Today was a day that many in culinary school have been looking forward to. The recipes weren't particularly challenging (sort of), but who doesn't like hamburgers and steaks?

Beef.

We started the day with a fabrication demo (by Chef Instructor Alexx Guevara) of the forequarter of a cow, which had already been divided into primals. Honestly, the forequarter is not particularly interesting. Most of the cuts are fairly tough and there are few steaks to be had. Still, it's beef. Chuck, flank, osso buco and other very useful subprimals come from this part of cow. They may not be glamorous cuts but, if cooked properly, can be quite excellent.

After watching the demo of fabrication, I have much greater respect for butchers. Properly cutting meat is not easy or simple. Following the demo it also comes as no surprise that many butchers are big, strong guys. I also think that anyone who is a meat eater ought to get a good fabrication lesson. You'll not only learn respect for the butchers, but for the animal itself.

Following the demo, the class broke up into teams. One team handled the making of french fries and steak fries, another team prepped all the fixins for the burgers (slicing tomatoes, onions, etc.), and another team finished fabricating the front quarter of the cow. I was lucky. I got assigned to the final team, which worked on getting all of the chuck subprimal and turning it into hamburger.

Again, mucho respect for those who do this on a daily basis. Removing the fat and silverskin from an entire primal is no easy task. Grinding was pretty straightforward, as was shaping the patties, but you learn an awful lot just by actually having to cut the primal.

Once everything was prepped, production was pretty straightforward. We had to produce two ribeye steaks and two hamburgers, each cooked to the proper doneness. Sides were steak fries and french fries, which had already been parcooked and needed only a finishing fry at high temperature. Simple, right?

Well, sort of. Getting doneness for meat right is not as easy as it sounds. You can watch the meat carefully, of course, and use your thermometer to monitor the temperature, but even then you can overshoot or undershoot. What it really takes is experience to be able to tell the doneness of meat through touch and sight.

Anyone can grill a steak reasonably well at home, but to hit the right doneness mark each and everytime is what separates the good, the bad, and the ugly. Guess I'll just have to do a lot of practice at home.

In the end, I must admit it was quite satisfying to eat a nicely grilled burger that I had taken straight from the primal.