Module 3 Practical

OOh Practical Exam day....

I wasn't sure if I was going to write about today, but this is the "diary" of a culinary student, so it's only fair that I not only write about my successes, but also about my struggles and failures (no, I did not fail my exam!).

Today I let my nerves get the best of me. I tried to convince myself I wasn't nervous, but the knots in my stomach told me I was. I drew my number and was satisfied to be the 9th student to present (right in the middle!). However, I had 40 minutes before I could go into the kitchen... 40 minutes to stress and think the worst..

I entered the kitchen at exactly 2:00 and immediately started prepping-- I cleaned & trimmed spinach, minced shallots, garlic, and parsley, grated parmesan, zested lemons, toasted pine nuts, and sliced potatoes thin on the mandoline. After fabricating my supreme of chicken I was ready to start cooking.

Everything was going smoothly until I started making the "Pommes Anna" with parm. When I went to flip the potato, it fell apart. I panicked but continued cooking my potato mess and let it rest on a rack. Not only did my potato fall apart, but while it was resting it lost its crispness. I tried to revive it by putting it in the oven (along with my chicken because the skin wasn't crisp anymore). All this did was give the potatoes a burnt taste and dry out my chicken a little bit.

I was beyond flustered at this point and had only a few minutes until my presentation time. I quickly started to plate and cut a wedge out of the potato to try and make it look presentable. As I placed my finished plate in front of Chef, I realized I completely forgot to add salt to my spinach! I added the toasted pine nuts and lemon zest, but forgot SALT! HOW?!?!?!!?! Naturally, she noticed.. along with the other mistakes on my plate.

I honestly felt like running out of the kitchen crying because I was so disappointed in myself. Instead, I pulled it together and started cleaning up my station. I was really bummed out the rest of class, thinking about how I should have done things differently.

We got our grades back at the end of class and I didn't do awful. I think I deserved a worse grade than I got.. I am really hard on myself.

I really learned a lot from this experience. I can't let one little thing throw me off. I have to keep my confidence despite small mishaps. I'm going to keep looking up and staying positive throughout the rest of my culinary experience. Tomorrow we are ending out the module with a written exam & SUSHI! THEN i start PASTRY on Wednesday.. so look forward to some fun new recipes and pastry tips!

Wine Essentials: Day 3

I easily killed a couple of hours walking around the city after class before my Wine Essentials Class. I was really excited for this class because the focus was Italilan wines. As soon as I entered the room (and grabbed a plate of assorted cheese, crackers, and grapes), I noticed there was a martini glass along with 10 wine glasses at my seat. I was really curious what they would be pouring into that martini glass. Once class began, I learned it was for our first Italian cocktail, Campari. I actually do not care for campari. My sister really likes it and ordered it a few times when we were in Italy but I just couldn't get used to the bitterness. It is definitely an acquired taste. I had a couple small sips and set it aside and waited for the wines!

We started out with 3 white wines. I was not impressed with any of them (I'm more of a red wine drinker anyway). Richard confirmed my thoughts on the white wines and told us that most Italian white wines aren't spectacular because Italians like to focus more on the reds. My favorite of the 3 was:
Orvieto Classico, 'Poggio Calvelli', La Carraia 2008.
This wine is from Umbria and retails at $20 per bottle. I tasted sweet apple and a crisp, refreshing flavor. It would pair very nicely with a light fish dish. It also paired well with the goat cheese from my cheese platter!

Out of the next grouping of wines (2 red wines), my favorite was:
Taurasi, 'Radici', Mastroberardino 2004.
This wine retails at $60. My tasting notes say: "dried cherry, rich, heavy, prune". It would pair nicely with a rich meal, like braised meat or game.

