Ruminations from Basic Skills in the kitchen class
Not everyone has Facebook, so I am repeating my ruminations from Basic Skills (in the kitchen) class. Enjoy!
Today in culinary class:
Learned the names of equipment, cut up rutabaga, turnip, potato, onion, garlic into garlic paste. Made clarified butter aka liquid gold aka ghee. Sliced cheese on this massive cheese slicer ("has everyone cut the cheese yet?). Made waffle fries but they were very thin and called gaufrettes. Put together and took apart the food processor.
Ate grilled cheese with dill havarti and cheddar and tomato and of course gaufrettes.
I'm not getting dinner any more on tuesdays and wednesdays. They actually feed us in culinary class at the end of the day.
And you dont know what you're getting so its a surprise.
Learned the names of equipment, cut up rutabaga, turnip, potato, onion, garlic into garlic paste. Made clarified butter aka liquid gold aka ghee. Sliced cheese on this massive cheese slicer ("has everyone cut the cheese yet?). Made waffle fries but they were very thin and called gaufrettes. Put together and took apart the food processor.
Ate grilled cheese with dill havarti and cheddar and tomato and of course gaufrettes.
I'm not getting dinner any more on tuesdays and wednesdays. They actually feed us in culinary class at the end of the day.
And you dont know what you're getting so its a surprise.
Today in culinary class:
Correctly minced parsley, even got a compliment from the chef! Made yogurt (which we pick up next week), made bouquet garni, sachets, tomato peeled and seeded for chopping, julienned onions and chopped more onions, did a lot of dishes and helping each other out.
Got baked potato soup and freshly made bread for dinner and lemon poppyseed muffin for dessert.
Correctly minced parsley, even got a compliment from the chef! Made yogurt (which we pick up next week), made bouquet garni, sachets, tomato peeled and seeded for chopping, julienned onions and chopped more onions, did a lot of dishes and helping each other out.
Got baked potato soup and freshly made bread for dinner and lemon poppyseed muffin for dessert.
When people warn you not to scoop up cut veggies with the sharp side of your french knife, believe them.
Cut #2.
Cut #2.
Well, yesterday in culinary class we had herb day. This means we grouped up and got assigned work.
My group had chervil compound butter with shallots (which I'd never eaten), a mint pesto, sage compound butter, and an herb marinated chicken with parsley, tarragon, oregano, chervil and sage. Lots of herb cutting, learned to cut a shallot (those are slippery!) and to finish the concasse tomatoes. Then we made tourne (sp?) potatoes - basically foot balls with 7 sides - this is really hard to do. The other groups made other pastas with compound butters. I remember dill, chives... And then someone made saffron rice. I wasn't too impressed by that... I'm thinking I wont waste my money on saffron! But we got to try everything at the end. Try eating a chicken thigh, a bit of saffron rice, and 6 kinds of pasta! haha
All of the kitchen came by and ate and they thanked us for dinner. Then they said they had done this and remembered this day from when they took this class last year.
That's it for yesterday's report.
Today's class will be vegetable day. Stay tuned...
My group had chervil compound butter with shallots (which I'd never eaten), a mint pesto, sage compound butter, and an herb marinated chicken with parsley, tarragon, oregano, chervil and sage. Lots of herb cutting, learned to cut a shallot (those are slippery!) and to finish the concasse tomatoes. Then we made tourne (sp?) potatoes - basically foot balls with 7 sides - this is really hard to do. The other groups made other pastas with compound butters. I remember dill, chives... And then someone made saffron rice. I wasn't too impressed by that... I'm thinking I wont waste my money on saffron! But we got to try everything at the end. Try eating a chicken thigh, a bit of saffron rice, and 6 kinds of pasta! haha
All of the kitchen came by and ate and they thanked us for dinner. Then they said they had done this and remembered this day from when they took this class last year.
That's it for yesterday's report.
Today's class will be vegetable day. Stay tuned...
Wednesdays class was a little less "survival mode" than tuesday.
We had more time to organize than we did last time, which helped a lot.
And I suspect that there was an intended lesson there, to help us really get Mise en Place.
It's all about organization to get the food on the plate at a certain time.
We did vegetables - blanching / shocking, storing, reheating with butter, seasoning, and making sure its hot to eat.
I can tell you this; if you want to eat a turnip, the difference between blanch/shock and blanch/shock/fry in butter and salt is HUGE and butter makes the turnip edible. (The teacher actually asked me whats wrong, I said I ate a Turnip! haha)
I Love love love deep fried breaded mushrooms and zucchini, but thats not a shock, now is it?
Also for all our efforts on veg, the bakers in Retail Baking class on the other side of the kitchen, made us croissants, danish, and cinnamon rolls. So we all ate together. I cannot WAIT for my baking classes. The pastries are so much better than I'd ever had!
We had more time to organize than we did last time, which helped a lot.
And I suspect that there was an intended lesson there, to help us really get Mise en Place.
It's all about organization to get the food on the plate at a certain time.
We did vegetables - blanching / shocking, storing, reheating with butter, seasoning, and making sure its hot to eat.
I can tell you this; if you want to eat a turnip, the difference between blanch/shock and blanch/shock/fry in butter and salt is HUGE and butter makes the turnip edible. (The teacher actually asked me whats wrong, I said I ate a Turnip! haha)
I Love love love deep fried breaded mushrooms and zucchini, but thats not a shock, now is it?
Also for all our efforts on veg, the bakers in Retail Baking class on the other side of the kitchen, made us croissants, danish, and cinnamon rolls. So we all ate together. I cannot WAIT for my baking classes. The pastries are so much better than I'd ever had!
NOTE: Not About class but as a direct result of working in a commercial kitchen, it bleeds over into home life.:
I cleaned out both freezers, now heres how geeky i am....
The top one has fruits/tomatoes/meats/cheese/icings/and nuts (and ice cream)
The bottom one has leftovers (labeled or they were tossed out) in baskets so when in a hurry can lift them out quickly, filo dough, buns, stock, soups.
If I can just keep it this organized I'll be happy.
The top one has fruits/tomatoes/meats/cheese/icings/and nuts (and ice cream)
The bottom one has leftovers (labeled or they were tossed out) in baskets so when in a hurry can lift them out quickly, filo dough, buns, stock, soups.
If I can just keep it this organized I'll be happy.
P.S., someone tossed out the Yogurt, can you believe it? Sad :(
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