out we had the exact amount, which we were thrilled about. You can make creme brulees ahead of time, but they have to be sealed up tight and refrigerated, then torched at time of serving. We also made lavender sugared candied orange peels for the garnish. In addition, Chef has lavender plants at home and brought a truckload of them for us.

Menu

Belini Three Ways - Buckwheat Trout, Blue Corn Crab, 

Classic Belini with Lobster

Domaine du Tariquet, Classic Cotes de Gasgogne

Baby Arugula, Goat Cheese, Apricot and Almond Salad

Domaine due Tariquet, Classic Cotes de Gasgogne

Braised Beef with Carrot Garlic Puree and Beet Chips

Hahn Pinot Noir

Orange Flower Creme Brulee with Lavender Madeleine

Stumptown Coffee

A fraction of what we made.

Lavender sugar in progress.

Here, have a few madeleine cookies.

Braised beef, ready to go.

The table is set!

Belinis. My brother isn't a seafood eater, but he
ate these and liked them.

The most beautiful dessert in the world! It was
such a beautiful plate. It couldn't have turned
out better!

I wish we could do one of these every week.

And now reviews/finals/graduation looms.

What we learned in culinary school this week - Week 20

We getting close to the end! (boo!!!)

Monday was a holiday, so school. Tuesday and Wednesday we covered the cuisine of India, then Thursday and Friday we prepped for our final (sob!) food service, another pop-up dinner for family and friends. After that it's a couple weeks of reviews, then we cover fermentation and jams/canning toward the end. We're even taking over the other kitchen several days a week for most of the rest of the program.

I'm not the biggest fan of Indian food, so you'll have to pardon my lack of enthusiasm for this topic.

Stews are big in Northern India, but stocks aren't used in Indian food. Meat is stewed in water until the meat falls off the bones. Common spices in Indian food include curry, turmeric, cardamom, cayenne, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, saffron and cumin.

Fermentation is big - they will pickle any type of vegetable. And despite cows being sacred, they will consume milk and milk products, including yogurt. And while cows are rarely consumed, seafood, chicken, goats and sheep are acceptable.

Gobi Sabzi (Cauliflower with Ginger, Green
Chilis and Spices).

Carrot Halva with Pistachios.

Saag Paneer.

Triangular Potato Samosas with Yogurt-Mint Chutney.

Tandoori Chicken with Sizzling Onion and Ginger.

Cucumber Coconut Chutney. Seemed like an odd
combination when I was putting it all together,
but it was really good and refreshing.

Kalhapuri Lamb.

Paratha (Pan Fried Flatbread). Probably my
favorite of all the Indian dishes we made. Also,
you an fill it with anything.

Shrimp Cooked with Coconut Milk.

Rice Pudding with Dessert Spice Mixture. Very,
very sweet, but good.

Next up: Our very successful pop-up dinner!

From the Department of It's Funny Cuz It's True: A Simple Guide to Launching a Hipster Restaurant

Courtesy of The Poke. Some of my personal favorites:

• Serve your drinks in jars for absolutely no reason.
• Coffee! Just go nuts! You need to sell at least 419 different variations of coffee.
• Overprice everything. Call it artisan, or organic, or something.
• Open your restaurant in a really shitty part of town. But state that it's "up and coming" and say something about gentrification.

I also like the suggestions about a pretentious name for your hipster restaurant. A few years ago someone opened "The Writer and The Coffee" in a strip mall on the corner of Sunset and Highland in Hollywood. It didn't last long - it hit the Los Angeles Health Department's Restaurant Closure list and ceased to exist shortly thereafter. Maybe they didn't have enough variations of coffee.

What we learned in culinary school this week - Week 19 (Part 2)

After the big wine tasting, which everyone enjoyed, we spent the rest of the week on the cuisines of Spain and Mexico.

