I'm Back...In the Kitchen

I know you've missed me, faithful Mise En Place readers. I've suffered through three weeks of Hospitality & Supervision—well, in reality, it wasn't so bad taking it easy, away from the stoves in an air-conditioned classroom.

The highlight of that class was watching episodes of the hilariously disastrous reality show "The Restaurant" and discussing the many ways in which pretty-boy chef Rocco DiSpirito and his bankroller Jeffrey Chodorow failed. They subsequently drove Rocco's (The Restaurant) into the ground, and the show also turned Rocco, actually a talented chef, into a joke in the New York food world (although he does still make lots of money doing commercials for frozen pastas and appears on Top Chef, probably only because the pasta company is a sponsor). Anyway, I digress...there were lots of lessons of the restaurant business to be learned from the show.

Our instructor, Chef R., was not just a lazy teacher who plays videos to pass the time (loved those in high school though!) He's really knowledgeable and shared a lot of insight about the restaurant business, and when it came to the videos, he selected his material carefully. He showed us interviews with successful chefs like Thomas Keller and Charlie Trotter in which they shared their philosophies on food and business. I knew a lot about these guys beforehand—they're household names for anyone who reads as many food publications, food sections and food blogs as I do—but many of my classmates learned about them and their high standards of excellence for the first time and came away really inspired. It was cool to see that. We also had to do a presentation on a chef and a restaurant that we admired, and—no surpirse here—I chose Johnny Monis from Komi in Washington, probably my favorite restaurant anywhere.

So that's the short gist on the last three weeks. I'm happy to say that I'm back to cooking (and blogging about it), to sweating behind the stoves and rushing to get my plates ready on time for presentation. Although I know that culinary-school production is nothing compared to the frenetic pace of a restaurant kitchen, feeling that stress in the kitchen definitely does give me a rush that makes it clear, for a second at least, why people choose to enter the crazy career of cooking professionally.

Having reached International Cusine, we are truly culinary school Seniors. Only one more rotation after this, and then we go into the school's restaurant. International covers so many cuisines that I really wish it were spread out over six weeks or more. Some days are devoted to one country—this week we hit Italy and Spain—but other days are a hodgepodge, with one group focusing on Greece, another cooking Middle-Eastern, and yet another preparing something from Eastern Europe. That was Friday.

I was very happy to be at the table cooking Greek food—one of my favorite cuisines. Our group of four made spanakopita, moussaka, baklava, and shrimp with feta, each of us taking the lead on one dish. I worked on the shrimp with feta and loved the results. It was a simple, fresh, light entree that I will most definitely be making again. First, I made a fresh tomato sauce with white wine and lots of herbs and spread it on the bottom of a baking dish. Then, after peeling and deveining the shrimp (the only annoying part!), I quickly sauteed them in olive oil and layered them on top of the tomato sauce. Thinly-sliced tomatoes were arranged on top of the shrimp, and then I sprinkled the whole baking dish with a generous amount of feta. It goes into the oven for 10-15 minutes, just until the cheese begins to melt and brown a tiny bit.

Shrimp with feta, just out of the oven

Plated shrimp

Spanakopita, phyllo filled with spinach and feta

Baklava...more phyllo, filled with nuts, cinnamon, honey, lots of butter.

Backtracking to Italian day, I made the classic soup pasta e fagiole. It's a hearty dish made with white beans and macaroni, very comforting. I used to order it at the little restaurant across from my apartment in Rome whenever it got cold outside. Other chefs throughout the school know to come to International on Italian day—other dishes included fresh pasta with pesto, lasagna, veal picatta, eggplant parmesan, panzanella salad, tiramisu. My old chef from Baking & Pastry, who is in fact Italian and said his grandma always made paste e fagiole, polished off a huge bowl of ours. That's the best compliment I could get!

Crappy cell-phone photo of pasta e fagiole, topped with Parmesan. After sitting for a while, the macaroni absorbed much of the broth. It still tasted wonderful!

All U Can Eat

The final Wednesday of the American Regional rotation is always buffet day. The class picks out a theme, selects more than a dozen recipes to go along with it, and decorates the room accordingly. The buffet's "guests" are always the students from Food Science, one of the first classes of the program. Food Science is not a kitchen class, so the newbies get a little preview of what goes on in production classes in addition to an opportunity to eat until they're Thanksgiving-style full.

