Lesson 59: Boeuf Bourguignon-- Bon Appetit!!

Today was our last day of regional French cuisine.  What better way to end this section of the module than to make the classical French dish, Boeuf Bourguignon.  I obviously love the movie Julie and Julia (part of my inspiration for this blog) and I have been dying to make this dish ever since I saw it.

Jessica and I immediately got to work prepping the ingredients and getting our mis en place together.  The recipe we followed was much like any other recipe you may have seen, starting with searing the beef cubes and then adding onions, carrots, tomato paste, garlic, burgundy wine, veal stock and a sachet d'epices (herbs wrapped in cheesecloth).  The mixture simmers for hours until the beef is tender.

We use only the best wine at culinary school:

Considering how much wine we use in this recipe (32 oz), I would think using a better wine would make a huge difference.  

While the stew was simmering, I shocked and peeled pearl onions and glazed them in butter and sugar.  I also sauteed mushrooms.  These were both added to the Stew at the very end, along with a shot of Marc de Bourgogne (kind of a mixture between brandy and wine?).  

The other members of the group got working on the gratin of shrimp.  There were several components to this dish, starting with making a shrimp stock:

From the stock, they made a veloute (shrimp stock whisked into a blonde roux).  Then, they made the gratin mixture with sauteed shrimp, shitake mushrooms, tomatoes, Marc de Bourgogne, heavy cream, and the shrimp veloute.

Chef Erica gave us an extra recipe to try that is very popular in the Burgundy region: Oeufs en Meurette.  We each prepared this individually.  It's nice to have one recipe during class to prepare and plate on your own.  This dish is very interesting and unlike anything I've ever tried before.  I knew I would love it as she was explaining it.

I started off by making the sauce.  I rendered bacon lardons and reserved them for plating.  In the rendered bacon fat, I caramelized a small amount of mirepoix.  Then, I added about a cup of red wine.  I let that reduce by about 3/4.  Next, I added a ladleful of veal stock.  I thickened the stock with a very small amount of beurre manie (kneaded butter and flour).  While my sauce was cooking, I made a croute by toasting a circle of bread in clarified butter.  I also poached an egg.  It is very interesting how every chef has taught us a different way of poaching eggs.  This method was by far my favorite.  I made a whirlpool in my poaching liquid (with a little white vinegar) and gently dropped my egg in the center:

The egg whites stay in tact and it came out perfect!

Here's how we plated this dish:  I spooned a puddle of the red wine sauce in the center of my plate.  I placed my toasted croute in the center and topped it with the poached egg.  I scattered the reserve bacon around the croute.  A simple garnish of chopped chives added the perfect touch.

Seriously, this was amazing.  I loved breaking into the yolk and getting the perfect bite of egg, crunchy toast, salty bacon, and syrupy sauce.   All of the flavors were perfect together!  Like I said, it was unlike any egg dish I have ever tried!

Around 4:15, we started rounding up all of the dishes and plating them for presentation.  Here is the finished shrimp gratin:

It was delicious!  Very creamy and rich!

We also prepared a Salade Lyonnaise, which is frisee topped with a warm vinaigrette, poached eggs, bacon lardons, and croutons:

We also had Brains-of-the-Silk Weaver.  I ate BRAINS!!!!    

Just kidding..  It was just a simple cheese spread made with farmer's cheese (kind of like ricotta or cottage cheese) and herbs.  We spread it on croutes and toasted them in the oven:

Here's our finished Boeuf Bourguignon (Julia Child style--in the Le Crueset pot):

And plated up:

I got home and tried to teach my mom how to say "Boeuf Bourguignon" because she pronounced it "Boing-ing-yon".  Oh, mom..

Overall it was a great day!!  

Booooon Appetit!!

Restaurant Review: Portofino Ristorante

Last night my family and I went to Portofino Ristorante in Tinton Falls to celebrate my dad's birthday.  We used to come here all the time until there was an incident with the valet making a dent in my dad's car.  The restaurant didn't handle the situation well, so we have been very hesitant to return.  Until last night...

