Vegetable cookery was not the most exciting week, to say the least. Because it was thanksgiving weekend, we missed Monday's Demo and thus had to spent a good portion of Wednesday's lab going over what and how we were supposed to be cooking. We roasted root vegetables - a combination of yellow turnips, parsnips, celeriac, carrots, shallots, and garlic - that we chopped roughly and seasoned lightly with salt and pepper. It was rather simple, the most important point being that the veg have to be completely coated in oil, to ensure that they do not dry out in the oven.
Secondly, we braised legumes. Legumes are dry fruits/vegetables commonly referred to as pods, such as beans, lentils, peas, alfalfa, soy, peanuts, clover and carob. Pretty much we made a sweet braised bean dish - like the beans commonly eaten alongside eggs at breakfast. It was was a pretty simple dish to prepare, and it took a painfully long time to cook. The beans took at least 45 minutes to even start to soften. It was a real drag when our other two dishes were finished in about half that time. The other downside to this dish was that I don't like sweetened beans. Thus, even though I took my food home for the sake of my family, I unfortunately did not get to enjoy it myself!
The last dish we were responsible for preparing was glazed carrots. Once again, the process was straightforward and the product was undesirable (personally speaking). I find carrots an overly sweet vegetable to begin with, especially when cooked. To cook them in butter and sugar, making them sweet enough to be a desert, is not something I plan on doing often, if ever, in my own cooking. It was, however, good practice for our batonnet cuts.
This week I cooked a couple meals that were good enough to be made note of: Cocquilles St. Jacques, and Ricotta and Mushroom stuffed chicken breast with a white wine and mushrooms sauce. For the Cocquilles St. Jacques, I picked up some gorgeous - and obviously expensive - extra large sea scallops from the St. Lawrence Market. I seared them until they reached a golden brown, removed them from the pan, added a paysanne cut of onions and mushrooms, which I then sweat for a few minutes. I added a couple whole sprigs of time, a couple bay leaves, some salt and pepper, and about three cloves worth of garlic puree. I proceeded to de-glaze the pan with white wine which I then let reduce by about 2/3. I added cream, began to boil some fresh linguine pasta, and let the sauce reduce until it reached the desired consistency. I quickly added the scallops back into the sauce, finished cooking them for about 2-3 minutes, careful not to overcook them, and then quickly plated the dish. It was absolutely glorious. Avery simple, classic french dish, using incredibly fresh product was, at the risk of sounding dramatic, just pure gloriousness in my mouth. Definitely something anyone could try at home!
The stuffed chicken breast was something I came up with using extra/leftover ingredients from past dinners. I stuffed large chicken breasts with a ricotta, diced and pan-fried mushrooms, and garlic puree filling. I then pan fried the chicken pieces until they were cooked through and had a nice golden brown colour on the outside. I removed them from the pan and quickly de-glazed the pan with white wine, added a blond roux I had made earlier, and put the rest of my chopped mushrooms into the sauce. Alongside, I served mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli, both of which also received the same sauce.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Weeks 4 & 5 Continued...
So other than my slight disaster of a dinner party (at least that's how I saw it, no matter how great of a time my company had), weeks 4 & 5 at chef school were dedicated to potato and vegetable cookery. For potato cookery, we learned about the different uses for the different types of potatoes - generally categorized as either waxy or starchy/mealy. Waxy potatoes, such as the well-known red-skinned potatoes, are low in starch content, and thus hold their shape well after cooking. Waxy potatoes are most often used as boiling potatoes, in potato salads, and in such dishes as scalloped potatoes.
Potatoes with a high starch content, on the other hand, bake well and yield light and fluffy mashed potatoes. Russet potatoes, used for french fries and recognized as the classic baked potato, are highest in starch, while Yukon gold potatoes (another popular example of a mealy potato) are also high in starch and thus good for baking and mashing, but have a much smoother and creamier texture, and a slight buttery flavour. In addition, classic long white potatoes have a medium starch content, and are the kind of potato most people keep in their pantry as an all-purpose.
