Cooking for my family

I spoke to my oldest daughter, Helen, today. She lives in Houston, is married to Andy, and has an almost 8 year old daughter, Grace. Helen said she had been reading this blog and was interested in getting some of my recipes. I hadn't thought of doing that but if she found it helpful I'll write some entries from time to time about things I cook and give the recipes. Last week I made Katsudon on Sunday (see photos). Katsudon is a Japanese dish of pork cutlet, breaded with Panko and fried, then simmered in a broth of dashi and soy sauce with onion and egg. It's served over rice. I made some really good tortilla soup on Monday, Cambodian Pork on Tuesday, and Poached Tarragon chicken on Wednesday. Helen said she was looking for good recipes for pork chops. The problem with pork chops is they dry out easily. A great solution for this is braising. Braising is something most of us have done, involving searing the food, adding liquid partially, though not completely, covering the food, then simmering it on the stove or in the oven for 40 minutes or longer. The most popular dish I've made at home that I learned at the school is Country Braised chicken.

For pork, try this recipe for stuffed pork chops:

4 large pork chops (8 oz each)

celery, diced (approx 2 T)

onion, diced (approx 2 T)

butter or oil (1/2 T)

fresh bread crumbs (1/2 c)

parsley (1 T)

salt & pepper

chicken stock (4 cups total)

olive oil (1T)

Cut slit in pork chops. Saute celery and onion in butter or oil. Add bread crumbs, parsley, and salt and pepper. Add stock to get the stuffing to the consistency you desire, but not too wet.

Alternately, you could use cooked wild rice as a stuffing. Use toothpicks to close the slits.

Sear pork chops in hot olive oil. Add stock to partially cover pork chops, bring to a simmer, cover and place in a 325 oven for 45 minutes. Remove chops, degrease the sauce and reduce it.

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Week 8: Poultry Fabrication

The photos are not from Culinary School. They are from Stephan Pyles in Dallas! More on that later.

I didn't know that I had been cutting up chicken wrong all my cooking life until today. When Chef Waier demonstrated the proper way I was amazed to see how much easier it would have been had I learned this many years ago (and a lot less dangerous than my haphazard method), so it's worth the price of school know the proper technique for fabricating chicken (pause....not).

Today we were educated about all things chicken (and other poultry) and given the packet of assigned dishes. I scanned the pages of recipes and didn't think it looked too bad. Should have read them a little more carefully though, but more about that later. My team today consisted of Robert, Julie, and I. We were given the following dishes to prepare:

Country braised chicken with sauce--Robert

Pan-fried chicken with spring mix salad and vinaigrette--Julia

Poached Tarragon chicken with simmered rice--Julie

Roasted bone-in chicken breast with Duchess potatoes--Julia

Our dishes were good and bad. Julie's was perfect and one of the best they had seen. Robert's braised chicken was great, although points off for having too big and uneven vegetables, my pan-fried chicken tasted good (my spice rub) but was a little overcooked on the bottom, thanks to the too-hot convection oven time, and the roasted chicken was a tad dry, but still good. Disaster was Duchess potatoes that I forgot to brush with butter and heat in oven. Not good to serve raw egg to the instructors. This is what happens when you don't read the recipe all the way to the end.

Live and learn. Also, I forgot to put the vinegar in the vinaigrette. I did put orange juice in it, but nothing escapes Chef Nona's palate and she caught it. I swear she can taste EVERYTHING.

Overall we did OK but I felt a little frenzied toward the end and started making mistakes, so lesson learned--timing is important, watch the ovens, and pay attention to details.

At the end the class got a big lecture on "hitting the wall", not being serious enough, people goofing off, and that we were not up to par for this stage of the program. It was pretty negative and not all that accurate for some of us. I take this program very seriously. I mean, who else in their right mind would get up at 5 AM at least 3 days a week and cook whole meals for practice!

Oh well, next week we are going to work on mother sauces. I will practice and be ready to go.

On a more positive note, my husband and I went to Stephan Pyles' restaurant in Dallas to celebrate our anniversary. I've got all his books and studied the creative and delicious looking photos for years so it was great to finally go. He even came to our table and talked to us for awhile. I told him I really enjoyed finally getting to try his signature dishes and about the culinary school. He asked several questions and seemed interested. Later he sent us a gift dish of chocolates!

