Friday, November 21, 2008

Soup Day, Egg Day, Fry Day

I'm loving these themed days in our Skills 2 kitchen. Focusing on one cooking technique for the full five hours--lecture, demo, then production--helps you really start to get it.

It's getting cold here in Atlanta, especially at 6:30 am, when I crank up the heat in my car on the way to school. So, soup day on Wednesday was much anticipated. Our group had to turn out four different soups, and again I made the one I was craving the most: white bean soup.

Naturally, the recipe started with bacon, which I rendered in the soup pot. I then added onions, leeks, and garlic and sweated them in the fat from the bacon, along with the crispy bits. Then, in went the white beans (soaked overnight), a bay leaf, a few sprigs of thyme, and chicken stock. Now all I had to do was let it simmer until the beans were tender and (after removing the bay leaf and thyme sprigs) puree the whole pot with an immersion blender, which may just be my favorite kitchen tool ever. It's a stick blender that purees things right in the pot. I am dying to get one so I no longer have to transfer soups from the pot to the blender at home (alright, fine, I've only done this once, when I made tortilla soup...but I now plan on making many more soups after everything I learned on soup day!)

White Bean soup simmering

I am a huge fan of white beans, but I have to say, the bacon stole the show here. Just a couple of slices rendered in the pot really provided the foundation for this soup, infusing the whole pot with a great smoky flavor. The texture was awesome, just thick enough. It would be really pretty with a small garnish of crispy bacon bits on top.

The four soups that my group presented (clockwise from front): Potage Garbure (a hearty beef-and-potato soup), White Bean, Broccoli and Cheddar, and Consomme

Thursday morning, we arrived ready to make breakfast--lots and lots of it. Chef D. demoed how to cook eggs in every which way: scrambled, sunny side up, over easy, over medium, poached, American omelet, French omelet. Apparently, Americans like their eggs way overcooked. And since Le Cordon Bleu is a French program and we are learning French classical cuisine, we would be doing things the French way. That means NO color on the eggs, whatsoever. I personally favor a little golden brown on my omelets, but I got over it. The proper way to scramble eggs is also a lot creamier than most of us are used to. A French omelet is basically soft-scrambled eggs, folded into a football-ish shape.

We had to present each egg technique to the chefs as we made them, which was kind of fun-slash-chaotic. Sticking with the egg theme, we then worked on emulsion sauces. Emulsion= a uniform mixture of two unmixable liquids, like oil and vinegar. Egg yolks act as the emulsifier, binding the two together. We split into pairs and made Hollandaise, which we then turned into Bearnaise (adding a tarragon/white wine/black peppercorn reduction), and then turned that into Choron (adding a bit of tomato paste). Finally, I had to bite the bullet--I made Mayonnaise. And I didn't even get nauseous as I was beating vigorously for what seemed like an hour. AND it turned out well in both texture and taste--or so said Chef D., I still thought it tasted gross. But making homemade mayo is definitely a workout! I'm not lying when I say that my whisking arm hurt the next day.

The second Friday of Skills 2 is always Fry Day. In short, we loaded up the deep fryers with oil, as well as some pans for pan-frying. Then we fried everything in the walk-in coolers: chicken, veal, catfish, french fries, assorted vegetables. I took on the vegetables, which I breaded using standard breading procedure. First, dredge in seasoned flour. Second, dip in egg wash. Third, cover with bread crumbs (I used Japanese panko). I had a great time frying my mushrooms, asparagus, and eggplant and zucchini slices to a beautiful golden brown. I think I mastered the "official cooking method of the South."

My beautiful, no-longer-healthy vegetables

The buffet of fried goodness which we invited other classes to come and enjoy

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