I found this list of potatoes (courtesy of foodsubs.com) and their use very informative:
Potatoes with a high starch content, on the other hand, bake well and yield light and fluffy mashed potatoes. Russet potatoes, used for french fries and recognized as the classic baked potato, are highest in starch, while Yukon gold potatoes (another popular example of a mealy potato) are also high in starch and thus good for baking and mashing, but have a much smoother and creamier texture, and a slight buttery flavour. In addition, classic long white potatoes have a medium starch content, and are the kind of potato most people keep in their pantry as an all-purpose.
I found this list of potatoes (courtesy of foodsubs.com) and their use very informative:
Best for baking: russet potato
Best for potato salads, gratins, and scalloped potatoes: Yellow Finn potato, new potato, red-skinned potato, white round potato, and purple potato
Best for mashing: russet potato, Yukon gold potato, Caribe potato, and purple potato
Best for soups and chowders: Yukon gold potato, Yellow Finn potato, red-skinned potato, white round potato, and purple potato
Best for pan-frying: red-skinned potatoes, white round potatoes, new potatoes, and fingerling potatoes
Best for French fries: russet potato, purple potato, Bintje potato
Best for purees: fingerling potatoes
Best for roasting: new potatoes, Bintje potatoes
Best for steaming: new potatoes, Yukon gold potatoes
Best for potato pancakes: russet potato, Yukon Gold potato
In class, we learned how to make Savoyard(e) potatoes, the perfect french fries, and we also learned how to pipe potatoes. To pipe potatoes, you have to first make Duchesse potatoes, which are like mashed potatoes (without any added liquid) to which you combine two egg yolks. It is crucial to pipe potatoes when they are still hot, as they stiffen as they cool. Piping potatoes is certainly something that takes quite a bit of practice. Chef Mac made it look so incredibly easy, but warned us that we would all have quite a bit of trouble. It would be impossible for me to go into accurate detail about the whole procedure, and probably pointless considering no one pipes potatoes in the culinary world anymore - it being seen as outdated and old-fashioned. I will however say this: piping potatoes is a lot harder than it looks, especially if you've never done it before! We piped little cone-shaped mounds, and we piped little bird's nests that we then filled (with a tomato concassee and shallot mixture).
To make the prefect french fries, one MUST use russet potatoes, due to their starchy texture, and one MUST first blanch the fries before frying them to give them colour. This two-step process is critical, as it insures the creamy/mealy, soft texture one finds in the middle of a french-fry. One deep-fries the cuts of potatoes at a temperature of around 250 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-15 minutes, or until the fries are soft to touch. Then, when ready to serve, you want to fry them again at a temperature of about 375-400 degrees Fahrenheit to get the nice crispy, golden finish fries generally have.
Savoyard potatoes are like scalloped potatoes that are cooked in broth, rather than milk or cream. You thinly slice the potatoes, either with a mandolin or a chef's knife, and then layer them carefully in a pan/casserole dish with swiss or gruyere cheese. You cover them in broth and place them in an oven at 400-450F and leave tem until they are cooked through and the gruyere has become a gratinee.
While I admit these potato dishes were important base steps in learning how to cook a wide variety of potato dishes, I can't help but think about how little we've learned that will actually be relevant in the field. We are learning the classic french style of cuisine, an incredible foundation for our future cooking techniques as chefs, but how often will we make piped or savoyard potatoes when we're working in a restaurant? Likely, not often.
To make the prefect french fries, one MUST use russet potatoes, due to their starchy texture, and one MUST first blanch the fries before frying them to give them colour. This two-step process is critical, as it insures the creamy/mealy, soft texture one finds in the middle of a french-fry. One deep-fries the cuts of potatoes at a temperature of around 250 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-15 minutes, or until the fries are soft to touch. Then, when ready to serve, you want to fry them again at a temperature of about 375-400 degrees Fahrenheit to get the nice crispy, golden finish fries generally have.
