Father's Day Menu

I apologize for being MIA for a while! Life has been crazy busy and the commute to my internship was completely wearing me out. So, a brief update: I finished up my internship at Good Housekeeping yesterday! It was truly an amazing experience and I am so lucky to have been exposed to so many aspects of the industry. Luckily, there were plenty of television shoots while I was there that I was able to be a part of. I prepped shoots for Emeril and Guy Fieri, along with a show called "Food-ogrophy" on the Cooking Channel. I loved every minute of it!

I was extremely sad to leave! Unfortunatley there aren't any positions available at the moment, so I am now on the job search! (Wish me luck!!)

Last Sunday my mom and I organized a casual Father's Day dinner for my family. My uncle was in town from Cali, so he came along with my other uncle and aunt, 3 cousins, and grandparents.

I made sandwiches for lunch to bring on the beach with us. While on the beach, we sipped on some Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling.. so light and refreshing!

I headed back to the condo early to prep dinner and appetizers. Our appetizers were pretty basic and included gourmet cheeses, crackers, hummus, etc. I wanted to make a little something special and prepared Giada's Deviled Eggs with Crab. It was delicious! I made a few minor changes: I added in the yolks of 3 eggs to the filling and ended up filling 8 eggs instead of 6. I also sprinkled the tops with paprika (afterwards I realized old bay seasoning would have been nice!):
We had a nice spread for dinner that was not too gourmet (my family enjoys comfort food!) but still incredible. I made an Asian barbecue chicken from Food and Wine magazine. I made this earlier in the afternoon and heated it up later. I made the mistake of coating it in the toasted sesame seeds too early because when I heated it up, the sesame seeds weren't as crunchy and toasty. Woops...next time I'll make sure to coat them with the seeds a la minute!
Since these had a distinct Asian flavor and were a little spicy, I made a few extra chicken drumsticks with Emeril's barbecue sauce.
We also made a double batch of Giada's Sausage, Peppers, and Onions. We served this with toasted Italian rolls, and pasta tossed with olive oil.
My mom also made a tray of homemade mac & cheese (a healthier version that included whole wheat panko and fresh sliced tomatoes!). I think the adults liked this more than the kids! We also had a tossed salad with toasted pine nuts, craisins, croutons, heirloom cherry tomatoes, and raspberry vinaigrette.

The night ended with my mom's famous Strawberry Roll and my grandpa's favorite cake.

Lessons 104 & 105: Sausages and Terrines

Yesterday's class involved making basic grind sausages and emulsion sausages. Making sausages involves a lot of steps that must be done properly. My group worked on making a Szechwan-Style Sausage (basic grind) and a Frankfurter (emulsion). The other groups made sweet Italian sausages, fine Swiss bratwursts, green chile sausages, and chicken & vegetable sausages.

Kim, Matt and I prepped our Szechwan sausage by trimming the sinew and fat from pork butt. This took FOREVER, so we also took some beef from the refrigerator to add to our meat. We used the meat grinder attachment on the Kitchen Aid to grind up the meat and some cubed "fat back":

Next, we added the seasonings: prague powder #1, crushed peppercorns, dried sage, cayenne, sauteed garlic, anice seeds, powdered dextrose, sugar, chili powder, 5 spice, red chili flakes, soy sauce, and vodka:
We always kept the meat over an ice-bath to keep nice and cold. After making a test patty to check for seasonings, we cranked the meat into the hog casings:
We eventually tied up individual links from this spiral:
Rob, Allison, and Nora made the frankfurter out of beef shoulder, fat back, salt, TCM, Dextrose, onion powder, white pepper, coriander, nutmeg, garlic powder, and non-fat dry milk:
We reserved all of the sausages to cook today. At the end of yesterday's class, we also cured bacon that will be ready by Friday.

After class I met up with my sister and spent the night out in Times Square. I may have had a little too much fun and was definitely paying for it today!

