I had a great bike ride home today safely escorting 6 extra pan di spagna cakes to my place.  

I should be able to make enough tiramisu for all of Greenpoint with these.

Palmier

Apples on almond frangipane with an apricot glaze

Prosciutto & mozzarella  turnover

Knife drills

Introduction to shellfish & shellfish fabrication.

Nothing too new for me here besides the fabrication of squid into calamari.  We were called to the center work station to find two lobsters crawling around in hotel trays.  I think everyone knew what was happening next unfortunately.  We learned how to identify a male and female lobster, the female is more desirable because of the roe.  The proper way to “prepare” a lobster for cooking is cutting its head in half severing the brain.  We were told that this is the most humane way, the lobster apparently does not feel a thing.  I’m pretty sure I had the first lobster kill in class. I had the lobster split, tail and claws off ready to go.  Killing a living creature isn’t the most pleasurable thing to do. I didn’t get any satisfaction or joy by killing that little crustacean. If you do eat animals you should be able to handle knowing how your food made it to your plate.  I’m not sure what percentage of the class has worked with lobster before, it was obvious that this was an unpleasant experience for some.  It also doesn’t help that after the lobster is killed it squirms around for some time due to involuntary muscle spasms.

All this lobsTAH talk reminds me of a great book I read a few years ago, “The Secret Life of Lobsters.”

We moved on to oysters.  I saw a bottle of Tabasco on the counter and got excited in anticipation of an oyster tasting.  Our chef spoke of a few different regional varieties, I was disappointed that the Wellfleet wasn’t mentioned.  Don’t quote me but I think we were working with some monster farm raised Bluepoints from Long Island.  Lets get to the point, “where are the shucking knives already!” No problems with oyster shucking 101, I slurped down my 4 and a few others that people didn’t want.  The Bluepoints were missing that sweet brininess that Wellfleets have.  I’m not a huge fan of oysters the size of silver dollar pancakes, I may also be completely biased and obsessed with Wellfleet and Cape Cod.

It was my first time cleaning squid for calamari sized rings, it was actually kind of fun.  The inner skeletal structure looks like man made plastic.

So all this shellfish went into a delicious soup with stock we made at the beginning of the class with a basic mirepoix and a quart of shrimp shells.

Day 10:

Knife drills

Chicken and duck fabrication.  Breaking down birds, frenching the bones (exposing the bone for presentation purposes), and trussing.  These birds were slippery, the duck was super fatty and kind of hard to work with.

Day 11:

Knife drills

Chicken stock

Beef fabrication.  Learning to fabricate PRIMAL cuts of beef.  Taking a side or leg of cattle and breaking it down into edible portions of steaks, ribs, or tenderloins etc. A lot of trimming needed to be done, lots of fat, lots of silver skin removal.  Gloves needed to be worn, knives were getting slippery with all the fat.  Trim, trim, trim.

Day 12:

Knife drills

Veal fabrication.  Same procedures, techniques for veal as beef.

Day 13: I actually missed day 13, more details on that day to come…

Day 14:

Knife drills

Lamb Fabrication.  At this point I’m pretty sick of butchering and looking at legs and primal cuts of meat.  I don’t eat much meat to begin with and now I’m just getting tired of all this silver skin removal.

“Aren’t there robots that can do this?”

I did break down a hotel rack of lamb into double chops, it came of pretty darn good.

I’m glad butchering ended on a high note because I’m exhausted with it for now.

]]> http://www.thesaltedcod.com/week-3-4/feed/ 0 http://www.thesaltedcod.com/week-2/ http://www.thesaltedcod.com/week-2/#comments Sun, 05 Apr 2009 03:34:31 +0000 Trevor http://www.thesaltedcod.com/?p=466 Day 4:

Week 2 begins with an introduction to nutrition.  I guess we learned some key points, obviously you’re not going to become a nutritionist in an afternoon.  nothing to life changing here for me, eat plants you’ll be fine.

Herb Identification. Rosemary, thyme, basil, cilantro, parsley, tarragon, oregano…

Cheese ID. I love cheese, and by the end of this tasting class I thought I was going to barf. Fresh, to hard grating cheeses were discussed.  We got into cheese making as well, super interesting.  It’s motivating me to make more ricotta soon.  My favorite cheese sampled was the morbier.  An interesting cheese.  Two layers, the bottom half is from milk was was milked in the morning and the top half was milked at the end of the day.  Two distinct tastes separated by a layer of ash.  Very nutty, produced in the south east alps.

Knife drills, medium dice.

Day 5:

Sanitation and herb test (95%).  I totally spaced out for some reason and screwed up a question on botulism.  I’m so upset, as a home canner it’s something I know quite a bit about.

Culinary Math.  Sounds like a joke, but if you know how many teaspoons are in a gallon converting that recipe to serve 50 more people will be a breeze.  Volume, weight & yield.

