Lesson 7: Lots o' eggs!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

I am actually currently sitting in the library at ICE.. just finished class! I'm staying after with a couple of other students to help Chef Allen prepare for a dinner at the school. I figured I should take every opportunity I get to get experience with this kind of stuff!
Today went by soo fast! We did a ton of chopping skills in the beginning of class, starting with medium dicing potatos. We also diced/chopped onions, shallots, garlic, cilantro, celery, and hot peppers. He told us to mince some parsley until it looks like powder.. it took us all a while to get it to the perfected mince. He then showed us what to do with this "green wind". He wrapped it in a towel, ran it under water, and drained it until dry. It is now the perfect garnish to sprinkle over any savory dish. It is not meant to add any flavor and must be prepared in this way (as opposed to just roughly chopping it and sprinkling it). We used this parsley to garnish the rest of our dishes for the day (and I finally remembered to take pictures which I will post when I get home!)Next, we learned how to make slow cooked scrambled eggs. We tried making them in 3 different mediums (in olive oil, clarified butter, and regular butter). I liked it best in regular butter, so every time I made them, that's what I used. Clarified butter made the egg flavor stand out the most, but I didn't like it as much. Olive oil was nice, but I like the flavor of butter better. I made scrambled eggs 3 times and really overcooked them the first time..but the second and third tries were a little better. I seriously must've eaten like 6 eggs!! Egg overload! The trick to making them nice and runny is to take them off the pan when they still look raw because they will continue to cook once you plate them. Here's a pic of my 3rd try, and garnished with "green wind" of course!

We also par poiled and sauteed potatos again (the first picture).. we're becoming pros at this! Then we blanched and sauteed brocolli (again). Our feast was yet again served with warm french bread and butter..and now I am full! I'm excited to see how this dinner event goes and what we have to do to help out Chef. He said we won't have to do anything complicated and we don't even have to bring our tools or knives with us..but I like a good cooking challenge!

1 comments:

Ms. World Traveler said...

I love reading your blog!! It sounds like you've already learned so many things- I feel like I'm right there with you!

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