Above, see the photos of some of the things we tried:

Ceviche sampling: tuna, salmon, and sea bass

Caesar salad: his version uses chipotle and tamarind in the dressing

Bone-in rib-eye on mushroom/bean ragout with onion rings

Heaven and Hell cake

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Week 7: Meat Fabrication

This photo is not from the culinary school. I didn't take any photos during the meat class, just got busy and didn't take the time, however since we studied meat I wanted to display a the tenderloin steak I got at Lonesome Dove last night. It is a great example of a perfect steak.

Not that we made steaks at school. It was a weird day. First of all, five people were absent and we had a person join us from another class.

Then, although we were told last week that we would be studying poultry, the class handout indicated "meat fabrication". I couldn't believe it.

I thought maybe I heard wrong last week but a few others had thought the same thing. To get prepared for poultry I had spent the week making chicken. In fact I purchased 5 whole chickens, made braised chicken, roasted chicken, boned chicken legs stuffed, chicken stock, and practiced "fabricating" (cutting up) all those chickens. I hadn't even looked at the meat chapter. In the end, everything was OK, though.

The lecture by Chef Waier was not too long, pretty basic information on the primal cuts of beef, same type of thing about pork, some mad cow disease scary stuff, and reminders about safe handling of food. He had created some big posters to show us the various cuts as well.

Everything was straight out of the textbook, so for those of you who missed class, just reading that chapter would cover the lecture quite well.

Our assignment for the day was to split into two groups and prepare the folllowing:

Mashed Potatoes

Shish Kebab (with pork)

Classic Rice Pilaf

Home-Style Meatloaf

Brown Beef Stew

Stuffed Pork Chops

My group was Robert, Rebecca, and Lanie. We each took a dish or two to work on and I had the beef stew. I also helped with the mashed potatoes. We were given a huge pork loin to cut off the pork chop from--and showed how to do it right. I got half a 4 pound piece of beef chuck for the stew. We had to make all our dishes and put them together with starch and other things available in the kitchen. For example, the other group made a very nice looking fruit chutney to go with their pork, and Robert made a very tasty tomato jam to go with ours. Lanie browned some proscuitto in clarified butter to mix in our mashed potatoes, and I added carrots, potatoes, and celery to the beef stew. The instructors liked the proscuitto mixed with the potatoes (although I had oversalted them and put too much white pepper in them.) We also made vegetable kebabs to go with the pork kebabs, and we made these separately. We used some of the vegetables from the kebabs with the pork chop but got points off for the holes in the zucchini (from the skewers). Our meatloaf plate was great.

Lanie cut the meatloaf (which was the size of a 10 ounce burger) into half. On a large white plate we placed some brown gravy (which I made) set the piece of meatloaf on the gravy, put an ice cream scoop of mashed potatoes next to it. She garnished the mashed potatoes with chives, cut into 1 inche pieces, criss-crossed. (I sure wish I had taken a picture of this, since Chef Nona said it was the best dish presented by both groups.)

My beef stew was good, but had a very strong thyme taste. I put a tsp of thyme into my garni, way too much, and my vegetables were undercooked. I was trying hard not to overcook them so I steamed them, but not quite long enough.

Rebecca made the mistake of cooking the pork chop before she stuffed it which was a disaster. Chef Waier suggested she make a new one, which she did. Her rice pilaf was undercooked as well.

Robert's kebabs were nice to look at but a little too pink for pork. The vegetables were just slightly underdone, but he got compliments for the nice flavor.

All in all, it was not as stressful as previous classes. We had from 10:00 until 12:45 to get our food prepared. The hardest part for me is to think creatively. What side dishes can be made from ingredients on hand? This is difficult since we don't know in advance what we'll find in the walk-in or pantry that day. What can we do for garnish? I'm not very good at figuring this out yet. The extra touches, like chutney and sacues are also a challenge.

Well, the good news is I don't have to study up on meat fabrication and make a bunch of meat dishes this week!

I think I will work on garnishes and sauces instead.

