Week 1 - Culinary Arts Class

Back to school, today was the first class of Culinary Arts 2, lots of familiar faces in class which was very nice. I missed being in the kitchen, I am very happy to be back.

As usual first class of the semester we have a lot to talk about, things that we know already but is best to remember, like uniform, cleaning and a bunch of another things that we should do to help run the class smoothly, get a good grade and make our Chef happy.

It was a great day, we learned about POTATOES and got to cook few recipes mad of potato, different kinds of potato give us different results and textures.

So potatoes are a tuber. We have Starchy potatoes which are low in moisture, high in starch and low in sugar. Wax potatoes are high in moisture, low in starch and high in sugar, hold the shape well when cooked, best for any preparation where the potato must hold its shape. New potato is harvested before it is mature; it is lower in starch content and tender. The most common potatoes are: russet, Idaho, all purpose, Yukon, fingerling.

Checking for quality, the potato should have a smooth skin, no sprouts, no green color (solanine), after peal submerge in water to avoid it getting brown, let it in the water until time to use, can be done24 to 48 hours before.

Storing is best in a cool, dry and dark place. Refrigerating the potato is not recommended because the temperature converts potato starch in sugar.

Always use cold water to boiling the potatoes, cut in small pieces to make it faster, never cool it in cold water like other vegetables, it need air to cool.

For the best mashed potato use starchy potatoes because it breaks apart easily and absorb a large quantity of butter, milk and other ingredients, avoid excessive mixing because it damage the cell walls releasing excess of starch that makes the puree glue-like. For the best results dry the potatoes after boiling in a sheet pan in the low oven 150 F for a short time.

Starch only activates by heat. Deep frying French fries, cook through, blanching at 260-275F then browning on 375F, only for 2 minutes just to get crispy. It has to be soft inside and crispy outside, season it after second stage while still hot.

Today I worked with 2 friends that I had CA1 with, it was very nice, I guess we did well, at least we completed all recipes.  We started with the mise en place for all recipes, Lots of potatoes!!! We did roasted fingerling with thyme, rosemary, garlic some olive oil for about 30 minutes, in my opinion we should had removed from oven a little before, but was good. Our French fries was to pale I guess we missed the last step of browning because it wasn’t crispy at all, my husband would have eaten them all J. Then my friends started with the béchamel sauce for the au gratin which we add gruyere cheese but my friend forgot to add salt and pepper, which for my palate was not good, I don’t like food without salt. I did the potato croquet, which was delicious and I finally learned how to make them, since my husband love it and I never try it before. It is basically boiling the potatoes, once done put in a sheet pan and bring to the oven 150F to dry out once ready mash it through the mill to get a fine mash, then add the butter bring to heat and mix until very dry once done add the egg yolks and seasonings, mix it very well and take to refrigerator to get colder, this will make easier when is time to roll it. Then Chef asked to make balls of size of golf ball, once done I coated with AP flour, egg wash then bread crumbs for a perfect crust. It was delicious, the only thing we didn’t do was the hollandaise sauce because was not enough time.

Overall I think the class was great, we did everything some stuff could be better, but that’s why we are here, to learn and we always learn with our mistakes, I learned a lot. Took us a long time to get everything cleaned. And like Chef said is not getting any easier!!!

Chocolate Class

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

Week 11

Culinary Arts 1 Class

I took this class on spring 2013, and it was amazing I learned a lot and can't wait to CA2. Here are some pictures from what i worked on during this semester.

Week 1 

Week 2 

Week 3 

Today we had a quiz, that made feel so bad, because the first question was about measurements, something that i should know already but i keep forgetting it, i guess i wasn't that bad but wasn't' as good as i wish.

Like every week we start the class with a lecture, and today was about sauces, there are many of them and seams that we need to master on it, and have all the information in our head. Then we did work on knife skills, small diced and julienne potato, carrots, parsnips, onions and celery, looks like my knife skills is getting better but still have a long way to go, specially because next time Chef will be timing our practice this means i have to get better and faster until next Class that will be in two weeks because next week starts the spring break. Will be great to have a break but at the same time i feel sad for missing cooking classes.

Once we finished the knife skills practice Chef made the groups me and Lily worked together, she made the béchamel sauce and i did the volute sauce, i have done béchamel before not with the exactly technique we learned but was my first time doing the volute  sauce, it is not hard to make but we need to pay attention for both of them not to get lumpy.