It honestly seems like forever ago when Mr. W., the Food Science teacher, walked my class down to American Regional for the buffet. At the time, American Regional seemed so far down the road for me, and I was impressed that the students pulled off such an elaborate feast—their theme was New Orleans Thanksgiving, appropriate given that it was November. Culinary school is flying by, and sure enough this Wednesday was my own buffet day. I'd like to think that our feast was just as impressive to the clean-jacketed Food Science students we served.

We decided against a seasonal theme, since the April holidays have already passed, and went with "A Tribute to Hollywood." We picked five movies that are tied to regions in the U.S., and each table prepared a few dishes that represented those regional cuisines. We decorated our tables with movie posters and random props that we all dug out of our closets and basements, and each wrote our name on a construction-paper star to make a "Walk of Fame" on the floor.

My group's movie was Scarface, thus our cuisine was "Floribbean"—the Florida cuisine that encompasses Latin and Caribbean influences. We made Cuban-style yellow rice, a spicy gazpacho (a bit different from the recipe we made last week on Tex-Mex day), and a refreshing shrimp salad. The top photo is a closer shot of these three dish presentations. Funny that this movie was assigned to a group of four girls, none of whom had ever actually seen Scarface all the way through!

Another table took inspiration from a movie that I had suggested when we were throwing out regionally-appropriate titles: Fried Green Tomatoes. It's one of my all-time favorite tear-jerking chick flicks, and couldn't have been a better theme for Southern food. This group, obviously, served a riff on fried green tomatoes stuffed with cheddar cheese; candied sweet potatoes; and a peach and blueberry shortcake.

The Tex-Mex table was represented by Hang 'Em High, a Clint Eastwood movie that I've also never seen. The guys in my class seemed to be collectively obsessed with it, though. This all-guy group made a Mexican chocolate and pecan torte and an enchilada casserole.

The Fargo table showcased Midwestern food, including a beef-and-bacon meatloaf and braised cabbage (also with bacon, naturally!)

The final movie was another that I suggested—this time not a chick flick! There is no better movie for Italian-American cuisine than The Godfather. They made some stuffed shell pasta with meat and ricotta and actually found a recipe for a "Corleone Salad". I couldn't come up with any specific ties to the movie in the recipe, but was a tasty, simple salad with greens, mozzarella, and olives—something you'd be served with your meal at any red-sauce Italian-American restaurant.

The buffet was a hit—our student and chef guests came back through for seconds and thirds. Word gets around the school when it's buffet day in American regional, so people from every class usually mosey in to try the food during their breaks. We still had tons of food left over—the plates you see above were just the presentation plates; we served from huge dishes and platters behind the displays.

Though the kitchen was chaotic at times with so many dishes in the works, it was a really fun day. I loved getting to present and serve our food to people other than just Chef P., and decorating the room with construction paper etc. brought me back to the thrill of class parties in elementary school. And it may not be the most refined dining experience, but who doesn't love a good all-you-can-eat buffet every once in a while?

Louisiana, Texas, and the Rocky Mountains...all in one week!

It's been a delicious week in American Regional. Monday kicked off with the Cajun and Creole cuisines of Louisiana. Before Zack and I met in college, I'd never even been to Louisiana, but after more than five years of food-filled visits, I consider myself pretty well-educated in its cuisine. However, prior to Monday I'd never actually cooked any of it myself before.

The Louisiana menu was full of classic dishes: gumbo, stuffed mirlitons (called chayote squash outside of the bayou area), red beans and rice, maque choux (a creamy, rich stewed corn dish), crawfish etouffee, jambalaya, trout with pecan butter, pecan pralines, beignets. My group was on entree duty, and I volunteered to make the jambalaya. It's one of those dishes that seems straightforward enough to make at home—I love one-pot meals!—and I wanted to learn the tricks that make the rice so delicious and flavorful. We used a classic combination of chicken and spicy andouille sausage—I like seafood jambalaya the best, but this is what we had to work with since shrimp were needed to stuff the mirlitons.