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Week 6: Vegetables

You would think cooking a few vegetables wouldn't be too hard, wouldn't you? Well, you're wrong. I'm finding out more and more that all the cooking I've done since age 10 (that's 44 years) didn't prepare me for vegetable class. I couldn't recognize jicima, kohlrabi, or celery root when Chef Heather held them up in class. I was praying that those particular vegetables wouldn't be in my "mystery basket", an assignment in which we would get 3-4 vegetables to prepare, sight unseen. Guess what our mystery basket contained? Yes, kohlrabi and jicima, red Swiss chard, fennel (which I hate), and cauliflower. Our instructions for the day were to make the following:

Duxelles (finely chopped mushrooms cooked with shallots, garlic, and butter)

Stir-fried vegetables: any vegetables, any sauce, but use some vegetables from the basket

Vegetable tempura (using a vegetable in our basket, we picked cauliflower)

3-4 vegetable dishes using the vegetables in our mystery basket. We could use other vegetables set out for the class, proteins in the walk-in, and anything in the pantry.

I was very, very happy that I had done some homework by writing down several types of vegetable preparations that could be used for various vegetables. This came in very handy because we were told we could use recipes from our text book, look on the Internet in the office, etc. It would have been a lot harder to start looking for ideas with the time crunch effect.

We decided to make Asian slaw with the fennel and jicima, Thai curry style vegetables using the kohlrabi, Swiss chard with bacon and an egg, and then we made the stir fry using peppers, brocolli, swiss chard, jicima, and a few other vegetables. Our sauce was a hoisin, soy, garlic, ginger sauce.

As usual, the chef instructors were brutal. Facing the presentation table is nerve-wracking. You know they will find something wrong with every dish and they do. Their comments are very helpful, even if they sting. Too much slaw in a too small bowl, not enough flavor; too much bacon in the Swiss chard (but it tasted very good), egg on top overcooked; stir fry had too many uneven cuts of vegetables; curry was flavorful but carrots were undercooked, but overall our dishes were creative and tasty. We get credit for using so many ingredients and picking somewhat complicated dishes.

I learned a lot, particularly that when you're pressed for time to come up with ways to cook food your mind will go blank, so be prepared ahead of time. Even then, finding all the ingredients you need is not so easy, and watch the cooking times when using many different vegetables.

Next week is Poultry class. I plan to buy a half dozen chickens and practice!

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Working at an event: Sunday Brunch, October 5, 2008

One of the requirements of culinary school is to work between 22-28 hours during the 14 week course. I signed up for 3 different events, the first one being the brunch, Oct 5, at the school. People can call in for reservations or just come to the school. I showed up at 7 AM, not really knowing what to expect, although I knew from looking at the sign up sheet for the event that a dozen students signed up, all but 2 from Chef Pro 1, a the other 2 from Pastro Pro 1/2.

I figured we might be in trouble, but what did I know? When I arrived I saw a full kitchen of people, and was relieved to see Chef Heather, Chef Nona, and a couple chefs who were graduates of the school. I was given an assignment to juice and zest and orange, mince ginger, and slice candied ginger. That wasn't so bad. As I worked I looked around and saw that I didn't recognize most of the students in the room. I saw 4 from my class, however, and that was comforting.

I continued to get assignments such as rolling meatballs, making a feta salad dressing (which I mistakenly put goat cheese in instead of feta cheese), and put barley in soup and watch it cook.

At around 10:00 it was announced that some students would be "on the line" cooking the food for the guests. I was surprised, but pleased to hear my name called out. Chef Justin, a graduate from the school and a chef at The Vault was in charge. He showed us couple sample plates and gave detailed instructions on how to cook and plate the dishes being served. Two of us worked on the fish dish and pasta dish and the other two on the cornish hen and pork chop dishes.

Eric and I were assigned the pasta and fish dishes which consisted of several components:

Poach the fish, cook the risotto by sauteeing onions, adding risotto, adding stock, adding peas, stirring, adding salt, adding butter, and then make sauteed snow peas. We handed the prepared items to Justin who plated everything. Good thing he was doing the plating because it wasn't easy to cook the food, let alone get it on the plate right. For the breakfast pasta we cooked the fresh pasta in water, made sauce by heating a mixture of vegetables, add cream sauce, bacon, then the pasta, more cream if needed, spinach, and seasoning. To top the pasta we made a sunny side up egg and piece of bacon. Although these two dishes don't sound all that complicated it sure seemed hectic, but then it was my first time to cook on the line. Chef Justin was great--very calm and positive, showing us how to plate, telling us the right time to start things. We all worked good as a team and it went very smoothly. No dishes were sent back! Chef Heather and Chef Nona gave us good feedback so all in all it was a great learning experience and exhausting.

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Starch Cooking

Week 5

October 4, 2008

Who knew that after sampling 22 different starch preparations that the preparation of various starches makes a big difference in taste.

