Today was the second day of culinary school. I found a delightful pile of cakes in the corner, and wandered over to longingly pine after them and smell the sugar in the air. I will get there soon, I tell myself, and turn back to my table full of raw animal bones. Yes, yes, this is so much better.
No, I joke, but really, stocks are important. They are literally the foundation upon which all other cooking “stuff” is built. So, I focus on today’s agenda and await brigade line-up. Formation. Whatever it’s called.
Today I’ve brought a bio-therm of my own from home, hoping to impress my Chef Instructors with my enthusiasm. This plan is soon brought to a halting crash as Chef Claire explains why the glass from my bio-therm could shatter and the mercury could potentially kill everyone in here.
On second thought, I think I’ll just wait until I get one in my kit next week. No one likes a teacher’s pet.
After being inspected, we prepared to immediately start cooking the beef bones, since beef stock takes the longest to cook, an incredibly ridiculous 6-8 hours. And my wife thought it just came like that in cartons.
Next we started the chicken and white veal stocks, and prepped our veggie stock. We also roasted the mirepoix for the beef stock, and added the tomato paste, called tomato pince. Fancy words when you can just say tomato paste. But I'm new to the field, so what do I know, Escoffier?! Once the mirepoix was rust-colored and had a sweet smell to it, we pulled it out and added that to the beef stock. The whole kitchen was beginning to smell amazing.
No, I joke, but really, stocks are important. They are literally the foundation upon which all other cooking “stuff” is built. So, I focus on today’s agenda and await brigade line-up. Formation. Whatever it’s called.
Today I’ve brought a bio-therm of my own from home, hoping to impress my Chef Instructors with my enthusiasm. This plan is soon brought to a halting crash as Chef Claire explains why the glass from my bio-therm could shatter and the mercury could potentially kill everyone in here.
On second thought, I think I’ll just wait until I get one in my kit next week. No one likes a teacher’s pet.
After being inspected, we prepared to immediately start cooking the beef bones, since beef stock takes the longest to cook, an incredibly ridiculous 6-8 hours. And my wife thought it just came like that in cartons.
Next we started the chicken and white veal stocks, and prepped our veggie stock. We also roasted the mirepoix for the beef stock, and added the tomato paste, called tomato pince. Fancy words when you can just say tomato paste. But I'm new to the field, so what do I know, Escoffier?! Once the mirepoix was rust-colored and had a sweet smell to it, we pulled it out and added that to the beef stock. The whole kitchen was beginning to smell amazing.
We learned several knife cuts today while we were waiting for the collagen in the bones to get sucked out into the water. Chef Rick made it look super easy, so we all felt very confident going back to our table with giant sharp knives and playing with vegetables. Until we actually got there, and we realized that making the two pieces of each cut he wanted perfectly was two too many. I got the hang of it though, and I am not being excessively boastful when I say that my orange supremes were the best orange supremes in the world, at that moment.
Finally the stocks were nearing completion, .so we gathered millions of tiny bowls so the whole class could taste all the stocks.
We also learned a little about critiquing food, which I will practice now:
The chicken stock was delicious, and tasted just like chicken. But the liquid form of chicken. The clarity was okay, but could be a bit better, as it was a tiny bit cloudy. The body of the stock was good as far as we could tell, as was the flavor and the color.
The veal stock was watery and kind of gross. We decided it was because it needed to cook longer to allow the bones to give off their highest potential of flavor, but couldn’t because of our short (5-hour) class period.
Finally the stocks were nearing completion, .so we gathered millions of tiny bowls so the whole class could taste all the stocks.
We also learned a little about critiquing food, which I will practice now:
The chicken stock was delicious, and tasted just like chicken. But the liquid form of chicken. The clarity was okay, but could be a bit better, as it was a tiny bit cloudy. The body of the stock was good as far as we could tell, as was the flavor and the color.
The veal stock was watery and kind of gross. We decided it was because it needed to cook longer to allow the bones to give off their highest potential of flavor, but couldn’t because of our short (5-hour) class period.