Savoyard potatoes are like scalloped potatoes that are cooked in broth, rather than milk or cream. You thinly slice the potatoes, either with a mandolin or a chef's knife, and then layer them carefully in a pan/casserole dish with swiss or gruyere cheese. You cover them in broth and place them in an oven at 400-450F and leave tem until they are cooked through and the gruyere has become a gratinee.
While I admit these potato dishes were important base steps in learning how to cook a wide variety of potato dishes, I can't help but think about how little we've learned that will actually be relevant in the field. We are learning the classic french style of cuisine, an incredible foundation for our future cooking techniques as chefs, but how often will we make piped or savoyard potatoes when we're working in a restaurant? Likely, not often.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Weeks 4 & 5
I was beginning to miss hosting dinner parties like I had when I lived in MTL. Living within a four block radius of all my best friends, I would go weeks, even months without eating dinner by myself. Whether or not my friends enjoyed cooking themselves, they were consistent and loyal proponents of my cooking, more than happy to be my lab rats. Now that I'm back in Toronto, my friends, who are either working or in grad/law school, live all over this massive city. Whereas I live downtown, which I wouldn't trade for anything, most of my friends live in either North York or the dreaded Thornhill (I'm not the biggest fan of suburbia). Gathering everyone together for a meal at my place then, is obviously more difficult than it once was. Either way, I was convinced that I was ready to host my first Culinary School inspired dinner, and invited about 16 people, of which 12 r.s.v.p.-ed.
On the last Friday of September, I woke up at about 7 a.m. to get started on my prep work. I had come up with what I thought was a brilliant idea: making homemade ravioli with an osso buco filling. Sounds good, doesn't it? And it was tasty, I can assure you of that, but worth all the trouble? That is still to be determined.
Anyways, so I began, at 7 a.m., to make the osso buco, which had to be braised in the oven at 350 for about 2 hours. I had purchased 8 massive veal shanks, knowing that that would provide plenty of meaty filling. In the end, there was actually enough extra meat to serve alongside the ravioli. Once the veal was cooked and falling off the bones, rather than straining out and disposing of the mirepoix, I actually saved it to mix in with the meat filling, to not only give it extra flavour, but to act as a sort of binding agent. I broke up about 3/4 of the meat with my hands in a bowl, mixed in the leftover mirepoix, and added 2 egg yolks.
With the meat filling being done at about noon, I went on to prepare the hors d'oeuvres. I had a left over package of ready-made puffed pastry (while I may be adventurous I am certainly not ready to make my own) and topped it with a brunoise of cremini mushrooms (fried in a pan with rosemary, garlic, and a nob of butter to add flavor and remove the moisture) and thin slices of Brie cheese. It was quite the hit with my hungry guests, and bought me some time to manage the nightmare I had brought upon myself with the raviolis.
Thank god my best friend Rachel came over early in the afternoon to both keep me company and offer a helping hand. While I am usually hesitant to accept any outside help (I'm sooo neurotic in the kitchen that I don't trust anyone with my culinary visions), I learned that using a pasta machine to thin out the dough I had previously kneaded was most certainly a two-person job. I thinned the pasta into long strips for my ravioli, and, in fear that they would dry out before I got around to filling them, I placed them in layers with damp paper towel. BAD IDEA...
The pasta stuck to the paper towel and took forever to remove!!!!!! cost me quite a bit of time.