We gave Portofino a chance to redeem themselves and serve us a meal that would convince us to return again.  However, this wasn't the case.  

The manager brought over the wine my dad ordered and I saw him look at me trying to decide if I was 21.  He casually went and asked to take away my glass (it must have been a mistake that there were 4 wine glasses on the table!) and my dad told him that I will be having wine.  Instead of just asking for my ID, which I would have preferred, he did the judgmental laugh while asking "are you 21? Wait, don't answer, I'll be a nice guy and give you wine anyway hahahahaha".  SERIOUSLY?!!!  I'M 22!  (I didn't respond quite like that, but I did tell him I'm 22) His response: "Hahaha, right, right".  This made me angry.  Even my dad was like "um, she has her ID if you'd like to see it.."  While my brother told him I was 16.  Thanks.

The appetizers took a long time to arrive, but at least we were satisfied with our dishes.  My mom and I shared the special fennel and blood orange salad.  Blood oranges are in season now and they tasted wonderful on our salad.

My dad and brother each ordered the sauteed calamari.  I didn't try it but they loved it!

So far so good, right?  We waited an extremely long time for our entrees.  It was nearing 9:00 and we got to the restaurant at 7:15!

Finally our dishes arrived.  I ordered the salmon al cartoccio.  I rarely order salmon at restaurants because I am usually very picky with salmon.  However, I really like the preparation of steaming fish in foil or parchment so I figured I'd give it a try.  It is really hard to dry out fish with this cooking preparation, since you simply bake it for a short amount of time (10-15 minutes) in the oven until the pouch steams.  

I took my first bite and believe it or not, it was EXTREMELY dry.  I was starving at this point so I ate most of it anyway, but the fish was unpleasantly chewy and not very flavorful.  I had to eat each bite with the salad that was nicely dressed with balsamic.  The potatoes on the side were flavor-less and under-seasoned.

My mom ordered the mahi mahi special.  Unfortunately her fish was dry too.  She didn't even have to taste it to know that it was over-cooked.  My mom could barely eat the fish and picked around at the vegetables around it. My brother had the rack of lamb special.  His lamb was not dry.  It was rare, as in completely raw.  He ate most of it even though I told him it was unacceptably raw.  He left a piece on the plate that even he couldn't eat because it was clearly not cooked at all.   We showed the waitress and she offered to cook it more.  No, we do not want you to cook the one bite of lamb.

There was nothing to complain about my dad's rigatoni carbonara.  It would have been really disappointing if a simple pasta dish wasn't good at this high-class Italian restaurant.  At least the birthday boy had a good meal!

Overall, not the greatest dinner.  That was strike 2 for Portofino, so it might be a while before we decide to return again.

Lesson 58: Cuisine of Provence, France

Today we learned about the cuisine of Provence.  I loved all of the recipes and really enjoyed the recipe that I worked on.  The first thing we did when we got to class was get the cassoulet from yesterday in the oven.  

Doesn't it look a lot better than yesterday, since it cooked for a few more hours:

This casserole had so much flavor!  The sauce really reduced down and glazed all of the meats.  It was wonderful!

Before I get to the dish that I worked on today, I'll tell you about the other dishes.  First up: "Filets de Sardines en Escabeche".  We fileted, marinated, and seared sardines and served them with an onion, garlic and cayenne saute.

We also made an assortment of Stuffed Provencale Vegetables ("Petits Farcis a la Facon du Vieux Nice).  A couple of people in my group worked on stuffing zucchini, tomatoes, and mushrooms.  They were beautiful, simple, and delicious:

The most complicated dish of the day was the Bourride.  This is essentially a seafood soup with a lot of different components.  The guys in the group started off by chopping up fish bones and trimmings for the fish fumet.  The soup was made with mirepoix, fennel, leek, garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, orange & lemon rinds, dry vermouth, and some herbs and seasonings.  Right before we served the soup they cooked the clams, snapper fillet, shrimp, squid, and mussels separately in the soup.  The garnishes included an aioli and a rouille spread on croutes:

