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!!!!

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 62: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Has anyone seen that movie, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"?? I haven't (and have absolutely no desire to), but it made for a good title for today's post, eh? On this cloudy, rainy, dreary day, what better thing to make than meatballs?!

The day's recipes were from the Northeast region of Italy. Our groups divided up the recipes like usual and I immediately got to work on my meatballs ("Polpette Fritte"). These were not your traditional meatballs, which is why I was very intrigued and excited to try them out. It started out with a mix of ground beef, pork, and veal. I soaked some white bread in milk and crumbled the bread into the meat. I also added minced garlic, grated parmesan, eggs, chopped parsley, pine nuts, and raisins. My mom told me that her grandmother used to put raisins and pine nuts into her meatballs, so I loved trying this out. It was actually very good.. I may just have to add these ingredients to meatballs from now on..

I formed the meatballs and coated them in egg and breadcrumbs and pan-fried them in olive oil.

While we were all getting started on our recipes, one person from each group worked on the Antipasto to serve earlier on in class. Henri made our Frico con Patate e Cipolle:

This is essentially onions, potatoes, and lots of cheese! See that brown outer crust? That's pure cheese. (ooey, gooey delicioius cheese that is!) Kim described the dish well saying that it's like a grilled cheese sandwhich when the cheese oozes out and forms a crust on the pan that you pull off and eat (the best part). This was one fabulous (and filling) first course. It definitely gave us energy to finish off the rest of the dishes.

Kim, Henri, and I started working on the Fritto Misto di Mare (fried mixed seafood). I cleaned the squid while Kim filleted the sole and Henri de-veined the prawns. We left the shells and heads on the prawns, since they are meant to be eaten whole. I honestly did not try it because it freaked me out a bit... but I gave it to my brother so we'll see how he reacts.. heh.

Here's the fritto misto all fried up!

Other dishes of the day ingluded Fagiolini con L'Orore di Vaniglia (Haricots Vert with a shallot, parsley, celery mixture, all sauteed in chicken stock and tomato puree). This bean dish was finished with a touch of vanilla extract..interesante!

Zucchini in Scapece (Zuchini fried and served with a drizzle of white wine vinegar and a sprinkle of fresh mint):

Kim made this polenta dish, which was my absolute favorite! Polenta con Sugo di Porri (Soft polenta topped with an Italian sausage and leek ragu):
Nora made this extra dish, which I looooved. It's basically like the gnocchi we made last week, except with a variety of fresh herbs. I loved the fresh flavor of all herbs (especially the mint). She served it with a browned butter sauce:

There was one more dish today that I didn't get a picture of!!!! Minestrone Milanese! Maybe I didn't take a picture because I tasted it and it burnt my tongue so bad. I was probably avoiding it the rest of the afternoon. I'm sure it tasted great (couldn't tell because it burnt off my taste buds). I brought some home though so I'll be sure to have some tomorrow!

Oi, I'm exhausted! To bed early tonight!

Practical Exam & Restaurant Review

I entered class on Friday anxious and excited to complete the practical exam for module 1.  I kept going through the steps of making cream of broccoli soup and mayonnaise in my head over and over.  I even practiced my medium dice before I left my house and practiced 2 mayonnaise recipes on Thursday.  As a few of us entered class a little early, we began prepping the kitchen for our exam.  

We each drew a number from a bowl to determine the order we would be entering the kitchen (every five minutes somebody else could start--so there is some sort of order and everybody wouldn't finish at the same time).  I prayed that I wouldn't be last to enter the kitchen and that I would be in the top 5 to start.  I really lucked out and drew #1!!  I was sooo happy and had a 5 minute head start alone in the kitchen.  I immediately started making my veloute sauce because I knew it had to simmer for a half hour.  Then I began chopping my vegetables for the soup as more students gradually entered the kitchen.  Everything was going smoothly until I walked away from my cooking vegetables to get a strainer for my veloute.  I came back and saw that my onions browned.  Chef Allen specifically told us not to brown the onions because the caramelized flavor will overpower the broccoli.  I was bummed that I made this silly mistake and then I was flustered because I didn't know how to fix it.  