Next, we tried 2 wines that I really enjoyed. The first one was a Chianti Classico, that is a very easy-drinking red. My sister and I drank this a few times in Italy with dinner. The second wine brought back memories from a specific night in Sorrento with my sister. It was a Brunello di Montalcino. The bottle we had last night was a 2003 bottle. Here is the bottle my sister and I shared in Italy (a 2000 bottle):It was AMAZING! So amazing, we thought it was a fabulous idea to order another bottle (with some convincing from our cute Italian waiters that I apparantly had to get a picture with before I left..)
Needless to say, I was not feeling very good on the rocky boatride to Capri the next day. Lesson learned.

This 2003 bottle retails at $50 per bottle.

Alright, next up was my FAVORITE wine of the night. I tasted it and just was in awe of how wonderful it was. The color was dark and dense and even the aroma was very rich and earthy. Recently I have really been enjoying heavier, full-bodied earthy wines. This wine came full-circle and hit every note on my palate. Richard also described it as a very "round" wine. It had some fruity flavors (dried plum and older fruits) and was very smooth. What is the name of this wine you ask?

Amarone della Valpolicella Classico, Vaio Armaron, Sergo Alighieri, Masi 2001.
(From the Veneto region)
The bottle retails at $70 (apparantly I have very expensive taste-- coming from the girl who enjoys jugs of "Little Penguin" wines).

The last wine was also amazing and the perfect grand finale of the tasting. Unfortunately we were told that you can't get this wine anymore and we were the last class to taste it:

Barolo, Azienda Agricola Falleto (Bruno Giacosa) 1999. (From the Piemonte Region)

This was another complex, smooth wine that tasted like dried plum, fig, and earthy flavors.

What a wonderful way to end the week!

Lesson 70: Dumplings

FINALLY the weather is getting nice! I celebrated the blue skies and warm(er) temps this morning by heading to the beach. It was perfect running weather so I went for a nice run along the jersey shore.

Anyways, back to yesterday's class! The class was focused on making different types of dumplings, potstickers, spring rolls, etc. It reminded me of a memory I have of when I was little. I was an EXTREMELY picky eater as a child and only ate the steamed pork dumplings when my family got Chinese take-out. I'll never forget one night back when I was living in Marlboro my mom forgot to order my dumplings. I had a huge fit! I think the only foods I ate back then were dumplings, pasta, mozzarella sticks, and chicken fingers. Yea, I was that kid. It's so weird how my palate has completely changed over the years and now I am the least picky person and would probably try anything.

Yesterday's class went a little bit differently than every other day. Each person prepped a different recipe like usual, but we all assembled the dumplings/rolls together.

I prepped the filling for the Chinese Pork Potstickers. My brother and I used have these all the time as an after-school snack or weekend treat (the frozen ones from Costco that you heat up in a frying pan). Potstickers are so versatile and really easy to make. The filling I made started out with Napa Cabbage that I salt-wilted (sprinkled salt over the chiffonade cabbage and weighed it down in a colander. Squeezed out the liquid and repeated the process until it was wilted). I added the cabbage to a mixture of ground pork, scallions, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, chinese rice wine, and sugar. We filled the wonton wrappers and pleated the top. After they were all assembled, we seared the bottoms of the potstickers in a large saute pan with canola oil. Then we added some chicken stock (and used a pot lid as a shield since huge flames and smoke shot up) and let the potstickers steam until they were done:

The dipping sauce I made just contained soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, pickled sushi ginger, and sesame oil.

Next, Chef showed us how to made Summer Rolls. These rolls are not cooked after they are assembled, so all of the fillings have to be cooked. You can add anything you want to summer rolls (they traditional contain vegetables and/or lean meats/seafood). Ours had lettuce, boiled shrimp halves, cilantro, mint, and scallions. We dipped them in a peanut-dipping sauce.

Doesn't it kind of look like a cell phone?

Next, we assembled and steamed the Shrimp Shao Mai. This was a pureed shrimp mixture that we stuffed inside thin, delicate dumpling wrappers. We steamed them on a layer of cabbage:

(Notice the one odd dumpling in the left lower corner... Nora made a vegetarian dumpling that she split with me--it was delicious!)