Jambalaya turned out to be very simple, provided you have some pre-cooked andouille, which we did. We made sausage from scratch back in Garde Manger class and I'm fine with never doing that again, thanks. I broke down a chicken and cut the meat into bite-size pieces, then browned it in a pot with a little oil. Then, I took out the chicken pieces and browned the vegetables: the "holy trinity" of onions, peppers, and celery replaces traditional mirepoix in Cajun and Creole cooking. Some diced lean pork went into the pot with the vegetables as well. Once all of that had browned, I threw in the spicy sausage and all of the spices—our recipe called for equal amounts of black pepper, cayenne, chili powder, dried thyme, ground cloves, dried basil, and mace. New Orleans food certainly is not bland!

At this point, the rice goes into the pot and is browned for a few minutes before the chicken stock is added. The chicken pieces go back in too, and I brought the pot to a boil, then cut the heat to a simmer and covered it to let the rice cook. That took about 35 minutes with occasional stirring. Then it needs just a few minutes uncovered to let the rice dry out a little, and you're done! It was spicy and rich and flavorful, just how I remembered it from Mother's in the French Quarter. We molded it and scattered the plate with fresh herbs for presentation—Chef P. requests that we plate everything in fine-dining style, but for this one I'm all for serving it in a big messy heap.

Jambalaya goes refined

Other highlights from Louisiana day included the shrimp-stuffed mirlitons, which were almost as good as the ones I was first introduced to at Zack's parents house. They went really well over a delicious corn-and-boiled-peanut salad that another group made. People seem to either love or hate boiled peanuts—I love them! They're just regular peanuts boiled in the shell in salted water, sometimes with spicy Cajun seasonings, and they take on a totally different flavor and texture. In Louisiana, you can get them at roadside produce stands and even gas stations. Zack remembers a "peanut man" who came around selling them when he was little. Whenever we visit, he's always on the lookout for this "peanut man"...no success yet, unfortunately.

Beauty plate of shrimp-stuffed mirlitons over corn-and-boiled-peanut salad

The etouffee was extremely rich, as it should be, and the crawfish were tasty even though we got them frozen. There's nothing better than fresh crawfish straight from the shell.

Crawfish etouffee—not the most attractive dish, but very delicious

On Tuesday, we moved into the Midwest. The cuisine of the "Central Plains" isn't very easily defined with specific dishes—but they use a lot of beer, bacon, sausages, and beef. It's not the lightest fare, to say the least. We were at the sides table and I made some braised cabbage that I actually liked a lot. Naturally, it was made with bacon and braised in Guinness (and some apple cider).

Beer-braised cabbage

Here we plated some of the cabbage and our other side of corn-and-wild rice cakes with another group's pork medallions, which were served with a blueberry sauce.

Pork with blueberry sauce, braised cabbage, and wild rice cakes

Moving along, we headed into the Rocky Mountain region. Chef P. talked about the abundance of wild game and berries out there, but admitted that there wasn't much to talk about in this cuisine: "You know what their main crop is out there? Rocks." It was probably a good day to be stuck at the dessert table. We made an amazingly moist blueberry cake that was served topped with cream that we'd warmed in a pot with a vanilla bean. The class devoured two large cake pans of it. Our group also made some skillet cornbread and lemon chess pie, which I always thought was Southern, but apparently not.

Melt-in-the-mouth blueberry cake with cream

Just for the record: it was Passover this week and I was avoiding anything leavened, so I allowed myself only a tiny taste of cake—to make sure it came out okay, obviously! And as for all the rice on Louisiana day, I have adopted Sephardic culture and they're cool with rice during Passover. Yeah...we all do religion differently, people!

Next, we tackled Tex-Mex cuisine and the soup table. Chef P. explained that the day's menu was actually more authentically Mexican than Tex-Mex, which in this country has come to mean fake-Mexican food like nachos and jalapeno poppers. Our class made chicken with mole, the intense sauce made with chocolate and chiles; chile rellenos; matambre, a roulade of flank steak filled with greens and hard-boiled eggs; tres leches cake, etc. In my opinion, this was the best day ever to find ourselves at the soup table. We made two of my all-time favorites: tortilla soup (which is one of my staple dishes at home) and gazpacho (which I'd never actually made myself before, but I ordered it at pretty much every meal on my trip to Spain!) Speaking of, Chef P. clarified that gazpacho is not indigenous to Mexico, but to Spain. She didn't write these menus and admits that sometimes they are a bit misguided! We also made empanadas, which are not really Tex-Mex but South American.