Not only did I not have the time to re-chop all my vegetables, but I knew there would not be enough broccoli stems since the recipe calls for 12 oz!  I washed another pot and tried to pick out some of the really browned onions and put the rest in a fresh pot with more butter.  I continued to cook my remaining vegetables over low heat while I kept a close eye on them!  I went through the rest of the motions-- strained my veloute, added it to the pot with chicken stock and brought it to a simmer.  While the soup simmered away I blanched my broccoli florets.  I pureed my soup + blanched florets, put it through a food mill and strained it.  In the meantime, I medium-diced my potatoes and made my mayonnaise.  I tasted my mayonnaise and couldn't tell if it was salty or lemony...or both?!  So, I added more salt to be on the safe side (for Chef Allen you can never add too much salt) to try and rid of the acidity.  Finally, it was time to present my finished products!

I ended up getting a 97.. not bad, but being the perfectionist that I am, I kept thinking how I messed up my vegetables and thinking about how I could've made that 97 a 100.  Since I was one of the first to finish, I spent the remainder of class cleaning up the kitchen and helping out with the overload of dishes in the sink.  We said our final goodbyes to Chef Allen (I'm going to miss him!!!) and left the kitchen wondering who is going to be our Chef instructor on Monday and what Module 2 will bring us.

Last night my family revisited a favorite restaurant located in Ocean Grove, Bia's (located in the Majestic Hotel).  We went to Bia's a lot in the summer because of its lovely atmosphere on the porch overlooking the ocean.  The last time we were there in August, I actually met the Chef because I was just beginning to consider going to culinary school.  He was a really nice guy, but scared me a little talking about his lack of a social life and all the hard work it takes to becoming a chef.  I still knew that I wanted to pursue my passion and knew that I wanted to work hard to do what I love.

In the past, my favorite dishes at Bia's were the vanilla-infused barbecue chicken with a delicious cornbread pudding and the crab cakes with a sundried tomato aioli.  I was kind of bummed to see a new menu when we arrived last night, but knew it would still be very good if Chris was still the chef.  To start our meal, we each received 2 thin slices of baguette with a dollop of soft whipped butter and a drizzle of olive oil.  For appetizers, my mom and I split a salad with mixed greens, walnuts, dried cranberries, blue cheese, and a pumpkin vinaigerette.  The dressing was excellent, but my mom and I agreed that the walnuts had a weird taste, like they were stale.  My brother had the crab & artichoke dip with toasted baguette (when he read the menu, he asked me what a "bag-wet" is.... oh boy).  I had a taste and it was very good!  My dad had the tomato bisque and really enjoyed it, but it was a large portion and was very heavy so he was kind of full before we even had our main dishes.

For my dinner, I had the curried chicken with mixed vegetables, pita, and jasmine rice.  The menu said it was made with pulled chicken, but the chicken was cut into little chunks.  It was still very good though and nice and juicy.  The sauce was really tasty!  I thought curry would be a tad spicy and it wasn't at all (I like spice, so it could've used a touch of cayenne).. The mixed vegetables were excellent and even contained sundried tomatoes, which isn't very traditional for a curry dish but I loved the texture and sweetness it brought to it.  The rice was soo moist and sticky, just how I like it.  The dish could've done without the pita.. it just got soggy under all the sauce.

My mom had grilled salmon with a tarragon reduction and wild rice.  It was just okay..  I'm not a huge fan of salmon so I didn't like it, and my mom wasn't crazy about it.  The sauce didn't have a ton of flavor.  My brother ordered the crab cakes, which were awesome as usual.  Instead of the sundried tomato aioli and jicama slaw it used to come with, it came with old bay mashed potatoes (which I didn't care for-- I like old bay, but not on potatoes) and a cervil aioli (not as much flavor as the sundried tomato).  My dad had the fresh spinach fettuccini with a short rib ragu.  I thought it was delicious, especially with the huge dollop of ricotta on top (I love ricotta!)  

Overall, our dining experience was not as good as in the past (especially because it was too cold to sit on the nice balcony!) but it was still an enjoyable dinner.  The restaurant is byo, so we brought 2 bottles of Copolla Director's Cut (1 cab and 1 zin), which we really enjoyed with our meal. 

My mom and I are spending the day Christmas shopping and then cooking dinner together.  We love nights that are just the two of us because we can experiment with new meals (my dad and brother are going to the Giants game).  I'll post pictures and a recipe of what we decide to make tonight!

