It's Alive

I've been getting a sourdough starter underway for the last two weeks. Nancy Silverton of La Brea Bakery fame has a chapter in one of her cookbooks on this process which uses grapes, flour and water to create a starter. After ten days, the starter gets fed three times per day with a total of 38.5 ounces of flour plus seven cups of water. The last feeding results in a nearly full container that weighs about seven pounds. Each day starts with discarding all but two cups of the starter before the feeding process starts anew. After four days of these feedings the starter is supposed to be ready for use.

This morning (day 14) instead of throwing out the usual amount of starter before the first feeding, I poured off some and made pancake batter. The recipe called for starter, eggs, oil, maple syrup and some salt, baking powder and baking soda. Ever hopeful, I mixed the ingredients together and ladled some into a pan. Apparently the starter is alive and well as witnessed by the mass of bubbles in the batter as the pancake cooked.

I'm getting close to making some bread dough - maybe tomorrow I'll begin the two day process of baking some bread. However, I've already gone through a number of 5-lb. bags of bread flour creating this starter so I think I may head out to Sam's Club and purchase a 40-lb. bag of bread flour . . .

Salty Oatmeal Cookies

One of my favorite foods is a salty oatmeal cookie which my mom used to bake. However, she hasn't made them in years and I've never bothered to make them even though we had a recipe for them.

I finally decided to make them and I even searched the internet for similar recipes. Mom had changed her recipe by substituting shortening for butter so when I finally made these wonderful cookies, I used unsalted butter. I also refrigerated the dough to firm it up before I baked the cookies. The first batch was sort of bland; I guessed that using kosher salt instead of table salt was the reason (even though additional salt is sprinkled on top of the cookie before baking).

My second attempt I thought was better. I used table salt in the cookies and also added a small amount (1/2 tsp) of cinnamon. I might try using a small scoop next time to get a more uniform size cookie . . .

I really like these cookies!!

Happy in the Kitchen

We are on break now, between quarters. I have accumulated a few new cookbooks along the way since starting school. Curiously enough, I haven't added as many as I would have thought but I really like the collections that are more like a text book, i.e., ones that contain both commentary and photos.

When I started cooking, one of the first cookbooks I used was The Joy of Cooking. My copy is a paperback and it is falling apart. This edition (older than a lot of my classmates) explains some things but, other than a few illustrations, it has no photos. It was my cooking reference for years.

I ended up with two books from our Protein Fabrication class, Lobel's Meat Bible and James Peterson's Fish & Shellfish as part of our reading assignments. Lobel's provides a fair amount of information on a variety of meats but could benefit from some illustrations such as diagrams on primals. The Peterson book is well written and provides a lot of information on cooking techniques which I believe could be another whole level of instruction at school.

All this is leading to some recent acquisitions, one by chance (Momofuku) and the other (Happy in the Kitchen) recommended by my knowledgeable friend, Nichole.

Momofuku is David Chang's New York restaurant group and the book by the same name chronicles the evolution of his noodle bar as well as provides instruction on how to create some of the dishes served at the restaurant. It contains a variety of interesting photos along with the commentary. Curiously enough, we are planning to visit some friends who live near the CIA in upstate New York and they recommended (out of the blue) visiting Momofuku.

Nichole recommended Michel Richard's Happy in the Kitchen last month and I finally got around to getting a copy of it. It typifies exactly what I like in a "cook book" – some history in its commentary, great photos wrapped around some new techniques. The foreword by Thomas Keller echoes what I have learned in school, "Pastry chefs and savory chefs rely on a completely different set of skills and use their intellects in different ways. Pastry chefs are like mathematicians. Savory chefs, we're like free thinkers. . ." which helps explain why I'm neither so to speak.

Last class for Soups and Sauces

We concluded our final lab for our Thursday class with a straight forward assignment - cook something with whatever was in the refrigerator - as long it had an integral sauce. Our proteins were steaks and chicken; we had the usual suspects in terms of vegetables and stocks. I started with some thinly sliced potatoes which became Pommes Anna in a small Teflon pan. After the first side browned up, I successfully flipped it over and put it into the oven to finish. Next I chose a split chicken breast which I lightly floured and sauted in some oil. It then went into the oven to finish. I started my sauce by deglazing the pan with some shallots and some white wine (actually too much white wine). Then I added chicken stock and started a reduction. Well, too much wine translates into a very sweet sauce (you would think by now I would have figured this out). I started getting concerned that my efforts at a reduction would not turn out but it did as the sweet liquid slowly but surely turned into a sauce. I also sauted some broccoli while this sauce was forming - I used some extra chicken stock on the broccoli to help it along as well. My sauce actually shaped up quite nicely going from a light tan liquid to a nice brown pan sauce. My lack of multitasking skills caught up with me as the sauce became too thick while I messing around with the broccoli so I had to add some more stock to the pan.

Long story short - I got my ingredients plated and in from of chef in a timely manner. He thought the plate looked good. I used the potatoes with a wedge removed, filled that spot with some broccoli and cut about half of the chicken into some slices. The uncut portion went on top of the potatoes and the slices were placed on that piece of chicken. My sauce then went on the slices. Nothing too fancy but (for me) decently executed.

Overall, this class exposed us to a lot of concepts in a short amount of time - I wish in some respects that the amount of time could have been at least doubled. Chef pointed out that true sauce artists spend their whole careers perfecting their craft - we had ten weeks . . .

The Aftermath of Practicals

In my January 17 post I mentioned something about washing dishes - part of the glamor of attending culinary school. Today we had our practicals for Veg, Starch & Protein Cookery. I'm not sure why one plate and a dessert would generate so many dishes - but it did. This picture only gives a glimpse of the accumulated bowls, pans and other equipment required for today's test. Anna worked at the dish washing station for an extended period before this picture was taken (so did I and I have dish pan hands to prove it) and a number of other people were concurrently washing dishes at other sinks - cleanup was longer today than any other class all quarter . . . we even had so many dishes piled up that we expanded into a work area next to the sinks (no, Jonah did not create that mess by himself!)

My own plate had some issues and chef gently pointed out its failures as well as suggested a number of alternatives to my choosen ingredients and the way I presented them. He liked my dessert (a Blueberry Mango Crisp with cinnamon dusted vanilla ice cream) so my practical ended up on a positive note (chef finished my dessert - a true compliment).

This was our last lab for this class and a special thanks to Jennifer (our Lab Assistant) who scrounged up some blueberries for me after I discovered that I had left mine at home.

Infused (and confused?)

Our current assignment for Soups and Sauces was to create an infused oil. I just happened to have some grapeseed oil in the pantry - however its age was unknown (most likely several years old) although it had never been opened.

I was surprised at the color of the oil, I thought it would be clear like canola. I also thought its taste would be very bland, it wasn't, and in spite of its color it was not as fruity as olive oil. After some thought about garlic and roasted garlic infusions, I finally decided on simply using a dry Italian herb mix that consisted of oregano, basil, marjoram, thyme and cracked rosemary. I heated one cup of the grapeseed oil to 150 degrees F and dumped about one and a half tablespoons of the herb mix into the warm oil. After a few days, I strained the oil and did some taste tests of my infused oil with some plain bread. I also tried adding some freshly grated parmesan cheese, black pepper and some more of the herb mix on a plate.

My initial tasting left me with two impressions, either the amount of time was too short for the infusion and/or the amount of dried herbs needs to be significantly increased. On to plan B.

Goodbye old friend

At about 8:25 AM, my Waring Model 11CM10 lost one of its blades while grinding some coffee beans. This little machine was probably older than most of my classmates as it has been around for a long time. It will be missed at least until I get a replacement later today.

My friend Mary points out that "You might be a foodie if . . .

you fill your bath tub up with carp and whitefish to make your own gefilte fish for Passover."

You might be a foodie if

I have asked a number of people to describe a "foodie" and I think I will start adding their comments at the end of each post.

For example, Nichole suggests, "You might be a foodie if . . .

you have cooked anything with a foil wrapped brick.

the employees at Sur La Table, Penzeys Spices and Whole Foods ask YOU how to use their products.

you have 3 kinds of yeast in your refrigerator and 11 varieties of vinegar in your cupboard.

you actually prefer getting a blender for anniversary - provided its a Vita-Mix Pro 500.

you have taken your "Food Lover's Companion" to the beach.

you have tried to smuggle a beginning-to-smell raw milk cheese through U.S. customs.

if you plot lunch at breakfast, dinner at lunch and dream about breakfast!"

The practical plan

I think fruit may showing up as a salad item and incorporated in some sort of "unconventional" fruit crisp for dessert. The dessert will need to bake and cool a bit so it will probably be the first item in the work queue. However, I'm still searching for an appropriate dressing for a composed fruit salad. This part of the plan is still a bit uncertain.

Looks like my experiments with roasting roma tomatoes are going to lead toward a barley risotto with roasted tomatoes. I ran across a little video on Eatdrinkordie.com starring Top Chef's Tom Colicchio which led to the idea of roasted tomato barley risotto. I like the flavor profile, the color added by the roasted tomatoes as well as the subtle overtones from the garlic is which roasted along with the tomatoes.

I'll probably use an apple cider marinade on the pork while the tomatoes roast and the dessert bakes although that time span may not allow much flavor infusion from the marinade. I think I'll probably pan sear the whole piece of pork and let it finish in the oven while the rest of the menu is completed. When it comes out and is resting, I have some left over Australian syrah and/or a Washington state cabernet blend to reduce as a pan sauce

My braising efforts with Belgian endive have produced somewhat uneven results as it is a bit delicate when braised. As things currently stand, I think braised fennel will most likely make the plate along side of the barley risotto.

Creative Avoidance

Chef gave us an outline for our Practical in two weeks with an assignment for developing our plate based on the outline. So another series of trips to the grocery stores has yielded some Belgian endive and fennel to braise, another pommelo to test plus some Roma tomatoes to roast. I'm currently inclined to choose sea bass as my protein but I would like to find some fillets for experiments before I get too far along in this process.

Meanwhile, I continue to find creative ways which are helping me to avoid dealing with this next challenge in a couple weeks. For example, a new dish for me (Lasagne Bolognese with Spinach) should be coming out of the oven in about 20 minutes. We had a Foundation class share its bolognese sauce a couple of weeks ago during lab. That experience brought back some memories of my own Foundation class and has been in the back of my mind to find another way to use that sauce. So while I researching ideas for our Practical I ran across this recipe. The dish has a small amount of tomato paste in it but no other forms of tomatoes. Thus it is not as "saucy" as most lasagnas and its texture is also a little different. (My food critic thought it had good flavor but guessed that it would be a little dry when reheated.)

I also uploaded Turbo Tax this afternoon and did a quick run through of my 2009 taxes. What does that have to do with culinary school?? The American Opportunity Credit for 2009 (and 2010) is a tax credit for undergraduate college expenses. What a great deal for the culinary students at Metro!