Hunger-Inducing Photos

I'm in a non-kitchen class this rotation—the first part is Restaurant Cost Control (basically a business course for restauranteurs) and the second half is Wine & Beverage. Hopefully I'll have some interesting material to blog about once we start tasting wines next week, but for now, I won't ramble on about food costs, revenues, and profits. Instead, I thought I'd post some pictures of food from Meat Fab that never made it into my previous posts. 

The simple bowl mussels above of is one of my favorite things I've made in culinary school—or anywhere—so far. Mussels are something I would never have considered making for myself before—I guess I was afraid that I wouldn't cook them correctly and end up making myself and others sick. In reality, they're unbelievably easy to cook, and once you get them steaming in a pan or pot, you know they're safely done once the shell has opened. If it doesn't open at all, throw that mussel away. 

I mimicked the mussel demo that Chef K. had done earlier that morning and sauteed mine in a pan with some shallots, garlic, white wine, tomatoes smoked on the stovetop, and a little parsley. I added sliced mushrooms to my version, because in my opinion most things are better with mushrooms. The major difference between my mussels and Chef's was that at the end of cooking the sauce down (after removing the cooked mussels), he added about half a stick of butter. I decided to omit the butter all together and see how it tasted, and I actually enjoyed the lighter version more. It was really fresh-tasting and allowed the flavors of the shellfish and smoked tomato to shine.

On crustacean day, I decided to honor my Maryland roots and tackle the softshell crabs above. They're blue crabs that are eaten shortly after molting their hard shells, so you can eat the entire thing. I grew up finding these on menus all the time, but many in my class had never seen or tasted them before. A few classmates worked with me to make a few different coatings—we did a cornmeal crust (spiked with a little cayenne pepper), panko bread crumbs, and tempura batter. After dipping the crabs in flour, then egg wash, then crumbs, we fried them in hot oil. My favorite was definitely the cornmeal-crusted version—the coating was really flavorful and it provided the thin, crispy exterior that makes a softshell crab so special. 

On shellfish day, we also had a big bushel of Gulf oysters to work with. After my mussel dish was finished, I helped a classmate make these Oysters Rockefeller. It's a classic preparation in which oysters on the half-shell are topped with a spinach cream sauce and bread crumbs. We made a bechamel sauce and added a whole bunch of chopped spinach and some grated parmesan to it, then let it cool and spooned this over freshly-shucked oysters. We used panko bread crumbs for their awesome crunch and put the oysters in the oven just until the crumbs were brown. I've had this dish many times in New Orleans and thought our attempt was pretty decent.

This is actual Japanese Kobe beef, imported from Japan with a certificate bearing the name of the cow it came from (no joke). A classmate who works at one of Atlanta's top steakhouses brought it in to class for us to try—the chef there gave it to him specifically as a gift for our culinary school class. I certainly did not cook any of this meat myself—it needed to be handled by a true steak expert, since the smallish piece that he was given costs close to $100 in the restaurant. My classmate cooked it perfectly and sliced it thinly so everyone could have a little piece. Please forgive the culinary cliche, but it truly melted in the mouth like butter.

I really never expected to eat foie gras in culinary school. But when a few people in my class expressed to Chef K. that they'd never tasted it before, he made sure to bring some in so that they could experience this luxury menu item. Another of my classmates works at Craft and prepared the slab of foie the same way that they do it at the restaurant. Chef Tom Colicchio, Craft's owner and one of my favorite chefs, is known for keeping things simple and letting great ingredients speak for themselves, and this foie gras dish was very indicative of that style.

I watched and asked questions as my friend worked: he cut apples into a perfect brunoise (1/8 x 1/8 x 1/8 inch dice) and cooked them down with some apple cider and vinegar (I think!), then put them into a Cryovac bag and did some sort of sous-vide thing to them so that the apples absorbed most of the juice. He simply seared the foie gras in a hot saute pan and topped it with the apples. I had one tiny bite, and it was still completely decadent. It was interesting to hear what people had to say after tasting this delicacy for the first time. It's hard to compare the richness and silkiness of foie gras to anything else. 

Looking back, now that I'm sitting in a classroom, I realize just how spoiled we were over the last few weeks!

Applying My Kitchen Skills...