Back to the soups. The grilled vegetable gazpacho is definitely a recipe that I will make again on my own. Grilling the zucchini and onion and roasting the peppers before pureeing them gives the soup a wonderful, slightly charred flavor. We gave it an extra kick with some siracha and rice wine vinegar and garnished with perfectly diced cucumbers (knife skills!) and tortilla strips that we fried ourselves. I brought some of this home and Zack loved it—I guess he's like a little kid who will only eat vegetables when they're hidden, because the pureed soup includes several that he normally doesn't touch!

Grilled vegetable gazpacho

The tortilla soup was very different from the one I make at home. Mine is a tomatoey base thickened with corn tortillas that are pureed with the broth. It may have originally been a recipe that I found somewhere, but I usually just tweak it a little each time I make it. In class, we made a brothy soup that was more like chicken soup gone Mexican. This is probably the more authentic version. Both have corn kernels and are flavored with cilantro and lime. I like tortilla soup both ways—my version is more of a hearty meal-in-a-bowl, while the brothy one, like chicken soup, would be perfect medicine for a cold.

Tortilla soup, brothy-style

Finally, we hit California cuisine. I don't have much to elaborate on—my group made salads and it was a fun, laid-back Friday if not all that interesting. Plus, I forgot my camera. The spinach salad I made was pretty tasty though. How could it not be—it was tossed with warm bacon dressing, goat cheese, toasted walnuts, crispy chopped bacon, and some dates. It's a salad that's really about as healthy as a steak dinner. Other chefs from throughout the school always come by our class after production time for some lunch, and I've never seen them hit the salad table so hard!

Fifty-Nifty-United-States

Did everyone have to sing that song at some point in elementary school? It's how I remember the 50 states to this day—all I have to do is start singing "Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas..." and soon enough I'll hit the elusive state that's momentarily slipping my mind. In my current class, American Regional Cuisine, we're cooking our way through every state (I sang the song in my head while reading over the syllabus to make sure we weren't missing any).

Obviously, some states are far more exciting than others, and the curriculum is laid out appropriately—for example, Louisiana gets its own day, while the "Central Plains" day represents a whole bunch of culinarily-challenged states. On Mid-Atlantic day last week, my home state of Maryland (and its Chesapeake neighbors) probably got most attention because we bring crab cakes and softshells to the table.

Each day over the next three weeks, we'll talk about a different region and make several recipes from that part of the country. Chef P. has a great system going—our groups rotate tables every day, and table 1 always makes soup and appetizers, table 2 salads, table 3 entrees, table 4 starch and veg, and table 5 bread and dessert.

We were at the sides table for New England day and made this delicious "New England stuffed eggplant"—still not exactly sure how this recipe is indigenous to New England, though. We also roasted some expertly-cut root vegetables (below) and baked a green-bean casserole with fried onions (made from scratch, NOT from a can!) which we plated beautifully with the entree group's broiled bluefish (top photo). Next week I'll take more pictures—I wish I had one of their other entree, lobster-and-cod cakes.


I was disappointed that we ended up at the dessert table for Mid-Atlantic day—I'm already way out of baking mode. We were stuck with applesauce cake (a super-moist and delicious Pennsylvania Dutch recipe) and shoofly pie (kind of like pecan pie minus the pecans, made with molasses—not a huge fan). The tables around us got to tackle softshell crabs, Maryland crab cakes, crab puffs, potato latkes (representing New York's kosher delis), and chicken-and-dumplings (we learned that this dish is actually not indigenous to the South, but to those Pennsylvania Dutch again).

We only have an hour and a half for production in this class, and the time constraint is most difficult for the dessert table. Making a cake and baking it in this amount of time is tough (in fact, for the applesauce cake, almost impossible—it needs an hour and 15 minutes in the oven). That's why there are no pictures of our desserts...in our rush to get them out of the oven and plated for presentation time, I completely forgot to take some. Oh well—at least Chef P. had good things to say in her critique. Looking forward to hitting the entree table tomorrow!