Knife drills.

Day 6:

Chiffonade knife cut.

Chiffonade cabbage after cabbage.  So much cabbage wasted.  I could have made 50 pounds of kraut from all the cabbage the class cut.  I think culinary schools should think about composting all these veggies.

We learned how to properly select an oil for cooking.  Learned about smoke points, I never knew olive oil had such a low smoke point.  We actually set a frying pan with OO on fire, cool.

Vinegar first.  Learning to stabilize a simple emulsion.  Stream that oil in, WHISK WHISK WHISK!  We made a simple emulsified dressing. Oil, vinegar, mustard, minced shallot and SALT.

Day 7:

The military has infiltrated your kitchen.  A little bit of history on the Brigade de cuisine.

Knife drills.

Cooking with fats.  To sum up I ate 6 eggs, don’t ask why.  We got to hit the stoves and mess around with different oils and make scrambled eggs.  Clarified butter, worcestershire sauce and tabasco make decent scrambled eggs.

Day 8:

Knife drills

Fish and seafood fabrication.  Let’s see on the table today flounder & stripped bass.  I can now break down (even better than before) a whole fish.  We fillet the bass a bit differently than I was use to, no problem.  I was bombing through flounder like there was no tomorrow.  Apparently I’m really good at fabricating flat fish.  I’m really looking forward to seeking out a whole fish this summer on the Cape or Maine.

We also made a very simple fish stock with our bones and mire poix.

Tonight was a night filled with lots of reading regarding purchasing & culinary conversions.  Slightly Tired from a long day I decided it would be best to go out to the local coffee shop to do my evenings readings.

This good idea was rewarded with…

A vegan moonpie (two cookies with mint filling) & an americano. Tasty study treat. Super bike friendly shop, Johnny Cash on the stereo.

See you soon.

• 12″ Sharpening steel
• 10″ Crust Buster
• 9″ Chef’s
• 7″ Santoku
• 7″ Flexible Filet
• 5″ Boning
• 3 1/2″ Paring
• 2 3/4″ Peeling
• Shears
• 6″ Fork
• Cordura Knife Roll

Whether it was the cold feet or fear of selling my soul to the she devil Sallie Mae, I never thought I’d actually go through with this.  I’ve been close before, but the all too pushy used car salesmen approach Le Cordon Bleu, scared me off.  I’m glad I waited, I’m glad my school is in the culinary epicenter of the United States.  The timing is right; things are going all too well right now.

Day 1:
I still don’t believe that this is actually happening.  I didn’t hit me until I was in the bathroom at the school washing my hands.  Looking back in the mirror was myself in chef’s whites.  Such a strange sight, I couldn’t help but laugh.  “I’m finally doing this.”  Day 1 wasn’t the most eventful,  our day was filled mostly with tours and administrative work.  Saving the best for last we were finally given our knife kits.  No photo yet as NY’s finest love to confiscate knives at bag checkpoints.  We were told specifically NOT to bring our kits on the subway. Apparently quite a few students have had to surrender their kits, which in turn are never to be seen again.  I can assure you these Wusthof knives are really nice.

Day 2:
It’s already Friday.

Lectures today include food safety & sanitation, important topics but not the most exciting lecture. The second half of the day really picked up with an interesting lecture on culinary history.  Lots of culinary greats were mentioned, but we focused on Auguste Escoffier who is responsible for creating the kitchen brigade system.  We moved on to watch a great film “Decoding Ferran Adria.”  Bourdain hosts & visits El Bulli to sit down to a meal with Ferran Adria.  “Is this really school?” Basically, Adria wouldn’t be able to create such wild gastro/science/art pieces with out the basic French culinary foundations.  Day two ends with a diary identification class.  Skim milk to butter milk, key components, pasteurization techniques, fat contents, fermented products, and butter. Really interesting for me, wish I could have sampled all those butters though…

Day 3:
Did I mention the locker room has a fantastic view from the 14th floor?

Today the class finally came to life,  it was time to play with our knives.  Everyone had a bit of a twinkle in their eye. The class echoed with laughter, everyone seemed a bit more sociable today.  We had an intro lecture on knife skills.  We learned the proper ways to sharpen and hone knives.  That crazy honing rod actually makes sense now.  (If you have dull knives let me know, I’ll take care of them.) We moved on to some basic chopping. Onions, carrots & celery were all to be rough chopped for mirepoix.  Our groups went on to work on a small dice with onions, peppers & jalapenos for some salsa.  Our chef had to inspect our work; he was impressed with my small dice. I’m feeling pretty good.  Day 3 ends with a career services seminar regarding volunteer and internship opportunities.  It’s nice to know the school has you covered.  I have an idea of where I’d like to intern, mostly farm to table establishments.  In the mean time I’ve got to get the ball rolling to start volunteering for just food & the James Beard awards/dinners.  It’s nice to finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Day 3 was a great day.