While I was living in D.C. and Zack was here in Atlanta, Valentine's Day fell in the middle of the work week, so both years I celebrated by cooking dinner (and drinking lots of wine) with my awesome roommate, Becky. Looking back on those dinners, I realize just how far I've come thanks to Le Cordon Bleu (ha-I could be on one of their commercials with that line!) Both of my meals for Becky turned out very well, but I used to cook by adhering strictly to whatever recipe I'd printed from epicurious.com, making sure I had every ingredient it called for and measuring each one precisely. 

This year, when Zack and I cooked Valentine's Day dinner together, I didn't follow any recipes, save for a few notes from school that I checked to remind myself of a couple techniques. I wanted to re-create and improvise upon a couple of dishes I'd made in class and wished Zack had been able to taste. I didn't measure anything all night. With the help of my hard-working sous chef, I pulled off my most ambitious meal yet.

Saturday afternoon, we headed over to Star Provisions, a gourmet market attached to what is considered the best restaurant in Atlanta (same owners). We'd discussed the menu earlier and were planning to splurge on our proteins here: top-grade tuna (for a tuna tartare appetizer) and rack of lamb (for our main course). 

We got everything else at Whole Foods, which was a complete mob scene on Valentine's Day (has it always been like this, or is everyone just staying in to cook thanks to the economy?) Then it was home to start prepping. Having some sort of timeline is a must for executing a big meal like this with several different components. 

I started with the risotto, because it's a time-intensive process and I knew I could just finish it first, move on to everything else and then reheat it, with little more chicken stock stirred in, right before serving. We had a bunch of red and yellow peppers in the fridge already, so I decided to incorporate these into the risotto. I diced the peppers and sauteed them with some garlic separately, then stirred this flavorful mixture into the finished risotto with some grated parmesan cheese.

While I worked on the risotto, Zack chopped rosemary and thyme for the lamb (not his favorite job). Then, after cutting our beautiful 8-bone rack of lamb into two half-racks, he seasoned them thoroughly with salt, pepper, and the herbs he'd just chopped:

Sous chef Zack seasoning the lamb (he's very meticulous)

Then the racks were ready for me to sear in a hot pan. Once browned on all sides, they went onto the roasting pan to rest. During the 40 minutes or so that it took for the lamb to rest and roast in the oven, Zack put together the asparagus. I gave him free reign over this one because he said he kept getting the bad jobs! He halved some fresh tomatoes and put them in the pan with the asparagus spears, topping it all with garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil, then sprinkled the tomatoes with some of the extra chopped herbs--a really nice touch! A little grated parmesan went on top of it all during the last few minutes of cooking in the oven.

Searing the lamb

I made a red wine sauce in the pan the lamb had been seared in. This is something I would have never known how to do pre-culinary school, but all it takes is a couple of chopped shallots, red wine (we used pinot noir and drank the rest of it with dinner), and veal stock (we bought veal glace--a concentrated veal stock--at Star Provisions). I sweated the shallots, then let this all reduce until it produced an extremely flavorful sauce thick enough to coat the back of a spoon--this is the sign that your sauce is ready, called nape in French. 

Once again, the hardest part about cooking lamb for me is taking it out of the oven at just the right time to achieve medium-rare meat. I temped it and took it out a few degrees under 130, then let it rest for 20 minutes. During this time, I put together the tuna tartare from start to finish. The kicker for this dish was the little ramekins that I bought to mold it in, like I had done with the salmon tartare in class. For this version, I decided to add a layer of avocado--both for its creamy flavor that compliments tuna so well and for a beautiful color contrast. 

I diced the tuna carefully and mixed it with minced shallots, thinly sliced scallions, a minced jalapeno pepper, lime juice, a touch of olive oil, and a few drops of hot sauce. I pressed this mixture into the ramekins and topped it with a layer of chopped, seasoned avocado. I was going for all-out restaurant presentation here, so I sliced cucumbers paper thin and arranged them around the plate. We also had sesame crackers on the table for scooping up the tartare.