When I was finally finished make all the ravioli, once again a really time consuming and arduous task, I reduced the veal stock and made a sauce. When everyone had arrived and was ready to eat I began boiling 3 pots of water to cook the pasta. May I lend some advice: DON'T MAKE HOMEMADE RAVIOLI FOR 12 PEOPLE! It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to boil it all at the same time, as the raviolis will just stick together. as a result, my guests were served all at different times and thus instructed to eat when they got their food (quite an amateur move). To top it all off, in an effort to relieve some of my stress, a helper placed one of my plates of uncooked raviolis on the fourth burner that wasn't turned on. The heat from the other burners being on caused all of the raviolis on the plate to stick together like glue!! My plate of hard work was as good as garbage and my guests, rather than getting 8 raviolis each, were left with 5 or 6, and I only got 3!
Although my friends, who are incredibly nice and grateful, kept assuring me that my dinner party was indeed a success, I saw it as more of a failure. Lessons were certainly learned, and although my osso buco raviolis were quite superb, I will, in the future, only make them when hosting 4-6 people maximum!
To be continued...
On the last Friday of September, I woke up at about 7 a.m. to get started on my prep work. I had come up with what I thought was a brilliant idea: making homemade ravioli with an osso buco filling. Sounds good, doesn't it? And it was tasty, I can assure you of that, but worth all the trouble? That is still to be determined.
Anyways, so I began, at 7 a.m., to make the osso buco, which had to be braised in the oven at 350 for about 2 hours. I had purchased 8 massive veal shanks, knowing that that would provide plenty of meaty filling. In the end, there was actually enough extra meat to serve alongside the ravioli. Once the veal was cooked and falling off the bones, rather than straining out and disposing of the mirepoix, I actually saved it to mix in with the meat filling, to not only give it extra flavour, but to act as a sort of binding agent. I broke up about 3/4 of the meat with my hands in a bowl, mixed in the leftover mirepoix, and added 2 egg yolks.
With the meat filling being done at about noon, I went on to prepare the hors d'oeuvres. I had a left over package of ready-made puffed pastry (while I may be adventurous I am certainly not ready to make my own) and topped it with a brunoise of cremini mushrooms (fried in a pan with rosemary, garlic, and a nob of butter to add flavor and remove the moisture) and thin slices of Brie cheese. It was quite the hit with my hungry guests, and bought me some time to manage the nightmare I had brought upon myself with the raviolis.
Thank god my best friend Rachel came over early in the afternoon to both keep me company and offer a helping hand. While I am usually hesitant to accept any outside help (I'm sooo neurotic in the kitchen that I don't trust anyone with my culinary visions), I learned that using a pasta machine to thin out the dough I had previously kneaded was most certainly a two-person job. I thinned the pasta into long strips for my ravioli, and, in fear that they would dry out before I got around to filling them, I placed them in layers with damp paper towel. BAD IDEA...
The pasta stuck to the paper towel and took forever to remove!!!!!! cost me quite a bit of time.
When I was finally finished make all the ravioli, once again a really time consuming and arduous task, I reduced the veal stock and made a sauce. When everyone had arrived and was ready to eat I began boiling 3 pots of water to cook the pasta. May I lend some advice: DON'T MAKE HOMEMADE RAVIOLI FOR 12 PEOPLE! It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to boil it all at the same time, as the raviolis will just stick together. as a result, my guests were served all at different times and thus instructed to eat when they got their food (quite an amateur move). To top it all off, in an effort to relieve some of my stress, a helper placed one of my plates of uncooked raviolis on the fourth burner that wasn't turned on. The heat from the other burners being on caused all of the raviolis on the plate to stick together like glue!! My plate of hard work was as good as garbage and my guests, rather than getting 8 raviolis each, were left with 5 or 6, and I only got 3!
Although my friends, who are incredibly nice and grateful, kept assuring me that my dinner party was indeed a success, I saw it as more of a failure. Lessons were certainly learned, and although my osso buco raviolis were quite superb, I will, in the future, only make them when hosting 4-6 people maximum!
To be continued...