Great Fried Chicken (though not made by me!)

Since I'm off from school this week, I thought I'd still provide you with some food-related reading. I initially planned to post about this on Atlanta Magazine's blog, Covered Dish, to which I contribute weekly. However, after talking it over with my editor there, I realized that people here in Atlanta (especially the foodie community) are already intimately familiar with the Watershed's excellent fried chicken. Plus, a close-up of it appeared on the magazine's cover just a few months ago. So I figured I'd share my first Tuesday fried chicken experience with you instead.

The other day, one of my favorite food blogs, the Amateur Gourmet (a.k.a. former Atlantan Adam Roberts) alerted me to a wonderful 20-minute documentary on Southern cuisine maven Edna Lewis. You can watch “Fried Chicken & Sweet Potato Pie” here on Gourmet’s website and I don’t know how I missed it until now—the posting date is January ’08. It’s narrated in the soothing voice of the “Grande Dame of Southern Cooking” herself, collected from past interviews (Lewis passed away in 2006). Watershed chef Scott Peacock also provides commentary and insight into the remarkable life of his close friend and culinary inspiration.

Every Tuesday night at Watershed, Peacock is still cooking the fried chicken recipe that he and “Miss Lewis” perfected together. I’ve been dying to try it ever since I moved here, but Zack and I are generally late-dinner people and always seem to make it over to Decatur just in time to learn that the kitchen is out of chicken. We reluctantly order something else from the (still very good) menu, drooling as heaping plates of fried chicken and biscuits arrive at the tables of those who arrived earlier.

After discovering “Fried Chicken & Sweet Potato Pie”, I was determined to get to the Watershed early this Tuesday. We didn’t have a reservation but showed up before seven and scored a table for two in the packed restaurant without too long a wait. “Two chickens?” asked our server before even handing us the menus. “Yep!” we replied gleefully.

It did not disappoint. True, I’m from up North, but I’ve never had fried chicken like this before: the flavorful crust is dark-brown, not golden, and the meat beneath tender and juicy, even the breast. It came on a homey plate piled with mashed potatoes, green beans, and two of Peacock’s justifiably famous biscuits ($19). There was no sweet potato pie on the dessert menu last night (we were way too stuffed to have dessert anyway), but still, Miss Lewis would surely be proud of her protégé.
Watershed, 406 West Ponce De Leon Ave., Decatur; 404-378-4900; watershedrestaurant.com

It's That Time Again...

My group's final presentation for Baking & Pastry II

At the end of every kitchen rotation comes Practical Time. We also have written final exams, but as I've mentioned previously, for an academic geek like me the hands-on kitchen practical is far more nerve-wracking. Our Advanced Baking & Pastry practical was the most intense yet: it spanned three days, throughout which we made and presented multi-component desserts in groups of three and individually.

It's amazing to me that the number of components we produced only added up to two (very painstaking) desserts: a chocolate mousse entremet (cake, in layman's terms) and individual fruit mousse timbales.

The entremet had a base of coconut dacquoise—meringue made with almond flour and grated coconut—and a creme brulee center, which involved making creme brulee in a small ring mold and freezing it instead of torching the top. On top of the dacquoise base, we added about half of the chocolate mousse, placed the ring of creme brulee in the center, and then filled the mold with the rest of the mousse. That was left to freeze overnight, and the next day we garnished it with French macaroons that we'd also made from scratch, plus chocolate decor that we'd tempered and curled, and tuiles that we'd stenciled and baked.

My group's chocolate mousse entremet

For the individual mousse timbales, we first made chocolate decor paste which decorated the thin layer of almond bisquit cake that would line the timbale molds. We stenciled the decor paste in the diamond pattern you'll see below, then poured the almond bisquit batter over it and baked it. Once the molds were lined with cake, we filled them with mango mousse and a fruit compote center (we chose raspberry) that we'd made and frozen the previous day. These mousses also went into the freezer overnight, and then we topped them with a raspberry glaze.

