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/apple-celery-tomato-soup/ http://www.thesaltedcod.com/apple-celery-tomato-soup/#comments Mon, 05 May 2008 17:36:00 +0000 Trevor http://thesaltedcod.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/apple-celery-tomato-soup/ Hello there lovely, loyal TSC fanatics.

Mushrooms and walnuts are two of my favorite foods. In this soup, they get to slow dance together all night long.

ingredients:
1 c. chopped carrots
1 c. chopped celery
1 c. chopped onion
1 c. chopped leek
2 c. chopped crimini mushrooms
3 tbs. butter
salt
black pepper
2 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
1 pinch dried thyme
1 pinch dried sage
1 c. dried porcini mushrooms (1 package)
1 c. chopped walnuts (I always add more)

First step: soak a cup of dried porcini mushrooms in 2 cups hot water for 30 minutes to re-hydrate them.

Then saute a chopped cup of each of the following in some butter, salt and pepper: crimini mushrooms, celery, leek, carrot and onion. add 2 bay leaves, couple garlic cloves, a pinch of sage and a pinch of thyme (dried is fine) After the veggies have just started cooking add 8 cups hot water, the porcinis and their soaking liquid. simmer that for about an hour.
Remove bay leaves.

Then, in small batches, transfer soup to blender, and puree. Make sure you use really small batches. note: when blending hot foods, steam builds up in the blender and the pressure can cause the lid to pop off. To avoid burns, I wrap my hand in a dish towel and hold the lid on that way.

After all the soup is pureed, transfer back to the large saucepan. slowly reheat the soup, and add the cup of chopped crimini mushrooms and the cup of chopped walnuts. If you really dislike walnuts, this soup is probably fine without them. I happen to love them and think they bring a great flavor and texture to this soup.

Enjoy, my new friends!
I hope you don’t hate it.

We have been making a small salad with arugula, cherry tomatoes, and shaved carrots (everything but the tomatoes came from our CSA) and topped with a quick lemon vinaigrette.

We also purchased three year barley miso from South River Miso here in Massachusetts. Just plop an over sized table spoon of miso into a coffee mug with a lid and add some furikake for extra flavor. This is a Japanese seasoning which consists of a mixture of sesame seeds, bonito flakes and seaweed. To finish, we add fresh tofu and chopped scallions. This has worked out to be a quick and easy lunch at work. When ready to eat, just go to the water cooler and add hot water. Talk about instant soup, take that ramen noodles!

We’re not one to eat at our desk or be chained indoors at lunch so we usually take it to the streets.