I made the Tarte aux Blettes.  I started out making a pastry dough with flour, salt, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, egg, and cold water.  While it cooled in the fridge, I started on the filling.  I trimmed and cleaned a large bunch of swiss chard.  I chiffonaded the chard and added it to some grated gouda cheese, currants plumped in white rum, eggs, red currant jelly, heavy cream, diced apple, and toasted pine nuts.  After blind-baking the dough (partially cooking it without the filling) I added in the filling and baked the tart until it was set (about 45-50 minutes).This tart was truly amazing.  It was a lot sweeter than I thought a swiss chard tart would be, probably because of the sugar in the crust and the sweeter components in the filling.  Send me an e-mail (azick1987@gmail.com) if you'd like the recipe.. I know I'll be making it again!

After class I literally ran to the train station to try and make the 5:03 train.  It's my dad's birthday today and I wanted to make it home early enough to shower before dinner.  My brother called me mid-run, which slowed my pace and caused me to miss my train by less than a minute!!!  That's seriously the worst feeling ever..sprinting to the train station like a maniac and then not even making the train!! Ugh oh well!  

My family went to Portofino Ristorante for dinner.  Although we had a lovely evening, we were all a bit disappointed in this restaurant (which has been a long-time favorite restaurant up until recently).  I will be posting a review tomorrow!

Lesson 57: Cuisine of Midi, France

Um did it really snow again?!!!!!!!!!   All I have to say is it better not snow any more this winter or else I'm moving to California.

I got to class and we immediately began planning who was going to cook what and started prepping ingredients.  Aaron and I chose to work on the "Poulet a la Basquaise", which is just chicken with tomatoes, peppers, and prosciutto.  Aaron prepped the ingredients while I cooked.  

After the chicken was fabricated, I browned the pieces in duck fat: 

Next, I made the sauce by sauteing pancetta, onion, and garlic.  I de-glazed the pan with brandy.  Then I added red pepper, prosciutto, tomato concasse, sugar, piment d'espelette (an expensive French spice), white wine, and chicken stock.  I added the chicken back into the mixture and let it simmer:

Here was the final product.  It had a wonderful flavor and the chicken was really tender:

We each had to make the potato dish, "Pommes a la Sarladaise".  This is exactly like the Pommes Anna that we made last week except we added sliced truffles in between the layers..mmm.

And after the flip:We also used our duck confit that we prepared last week for a Salad of Duck Confit with Red Cabbage, Chestnuts, and Watercress ("Salade Cevenole").  I loved the chestnuts and walnuts that we coated in sugar and caramelized in the oven.

The final dish of the day was "Cassoulet", which is a slow-cooked bean and meat stew.  Since this stew is best if you cook it for a very long time, we started the cooking process and will continue cooking it tomorrow for optimal flavor.  This stew has a mixture of lamb, pork medallions, garlic sausage, duck confit, and navy beans.  The casserole is topped with breadcrumbs and more duck fat (if needed--ours was plenty moist).

I can't wait to try it tomorrow when it is done cooking!

Chef decided to show us another French dessert today.  She made a sweet apple mixture in a cast iron pan and topped it with puff pastry.  It finished baking in the oven and came out like this:

Then we flipped it on a plate.  How glorious does this look?

It was SOOO good!   We had some extra puff pastry and duck confit so Dana made some duck confit turnovers.  Asli also made a creamy mushroom soup that was excellent!   

After class I grabbed a drink with some of my classmates for Mardi Gras!  Now I can barely keep my eyes open and must get my rest for another day of cooking tomorrow!

Roasted Citrus-Herb Game Hen

Today I had the day off for President's day!  My parents decided to head to the gym a little later than usual and asked me to have dinner ready for them when they got back.  I saw this as a fun challenge, since I was in the mood to cook and wanted to surprise them and make dinner really nice.

I chose Giada's roasted citrus-herb game hen recipe since it seemed easy, healthy, and fresh.  A perfect meal post-gym.  