We plated these dumplings with a Cilantro-Chile Dipping Sauce:

The last roll we made was a Spring Roll. We had the choice of making this spring roll with ground pork or vegetarian (with extra mushrooms). My group made a vegetarian version that was amazing. Everybody agreed that you don't miss the meat at all in these rolls. We deep-fried them and served them with another dipping sauce:


The last dish of the day was the Mu Shu Chicken with Peking Pancakes. These pancakes reminded me of the breads we made on Wednesday, since they were pretty simple and just had that extra sesame oil flavor. The Mu Shu Chicken was a simple chicken-vegetable stir-fry. To assemble the pancakes, you spread a little hoisin sauce on the cake and spoon the chicken on top. You are supposed to roll it up and eat it like an enchilada!

Lesson 69: Asian Noodles

I am a bit behind on my posts because I forgot my camera in school on Thursday. So let me back-track a bit and tell y'all about Asian Noodle Day!! Thursday was a super long, hectic day since I headed to the city a little bit earlier than usual for an interview. I had a nice little adventure in NY with my awful sense of direction. I made it to my interview and back downtown to school with several blisters on my feet (lesson of the day: don't wear heels when you have to walk around the city).

I definitely worked up an appetite for lots of noodles! I'm so glad I got a picture of all of the dishes presented on the table at the end of class. It's seriously SO much food! All of the dishes that I tell you about are multiplied by 3, since each group makes the same recipes.

My group split up the seven recipes of the day and got cooking! I made the Vietnamese Rice Noodle Bun Salad with Beef. I have never made a Vietnamese dish before, so it was really interesting working with different ingredients and plating a gorgeous meal.

I started out by making the marinade for the beef. I caramelized sugar (by simply boiling it until it turns golden). I added in sesame oil, fish sauce, garlic, lemongrass, and salt. After trimming and slicing the flank steak, I let it sit in the marinade until it was time to grill.

In the meantime, I prepared the salad. I used dried rice stick noodles. Most of the dishes today involved a type of dried rice noodle, which is very different from the noodles we're used to cooking. Instead of just cooking them in boiling water, we had to soak them in warm water until they softened just a bit. Then, I plunged my rice stick noodles in boiling water for only 10 seconds. I also julienned carrots and blanched them, and thinly sliced a Euro cucumber. I made a Vietnamese Dressing by boiling a little bit of water with rice vinegar and palm sugar. I added in shredded carrots, thinly sliced bird's eye chiles (very spicy!), crushed garlic, lime juice, and fish sauce. The dressing was spicy, sour, and sweet.. definitely an interesting taste!

After the meat was grilled, I began plating this large and impressive noodle salad. I garnished the whole thing with a lot of fresh herbs (cilantro and mint), peanuts, and limes:

Jessica made this very traditional Pad Thai recipe. She also used rice noodles and stir fried shrimp, chicken, egg, and a variety of herbs and spices.

Kim made the cold noodle recipes, including this Japanese Cold Soba Noodle with Dipping Sauce: (the little green leaf is actually wasabi paste!)

And this Japanese Udon with White Miso Sauce:
The Pan-Fried Chinese Egg Noodles with Beef & Broccoli (that Al made) was especially interesting because the noodles were formed into an 8-inch disk-shape and pan-fried until they were crispy.


Kim also made this Chinese Chengdu Noodle dish: (made with egg noodles, bean sprouts, and a ginger- peanut dressing)


Nora made this Thai Shrimp with Bean Thread Noodles:

Mi made an extra special Korean noodle dish from her home country:


Yet again, we grabbed our chopsticks and dug in!

I'll be back later today to post on yesterday's class (dumplings!) and wine class. I tried some really amazing Italian wines!

Lesson 68: Asian Breads, Soups, & Condiments

When I think of "fresh baked bread", I definitely don't think of Asian cuisine. When I saw bread on today's Asian menu I was a bit skeptical, yet curious to try out a new baking technique. As soon as I reviewed the recipes, I realized we would not be using an oven for the "baking".