Today we worked on making terrines and pates. I started out by making a brioche dough for the Turkey Pate en Croute. Then, I helped with various steps of our Country-Style Terrine and made a Salt Cure Mix for our Fois Gras that we'll be curing tomorrow.

We will be finishing the terrines tomorrow, so there will be more pictures to come. It was a lot like making sausage: grinding and processing meat and adding various seasonings and aromatics.

We also cooked the sausages today! They were delicious! We grilled the basic grind sausages and boiled & smoked the emulsion sausages. I especially loved our Szechwan sausage!

Lesson 102: Hors D'oeuvre I

I believe everyone has a case of "senior-itis"... Chef told us it's common for classes to start slacking at the point of the program. We're done with our practical exam and only have 5 lessons less until graduation.. so I think we are all ready to be done and have our externships on our mind.

However, when I think about only having 5 classes left, it makes me really sad! I can honestly say that these past 6 months have been the most exciting, challenging, exhausting, and FUN months of my life. I think back to orientation day when I was first introduced to my 15 classmates and stepped into kitchen 1401 for the very first time. I was a bundle of nerves and was super shy. Now I can walk into the kitchen with confidence and enjoy four hours of cooking every day with my classmates that have become my friends. Yea, there are occasional fights and lash-outs and also some tears shed from time to time.. but 9 times out of 10 we're laughing together and working as a team to cook our hearts out.

Today we may have been a bit slower than usual and lost our sense of timing, but I think today was just a fluke day (and it's Friday..) and we'll be back to our hard-working selves on Monday! Even though we presented our food a bit late and did not put as much time in our presentation, the food was still delicious. Each group made 5 different hors d'oevres that were packed with flavor and could be enjoyed in just one or two bites.

Nora and I worked together to make these Curried Lamb Phyllo Triangles:

These were made with ground lamb, onion, garlic, tomato, curry powder, cayenne, veal stock, yogurt, scallion, lemon juice, and fresh mint. After this mixture cooled, we assembled the phyllo triangles.

Nora and I also prepared the Braised Manila Clams with Sausage and White Beans:
We braised the clams in wine, shallots, and thyme. Then, we cooked up some Italian sausage, shallot, garlic, sage, and white beans. We pureed this mixture to top the baby clams.

My group also prepared these other 3 hors d'oevres:
Beef Empanadas:
Vegetable Pakora Fritters with Tamarind Chuntney:
Spicy Shrimp Fritters:
The following plates were made by the other groups in the class.

Mussles with Orange-Saffron Sauce:

Mushroom Phyllo Triangles:
Shrimp Toasts:
Chorizo and Tomato Phyllo Triangles:
Fried Oysters:
Risotto Croquettes with Fontina Cheese:
Coconut Shrimp with Tamarind Dipping Sauce:
Not Pictured: Indian Potato Samosas, Cod Fritters, and Crispy Duck Wontons with Coconut-Soy Dipping Sauce

This was a really tough week for all of us. Hopefully we'll all rest up this weekend so we're ready for our very last week of lessons!

Modern Culinary Masters-- Daniel Boulud

Today was the best day of my life.

Just kidding, although I did have a wonderful day. Whenever we ask Chef how he's doing, he always responds "today's the best day of my life" in a serious voice. I love it.

Before class I stopped at Starbucks to eat my lunch and have some tea. I had the lovely pleasure of meeting Edward, the man who sat next to me and decided to strike up conversation. Actually, that's an understatement.. he actually decided to tell me his whole life story. I learned about his long trips to Mississippi and what he likes to do in his free time on the weekends. Things got weird when he asked me if I wanted to listen to his ipod with him, so I chugged my tea and bolted. He gave me a Lifesaver mint as a parting gift..... weird.

I got to class nice and early to help set up the kitchen. There is a lot of prep to get the kitchen exactly how Chef likes it. Once we went over the recipes, Kim and I started working on the Soupe au Pistou. The soup used vegetable stock as a base, so we decided to "fortify" the stock that was given us by adding more vegetables, herbs, and spices to it. This increased the depth of flavor, which really affected the outcome of our soup.