Plated tuna tartare

The first course was delicious and I enjoyed it thoroughly...but I was still waiting for the moment of truth: slicing the lamb. I worried that it would be a little too rare, and in that case I'd just put the sliced chops in the oven for a minute. No big deal. But when I sliced the chops, once again they were a rosy medium-rare. I think I've got rack of lamb down now, officially. I sliced each rack in half and plated them with some risotto, asparagus, and sauce. Our appetizer may have been dainty (Zack went back to the extra tuna mixture in the fridge for seconds), but this was a huge plate of food! 

Roasted Rack of Lamb with Pinot Noir Sauce, Red-and-Yellow-Pepper Risotto, Parmesan Asparagus: restaurant-worthy description, no?

We could taste how high-quality the lamb from Star Provisions was--but we also patted ourselves on the back for seasoning (Zack) and cooking (me) it so perfectly. Team effort! The risotto was infused with roasted pepper and garlic and was super-creamy, even though I didn't use any cream or even butter. The roasted asparagus and tomatoes were garlicky and full of flavor. After all this, I was so glad we didn't mess with baking anything for dessert. The long-stemmed strawberries that we bought at Whole Foods, along with everyone else in Atlanta, were perfect. 

Rack of Lamb, Take 2

Remember the practical exam in Skills 2, when my mystery basket contained rack of lamb and it intimidated me half to death? Although I did avoid disaster and present an edible plate in the end, I've been eager to cook lamb again—without overcooking it or being scared this time. I got the chance today in Meat Fab...it was Lamb Day! 

Chef K. started off with a demo, instructing us how to properly French the racks of lamb. It's really very easy—simpler, I think, than a lot of the other fabrication we've done. Even breaking down chickens is a bit more complicated. He showed us how to get the bones perfectly clean without having to scrape them, which was great because I can't stand that scraping sound of a knife against bone...gives me the creeps. 

After I mimicked his demo to French my half-rack of lamb (4 chops), I cooked it following the same procedure I'd learned in Skills 2. I seasoned the lamb with salt, pepper, and rosemary, then seared it on each side in a hot saute pan. While letting it rest, I started to put together a sauce. I found some dried apricots and figs and wanted to incorporate those, so I soaked them in wine and then cooked them down with more wine and some lamb stock that we had made. I also added a touch of balsamic vinegar. There are no recipes in Meat Fab, and I've loved the opportunity to just play around with flavors and get creative. This sauce turned out delicious—the wine and stock really balanced out the sweetness of the fruit.

Apricot-fig sauce

Then it was time for the tough part: cooking the lamb to a perfect medium-rare in the oven. Using the ovens at school is always problematic, since we're always opening and closing them to check on different things and letting heat escape. We have thermometers to temp meats in our knife kits, but I just don't trust them sometimes. Chefs are simply able to tell when meat is done by looking at it or touching it—I'm not quite there yet. 

Chef L., our assistant chef in this class, (the same Chef L. from Skills 1, if you actually remember all of these letters!) told me to take the lamb out once it reached 135 degrees and let it rest for medium-rare. I checked it after about 20 minutes and the thermometer still came out cool when I inserted it into the rack. After seven more minutes or so, I checked it again and although it wasn't quite at 135, I decided to let it rest instead of running the risk of overcooking. If the lamb was a little too rare when I sliced it, I figured I could always put the sliced chops back in the oven for a minute or two. When it's overcooked and no longer rosy pink, you can't go back.

The lamb resting

I let the meat rest about five minutes—if you cut it immediately, blood will run all over the plate, and that's not so appetizing (not to mention all of the flavor and moisture that is lost). I was thrilled when I sliced into it and saw rosy pink meat! No need to put anything back into the oven, it was ready to go. One of my restaurant vet classmates helped me plate it beautifully with some of my sauce:

Finished plate!

Chef K. also broke down a whole lamb shank today, and many of my classmates used some of that meat to make braises and stews. My favorite taste of the day was a brothy, Mediterranean-flavored lamb stew made with swiss chard and romaine lettuce—surprisingly, lettuce tastes amazing after simmering like this. It softens kind of like collard greens and picks up all of the meaty flavor of the broth. My classmate who made it is Greek and she grew up eating this dish. I was obsessed and can't wait to try my hand at her recipe. 

Greek lamb stew simmering

As proud as I was of my perfectly-cooked rack of lamb, this was the most delicious dish of the day. Thanks, Nicki!

