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!!!