Lesson 21: Written Exam; Lobster Bisque

Today was the final written exam for Module 1.. Yes, we are already done with 1/5 of the culinary arts program!  Crazy, huh?   After dominating the test (the study guide we were given was extremely helpful!!) we spent the remaining 3 hours of class making more delicious soups.  As shown above, one soup contained LOBSTER.. so I killed the second lobster in my life :(  .  It is kind of sad throwing a live lobster into a pot of boiling water, but the lobster bisque was SOOO SOOO SOO SOOOOOOOOO good!  No exaggeration.  I brought a tiny bit home so that my dad could try it and I know he's going to love it! (He's brining it into work for lunch tomorrow!)   Here's a picture of the creamy bisque simmering on the stove:

And Asli about to present her bowl to Chef Allen:

This is the bowl that my group presented:

It is the most satisfying feeling to plate a dish, garnish it, and present it with pride.  We knew it tasted delicious and we made it look beautiful!  

Also on today's recipe agenda was onion soup.  This soup was fairly simple to make and just involved a ton of onions (we also threw in some leeks) and white veal stock.  The onion soup was seriously the best I've ever tasted.  It wasn't too heavy and onion-y, but had great flavor and was sweet, but not too sweet (hard to explain, but trust me it was fantastic!).  We broiled croutes with gruyere to top on the finished, hot soup and it was perfection!  Chef Allen gave the best impression of someone eating hot, gooey french onion soup, with stringy cheese burning your mouth, big globs of bread that are hard to eat, and long strands of onions spilling on your prada outfit.  Soo true when you eat that soup, right?! (Well, except for the prada outfit part..) He told us that wouldn't happen with the soups we were going to plate, but I definitely still burnt my mouth from gobbling up the hot cheesy bread too quickly!

I had every intention of saving the rest of my soup to bring home for my dad to try since he loves french onion soup... but I couldn't resist finishing my bowl (sorry dad!)

We also made gazpacho today, which was definitely the easiest of the soups since it is basically just chopped up veggies served cold.  We pureed half of the soup instead of the whole soup so there were still nice chunks of fresh vegetables.  I personally liked it not pureed at all since the flavor was so wonderful and I loved the salsa-like texture of the mixture.  I enjoyed making the gazpacho because it didn't involve much measurement.  We just chopped up some cucumbers, tomato concasse, peppers, jalapenos, and green onions.  We mixed them up with some tomato juice, salt, pepper, sugar, and chopped cilantro.  The flavors extract more as it sits, so it is best the day after you make it.... but my mom and I already ate the rest of the soup that I brought home so we wouldn't kno :/    

Tomorrow's my practical exam and then I am officially done with Module 1!  

Lesson 20: Soups on a rainy day

This morning I woke up to HORRIBLE weather!  Dark, rainy, and windy!  What better way to warm up than some warm oatmeal?!  Oatmeal is one of my favorite foods and I have it almost every day for breakfast.  Most people top their oatmeal with healthy supplements, like granola, almond butter, or fresh fruit.  However, I top my oatmeal with WHIPPED CREAM!  I used to just use plain ol' reddi-whip..but I recently discovered that fresh whipped cream is the best on oatmeal because it slowly melts and makes it super creamy!  Seriously, I am obsessed with this breakfast. Sometimes I try and switch it up and have a muffin, but nothing satisfies me like oats and cream!

After some oats and pumpkin coffee I slipped on my rainboots (which were totally necessary this morning) and headed on my way to NYC.  Today's lesson was soo appropriate for the cold, nasty weather-- SOUPS!  After Chef Allen's lecture, each group prepared the day's recipes: Chicken consomme, cream of broccoli soup, and puree of carrot soup.  

I've never heard of consomme before I came to culinary school...and it is the weirdest soup I have ever encountered!  I reviewed the recipe before class and was really confused with all the talk about "rafts" and "chimneys".  Apparantly, we had to wait for a raft to form and then form a chimney?  Uhhhhhhhh?

It became a little more clear once we were able to make the soup for ourselves.  Consomme is basically a clarification of stock and a lean protein.  We whipped egg whites with mirepoix, egg whites, and tomato concasse and added in the chicken stock.  After heating the mixture over moderate heat, the proteins form on the top of the pan, forming a "raft" (aha!).. The "chimney" we had to make involved basically spooning a hole in the middle of the protein mixture to allow steam to vent through.  2 hours later, after straining the mixture and disposing of the weird globs of chicken & egg, we had a clear consomme!  I learned today that consomme is meant to eat/sip in small amounts as a palate cleanser or before a meal to stimulate your appetite and ease your stomach.  Very high class ;)

While our consomme was cooking away, our groups each made the broccoli and carrot soups.  I have to make the broccoli soup on Friday for my practical exam!  It's not your typical broccoli recipe, either..definitely more involved with lots of steps.  The result was a very smooth, thin (yet creamy), tasty soup!  I'm so used to thick broccoli soups with globs of cheddar.  In this soup, you can actually taste the broccoli flavor, which was very refreshing and enjoyable.

Our carrot ginger puree soup also turned out very tasty.  It had a very strong ginger taste, but was also sweet, creamy, and flavorful!

I was supposed to stay after school today and go to the Marcus Samuelson demo, but I actually decided to skip it.  I was extremely tired because I didn't sleep well last night, and I was stressing out a bit because I wouldn't get home until after 11 and still had to study for tomorrow's test.  It stinks knowing I have a long commute home.. especially late at night when the trains don't run as frequently :/   Well, I'll have to find out how it was from other students in my class!  Time for the Top Chef finale then bed!!  (I hope Kevin wins!!)

Lesson 9: Shellfish!

Today was a verrrry interesting day!  The day started out as usual with an hour of chopping tons of veggies for our mirepoix.  Here's a pic of a HUGE onion I had to chop up!

Chef lectured and demonstrated how to clean and fabricate a variety of shellfish, including clams, shrimp, mussels, oysters, scallops, and LOBSTER.  Most people in the class got a squeamish look when Chef showed us how to stab the lobster, slice down the head and again down the tail.  It was finally time to grab a lobster and try it out for myself.. Here's a picture of my poor lobster on my cooking board:

Chef showed us how to calm down a lobster by petting its back... so I did this for a good 5 minutes before chopping it open.  After mentally preparing myself, I finally did it... and kept frantically asking the people around me if I was doing it right.  I knew that if you didn't do it quick enough, the lobster was suffering so I wanted to make sure I killed it right away!  I didn't want to hurt the poor thing :(     I continued fabricating the lobster by taking out the roe and the liver..while doing so, the legs were still moving!  Naturally, I screamed "ahh its moving!!!!!"..but was reassured by the rest of the group that it was dead and everything was going to be okay! I twisted the claws off and threw the head into the stock pot for our shellfish stock!  After that, i prepared the calamari by taking a squid and basically pulling it apart and de-gutting it to get the nice rings and tiny tentacles at the bottom of the squid.  This was reserved for the seafood chowder.  Next, I peeled and de-veined the shrimp, which was a peice-a-cake... I've done this before, plus they were dead and didn't have any guts :)

We spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning and shucking clams and oysters.  After the lobster was cooked, Chef demonstrated how to crack the lobster claws in the correct places to get all of the meat out for our chowder.  After the stock was strained, our huge 3 pots of seafood chowder was made.  All of our vegetables were added to the pan to sweat, then our stock was added, along with all of the seafood we prepared.  While we were waiting for our chowder to cook, we had some oysters and clam on the half shell.  Yes, it was my first time trying this.. I have to admit, I don't know what the big fuss is about this.. just tasted slimy and had no real flavor.  I'm guessing it is an acquired taste that i have yet to acquire ;)  

Finally our chowder was ready to eat!  This is "million dollar chowder" because there is sooo much fresh seafood in it.  The meat of 17 lobsters, shrimp, oysters, clams, mussels, and calamari!  It was one delicious soup!  So flavorful and creamy!  I brought a large container home.. I knew my dad and brother would love it!  My poor brother didn't get any though because my dad ate it!  He enjoyed it a lot and admitted that you can't get soup like that anywhere. I think my dad's exact words were "Take a picture of me eating the soup!!!  I want to be in your blog!!!"  So here ya go, dad! (love you)