I followed the recipe almost exactly.  I doubled the recipe so there would be enough for my very hungry older brother and made some healthy vegetable side-dishes.  I started by prepping the herb-citrus rub.  I figured I'd get the fine-chopping out of the way before I broke open the wine!

Then it was time for some Menage Tois Red Blend and some snacks :)  Had to get my beautiful valentines day flowers in the pic!

I thought it was only appropriate to have some music playing... there was definitely some dancing involved.  I was home alone after all!

I had some dilemmas along the way, such as the fresh herbs not being so fresh.  I planned on substituting fresh rosemary for the mint, but the rosemary and thyme didn't smell or taste that great.  I found some parsley in the fridge so I chopped some of that up and added some dried thyme.  Also, my cornish hens were still a bit frozen as was the cauliflower I planned on roasting...gah!  No worries, just got them soaking in some water and they de-frosted pretty quickly.

I seasoned the cauliflower with Wegman's basting oil, salt, pepper, and Bragg's seasoning blend (my usual vegetable roasting method) and popped it in a 400 degree oven.

I also sliced some Roma tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant and brushed them with olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper and roasted those along with the cauliflower.

Once the vegetables and the hens were in the oven, I tidied up and set the table:

I seriously LOVE these roasted veggies!  It's like eating candy...best side-dish ever!

I took the hens out of the roasting pan to rest while I made a pan-gravy:

The chicken was very moist.  I was a little upset that the gravy didn't thicken up like I wanted it to.  It was nearing 8:00 and we were all starving, so I didn't let it simmer long enough.  It still had great flavor though!  The cauliflower was amazing:

Here's my brother's plate with a hen, vegetables, and some roasted potatoes that I whipped up for him so he could have a perfectly well-balanced plate:

I definitely had fun cooking for my family tonight!  Time to go watch Jack Bauer save the world on 24!

Lesson 55: Cuisines of Normandy & Brittany, France

I risked my life today getting to class.. well at least getting to the train station.  I woke up to blue skies and figured the roads were cleared and the day would go smoothly.  Not so.  My dad was on his way to work and realized just how bad the roads were and turned around to come home so that he could prevent my death and drive me to the train station.  Apparently some people don't have much confidence in my driving skills ;)   .. Rightfully so.  I was first to admit that there was no way I could have driven on those ice-coated roads.

So it usually takes 20 minutes to drive to the train station from my house.  Today it took about 45 minutes.  We were literally driving on a sheet of ice.  My mom saw a car sliding sideways along the road across from our street and my dad and I saw a van try and turn on the road we were driving on and drive straight through a mound of snow.  It was a very adventurous morning!  Once I finally made it to NY, it barely looked like it even snowed.  I planned on tons of snow mounds and puddles along the sidewalks and even sported my fancy rain boots!

I was glad that I made it to class today because it was our first day of regional French cuisine.  Chef Erica gave us a short, but informative lecture on the cuisines of Normandy and Brittany.  Then we began cooking the recipes for the day.  Our group divided up the recipes and got right to work.  The day went very smoothly and we even finished up early! (The first time this module!)

First, we prepared duck confit, which is a 3-part recipe that will take part over the next few lessons.  We fabricated the duck legs and coated them in a salt/herb mixture.  They are being pressed and refrigerated overnight until we begin the next step tomorrow.  

Buckwheat is a crop that is grown in this region of France, so Chef called up for crepe pans so we could make buckwheat crepes with an apple topping and fresh whipped cream as an extra treat for the day.. mmmmm!!!

I was glad to get the extra practice with making crepes since I missed "crepe day" in module 2.  I definitely messed up the first couple, but wasn't too upset, since it made for a nice little snacky :)

My favorite recipe today was the "Souffles d'Alencon en Timbales" aka a Re-inflatable Cheese Souffle.  I was amazed at how these souffles re-inflated after being baked the first time.  We de-molded the egg and parmesan souffles and topped them with a mushroom cream sauce.  They immediately de-flated after the sauce was poured on top and weighed them down.  After baking them in the oven for another 10 minutes, the souffles absorbed the sauce and swelled up.  So cool!  They de-flated a bit again right before I took this picture, though..boo.