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Weeks 1, 2 & 3 - Stocks, Soups, & Salads
First week of classes were a bit slow for me. Having just spent four years at university, the move to college has been a transition I've had to get used to. Classes are smaller, attendance is mandatory, and teachers know your name. The methods of teaching in college are also far more juvenile when compared to university - where close to all responsibility is placed on the student (to show up to class, to do the readings, to come in for tests, etc).
At 22, I was one of the youngest of my friends in Montreal. At George Brown, however, I feel rather old, a feeling that is quite foreign to me. Most of the other students in my program are just out of high school, with a small proportion of those I've met having gone to university, decided it wasn't really for them, and dropped out to attend Chef School. So far, I am the only one having fully completed a university degree. Although it may seem like I'm bragging, please don't get me wrong: to the food service industry, not only does my academic background mean nothing, but most chefs/cooks start out in professional kitchens at very young ages. As a result, I feel rather disadvantaged next to students who have spent years working in kitchens, developing their skills and experience.
My schedule at school is as follows: Monday we have Food Theory and Demonstration Lab, Tuesday we have Nutrition, Wednesday is Culinary Lab I, and Thursday we have Banquet Production and Hospitality Math. Fridays I have off, as I was exempt from college level English - YAY!
Chef Mac is my Culinary Skills instructor. She has been working at the college since 1969 and has quite the reputation. She is a short, round Scottish woman who prides herself on being incredibly strict and firm with her students. The most accurate way I'd describe her is as a female version of the infamous Gordon Ramsay. She shouts, picks apart your work, and doesn't stand for any fooling around. When our other instructors asked us who we had for lab and we responded, they all had the same reaction: (laughing)"Well, you will certainly learn a lot, but whatever you do don't get on her bad side!"(laughing).
How it works is that on Mondays, in our demo, Chef Mac demonstrates exactly what/how we will be cooking in our lab on Wednesdays. If you miss the demo, then you cannot attend lab, and will get a 0 for that week. If you fail more than 2 labs, you automatically fail the course and cannot move on to the next semester.
For our first week of classes, we learned how to make proper stocks, both white and brown. In lab, we were responsible for making our own chicken stock (using chicken bones, a mirepoix(onion, leek, carrot, celery), and a sachet). With said broth, we then made our own vegetable soups, learning how to carre (dice) turnips, celery, carrots, and a tomato (which we had already blanched ourselves).
My stock was perfectly clear. Unfortunately, according to Chef Mac, my veg (kitchen slang for vegetables) carre cuts were too large: "Shall I call the zoo and let all the baby elephants know they're getting some lunch today?!" SHIT! I went through my diced veg, one by one, carefully sizing them down, so as to not lose too many marks. The soup ended up tasting great and was much appreciated by my sister and Dad who ate it for dinner.
Week 2 we learned how to employ thickening agents, such as a roux, cornstarch and arrow root, and puree of veg. In lab we were responsible for cooking a cream of celery soup, using a white roux, and beef consomme. While the cream of celery soup was pretty straight forward, at least for me (having used roux in a fair bit of my home cooking), the consomme was quite the meticulous task. I would love to go into detail about this process but will spare you.
As garnish for our consomme, which through a carefully controlled cooking method should turn beef stock into a lovely clear, oil-less, rich-flavoured, and golden coloured broth, we had to make a brunoise cut of celery, turnips, carrots, and leeks. Brunoise cuts are very small carre (a dice about 3-6mm squared). Once again, baby elephants were brought up in regards to my cuts, even though, to my eyes, my brunoise were exactly the same size as my neighbours, who got praised for her work. Either way, in accordance with Chef's orders, I went home and practiced my Brunoise.
I made Osso Buco for the first time this week too! I take it upon myself to attempt new dishes almost everytime I cook, with the exception of a few favorite recipes that are always winners with friends and family. While I do find inspiration from cook books and the internet, I generally like to be creative and spontaneous wth my home cooking, only using recipes as guidelines. This is one of the things I love most about food, one's ability to be endlessly innovative and whimsical with both ingredients and preparatory techniques.