Tasty Tartare

We spent the first six days of Meat Fab cooking, well, meat in all guises--chicken, beef, pork, game birds like pheasant and cornish hen, rabbit, even alligator (kinda chewy and easy to overcook). Today we moved on to fish, and I couldn't have been happier. We each filleted a whole, head-on striped bass and a whole trout. Chef K. worked on two huge salmon for his demo, one wild-caught and one farm-raised. We cryovacked all of the bass and trout for other classes and spent our production time cooking all of that salmon. 

This class is very laissez-faire...after we fabricate whatever protein we're working with, the chefs basically let us cook it however we want to. We also head into the walk-in cooler and make sides with whatever vegetables and starches we have on hand. Our class works really well together and it's been a lot of fun. Today, everyone kind of did their own thing with the salmon because there was so much of it. Instead of grilling or sauteing a few portions, I decided to take the end pieces--left over after Chef cut the filets into 7 ounce portions--and make a tartare. 

I love raw fish and although I've never made tartare before, I've ordered it enough to have a general idea of what to do and it seemed easy enough. I was also inspired by my friend Becky, who scanned the pictures in my last post before reading it thoroughly and thought that I'd created the beautiful tuna tartare that was actually the handiwork of Laurent Tourondel (the extremely famous chef from BLT Steak)! I knew my tartare wouldn't be as beautiful as that one, but I wanted to see if I could pull one off that at least tasted good.

I looked for some citrus to complement the fish, remembering the delicious tartare with orange segments that Chef M. had made for us in Skills 1. There were no oranges to be found in the cooler, but I did come across a perfectly ripe mango. Mango and salmon...sounded good to me. I diced the mango and minced a couple of shallots and a bunch of parsley. Then, I chopped up the raw salmon into small pieces and tossed it with everything else in a bowl. It looked colorful and appetizing, but needed a kick of some sort, so I added lemon juice to give it some acid and seasoned with salt. So simple!

Look how awesome it looked after I went all fancy and molded it with a ramekin. Chef K. said it looked sexy. Foodies use sex analogies to describe dishes all the time, but still! This totally made my day. I even got a few raw fish-phobes in my class to try it and like it.

My first attempt at tartare

Carnivore's Paradise

I wish I were more of a carnivore so that I could have a greater appreciation for all the meat I'll be cooking over the next three weeks. I keep thinking of Zack and how much he would love everything we're learning in Meat Fabrication (Meat Fab for short). Our wise-cracking chef, Chef K., is of the same meat-loving mentality. Yesterday he sauteed up some green beans to go with all of the protein we had cooked. He bit into one and said "vegetables just don't taste as good as meat." I must say, I have to disagree! I love vegetables and am always more drawn to them than to the meat on my plate, no matter whether they're virtuously steamed or drenched in butter.

I'm certainly not a vegetarian, but I could probably get by as one pretty easily as long as I could eat fish. I believe the term is pesco-vegetarian and I was one, actually, for about three years between sixth and eighth grades. This time period included an entire summer spent in Italy with my family, where I'm sure I missed out on tons of delicious things made with meat. And then I chose to break my vegetarianism one evening at summer camp when the chicken nuggets served at dinner just looked really, really good. But I digress...

In Meat Fab, we'll be cutting up and cooking meat from pretty much every animal. On our first day, we broke down chickens, which have been a staple in my diet ever since that chicken nugget day at camp. We learned how to cut a whole bird into the traditional 8 pieces: breasts, legs, thighs, and wings. To get a little more fancy, Chef K. showed us how to cut airline chicken breasts, which have the clean wing bone sticking up for a more fine-dining-style presentation. We then de-boned the leg and thigh quarters--a lot easier than it sounds--and stuffed them to make little roulades. My group made a tasty stuffing with chunks of baguette (probably made by us last week in Baking & Pastry!), spinach, sundried tomatoes, and goat cheese.

The amount of food prepared in this class really is over-the-top: on chicken day, each student broke down a chicken, so that means we had about 25 whole chickens cut up once we were done. It works out because Meat Fab provides all of the portioned meat for other classes: when we cooked chicken breasts in Skills 2, the Meat Fab class had cut them.

