About this Author
Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual property, and First Amendment issues. Mr. Miller attended the U.S. Naval Academy before attending Yale Law School, where he was president and co-founder of the Law and Technology Society, and founded the technology law and policy news site LawMeme. He is a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Ernest Miller's blog postings can also be found @
Copyfight
LawMeme
Listen to the weekly audio edition on IT Conversations:
The Importance Of ... Law and IT.
Feel free to contact me about articles, websites and etc. you think I may find of interest. I'm also available for consulting work and speaking engagements. Email: ernest.miller 8T gmail.com
|
Category Archives
April 23, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
As I mentioned before (Kitchen Academy - Course II - Day 22), I missed this day in class and had to rush my dishes to make it up. Sort of sad, since I really liked today's dishes and would have preferred not to rush them: fried calamari with cocktail sauce (which I didn't get a chance to make) and Fish and Chips with Tartar Sauce and Malt Vinegar.
Of course, to make fish and chips, you first need a fish. Ours was lingcod. Another ugly fish that was fairly easy to fillet (though there is a trick or two to trimming the edible parts of the fillet). It certainly makes wonderfully shaped portions for fish and chips (not to mention it is quite tasty). Luckily, I got an entire fish to myself, as my first batch of beer-battered deep fried fish had a serious problem.
When I put the battered fish into the deep fryer they immediately sank to the bottom and then stuck to the fry basket. When I tried to free them, the batter tore off and they were in no shape to present. Ooops. Back to the fish and trimming the other fillet ... also had to use the 1/2 bottle of beer I had left to make more batter (damn). The trick here is to lower the fish into the frying oil slowly so that the batter starts to crisp up and provide some buoyancy before you let the fish go entirely to finish frying.
Well, that's it for this day's cooking. I was just happy to move on to the rest of my production for day 24.
Comments (3)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
Well, I actually missed this day and the next due to a previous engagement. However, that doesn't mean I missed the cooking experience. If you make plans ahead of time, you can make up classes in consultation with your chef instructor. Otherwise, you'll get a zero, which can be a major hit on your grade.
To make up this class and the next I had to come in an hour earlier (5am) and get cooking right away. I was really rushed and the focus was on the main dishes, not the side dishes (some of which I simply didn't make). I was given a station all to myself so that I would have enough burners and space to deal with the multiple days of cooking I had to accomplish in a single day.
Day 22 is devoted to Southern Cusine, particularly Creole and Cajun.
My first dish was Crayfish Etouffee on rice. The base for the dish is a very dark roux and trinity (Cajun and Creole mirepoix, aka onion, celery and bell pepper). Problem: there isn't too big a step between a brown roux and a burnt roux. Found that out with my first batch. Darker, darker, burnt. Like I needed to start a dish over again on such a busy day. Oh well.
Although I was able to get a good flavor balance, I had difficulty matching the flavors with the right consistency. Still, it tasted good and the rice came out quite well. I also got busted for garnishing with a very nice looking crayfish head. You aren't supposed to garnish with something that is inedible. Hey, I thought you could suck the heads, but apparently only if you are eating them shell on and not part of a dish.
My second dish was Southern-Fried Catfish. They're ugly and not easy to get ahold of for cleaning and fabrication. I highly recommend a nice cut-resistant glove. Protects your hand, gives you a better grip on the fish. You'll have to wash the glove immediately after, but that is a small price to pay. Nothing particularly difficult about this dish, it's just a straight-up seasoned flour and pan-fry sort of thing. Fresh and straight out of the frying pan, it's pretty tasty.
Well, that was it for this day. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to make shrimp gumbo.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
April 20, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
Today we returned to the world of Asian appetizers. After a day of Chinese dim sum nearly two weeks ago (Kitchen Academy - Course II - Day 13), we produced four different plates from Japan (Miso Soup and Tempura) and the Philippines (Lumpia), as well as China (Spring Rolls).
I'm a fan of miso soup, but I've only made it from an instant paste (just add hot water) in the past. It was a quite nice experience to make it completely from scratch.