To make the volute sauce we need white mirepoix which is 50% onions 25% celery and 25% parsnips, white stock, flour, clarify butter and an herb and spice sachet made of parsley, bay leaf, pepper corn, dry thyme tied on cheesecloth . To start we add the clarify butter to a pot, when melted add the mirepoix and cook a little not letting the vegetables get brown, once it is good add the flour to make the roux, mix with a wood spoon and cook the flour in for few minutes to eliminate the raw flavor from the flour, once it is cooked add the white stock and mix using the whisker to avoid lumps, mix until starts boiling once it is done add the sachet into the pot and let it simmer for 1 hour, checking once in a while to skim off the scum that forms on the top. Once done strain it in a china cap with cheesecloth to remove any pieces and lumps and keep all the flavors in a smooth sauce. We sauté  mushrooms with butter then we add the volute sauce to it seasoned, cooked a little and finished with very fine fresh parsley, it was delicious at the end of the class we had it with veal filet.

To make the béchamel sauce we need clarify butter, bread flour, milk, an onion where we attached a bay leaf with a clove to it. Starting melt the butter in the pot, add the flour mixing with wood spoon to make the roux cook for feel minutes to remove the raw flavor from the flour once it is done add the milk little at the time and whisk when stating get to a boiling point add the onion with the bay leaf and clove to it, simmer for 30 minutes remove any scum that come to form on the top, once ready strain it with a china cap and cheesecloth to remove any lump. We used the béchamel sauce to make mac and cheese.

We had a great lunch mac and cheese, volute mushroom sauce with veal, salad, potato and the chocolate peanut butter cake that i brought to share with the class.

Week 4  

Today we had a great class after one  week of spring break, chef returned our two quizzes i got 100 on the first one and 95 on the second, for the quiz today i didn't do very well i couldn't remember the name of small sauces which are many of them and i still have to spend some good time memorizing the measurements between grams and pounds, hopefully i will do better next week. After our quiz, we had a lecture about more sauces, so many that we can do based on the leading or mother sauces. Then we started with the knife skills today Chef timed our cuttings, we had 5 minutes to cut each vegetable in a medium square size. I was the first finishing all, i few that i could do even faster if the perfect square wasn't concerned which is not the case, we have to cut large 3/4 inch dice, medium 1/2 inch dice and small  1/4 inch perfect dice with potato, carrot, celery and onion. I did good but i still have a lot of practicing before next week for the middle term test, looks like this weekend we are going to eat lots of potatoes at home :) After cleanup we start our miss in place for our recipes, today we made fresh pasta even better cheese ravioli  with three different sauces and a pasta salad.me and my partner made a sauce more in the improvisation and was really good actually even me not really eating too much meat i liked.

We started cutting our butternut squash into medium dices we coat it with olive oil salt and pepper and cooked it in the oven 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or just until the squash is soft then on the side We melted some butter and cooked some small diced onions  we used chorizo too, it was really good!

  

Week 5  

Week 6 

Week 7 

Week 8 

Today we had a very exhausting class, when I arrived in class 8:45 am some students and Chef was already running around the kitchen to get some breakfast ready for a event this morning, few different kind of cookies, fruit salad with yogurt and granola and i delicious puff dough with spinach and feta cheese, once this was done we started our class.

first as usual we had our quiz which i was ok, then the lecture about soups started, so much information to keep in mind. After our knife practice we start the miss in place for our recipes, today my group made tortilla soup, french onion soup and leek, olives focaccia the other group made a minestrone soup and wanton soup, everything was delicious. I made the onion soup and helped with the focaccia, everything was pretty easy to make, is just that took some time to get everything ready. For the onion soup, i cut the onion in thin slices, let it cook evenly in low heat in butter for at least 30 minutes or until get a darker color, once done add the beef stock or a mix of chicken and beef stock add the sherry wine and seasoning with salt and pepper, let it cook for at least 20 minutes more or until onions are very tender. Then we made a bread toast with some melted cheese on the top to add on the soup once it is plated, the traditional way ask for a slice of bread and cheese on top of the soup than bring to a broil to melt the cheese and make the delicious cheesy crust on top of the soup, but we didn't have the broil. The fogaccia was not a challenge for me because i make pizza all the time and the steps are pretty much the same, you have to mix the yeast with sugar and  warm water and some flour let stand to  ferment then we add a little olive oil the rest of the flour and working on the dough until a even texture where you press and it spring back.  

Week 9 

Week 10  

Week 11  

Today was our final practical we had to work with a partner, Tania was with me and everything went smooth. We were on time with the recipes but Chef took points from both of us, Tania didn't warm enough the hollandaise sauce, on my turn i overcooked the pouched egg :( so frustrating because it was so beautifully  plated. She took me 5 points for that, but it is okay, i was happy with the overall, my hollandaise sauce was delicious, and perfect i ate my egg Benedict with mucho  gusto :)  I know how to make it by head but it is not something that i would cook all the time, because of the amount of butter.

I don't know my final grade from today because we had knife skills too, which i have to keep practicing to prepare myself for CA2. I am really happy with everything i learned from this class.