It made sense that in China they would use a quicker technique to cook the bread, such as pan-frying or deep-frying. Like stir-frying, these techniques take less time so that it is more plausible to feed the large population.

We made 2 types of dough today. The first dough consisted of Chapati flour (a very fine whole wheat flour), cake flour, salt, ghee, and water. We rolled the dough out into small, flat circles, sprinkled on some salt and Nigella seed, then seared them on a griddle to cook the Chapati. We used the tiniest rolling pins to roll out the small pieces of dough. I felt like I was baking a cake to pop into my Easy Bake Oven or just forming some pretend food with play-doh. Then I have to remind myself that I am now a professional and I must not get side-tracked into thinking this is all fun and games ;)

We also fried some of the dough circles to form Poori. The poori puffed up in the oil to form a light, airy, flaky bread:

When I took a cooking class in Italy with my sister we made something similar to this except with pizza dough. When we fried the dough "disks" it puffed up just like the Poori. We topped the fried dough with marina, parmesan, and basil. This was quite possibly the best thing I ever ate. I believe I'll have to make it sometime soon.. my mouth is watering thinking about it!

The other dough we made was a Chinese Scallion Bread. This dough was very simple and was made with flour, baking powder, salt, and water. The dough was coated with toasted sesame oil and scallions before it was strategically rolled up and pan-fried. The result was a flaky, layered, sesame-flavored bread:

While our dough was resting, everybody in the class kept busy making different soups and chutneys (because we needed something to dip our bread in!!). I made a miso soup, which was very simple. It started out with a Dashi broth infused with Kombu and Bonito flakes. What are bonito flakes you ask? They're made from Tuna and smell like fish food... not very pleasant! However, once the broth was mixed with miso and some tofu and scallions were added in, it was a delicious Asian soup.

I also made a spicy tomato chutney with tomato concasse, ginger, garlic, jalepenos, spicy Thai peppers, and a spice blend (fennel seed, mustard seed, cumin).

The presentation for our dishes was not as important today, so I didn't take a lot of pictures. We were messily dipping the different breads in all of the chutneys and soup (that were served right from the pot).

The other dishes we made today included Indian Dal Soup, Chinese Hot & Sour Soup, Thai Chicken & Coconut Soup, Chinese Corn Soup, Tamarind Chutney, Coconut Chutney, Mint & Cilantro Chutney, Mango Chutney, and (the only soup I got a picture of) Thai Hot and Sour Soup with Prawns:

Lesson 67: Chinese Stir Frying

We are rapidly making our way around Asia as we learned the basic techniques of Chinese Stir Frying in today's class. I love stir frying because it is quick, flavorful, and usually involves a wide variety of ingredients.

Each student was required to stir fry green beans to present to Chef Erica. We used woks that we had to properly clean and season before beginning the stir-fry. I immediately began cooking my green beans, hoping to replicate Chef Erica's demonstration on the correct technique. I pre-heated my wok and poured [cold] oil around the sides to completely coat the surface. I added the aromatics (ginger, garlic, and scallion) and let it infuse in the oil and removed it. Next, I added the green beans and let them sear, while coating them in the infused oil. I added a bit of chicken stock and covered the wok to let the beans steam. I tossed them in a bit of soy sauce and sesame oil before serving:

The first time I made the green beans, I forget to have a plate nearby so I cooked the soy sauce too long (it reduced and caused the beans to be too dark in color). The second try was a bit better.

Also, during the first try at stir-frying, the oil splattered all over my left arm as I threw in the beans. That was not a very pleasant feeling. My arm was burning and was extremely red the rest of class.. Thankfully, Asli and Kim took care of me and got me some burn medicine :)
My arm looks a lot better now, even though there are still some nasty burn marks. This was bound to happen at some point in culinary school!

We made some other very interesting dishes today. In our group, Al worked on cleaning and scoring this large sea bass for deep-frying:

We coated it in cornstarch right before deep-frying it in the wok. Pretty cool, huh?