Spain
Believe it or, pigs are big in Spain. Ham is all over the place. Tapas are a snack for early evening, after siesta but before dinner, which is around 10pm. Tapas originated in Catalonia and Andalusia, but are now consumed all over Spain.

Sangria is cheap or leftover wine which the Spanish mix with all sorts of things, including fruit, 7-Up, fortified wines and liquor).

Croquetas de Jamon Serranco
(Serrano Ham Croquettes)

Albondigas (Meatballs)

Almejas con Chorizo
(Clams with Chorizo)

Shrimp and Clam Paella

Churros!

And more churros!

Mexico
Corn (masa) is a major ingredient in Mexican cooking. Their corn is different than what we grow here - there's is not as sweet and starchy. Buying tortillas in Mexico is like buying baguettes in France: fresh, daily and consumed in large amounts. Masa is also used to make tamales, a celebratory Christmas dish. Tamales, once cooked, can be reheated and even frozen.

Chiles are actually a fruit. They can grow anywhere and are good for beginner gardeners. In general, the physically smaller the chile, the hotter it is. Larger = milder. The inside of the stems and seeds are the hottest parts.

We made tons of food today, including Chile Rellenos, corn and flour tortillas, guacamole and salsa, Chicken with Mole, tacos, tamales and even dessert (Tres Leches (Three Milk) Cake.

Look at all these beautiful ingredients (ignore
the pens, please).

Carne Asada.

Chips and Guac.

Tamales.

Tres Leches Cake.

What we learned in culinary school this week: Week 19 (Part 1)

Wine tasting this week! Then Spain and Mexico. Then a three day weekend.

Monday was Introduction to Wine and Tuesday was Wine and Food, both taught be JB Severin of The Wine House in West L.A.

Introduction to Wine
Champagne: To uncork you twist the bottle (unlike my usual struggles to free the cork). The pressure inside the bottle will "walk" the cork out of the bottle. Also, if your champagne is fizzing, it's not quite cold enough. Champagne is a geographic designation - it must come from Champagne, France to legally use the designation (more about that here). They also have a very particular method of producing Champagne that must be adhered to. Otherwise, the correct term is sparkling wine.

Wine: When pouring wine, never fill a wine glass higher than its widest point. This exposes the maximum surface to air. Grapes are ideal for making wine due to their high percentage of liquid, but anything that sugar ferments can be used, including plums, berries and honey.

The deciding factors in which wine to serve are what food you're serving it with and whether or not the taste appeals to you.

Weather is a huge factor in the outcome of the grape harvest. Rain at the time of picking is the kiss of death, because when it rains, grapes dump their sugar into the plants vines. A bad year for wine is almost always the result of rain.

That whole sniffing the cork thing? It should smell like cork and wine. Seriously.
You also want to check that the branding on the cork matches that of the bottle.

Hold your wine glass by the stem so that body heat from your hands doesn't effect the wine. Make a visual inspection of the wine. One of the things JB had us do was to see if we could read our handouts through the wine. There is almost no Pinot Noir that you can't read through.

Swirl the glass (this aerates the wine and helps get the fruit component to come out) then sniff it by tilting the glass up to your face and put your nose into the glass. The glass should make contact with your face around the bridge of your nose/between brows (depending on the size of the glass) and the area between your nose and lips. Take short sniffs, like a dog.

The aroma of a wine is the primary fruit smell of what the wine was made from. The bouquet is the smell after the wine making process where other things (like additional sugar) may have been added. A well-made wine will have both aroma and bouquet. With red wines, if you can't smell the aroma, it needs to oxygenate ("breathe") and this can take any number of hours.

Per JB, the negative connotations long attributed to the use of screw-caps on wine bottles (that it is inferior wine) is long gone. Because cork is grown in a forest, it's exposed to organic materials and critters and therefore requires a chlorine wash before use. Chile, Argentina and New Zealand are emerging wine producing countries and a lot of their bottling plants are set up for screw-caps. In fact, the growing use of screw-caps is enabling cork forests to regenerate. Champage, however, must have corks.