The"Cotes de Porc Normance" aka bread pork chops with apples was a very simple, yet rich and elegant French dish.  

Al and I worked on this final dish, "Homard a l'Americaine" aka Lobster in a rich tomato cream sauce.  We dispatched and cooked the lobster pieces in batches.  After removing the meat, we sauteed the lobster shells, mirepoix, garlic, tomato paste, cognac, fish stock, veal stock, white wine, madeira, dry sherry, a mix of chopped herbs, peppercorns, and saffron.  This whole mixture simmered for about an hour.  We placed this mixture in a robot coupe to puree the shells in the sauce.  This turned out a bit disastrous when the sauce splattered all over Al and Aaron..quite funny though ;)     After straining off the mixture, we added heavy cream and a roux to thicken the sauce.  We added the lobster meat back into the sauce and served it in a rice pilaf ring that Jess prepared:Note: This is actually another group's plate.. I thought it looked really pretty!

We served the plates "family-style" and enjoyed tasting all of the food at the early hour of 4:15.  We all commented that we haven't finished this early to be able to taste all of our food together in a long time.  Usually we are all rushing towards the end of class to clean up and go home.  Today was a great day!

I can't believe tomorrow's Friday already.  The snow day in the middle of the week threw me off!

Blizzard!!!

I can't believe how crazy the weather is!!!!  I had a wonderful snow day, though!  The morning was very relaxing.. spending hours watching the news and hearing about the chaos the snow has caused the tri-state area.  I made lunch and an extra-large mug of tea and watched kitchen nightmares by the fireplace with my dad.  It just made me really stressed out and not want to ever want to work in a restaurant kitchen haha.

After working out and killing my mom in rummikub (if y'all have never played it, you have to get this game.. I can play for hours), I began prepping dinner & snacks.  

The "kids" (aka my brother and mom) played outside and built a snowman while I played "mom" and slaved in the kitchen ;)    As soon as my mom came in the house and screamed "Al!!!!" I came running to her with a carrot and brussel sprouts for the snowman's nose and eyes.  Anyone sense a little role reversal??

Lately, my family has really enjoyed snacking on roasted veggies during cocktail hour.  This is a great snack because it's soo healthy and SO good!

Today, I sliced eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, and tomatoes.  I brushed the slices with Wegman's basting oil and sprinkled them with salt, fresh ground pepper, and "Bragg's seasoning blend".  I roasted them in a 400 degree oven until they were golden.

I also roasted some broccoli because my dad is a little picky about vegetables.

For dinner I made "Southern Oven Un-fried Chicken" from one of Oprah's chefs.  I mixed together nonfat greek yogurt and hot sauce smothered it on some chicken legs and breasts.  I refrigerated it while I prepared the crumb coating.

I doubled the recipe and made a ton of chicken (my brother eats a lot).  Here is the original recipe:

In a large zip-lock bag combine 1 1/2 cups of crushed whole grain cereal flakes, 1 1/2 tsp onion powder, 1 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp paprika, 2 tsp black pepper, 2 tsp hot pepper (I used cayenne).  I also added a large pinch of salt.  Add chicken pieces and shake to coat.  Lay the chicken out on a lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 30 minutes.  Place in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until the chicken is done.

This chicken definitely had a kick to it, so if you don't like spicy foods eliminate the cayenne pepper and/or hot sauce.  My mom and I had our chicken over sauteed spinach.  I heated coconut oil in a large saute pan and sauteed some sliced onions.  I added minced garlic and then the spinach.  I seasoned the mixture with salt, ground pepper, nutmeg, and Bragg's seasoning blend.  This is my favorite side-dish!

My dad and brother had some leftover mushroom risotto from yesterday's class and some frozen corn with their chicken (plus some extra onions from our spinach mixture).  

I'm hoping I'll be able to make it to class alright tomorrow.  The weather is still pretty bad..we even lost power for a few minutes.  Thankfully it came back on because I am in the middle of watching "The Time Traveler's Wife" for the second time.  It's a great love story, but the book is 1 billion times better!