I learned that mashed potatoes made with steamed yukon gold potatoes taste much, much better than mashed potatoes made with boiled Russet potatoes. Steamed corn is more flavorful than boiled corn and roasted corn tastes better if the silk is removed (to me, anyway).

After all these years of cooking I never knew that "mealy" potatoes, such as Russets shouldn't be used for everything. No wonder they fell apart when I tried to use them occasionally to make my mother's famous potato salad. My version tasted more like mashed potato salad.

Now I know.

Rice is very hard to make at the cooking school. The burner shuts off, or is mysteriously turned on when you don't know it. In any event, it turned out gummy and nasty again, however I learned that we can bake it in the oven and that version was great. The rice cooker is even better but that might not always be available.

Notice the photo of the pasta machine. Well, I purchased that today after learning to make fresh pasta in class. I couldn't believe how much better the fresh pasta tasted and how easy (well, everything is relative) it is to make. Can't wait to try it!

Last, but not least, there is a photo of my partners in crime, Robert and Penni. We have been working together the past two weeks. They are great partners because they both are low-key, nice, work hard, and we just get along well. I have enjoyed working with them.

Well, it's 5 AM, Sunday morning and I'm off to work my first internship event, the Sunday brunch at the Culinary School. I may either be assigned to work in the kitchen or dining room, so I'm a little nervous. I waited on tables as a teen, but then went to college and grad school so I could become a "professional". Should be interesting.......

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Plate Presentation

I wish I had taken a photo of my face when I heard our assignment today. We were given a stack of papers with recipes for the following:
Pan-fried trout with toasted garlic
Brennan's red-wine and mushroom sauce
Basic simmered rice
Roast Cornish game hen with wild rice stuffing
Country Braised chicken
Tomato concasse
Teriyaki salmon with pineapple-papaya salsa
We were told to get with 2 other people who would make up our team for the day. We had a short lecture on plate presentation and garnishes, mostly warning us not to arrange our food to appear as a smiley face or a "phallic symbol" which the chef described as sunny side up eggs and bacon (sounded more like "breast symbol" to me--but then I'm a psychotherapist and studied Freud.) Then we were warned that any garnish which was not a food used in the recipe would be "flicked" off the plate at the presentation window. The presentation window would be open for 1 hour at which time each of the 4 teams would bring their plates to be evaluated.
Whew!
We had about 2 hours, give or take depending on the presentation time, to figure out how to prepare 4, yes 4, plates of food consisting of the entree and side dishes. We had to decide which side dishes went with which food and we could look in the "par stock" (foods available in the walk-in or pantry) for other side dishes, and decide how to garnish the food. Additionally, our plates were to be hot at the time of presentation.
I thought I was nervous, but one look at my partners and they too had the deer in the headlights stare. Before we began, however, we had the pleasure of practicing cutting up an onion, potato, and carrot in 5 minutes. This only added to the nervous energy in the room.
Somehow we managed to fix all the food required, although we were criticized for the following:
rice--not done enough and no seasoning (trying to cook rice on the stove on low heat proved to be a big challenge as the flame kept going out)
salsa piled on top of seared fish--not good, put the salsa to the side
fish served skin side up--didn't we know that even a skinless fillet has a "skin" side where the skin has been? (no--I guess not) don't serve it skin side up
lemon zest on zuchinni--somehow there was a lot of bitter skin in the zest which tasted bad
red wine sauce on the cornish hen--don't put the sauce on top of a nicely roasted thing, put in underneath
too many sprinkled herbs--we didn't need to sprinkle cilantro and parsley on everything
We did get some positive comments on our creative use of vegetables, french fries with our pan fried fish and use of teriyaki glaze on the seared fish, so it wasn't all bad.
I learned a lot and plan to read up on food presentation and practice at home.

I really enjoyed working with my team, Robert and Penni. We managed to get everything done on time with no drama.

Exhausted, but still went grocery shopping after changing out of the uniform and enjoyed a dinner at Sushi Axiom (no COOKED FOOD) and a very nice appletini.

Tonight I'm cooking Singapore chicken-rice. I watched an Anthony Bourdain episode in which they traveling to Singapore and sampled the chicken-rice, their national dish. It sounds and looks wonderful--chicken simmered in ginger, garlic and onions served with rice cooked in the chicken stock and dipped in dark soy, chili sauce and other citrus soy sauce. I'll make some stir-fried bok-choy as a side dish.

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