For storage, the ideal is 58-60 degrees in total darkness with no movement. Don't store in the fridge - the cold numbs the wine and after a couple of weeks it never recovers. If you don't have access to a wine cellar, and interior closet (with no direct sunlight) with the bottles on the floor (because heat rises) works. My brother is a big wine buff and stores his this way.

To chill, put the wine bottle in a ice bucket with ice and water. The ideal temperatures are 40-45 degrees for champagne, 48-52 for white wine and 64-68 (not "room temperature") for reds. The higher quality wine you have, the more this is important. If you're serving a lower quality white, serving it colder (say, Two Buck Chuck out of the fridge) helps mask the inferior smell.

JB actually had good things to say about boxed wine. It can keep for as much as two months. Just buy a good quality wine. The spigot shut-off and the interior collapsing bags keeps air from getting in to the wine. He also doesn't recommend buying a wine simply based on a numerical score, in fact described it as absurd. It's one person's/publication's opinion. When a customer in his store asks for a wine recommendation, the first question is, "What is it going with?".

Wines sampled: 

NV Lanson 'Black Label' Brut Champagne

About $40/bottle.

**********

2013 Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc

New Zealand wine. About $13/bottle. I became a big fan of NZ wines this week.

2012 William Hill 'North Coast' Chardonnay

California wine. About $15/bottle

2012 Schloss Gobelsburg Riesling 'Gobelsburger'

Austrian wine. About $17/bottle

**********

2011 Byron 'SMV' Pinot Noir

California wine. About $19/bottle

2012 Torbreck 'Woodcutters' Shiraz

Australian wine. About $19/bottle

2001 Vina Santurnia Rioja Gran Reserva

Spanish wine. About $27/bottle

Wine and Food
We went over a lot of different wines and spirits (dessert wines, aperitifs, fortified wines, sake) but the main point of today's class was to demonstrate how different types of food can affect how a wine tastes, and therefore whether or not it should be served with a particular dish.

As JB emphasized yesterday, the first question asked when choosing a wine is what food it will be paired with. A good place to start is that opposites attract - if the food is hot or salty, a sweeter wine is best. If the food is high in fat, go for a more dry wine.

Even a restaurant might not always have a great wine list. JB singled out a current critical darling restaurant near the school as having great food but a poor wine list. If you really know your wine and would rather not be at the mercy of the restaurant, he recommends paying the corkage fee and bringing your own.

Today's wine selections:

2009 Domaine Carneros Burt Carneros

Napa wine.

2013 Borgo M Pinot Grigio

Italian wine. About $10/bottle.

2012 Cambria 'Katherine's' Chardonnay

California wine.

2011 Kauer Oberdiebacher Furstenberg Riesling Kabinett

German wine.

**********

2011 Selvapiana Chianti Rufina

From Chianti/Rufina region (Italy).

2012 Twenty Bench Cabernet Sauvignon

Napa wine.

NV Fonseca Vintage Character Port 'Bin 27'

Portuguese wine.

Today's food selections (Chef and her assistant cooked for us):

1. Cheeses - Chevre, Brie, Stilton

2. Seared Ahi with Ginger

3. Pasta with Tomato, Olive, Capers & Spicy Peppers

4. Braised Short Ribs with Mashed Potatoes

5. Almond Cake with Strawberries & Lavender

Getting fuzzy...

It was a trip seeing how the same wine can taste different depending on what you just took a bite of.

Next up: Spain and Mexico!

A few words of wisdom for a Thursday afternoon

Via Sun Gazing and Lessons Learned in Life on FB

Sun Gazing again. I really wish this philosophy was more prevalent these days.

Sun Gazing with the hat trick.

Tips for caramelizing onions

From Bon Appetit: Caramelized Onions Common Mistakes - And How To Avoid Them. Worth reading just for the hilarious tweet from their editor in chief.