Today, we got into red meat. Chef showed us how to cut all kinds of steaks, and now I actually understand the differences between them. He brought out a huge hunk of meat which turned out to be the short loin of a cow. From that, he cut a few porterhouses, T-bones, and New York strips. We then took top sirloin meat off the bone, mixed it with fat (80:20 ratio of lean meat to fat), and put it through the grinder to make hamburgers.

Our meaty buffet, complete with steaks, burgers, and bacon (to go on the burgers)

We also made some vegetables and steakhouse-style sides to round out this buffet of beef--from the insight above, you probably guessed that I found this to be the most fun. One of my classmates who is a restaurant kitchen vet showed me how to make a killer creamed spinach with bechamel sauce, onions, white wine, and parmesan. Our class also made our own fries, onion rings, and mashed potatoes.

Our creamed spinach cooking

Hand-cut fries seasoned with a spice blend that we threw together...a pinch of chili powder is a great touch.

As if this weren't enough steak for one day, after class Zack and I headed over to Atlanta's new branch of BLT Steak for an opening event. Laurent Tourondel, the New York-based French chef who heads the BLT empire, was in town to unveil his latest outpost. I thought it would just be a few nibbles and schmoozing, but we were seated for a full multi-course lunch. In addition to Tourondel's famous popovers (I got the recipe!), there were multiple cuts of steak and tiny cast-iron pots filled with sides. I loved his Southern-inspired riff on creamed spinach, replacing it with collard greens. There were a few other sides that you wouldn't see at BLT in New York or DC, like grits with crumbles of gorgonzola and spicy creamed corn, and I actually found them to be the best. I'll be skipping dinner tonight!

BLT's ethereal popovers

Creamy collards

I'm so sick of tuna tartare, but this one was really excellent, layered with avocado and topped with crispy shallots.

Naturally, I forgot to take a picture of the steak at BLT Steak! For the record, Zack thought the New York strip was great (very tender and flavorful) and the hangar steak was also well-cooked but that cut is a bit too chewy for his taste.

Baking Wrap-Up

When I bit into the chocolate tart mentioned (and pictured) in my last post, I wished I could Fed-Ex a slice to Wally, Zack's dad. He's my partner in crime when it comes to desserts, especially chocolate ones, and this tart was so simple yet decadent: a thin, buttery crust topped with fudgy dark chocolate and a light coating of silky ganache. Easy to make, too...I might have to whip one up just for Wally the next time they come to visit. It's so dangerously good that if left to our own devices, the two of us could probably polish off the entire tart ourselves!

Yesterday we showcased the baking and pastry skills we've learned over the past three weeks in our practical exam. In four hours, each group had to produce six baguettes, two dozen cookies, an almond tart, and a fully decorated layer cake. It sounded pretty daunting at first...when I explained the practical to my mom, she remarked that it would take her a week to make all of that! In reality, it was pretty straightforward. We actually had a lot of downtime while things were baking and setting up--nothing like the chaos of the Skills 2 "mystery basket" practical.

On Wednesday, we each decorated our own cake to practice for the practical. I toiled over cutting my yellow cake into three layers, applied even layers of buttercream between them, iced the thing, and piped roses on top with a pastry bag and rose tip. My cake looked pretty decent, but this is definitely not my thing--the process really stresses me out. After sweating over my imperfect buttercream roses, I now have a great respect for all of the wedding cake designers that used to harass me to get onto the Washingtonian's wedding guide!

So, needless to say, I was up for doing anything my group needed during the practical as long as I didn't have to go near the cake decorating. Fortuntely, one of my group members had decorated his cake perfectly--and calmly--so he volunteered. I made the pate sucre crust for our tart and assembled it, lining the crust with a layer of raspberry jam, then a thick layer of frangipane (almond) filling, and then decorating it with cherries and almonds in a pretty circular pattern. I loved how it turned out, and I may or may not have brought the leftovers home that evening to share with friends, who loved it too.

Our photogenic cherry-almond tart

The chocolate chip cookies were another story. We thought this would be the simplest task of the practical, but it turns out that the easy recipes are also easiest to mess up. Our cake and tart were nearly perfect, but the simple baguettes and cookies had some flaws. For some reason, none of the groups in our class ended up with great cookies that day.