Okay, this fish just looks sad :(
Emily and I agreed that it looked so cool all plated up, but we weren't quite sure we wanted to eat it.

I ate it anyway and tried to ignore the fact that it was staring at me with those sad eyes.

Kim and I worked on the Velvet Chicken with Walnuts and Shitake. This was a very interesting recipe to work on. I've never heard of "velveting" proteins. We marinated bite-sized peices of chicken breast in cornstarch, egg white, salt, and Chinese rice wine. An hour or so later, we cooked the chicken by submerging it in a quart of boiling water with 1 tablespoon of oil. In the meantime, we made our sauce in a separate wok with some garlic, ginger, scallions, shitakes, soy sauce, Chinese wine, cornstarch, chicken stock, and toasted sesame oil. We added the chicken and toasted walnuts in the wok at the end and continued to cook until the chicken was done.

Another group made this same exact recipe with shrimp. They also "salt-whisked" the shrimp before "velveting" it (basically like curing it with salt to get the excess liquid out).

Other recipes included Red-Cooked Chicken:


Southeast Asian Braised Tofu and Chicken with Ginger:

Stir-Fried Clams in Black Bean Sauce:


Red-cooked Tofu:

We all ate our Chinese feast with little Asian bowls and chopsticks. So fun!

At the end of class Chef Erica discussed the details of our final practical exam with us. The day of the practical was changed to Monday and we'll end out the module with sushi-making on Tuesday. I was hoping she would save talking about the exam until the last minute so I can enjoy this week without stressing about it (in my world, the stress doesn't begin until I get all of the details so that I can start planning). Now that I know the details and what is expected of me, the nightmares and anxiety can begin! I spent the entire train ride home thinking about different recipes and plating designs for the exam. Ugh, I have to try and not drive myself crazy with this.

Lesson 66: Welcome to India! Lets have Curry!

I have to make this post quick because I'm watching the finale of the Bachelor! I don't agree with any aspect of this show, and yet I am completely addicted.

Today was another adventure in class as we explored the cuisine of India and Thailand. Today's class was focused on curries. It was interesting to learn the correct techniques to make curry. I always thought it just involved using curry powder. First of all, a spice blend for curry is technically termed "masala". Each team made a different "masala" blend to add to our dishes. We will also be using these spice blends for a variety of dishes throughout the week. We also made "ghee", the type of fat we used in the Indian curries. Ghee is a lot like clarified butter, except it is taken a step further and is heated until it is brown. (We used coconut cream as the fat in the Thai curries)

Each group made different variations of curry. It was so much fun to try the different dishes each team made at the end of the day! I made the chickpea curry in my group. I started out by toasted cumin seeds in the ghee to infuse the flavor. I added onions, garlic, ginger, and spicy peppers. A masala powder was added to the mix, along with some hot water and canned diced tomatoes. I rendered a whole package of tamarind paste in the beginning of class and grabbed about 1/2 T. of the rendered paste and mixed it in some boiling water. I added this tamarind liquid to the pan. At the very end, I added cooked chickpeas and a garam masala blend. I kept having to add more liquid during the cooking process to keep the mixture from drying out. There were a lot of steps to this dish so I spent the majority of class working on it. It turned out pretty good though:

Each group also made a Pullao, a basmati or jasmine rice dish. They included Basmati Pullao with Whole Spices, Pullao with Crispy Brown-Fried Onions, and the one my group made Coconut Jasmine Pullao with Peas:

Each group also made this Sea Bass Curry:

Our group also made a Thai Green Chicken Curry that I never got a picture of. It looked a lot like the Thai Green Vegetable Curry shown below, except with chicken added to it:


Another group made this Lamb Curry in a Hurry:

I didn't get a picture of the Chicken Curry in a Hurry (but it was like the lamb curry). I loved this Thai Shrimp Curry:

For dessert, we had pineapple with spices, salt, and Thai Basil: