Bagels & St. Patrick's Day Shenanigans

You know you're getting old when instead of joining in on the college kids partying on the train, you're thinking "will those kids just shut up?!!! Can't a girl ride on a train in some peace and quiet?!" I hate to admit how annoyed I was this morning with all of the kids drinking and being loud on the 10:30 train.. I mean c'mon, isn't that a bit early?! At least it entertained me a bit, until I put on my ipod to block them out.

It took me some extra time to get out of penn station this morning while dodging all of the drunk green people trying to get to the parade. I got to school at 12 for a meeting and then headed to class to make BAGELS! I've always loved a nice fluffy, chewy bagel!

After Chef demo'd the different doughs and explained the nature of yeast...and after I mistakenly admitted I was a Yankee's fan (I was totally just kidding, Chef.. I don't like the Yankees at all!!!), we got to work on forming the doughs with our partners. We started out by making the brioche levain. This yeast/flour concoction rested over the stove during the whole class so that it could ferment and rise. Next, we made the croissant detrampe that we will complete tomorrow (by rolling and folding in butter like puff pastry..ugh). The croissant dough will rest in the fridge until tomorrow, which "retards" the fermentation so that it does not over-ferment (the cold temperature slows down the activity of the yeast).

Finally, we began working on our bagel and pretzel doughs, which we were able to bake off today. The doughs were very similar, although the bagel dough was a bit drier than the pretzel. After the doughs rested, we formed them out into bagel and pretzel shapes and poached them for 30 seconds in simmering water.

Here are our bagels all ready to be poached:

After they were poached, we sprinkled on toppings (bagel salt, poppy seeds, and sesame seeds) and baked them in the oven until they were beautifully browned and puffed:

These were so so so so good! I had one right out of the oven with some scallion cream cheese (courtesy of Kim) and fresh sliced tomato.. I was in heaven.

We did the same thing with our pretzels (except added some baking powder to the simmering water).

The pretzels were also wonderful straight out of the oven (with some dijon mustard of course).

More obnoxious drunk people on the train ride home.. I should have passed out bagels and pretzels to sober them up hehe

Lesson 77: A sunny day for puff pastry

I cannot tell you how happy I was to see sun peeking through my window this morning! My brother was even extra joyful this morning and came into the kitchen singing "It's a beautiful morning!"

I was excited for class today so that we could bake and taste the puff pastry we made yesterday (my forearms were sore from yesterday's labor-intensive class!).. Chef Chad was also back today despite still feeling a little under the weather. Almost everyone was feeling unmotivated with pastry after yesterday's class, but we were back in the game today with Chef back to get us excited about what we were doing.

We started out by taking a portion of our large batch of puff pastry to make apple puff pastry strips. Here is the one I made. It's not perfect because some of the walnut frangipane went over the sides, but it was still tasty! :
Next, we made palmiers (or what us Jersey folks call "elephant ears"). My batch actually started unrolling halfway through, but Chef helped me salvage the pastrys and they came out perfect! Lots o'sugar in these babies!

One of my favorite puff pastry creations today were these paillettes. They were just strips of puff pastry rolled with parmesan and paprika.

Once we finished making these traditional pastries, chef assigned each table to make a large batch of a different savory pastry. My table made a very large batch of mozzarella and prosciutto turnovers. These were AMAZING. We formed disks of the puff pastry and made a filling with fresh mozz, parsley, and fresh prosciutto. After adding a small dollop of filling to each disk, we folded the dough over like a mini calzone and sealed them closed with a fork. Yum yum yum!

I got to bring home a lot of puff pastry treats to my family. Despite most of them being on a diet or being allergic to everything, they couldn't resist the buttery, flaky creations!

Tomorrow we're making bagels and pretzels! Maybe we can make green bagels for St. Patrick's day.. That was always a tradition when I was younger on St. Patrick's day--to go to the bagel shop and get a green bagel. Sooo I may have to bring green food coloring to class tomorrow and do a little convincing ;)

Lesson 76: Puff Pastry

I remember when I first went to visit ICE back in September with my mom. We were given a tour and looked in on a class that was making an apple tart with puff pastry. The adviser giving us the tour told us they were using puff pastry that they made the day before. I was amazed that they made their own puff pastry and remember thinking "I can't wait for that to be me!" .. Well, today was the day that I finally learned how to make puff pastry.

Four hours later... I must admit that I would rather buy a frozen package at the grocery store. It was a lot of hard labor and repetitive steps. It seemed like we worked so hard today with very little pay off (since we didn't make anything out of the pastry).. so maybe it'll all seem worth it tomorrow when we actually produce something.

Chef Chad was sick today so we had a substitute chef :( We started out by making a dough (similar to the pate sucree from last week). While the dough rested in the fridge, we started pounding out butter (to soften it while keeping it cold). The amount of noise in the kitchen was deafening as we all pounded the rolling pins as hard as we could against the butter. It was a good way to get out any anger or stress!

Clearly I didn't have any anger or stress today because I was smiling :)

Here's the 2 pounds of butter pounded out into an even square:

We worked in teams of 2 to work on the first large batch of puff pastry. We rolled out our dough into sort of a diamond shape. We placed the butter square in the middle and folded the dough over it like a package:
Next, we rolled and rolled and rolled until it was a large, thin rectangle. We folded the dough like a book and continued to roll and roll to form another large, thin rectangle (this is what forms all of the layers of dough and butter). After folding the dough again, we let the puff pastry rest in the fridge. Later on, we rolled and folded another 2 times.

Each student also made their own puff pastry (just a smaller version). So I had to bang on some more butter and roll and fold dough a million times....

Here was my final puff pastry nice and folded:

Well, lets hope that's the last time I have to make puff pastry.. it was definitely a process. I am curious to see how it tastes in the various recipes tomorrow (both sweet and savory).

On another note, I cooked a delicious dinner this weekend! I had a special guest over for dinner on Sunday night (who I really wanted to impress). I finally got a chance to make homemade pasta at home, since I have been dying to make it since making it in class. I made a few slight changes and added half whole wheat flour to the mix. I hand cut the pasta into a thick fettuccini/pappardalle.

I made a hearty meat sauce to go along with the pasta. I used Anne Burrel's recipe for pasta bolognese. I would say I followed the recipe exactly, but let's be serious, when do I ever do that? I substituted a mix of ground angus beef and ground veal for the meat. I also made some other slight changes along the way with different spices and added half beef stock instead of just water.

I started out by pureeing mirepoix and garlic and browning it in a large saute pan:
After adding the beef and tomato paste, I added in my uncles' homemade merlot. I measured out the 3 cups that the recipe called for and noticed a drop left in the bottle. I looked at my mom and she just said "go for it"! Sooooo I did..

After about 4 hours of simmering, the meat sauce was beautifully thick and rich:

I forgot to take a picture of the final pasta dish, but I took a pic of the leftovers this morning. The sauce looks thicker because it was sitting in the fridge overnight..

I came home from school and found my dad enjoying the leftovers.. He loved it! Hopefully my guest on Sunday did too :)

Lesson 75: Fruit Tarts & Wine Essentials Day 4

Wow what a day yesterday was! I wasn't feeling good yesterday morning and was up at 3 in the morning with stomach pains. I didn't know how I was going to make it through class and then wine class later on. While I was on the train to NY, I challenged myself to work hard in class to hopefully distract myself from the pain I was in and then make the decision after class whether I should skip wine class or keep on going.

I am sure glad I didn't miss yesterday's pastry class because Chef Chad told us if you don't know how to make pastry cream, then you're a punk! I definitely don't want to be a punk!!!!! So, I got to work right away mis en place'ing a medium batch of pastry cream that I made with Allison H. This pastry cream reminded me of the custard my mom makes for my grandpa's special Italian cake. She always saves a bowl of it for me to eat plain. It took all of my power to not grab a spoon and dig in! We spread the cream on a sheet pan and covered it with plastic wrap so it could cool before we use it later for our fruit tarts.

After Chef demonstrated how to roll out the doughs for our tarts, we all worked individually to make 3 mini fruit tarts and one regular tart. I rolled out the pate brisee (from yesterday) and pressed it into the mini tart shells. We blind baked these mini tarts (without any filling) before filling them. When it was time to fill the tarts, we first brushed the bottoms with reduced apricot jelly, then added in some pastry cream (that we brightened up with some raspberry liquor and fresh whipped cream). We assembled some fresh fruit on top and dotted the fruit with more apricot jelly for shine.

I couldn't help myself from digging into one on my train ride home :)

While the mini tarts were blind baking, we got to work on our larger tart. We had a lot more flexibility with these tarts, since we had a variety of frangipanes and poached fruits to choose from. We started out by rolling out pate sucree (from yesterday) and fitting it into the larger tart pan. I decided to use the pistachio frangipane that Allison and I made yesterday. The pistachio flavor is not overpowering in this filling and I thought the color would look really nice in the tart. I also used the caramel poached pears that I made on Wednesday and some poached figs that another group made.

When my tart came out of the oven, I glazed the top with more apricot jelly and added some toasted crushed almonds and powdered sugar around the edge (to frame the tart):

Isn't it pretty???

It was fun to see everyone's tarts because they were all so different! Here is Aaron's tart.. looks like he used red wine poached pears and maybe a walnut frangipane?

Even the mini fruit tarts were assembled in all different ways. Here are Asli's beautiful tarts:

After class I made the decision to stick it through the rest of the day and stay for wine class. I was feeling a lot better and I didn't want to have to make up another wine class (I still have to make up day 2 bc of the snow storm!)

Today's wines were from warm weather climate areas (Spain, France, Australia). It was interesting to try these wines because I am so used to Italian or California wines. We started out by sipping on a dry sherry. I was surprised that I didn't mind the extra dry finish on this wine, but it was very different from the sherry that we ended with. But, before I get to that, let me tell you about the wines!

First up, we tried 4 white wines. I didn't LOVE any of them, but they weren't bad. The first one reminded me of a nice wine to sip on a hot summer night. It was very light and refreshing:
Rias Baixas, Albarino, Legado del Conde 2008. This bottle retails at $18 a bottle.

My favorites of the white was the Rioja, Vina Tondonia Blanco Reserva, R. Lopez de Heredia 1990. This was an aged wine that tasted a bit more oaky than the others. It had a rich, ripe apple flavor. This bottle retails at $40.

Next, we tried a rose that I thought was very refreshing. It had a light strawberry flavor. This bottle is from South France: Les Baux de Provence, Rose, Mas de La Dame 2008. Retailing at $15.

We tried four reds after the rose. One of them was from Australia! Sipping it brought back memories of my 4 months studying abroad in Perth. It had a very deep fruity flavor (blackberries and dark plums). Barossa Valley, Shiraz. 'Entity', J. Duval Wines 2006. This bottle retails at $40.

My favorite wine of the night was the Ribera del Duero, Pesquera 2006, which retails at $50 (it was the most expensive of the night.. why do I always like the most expensive wines???!)
This wine also had a very intense fruity flavor. It was one of the heavier wines of the night.

We ended the night with another sherry..this time a very sweet sherry! Everybody in the class looked at the color of this wine and thought "ugh" because it was brown and, well, ugly. However, as soon as I smelled it I knew it would be dessert in a glass. I smelled caramel, coffee, and a rich, dark syrup. It was the perfect ending to the spread of wines.

Well, I made it through the day despite the rocky start and I'm so glad I did! Thankfully, I am feeling A LOT better today, especially after a good night's sleep. Have a wonderful weekend!! Coming up on Monday: Puff Pastry!!

Lesson 74: Pastry Doughs

Today we learned the foundation of pastry: doughs! I love making pie & tart doughs so I especially enjoyed learning today's new techniques and recipes.

Chef demonstrated making each dough and then we all got a chance to make a batch ourselves. We started with the Pate Brisee, which is a French version of pie dough. This French dough uses only butter, as opposed to shortening, and results in more flavor yet a little less flakiness. We mixed together all-purpose flour, cake flour, salt, and baking powder. Next we added in a pound of cold butter. We got in there with our hands to blend the butter with the flour mixture:
Once the butter was blended in (with large chunks of butter still visible), we added in some ice water to bind the dough together. We wrapped up the doughs to be utilized later to make pies and tarts!

The next dough we made was a little different because it was made with sugar and eggs. The pate sucree started out with flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. We added 1/2 lb of butter this time and blended it with our hands until the mixture resembled cornmeal (or as Chef described it: "Kraft Parmesan"). We folded in 5 eggs, which binded the dough together to form a more sturdy dough (less crumbly than the first one).
We worked in pairs to make the next dough: pate sablee. Naturally, I worked with Allison H, so we could be "Team Allison: AA". This time we used a Kitchen Aid mixer because we had to cream butter and sugar before adding in the eggs and flour. This also formed a crumbly, sweet dough that is mostly used for tarts.

Each pair also made a frangipane recipe. Team Allison made a pistachio version by mixing together ground pistachios, sugar and butter in the Kitchen Aid. Next, we added in some vanilla extract and 8 egg yolks. We added a little bit of flour (3 oz) to bind the mixture together. It was fun to try the different groups' frangipanes since we all used different flavorings and variations.

We ended class pretty early today (4:20!) since we decided to make our pastry cream tomorrow intead of today so we can use it right away for our tarts. During the last part of class, Chef showed us how to make cornets (the piping cone for icings/pastry creams):
I'm looking forward to utilizing the different doughs that we made today to make different tarts! Yum!

Lesson 73: Pastry day 1

Today was our first day of Module 4: Pastry with Chef Chad. I was very pleased with the first lesson of the mod and I am confident that I'm going to love pastry! It helps to have a great chef instructor who seems passionate and enthusiastic about food and baking. Chef told us that he would probably convert at least 4 of us to pastry by the end of the module... I might be one of those 4..

We worked in teams of 3 today to complete several classic fruit preparations. I worked in a group with Allison H and Al... just to make things extra confusing with the 3 "Al's" working together.

I started by making poached pears in caramel. I love watching the transition of sugar to caramel as the sugar slowly forms into a clear liquid and then into a thick, bronze syrup. After the caramel was sufficiently browned, I added acidulated water, a vanilla bean, pear halves, and some more sugar! The pears poached in the liquid until they were softened. We stored them in containers to save for another lesson.
We also candied orange peels and dried apple slices (also to be used as garnish for another lesson). I grilled some pineapple that I coated in sugar and spices. I love grilled pineapple!

We macerated strawberries by coating them in sugar and then drizzling on balsamic vinegar. The sugar draws out the moisture from the berries, but also increases the sweetness. The balsamic vinegar helps balance out the amount of sweetness. Kim and I were perfect examples of why cooks can't bake... we don't like to measure or follow recipes. Instead of following the recipe and adding just 1/2 tsp of balsamic vinegar, we made the executive decision to "just add a bit more". We told Chef we added more than the recipe called for and he told us we were "typical culinarians" for not following the recipe! This whole precise measurement thing is going to really throw me off this module. I'm like Rachael Ray in a sense that I "eyeball" everything and just do what I want!

The baked and roasted fruits were my favorite! Some teams baked apples:

My team roasted pears and dried figs with a mixture of rum, vanilla extract, sugar, ground ginger, and fresh ginger:


After class I met up with a friend and took a trip to the top of the Empire State Building! So fun!

Lesson 72: SUSHI

Today was our very last day of Module 3! I can't believe that we are done cooking for the next 2 weeks to begin baking and decorating! I'm not sure how I feel about it.. I've always loved cooking more than baking, but maybe I'll love this module and change my career path to baking! Ya never know ;)

Before we took the written exam, we got our sushi rice on the stove so that it could be cooked and cooled down by the time we were ready to assemble the sushi. Once we finished the exam, each group began prepping all of the components for our sushi. We had to julienne vegetables, prep crab meat, slice tuna, prepare the spicy tuna, prepare spicy aioli's, and marinate & saute duck. Here is our vegetable and wasabi mis en place:

After Chef Lori demonstrated how to roll the different styles of sushi, we got to work. We rolled 5 different styles today: Maki (thin roll), Futo Maki (fat roll), Temaki (cone-shaped), Inari-Zushi (fried tofu-filled), and Nigri Sushi (golf-ball sized, oval shaped).

I actually really enjoyed making the sushi. It was fun to make all the different styles and add different vegetables and seafood to each. It was rewarding to present all of our beautiful sushi rolls at the end of class. My group presented 3 plates:



I can't wait to make sushi again! This weekend I'm going to go out and buy a sushi mat :)