When we got our batch into the oven, I noticed immediately that they weren't spreading enough. I took them out when they were getting very brown around the edges, but they were still slightly dome-shaped and golden on top. They tasted good--it's hard to make a chocolate chip cookie taste bad unless you burn them--but the cookies that we'd made in class previously had been flatter and less cakey. It could be that the batter was undermixed, or that an ingredient was scaled incorrectly, or that we had to use the convection ovens to bake them because the other ovens were full of breads, cakes, and tarts. Anyway, not thrilled about the cookies, and our baguettes were a bit too dense (from not bench-resting them long enough, probably), but we still felt good about the practical overall and came away with a good score from the chefs.

Our spread for the final practical: iced yellow cake, baguettes, cookies, cherry-almond tart

Next week, I move past bread and cake and on to...meat! My next class is meat fabrication, so I'll be writing about butchering and cooking all different cuts. Hopefully after three weeks of this, I'll know exactly what to do with an untrimmed rack of lamb if I ever get it again in a mystery basket. Seafood is involved too, apparently. Stay tuned.

Sugar Rush

Have I mentioned that dessert is my major weakness? Even if I'm really full, I always need to cleanse my palate with something sweet (even if it's just an apple....but something chocolate is obviously preferred). It drives me crazy that Zack isn't a big dessert person. I always beg him to share one with me at restaurants, and then he ends up eating one bite and leaves the rest to me! He'd rather save room for an extra appetizer and is much more tempted by bad-for-you salty food like french fries and chips. Me, I could easily pass on the fries and often do. But put something chocolatey in front of me and it doesn't stand a chance.

This week in B&P, we've been doing mostly sweet stuff. We're going through the kitchen's supply of sugar like crazy: light brown, dark brown, confectioner's, granulated, molasses, honey...you name it. The resulting sweet treats have been pretty impressive, if I do say so myself.

Though not technically a dessert, muffins are one of my ultimate guilty pleasures. A while ago, I totally ruined them for Zack's mom, Candy, when I let her in on the little secret that muffins (even bran ones) are far from health food--they're really just big cupcakes minus the frosting. I still feel bad about that! Though it's certainly not great to eat what is essentially cake for breakfast on a regular basis, I treat myself to a muffin once in a while--usually when I have to fly somewhere early in the morning and get breakfast at the airport. I always thoroughly enjoy them, but a fresh bakery muffin really is a big step up from the Starbucks variety, as was evidenced by the ones we made in class:

Miles of muffins

Strawberry, Banana-nut, and Blueberry

From there, we moved on to cookies: we've done classic chocolate chip, fudgy double-chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal-cranberry, almond macaroons, icebox cookies (rolled in a log, a la slice-n-bake), gingersnaps, spritz cookies (those little butter cookies that are often topped with sprinkles and served at teas). As you can imagine, with a batch or more of each kind, the number of cookies coming out of our bakeshop was pretty ridiculous.

Here are our double chocolate cookies waiting to be baked--truly a chocoholic's dream. How much do you want to lick the bowl from that cookie dough?! Not so appropriate in class. Portioning out the cookies with an ice cream scoop produces beautiful results. The cookies bake up round and uniform in size, but still look rustic and "homemade." Below, cookies fresh from the oven.

Over the past few days, we've also worked on a number of pies and tarts in several stages. One day, we made pie dough and pate sucre, a sugar-cookie-like dough used for tarts. The next, we made a bunch of fillings. Yesterday, we baked the shells and filled them--a more complicated process than one would think. Some pie shells are fully baked and then filled once they've cooled (like lemon meringue), others are par-baked and finished in the oven with the filling inside (pecan), and some fillings are baked start-to-finish in the raw pie dough (apple). Finally, today, we got to put on the finishing decorative touches. Check out the spread from Chef H.'s demo:

From left: chocolate tart, pear tart, key lime pie, apricot tart

Now here's our group's effort. Despite my lack of artistic ability, they turned out pretty well! Naturally, when it was time to split up our group's duties, I focused on the chocolate tart. It's a sugar crust filled with a rich dark chocolate batter. I decorated it with a layer of chocolate ganache--made from cream and more dark chocolate--and a pretty swirl of caramel. Then we covered up most of the tart and gave the edge a light dusting of powdered sugar. We'll slice into all of these next week--I hope the chocolate one tastes as good as it looks.