So, when I stumbled upon gorgeous veal shanks for extremely cheap(only $1.99/lb) at the independent grocery store near my house, I called a few friends over for dinner and got to cooking. Osso Buco (literal translation "bone hole") is a classical dish that involves the braising of veal shanks in white wine, beef stock, and mirepoix, tomatoes/tomato puree, thyme and bay leaves. It's name is attributed to the delicious marrow fond in the bones at the centre of each shank. Although rather simple to prepare, braising meat such as veal, beef, and lamb provides a fool-proof product of tastiness. The meat falls off the bone, a tenderness your guests will adore you for, and the flavours of the mirepoix, wine, and tomatoes are deeply infused throughout.
In our third week of Chef School, we learned how to properly prepare salads. While one might assume that salads are rather straighforward, boring, and simple to prepare - as did I - the reality is that, in the food service industry, consistency and uniformity are highly valued. In other words, your ability to do your cuts percectly time and time again, and to produce the same dressing, for example, over and over, are extremely important skills to have. This week's lab was therefore a testament to this fact. We learned how to prepare class ceasar, italian, and potato salads. In other words, practicing our julienne, brunoise, and emulsification techniques were what this week was all about. Emulsification is defined as the mixing of two unmixable ingredients, in most cases oil and an acid, such as vinegar or lemon juice. Ingredients such as mustard and egg yolks are class emulsifyers - helping bond the oil and acid molecues together. The result is a smooth, creamy dressing, that has no separation between the oil and acid substances. In order to ensure this effect, one mst be very patient and careful not to be over-eager.
At 22, I was one of the youngest of my friends in Montreal. At George Brown, however, I feel rather old, a feeling that is quite foreign to me. Most of the other students in my program are just out of high school, with a small proportion of those I've met having gone to university, decided it wasn't really for them, and dropped out to attend Chef School. So far, I am the only one having fully completed a university degree. Although it may seem like I'm bragging, please don't get me wrong: to the food service industry, not only does my academic background mean nothing, but most chefs/cooks start out in professional kitchens at very young ages. As a result, I feel rather disadvantaged next to students who have spent years working in kitchens, developing their skills and experience.
My schedule at school is as follows: Monday we have Food Theory and Demonstration Lab, Tuesday we have Nutrition, Wednesday is Culinary Lab I, and Thursday we have Banquet Production and Hospitality Math. Fridays I have off, as I was exempt from college level English - YAY!
Chef Mac is my Culinary Skills instructor. She has been working at the college since 1969 and has quite the reputation. She is a short, round Scottish woman who prides herself on being incredibly strict and firm with her students. The most accurate way I'd describe her is as a female version of the infamous Gordon Ramsay. She shouts, picks apart your work, and doesn't stand for any fooling around. When our other instructors asked us who we had for lab and we responded, they all had the same reaction: (laughing)"Well, you will certainly learn a lot, but whatever you do don't get on her bad side!"(laughing).
How it works is that on Mondays, in our demo, Chef Mac demonstrates exactly what/how we will be cooking in our lab on Wednesdays. If you miss the demo, then you cannot attend lab, and will get a 0 for that week. If you fail more than 2 labs, you automatically fail the course and cannot move on to the next semester.
For our first week of classes, we learned how to make proper stocks, both white and brown. In lab, we were responsible for making our own chicken stock (using chicken bones, a mirepoix(onion, leek, carrot, celery), and a sachet). With said broth, we then made our own vegetable soups, learning how to carre (dice) turnips, celery, carrots, and a tomato (which we had already blanched ourselves).
My stock was perfectly clear. Unfortunately, according to Chef Mac, my veg (kitchen slang for vegetables) carre cuts were too large: "Shall I call the zoo and let all the baby elephants know they're getting some lunch today?!" SHIT! I went through my diced veg, one by one, carefully sizing them down, so as to not lose too many marks. The soup ended up tasting great and was much appreciated by my sister and Dad who ate it for dinner.
Week 2 we learned how to employ thickening agents, such as a roux, cornstarch and arrow root, and puree of veg. In lab we were responsible for cooking a cream of celery soup, using a white roux, and beef consomme. While the cream of celery soup was pretty straight forward, at least for me (having used roux in a fair bit of my home cooking), the consomme was quite the meticulous task. I would love to go into detail about this process but will spare you.
As garnish for our consomme, which through a carefully controlled cooking method should turn beef stock into a lovely clear, oil-less, rich-flavoured, and golden coloured broth, we had to make a brunoise cut of celery, turnips, carrots, and leeks. Brunoise cuts are very small carre (a dice about 3-6mm squared). Once again, baby elephants were brought up in regards to my cuts, even though, to my eyes, my brunoise were exactly the same size as my neighbours, who got praised for her work. Either way, in accordance with Chef's orders, I went home and practiced my Brunoise.
I made Osso Buco for the first time this week too! I take it upon myself to attempt new dishes almost everytime I cook, with the exception of a few favorite recipes that are always winners with friends and family. While I do find inspiration from cook books and the internet, I generally like to be creative and spontaneous wth my home cooking, only using recipes as guidelines. This is one of the things I love most about food, one's ability to be endlessly innovative and whimsical with both ingredients and preparatory techniques.
So, when I stumbled upon gorgeous veal shanks for extremely cheap(only $1.99/lb) at the independent grocery store near my house, I called a few friends over for dinner and got to cooking. Osso Buco (literal translation "bone hole") is a classical dish that involves the braising of veal shanks in white wine, beef stock, and mirepoix, tomatoes/tomato puree, thyme and bay leaves. It's name is attributed to the delicious marrow fond in the bones at the centre of each shank. Although rather simple to prepare, braising meat such as veal, beef, and lamb provides a fool-proof product of tastiness. The meat falls off the bone, a tenderness your guests will adore you for, and the flavours of the mirepoix, wine, and tomatoes are deeply infused throughout.
In our third week of Chef School, we learned how to properly prepare salads. While one might assume that salads are rather straighforward, boring, and simple to prepare - as did I - the reality is that, in the food service industry, consistency and uniformity are highly valued. In other words, your ability to do your cuts percectly time and time again, and to produce the same dressing, for example, over and over, are extremely important skills to have. This week's lab was therefore a testament to this fact. We learned how to prepare class ceasar, italian, and potato salads. In other words, practicing our julienne, brunoise, and emulsification techniques were what this week was all about. Emulsification is defined as the mixing of two unmixable ingredients, in most cases oil and an acid, such as vinegar or lemon juice. Ingredients such as mustard and egg yolks are class emulsifyers - helping bond the oil and acid molecues together. The result is a smooth, creamy dressing, that has no separation between the oil and acid substances. In order to ensure this effect, one mst be very patient and careful not to be over-eager.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Background Information
For four years I was away at University, partying my face off, loving life, and cooking for all my wonderfully appreciative friends. I double majored in Anthropology and Sociology at McGill in downtown Montreal, and, like a lot of young adults of my generation, never truly felt enthralled or inspired by my studies. While I enjoyed anthropology as an academic endeavor, the thought of pursuing it - going to grad school, etc - was not at the top of my list of things I wanted to do in my near future. My Dad, having followed his dream of becoming a film producer, and my Mom, having pursued a career in publishing, are both strong proponents of the "follow your dreams, do what you love" motto. As a result, I have followed suit. Having cooked for years, and having developed an ever-increasing passion for the art of food preparation, I have, as of September 2009, embarked on my journey to become a chef. Enrolled in the Culinary Management Program at George Brown in Toronto, I hope to master my culinary skills and open doors to a multitude of career possibilities. This blog will be a diary of sorts, an outlet wherein I can document my experiences throughout this first leg of my journey.
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