The soup required a lot of prep work and chopping. It is basically a French version of minestrone, so we prepped a lot of different vegetables and aromatics. Once our soup got going, we made an awesome pesto sauce to top the soup with. We made this sauce to taste by blending fresh basil, parmesan cheese, lightly toasted pinenuts, and garlic. While these ingredients were pureeing, we streamed in extra virgin olive oil. After adding more cheese, pine nuts, salt, and pepper, this pesto was perfect! It was the perfect topping to our soup.

We also changed the recipe of our soup a bit by adding tomato puree. This added a nice sweetness and made the broth my hearty. We also added some torn basil for a bit of freshness. The end result was perfect. Chef complimented us on our soup and even said it was one of the best minestrone soups he's tasted... I'll take it!

Matty and Allison made a Crisp Paupiette of Sea Bass with Red Wine Sauce. It was a beautiful presentation and a very delectable dish. The sea bass was coated with paper-thin slices of potatoes and sauteed until the outer layer of potatoes were crispy:

Rob and Nora made the Baby Chicken and Squash Casserole with Rosemary. They also dried some tomatoes and used it as a garnish. This was another wonderful dish!

The other groups made some other impressive dishes. My favorite was the Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Sage Croutons:

Obviously, I also loved the Lobster Ravioli on Spinach Leaves in a Ginger Cream Sauce:

Lamb Chops with Lemon -Pignoli Crust and Oven Roasted Vegetables:

Billi-Bi Cressonniere (Vegetable cream soup with mussels):

Maine Sea Scallops in Black Tie (Layers of scallops and black truffles in puff pastry):
Creamy Rabbit Casserole with Nine Spring Herbs:
After making these recipes, I am dying to go to Daniel Boulud's restaurant (appropriately named "Daniel") in NYC.

I was kind of bummed because Chef asked the class if we would want to skip Thomas Keller's recipes tomorrow and have a class of knife skills. Most of the class said they wanted the knife skills lesson. The recipes for tomorrow looked sooo good. Oh well, at least I'll get some much needed practice. Chef said that we can make some of the recipes, although we will spend most of the class on knife skills. At least tomorrow's FRIDAY!!!!

Modern Culinary Masters-- Rick Bayless

Rick Bayless, you are a genius. I enjoyed the food today more than any other day. Obviously, the theme was "Mexican", a cuisine that I am not very comfortable cooking. I'm not talking about the tacos and fajitas you get at your local Mexican restaurant on 99 cent margarita night. I'm talking REAL Mexican. I love how all of the ingredients that we used were very cheap, but had a lot of flavor and were stretched out because of the fillers or toppers.

Kim and I were paired up to work on the Chilied Chicken Steamed with Avacodo Leaves. Chef changed the recipe considerably, so we ended up searing and baking the chicken in the marinade instead of steaming it. The avocado leaves were similar to dried bay leaves, so we simply wrapped them in cheesecloth and added them to the marinade to add some extra earthiness and flavor.

I worked on the marinade while Kim seared off the bone-in, skin-on chicken breast (keeping the bone in and the skin on keeps the chicken moist and flavorful). I toasted and rehydrated some dried guajilos chiles (very spicy!). I also toasted some other spices and ground them up in a spice grinder. I blended up the spices, chiles, onion, garlic, cider vinegar, and water. Next, I sauteed the mixture with some canola oil in a skillet until it thickened to the consistency tomato paste. We spread the mixture over the chicken and let it marinate before we put it in the oven to finish cooking. Here was our finished product that we plated with some red tomato rice that every group had to prepare.
Once our chicken was marinating and ready for the oven, I started helping out with other tasks that needed to get done in our group. I helped Matt and Allison prepare the gorditas for the Bacon-Flavored Gorditas Corn Masa Pockets with Roasted Poblano Guacamole:


Next, I helped assemble the chicken tamales with Kim, Henry, and Nora. These were my favorite!!!!Nora and Rob prepared this delicious chicken in Oaxacan yellow mole with green beans and chayote. I tried chayote for the first time today. Chef told us it is similar to an apple, but it's a vegetable. I would describe the taste as a cross between a cucumber and jicama. It was very fresh tasting, with little flavor. It went well with this flavorful sauce!
Here is the Red Tomato Rice prepared by another group (every group prepared this same recipes, but they all looked different.. our group eliminated peas because one team member is allergic)
Here are the rest of the recipes prepared by the other teams. Like I said, everything was incredible!!

(Crispy Potato Sopes with Salsa, Goat Cheese, and Herb Salad)

(Chicken in Green Pumpkin Seed Sauce)
(Classic Shredded Beef & Tomatoes served with Corn Masa Pockets)

(Slow-Cooked Achiote Chicken)

(Classic Red Mole with Turkey)

Tomorrow I am group leader, so I definitely have to be on my game! The next couple of days are only going to get harder, but I'm excited for the challenge!

Lesson 93: Contemporary Modern Chefs--Mario Batali

Goodbye pastry, hello Mod 5!! We were back to cooking today and I realized just how much I missed it. I love pastry, mostly due to our amazing chef-instructor, but my passion truly is cooking.

We were instructed to arrive to school at 12:30 and were put right to work as soon as we entered the kitchen. Chef Chris means business and clearly instructed us as to how he wants the kitchen to run. I have never seen our class act so disciplined as we did today. We are always really good at cleaning up and attending to the chef's demands, but today was on a whole new level. "Yes Chef!" was being screamed by one or all of the students in response to Chef Chris's comments, demands and questions throughout the afternoon.

I know that the next 3 weeks will be extremely challenging, yet also rewarding and exciting. Chef Chris will whip our butts into shape and transform us into real chefs that are prepared for whatever comes our way. He will also help us make our graduation day successful and unforgettable.

Once we set up the kitchen and went over the recipes for the day, each table was ready to tackle Mario Batali's recipes. Every day this week we are preparing recipes from Master Chefs. Chef Chris instructed how to best approach each recipe and made some necessary changes to make the final product tasty and presentable.

My first task during prepping was to clean monkfish. Not the most glamorous job, but it was challenging for me and I'm glad I got through it. Monkfish is a really ugly fish that has silverskin and is shaped like a beef tenderloin. It's difficult to get that layer of skin off plus all of the red chunks, while keeping the fish as neat as possible. I cut the fish into appropriate sized peices for our dish and reserved it until we were ready to start cooking.

For the rest of class, I helped prep the other dishes that my team was working on. I also prepared the sauce that went with the Monkfish. The sauce contained white wine, lemon juice, tumeric, lemon segments, preserved lemons, and caperberries. The result was a very sour sauce. Chef knew that this result was likely to happen, as the sauce is supposed to be sour (but definitely not that sour). I mellowed out the sourness a bit by adding butter (of course) and some chicken stock. The sauce went very well with the mild, white fish. Here is our final plating of the monkfish, along with the 2 other dishes my group prepared:

(Monkfish Piccata with Caperberries and Preserved Lemons)

(Two Minute Calamari Sicilian Lifeguard Style: Sauteed calamari in a spicy tomato sauce with Israeli cous cous-- My favorite dish of the day!)

(Brussel Sprouts with Pancetta)

These are the rest of the items that the other 2 teams prepared. Everything was delicious!
(Mint & Parsley Fettuccini with a Lamb and Olive Ragu)

(Sauteed Skate and Shrimp in a Saffron Sweet Clam Citronette)

(Scallion Barlotto-- A barley risotto with a scallion & parsley puree)

(Spinach & Goat Cheese Gnocchi with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Pine Nuts, and Lemon)

(Fennel-Dusted Sweetbreads with Bacon & Onions-- My 3rd time eating sweetbreads... and I loved it!)

(Roasted Beet Farrotto -- I love beets..and farro. This was an amazing dish.. Plus it's pink!)

It was a great first day back to cooking. Every day is going to get harder and harder as we tackle more difficult recipes and start creating our own ideas while experimenting with different ingredients!