One of my two individually-plated mango mousse timbales

My three-person group presented our entremet and two of the mousses; then we each plated two additional mousses for an individual grade. Here is the menu that we turned in (written on the paper in the first photo):

Chocolate Mousse Tort
Layers of Chocolate Mousse with Creme Brulee Center and Coconut-Almond Dacquoise
White Chocolate Shavings and Chocolate Tuile


Mango Mousse Timbale with Raspberry Fruit Compote Center
Chocolate and Almond Cake
Raspberry Sauce

Whew. In the end, everything came together surprisingly well, but I won't lie—my stress level was pretty high at times. I try to remind myself that culinary school is a learning experience for me and just to have fun, but sometimes I can't keep my perfectionist tendencies in check. One evening during the three practical days, I was telling my sister about it on the phone. She listened and concluded that she'd never want to work in a group with me for anything. Instead of getting offended, I had to laugh because she is probably right. (Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "You have to laugh at yourself, because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't." So wise, those Indigo Girls!) Fortunately, the two guys in my group promise that they still like me after all. And we scored a 95%!

Sick of Sugar

Plating attempt #1: Chocolate Pot de Creme

Remember when I started my first round of Baking & Pastry, I commented here about the fundamental differences between cooking and baking? Well, between then and now, I have determined that although I am a fan of eating baked goods and desserts, I'm definitely not a baker. For me, cooking savory food is not only more forgiving, it's more fun.

Although improvisation and creativity are possible on the pastry side, at our novice level the recipes really must be followed exactly or you'll end up with a ruined dessert. I've seen it happen multiple times this week. One little mistake and the macaroons will be mush, the sponge cake like a sheet of leather, or the creme brulee watery. This makes scaling all of the ingredients and following the recipe step-by-step rather stressful.

In B&P II we're now putting together some pretty complicated multi-component desserts which each incorporate several different techniques. Last week we had a whole day of custards—creme brulee, pot de creme, creme caramel, panna cotta—and this week we'll incorporate a creme brulee center into an elegant cake. We spent the whole day today working on garnishes, like tuiles made with hippen paste (the batter that also makes crisp fortune cookies), chocolate cigarettes, and spun sugar. I usually think of these garnishes as throw-aways—although they're all edible, they're not on the plate for flavor. I could take them or leave them, but pastry chefs tend to be artistic and spend a lot of time and energy making the plate look pretty.

My second plate: Creme Caramel

Third plate: Cheesecake with Raspberry Sauce

The dessert that I had the most fun with isn't baked at all: bananas foster. This could be considered a "cook's dessert" because it is made pretty much using a saute technique. You make a pan sauce by caramelizing sugar and adding butter, brown sugar, orange juice, zest, banana liqueur and rum, and then cook some bananas in it. Then you can even put on a show and let the alcohol flame up for a true flambe presentation. There's no waiting by the oven and praying your dish will come out well. You can taste the sauce and adjust as you go. It may not look as pretty and elegant as the fancy plated desserts we've done, but this is the one I would order, hands-down:

Bananas Foster, no fancy plating required!

Last Friday, after a long morning of filling piping bags with decorating chocolate, making mediocre chocolate designs on plates, and plating our custards over and over again for the chefs, I came home with a bunch of groceries to make dinner for some guests. Zack's mom and grandparents were coming into town and I wanted to cook for them. We'd be going out to nice restaurants the next two nights, so I went with something homey and casual: spaghetti and meatballs.

I thought I'd be burnt out from working on pastries all morning, but in fact I was more excited than ever to cook. I turned on some music and made tomato sauce from scratch, then made turkey meatballs as it bubbled on the stove. I improvised as I went, adding freshly grated parmesan, chopped parsley, minced garlic, and a little bit of lemon zest to the meatballs (my take on Jeff Seltzer's famous recipe!); a dash of balsamic vinegar and sugar to the sauce. For a side, I simply roasted asparagus with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. I couldn't have been happier and thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon in the kitchen. But when it came to dessert, I was burnt out. Knowing that Zack and his mom love chocolate-covered strawberries, I melted some chocolate over a double boiler and dipped away—no recipe, no scaling ingredients necessary.