The first step was to make the famous and basic Japanese stock, Dashi. Dashi is made with dried bonito flakes - katsuobushi - and seaweed - kombu. One simply brings the kombu to a simmer (do not boil it, or else it will turn slimy) at which point the katsuobushi is added and allowed to steep before straining. Dashi is also used as the basis for the tempura dipping sauce, tentsuyu. I like dashi and plan on experimenting with it some more, using it in place of Western stocks. For example, I think it would be excellent in a seafood risotto.
Making the miso soup was rather simple, after the dashi had been produced. We has a choice of misos to use. There are dozens of different types, but we chose between two of the most common, white miso (shiro miso) and red miso (aka miso). I went with aka miso for the heartier flavor, since our only garnishes were wakame, tofu and green onion.
There isn't much one can do to make a unique presentation of miso soup, so I served my table style, bringing the garnishes in a bowl and serving the soup in front of the chef instructor.
The miso soup was the easy dish. The other dishes required a significant amount of prep, but the main issue was that they were all deep fried. There were a few issues with this. First, there is a dearth of deep fryers at school. Lines formed. Even with the addition of some stove top deep frying stations, it was impossible for everyone to get frying when it was most convenient for them. You had to fry when you had the opportunity (hope you didn't have anything else on the stove at the same time). Second, though you're in a rush, you have to watch the fry temperature. When you fry a great deal of ingredients, the temperature of the oil is going to drop. If you don't allow the oil to come back to the proper temperature before adding more things to the fryer, the ingredients will absorb too much oil and be greasy.
Third, fry and present. Deep fryed foods have a short shelf life. They're nice and crisp right out of the fryer, but a few minutes later they can turn into a soggy, limp mess. Once you did fry something, the rest of your plate had better be ready so that you could present it at once.
Tempura was particularly difficult. Many students tried to save time by making the batter ahead of time, but this results in a very doughy coating. The best thing is to make the batter at the last moment, preferably right by the fryer. Also, the sparkling water should be ice cold and still have its fizz (don't take it out of the bottle until you need it).
Thanks to having to drop stock in the morning, we pushed darned close to the deadline, but the end results were pretty tasty.
 Miso Soup Garnishes (Tofu, Wakame, Green Onions), Before Addition of Soup
 Tempura Plate
 Spring Rolls with Plum Sauce
 Lumpia with Chile Sauce
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
March 20, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
Another Saturday, another day of culinary learning at Kitchen Academy and, a pretty long day at that, but it was definitely worth it.
Continuing a project that started last Saturday (unfortunately I had to miss the first Saturday), Kitchen Academy students prepared recipes so that they could be photographed for an upcoming celebrity charity cookbook: The Hollywood Cookbook: The concept is as simple as it is elegant. Celebrities contribute recipes for a themed meal and within the context of those menus in the book is a discussion of their favorite charity. In addition to this publicity and contact information, each charity also receives a portion of the profit from the book. The cookbook is going to be quite glitzy, with food styling by Andy Sheen-Turner of Food Savvy and photography by Craig Mathew and Ziva Santop. The recipes come from such celebrities as Anne Hathaway and Ron Howard. A number of chefs are involved, including Mario Batali, Wolfgang Puck and Kitchen Academy's own Alexx Guevara.
Our job was simple: prepare the dishes so that they could be photographed. I learned a lesson: camera-ready food and people-ready food are two different things. Although, ideally, each dish would be perfectly edible, our goal was good-looking, not necessary what we would want to serve. Seasoning? Unless it was going to change the look of the dish, why bother adding salt and pepper? Not really completely cooked? If it looks good, so what? Simmer for twenty minutes? Only if it is going to make a difference in the final look of the dish. Pasta overcooked? No biggie, if it still looks good.
There were a number of humorous incidents. For example, we needed to roast a pork shoulder, but the roast hadn't completely thawed. Ah well. Toss it in the oven at 500 degrees F. After fifteen minutes or so, we had a nicely browned roast. Looked great. When we took it out of the oven we pushed a thermometer into the meat. The dial went backwards from room temperature. Not something you expect to see when you stick a thermometer into a beautifully browned roast.
Another example: Arturo and I baked what would have been a perfect pecan pie. However, for stylistic purposes, we baked it in a picturesque deep dish ceramic pie pan. Looked great. Unfortunately, because the pie dish was so deep, the center of the pecan pie never set, it was still liquid. Photographed great, but not something I'd want to serve.
We Kitchen Academy students didn't do any of the plating. Basically, we prepared the dishes then set them out in mixing bowls, sheet pans, deli cups, etc., and let the food stylist do his magic. Some things, because of their nature, were prepped up to a point and then were boiled or baked on order so that they didn't sit around too long waiting for their turn in front of the camera. We also got called upon for some garnishes. I made Anne Hathaway's Mango and Lobster salad so was asked to thinly slice and fan some mango as a garnish.
Producing all these dishes was fairly complex from a logistical point of view. The ingredient lists were impressive since the recipes ran the gamut of cuisines. In order to make things manageable, we did the recipes in waves, a dozen or so at a time. A couple of students spent most of their time simply pulling the ingredients for each wave then putting them back in storage when we were done with them.
All-in-all, it was a good learning experience and pretty darn fun.
Also fun was assisting one of Hollywood's preeminent personal chefs, Michael Montilla.
In addition to the recipe book work, Kitchen Academy was also hosting a guest demo by Chef Montilla, who has done similar demos before (Kitchen Academy - Consumer Education and a Guest Chef Demo; Kitchen Academy - Feb 18 - Guest Chef Demo by Michael Montilla).
Because I was working on the recipe book, I didn't work with Chef Montilla for most of his prep. However, because the students assisting him had to leave just before his demo was to begin, I and my classmate Arturo assisted with the very final preps, the demo, and plating the final product.
As usual, Chef Montilla was very generous in sharing his experience. Today I would have to say his primary theme was simplicity: simple dishes prepared properly with the finest ingredients. It doesn't have to be complex to be great. The dish we prepared today was fairly simple: Beef Tenderloin Stuffed with Braised Leeks & Wild Mushrooms, Potato Gratin, Roasted Asparagus and a Red Wine Glaze.
The beef tenderloin was stuffed with the leeks and what was essentially a duxelles that was not finely chopped. We had just made a pork tenderloin stuffed with duxelles earlier in the week (Kitchen Academy - Course II - Day 19), but I have to say that the stuffed beef tenderloin comes out much nicer. There is just something about beef and mushrooms that just goes together perfectly. Don't get me wrong, the stuffed pork tenderloin was good, but the stuffed beef tenderloin was great. I'm going to have to look into this beef/mushroom thing some more.
The gratin was essentially a Pommes Dauphinoise put together in a hotel pan for a large group of people. One of the chef-instructors who was assisting with the recipe book by supervising the students tried them and was quite impressed. I rather enjoyed them too, especially as Chef Montilla had not skimped on the garlic in either the gratin or roasted asparagus.
After the demo, it was back to working on the recipe book to finish a ten-hour day. A long day, but definitely worth it.
 Pulling Ingredients for the Recipe Book
 Food Staged to be Plated by the Food Stylist
 Cookbook Organizers (l-r) Morgan Most and Jackie Zabel
 Choosing Props for Food Styling
 A Pot of Stew Nearly Ready for Photographing
 Discussing How to Photograph Some Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries
 Chef Michael Montilla Demos
 Chef Montilla's Mise
Comments (21)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
March 19, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
After the stress of yesterday's production schedule (Kitchen Academy - Course II - Day 19), today was a relative breeze. Production was only 2 dishes, 4 plates: Tea-Smoked Duck Breast with Acorn Squash Purée, Gingered Tangerine Supremes, Tangerine Gastrique and Arugula; and, Pan-Roasted Breast of Duck with Spiced Butternut Squash Purée, Roasted Plums, Plum Gastrique and Duck Glace.
Simple enough, no? Yes, but.
Today was also a time fire exercise. What this means is that we were given specific thirty-minute windows in which each dish had to be presented. The tea-smoked duck had to be presented between 7:30am and 8:00am. The pan roasted duck between 9:30am and 10:00am. During the first presentation window we were not allowed to prep our second dish.
Normally, we simply have a 10:00am deadline for all dishes, putting them out as soon as they are done. In some ways having specific presentation windows simplifies things (you don't have to decide which you'll present first), but can also complicate things as you have to stagger your prep. Frequently, for example, I would dice, chop, and/or mince all my onions for all my recipes at once, then move onto the next vegetable. However, due to time constraints, I had to finish all my prep for the tea-smoked duck first, and then get onto the pan-roasted duck. Not a big deal, these weren't particularly stressful plates, but still a good learning experience for organization.
Another good lesson is why we are training to be chefs, not simply recipe-makers. A lesson I forgot. The recipe for the tea-smoked duck breast calls for a Kabocha squash purée. Instead, we substituted acorn squash. Acorn squashes are generally smaller than kabocha squashes and our squashes were a bit on the small side in any case. What this means is that you have to adjust the recipe to take this into account. Don't use (as I did) the same amount of Chinese Five-Spice Powder for an acorn squash that you'd use for a kabocha squash.
"Why does your squash look and taste a bit like licorice?" "Um, that would be the star anise and fennel seed from an excessive amount of Chinese Five-Spice Powder."
Actually, the licorice flavor wasn't overpowering, but it was definitely there just barely in the background. As a fan of licorice, I sort of liked the effect, especially since the squash also had some nice sweetness from brown sugar and there was a good amount of ginger powder as a foreground note. Still, there was too much spice in the purée.
Recipes are like maps. Sometimes your directions just don't make sense due to construction or something. What we're supposed to be learning is how to read the map so that we can get where we're going despite unforseen roadblocks on the most direct route.
And, have I mentioned that gastriques are quite cool? I like that sweet/tart flavor combination. I'll have to play with them a bit, but I think that the addition of some dry mustard at the very end might enhance the flavor somewhat. A bit more and you should get sweet/tart/spicy, sort of like an Italian mostarda.
 Tea-Smoked Duck Breast with Acorn Squash Purée, Gingered Tangerine Supremes, Tangerine Gastrique and Arugula
 Pan-Roasted Breast of Duck with Spiced Butternut Squash Purée, Roasted Plums, Plum Gastrique and Duck Glace
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
What a difference a day makes. The last couple of days (Kitchen Academy - Course II - Day 17, Day 18) were fairly low stress. There were no plates to present and plenty of bodies to get all the work done that needed doing for the buffet we provided.
Today we had to present three different recipes, five plates: Pasta e Fagioli with Crostino; Poêlé Game Hen with Matignon, White Beans and Herb Breadcrumb-Stuffed Artichoke Hearts; and, Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Mushroom, Duxelles, Celery Root Purée, Sautéed Mushrooms and Sauce Robert.
Each of these recipes was fairly involved and required a generous amount of prep. Consequently, the entire class was pretty stressed and many students just barely got their dishes in or didn't quite make it (such as serving their matignon without the stuffed artichoke hearts). Even when the students got everything finished, they might have forgotten one specific part of the presentation instructions, such as that the game hen breasts were to be airline-cut (first wing bone attached to the breast and frenched).
I was pretty happy that I actually finished everything with about 10 minutes to spare, though I actually had a slight advantage in not having a partner I think: I didn't have to share burner space or coordinate putting items in the oven. I did volunteer my time and one burner to making the court bouillon for the entire island (eight stations) so that everyone could poach their artichoke hearts.
Still, I wasn't as efficient as I could have been. For example, you needed cooked white beans for both the Pasta e Fagioli as well as the matignon. Cooking the beans takes some time. I could have cooked the beans for both at the same time and then separated them, but I didn't, which wasted both burner space and time. Although I was familiar with the plates, I've been thinking of them as discreet units, not as a whole.
You've got to be prepared and have a plan.
Also, if someone is doing something for several students, make sure you check it before using it or putting it on a plate. My court bouillon was fine, but some of the Sauce Roberts (which were done in groups of four) didn't come out so well. You may not have made it, but if you put it on a plate, it is yours.
 Pasta e Fagioli with Crostino
 Poêlé Game Hen with Matignon, White Beans and Herb Breadcrumb-Stuffed Artichoke Hearts
 Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Mushroom, Duxelles, Celery Root Purée, Sautéed Mushrooms and Sauce Robert
Comments (25)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
Yesterday, we worked on the prep for our class buffet (Kitchen Academy - Course II - Day 17). Today, we actually served the buffet: - St. Louis Ribs
- Santa Maria Tri-Tip
- Barbecued Baked Beans
- Macaroni and Cheese
- Country Onion Rings
- Hush Puppies
- Carnitas
- Guacamole
- Refried Beans
- Salsa Verde [recipe]
- Mexican Style Rice
Class started at 6am, as usual, and the buffet didn't actually start until 8:30am, which gave us plenty of time to finish final preps such as cooking the meat, frying the hushpuppies, baking the macaroni and cheese, etc.
Since my dish, salsa verde [recipe] didn't require any more prep except for some final seasoning and plating (put it in a bowl with a spoon and sprinkle some cilantro leaves on top), I spent most of the time setting up the dining room, putting plastic utensils and napkins in wicker baskets, making the little signs for the dishes, getting the fuel canisters for the warming trays, etc.
Everything seemed to go fairly smoothly, as far as I can tell. The class seemed much more organized and comfortable with everything compared to the buffet from Course I (Kitchen Academy - Course I - Day 19).
 Main Buffet Line
 Secondary Buffet Line
 Arturo Carving the Santa Maria Tri-Tip
 (l-r) Dani, Robin, Manuel, Joe
 (l-r) Natalie, Saul, Rose
 Serving the Men in Blue
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
March 16, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
Three of the four courses at Kitchen Academy provide a buffet meal to friends, family, the school and select visitors once during the course, in the fourth week. Course I does a breakfast buffet on a Thursday (Kitchen Academy - Course I - Day 19) and Course 4 does a "Tastes of Asia" buffet on a Friday.
Wednesday is Course 2's buffet, a lunch/dinner menu: - St. Louis Ribs
- Santa Maria Tri-Tip
- Barbecued Baked Beans
- Macaroni and Cheese
- Country Onion Rings
- Hush Puppies
- Carnitas
- Guacamole
- Refried Beans
- Salsa Verde [recipe]
- Mexican Style Rice
So, today, the entire class concentrated on preps for tomorrow. As in PCA-1, we are divided into teams to produce each of the dishes.
I and Natalie Walker produced the Salsa Verde [recipe].
This was easy. Production went quite rapidly. Of course, some dishes required more effort than others, but when students are finished, or have a break (as I did when the salsa was simmering), they helped another team. There sure was an awful lot of garlic to peel.
The biggest issue with producing such large quantity recipes is paying close attention to tastes and flavors and common sense. You can't simply multiply a small portion recipe and expect a large quantity to come out the same. For example, just because a recipe calls for a single clove doesn't mean you should add ten cloves when you make a batch ten times as big. Having one slightly larger than average onion won't generally throw off a recipe that calls for one onion, small dice. However ten larger than average onions will be much more likely throw off a larger batch.
Time is also a major factor that can vary non-linearly when multiplying recipes. A small roux takes a certain amount of time. A roux five times as big doesn't necessarily take five times as long. It'll take longer, but not exactly five times as long. Sometimes things take longer than the multiple, more often less time, but you have to recognize this and take it into account.
Sometimes, you might want to divide a multiplied recipe down. Rather than make one multiple of ten bechamel, you might want to make two multiples of five, or four multples of two and a half. Why? Sometimes you don't have a container big enough. Sometimes it is simply easier. Or, as in the case of bechamel, you'll be less likely to ruin it. And, even if you do ruin it, you've only blown a small portion, not the whole deal.
Where production was difficult was in fixing some of the problems that multiplying recipes might cause, for example, adding more avocados and tomatoes to cut down the overly strong onion flavor in the guacamole.
As the recipes were finished (at least as finished as they would be today), we stored and staged them for use the next day. We also put together a list of what needed to be accomplished the day of the buffet (i.e., fry hushpuppies in APCA, fry onion rings in PCA-2, grill tri-tip in APCA, etc.). The chef instructors also went over service and how we would organize that.
Still, there was plenty of time, which meant: deep cleaning the ovens. They come apart pretty easily. Of course, some steel wool would have come in handy.
Don't tell anyone, but we still got out of class a good twenty minutes early.
 Danny Riskam Making Guacamole
 Leon Miller and Marie Miller (no relation) Making Bechamel for the Macaroni and Cheese
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
Another Monday, another morning of dropping stock and clearing out the ice machine. At least I now know what a stock that has gone bad smells like. Some say gym socks, I say a good cheese.
Unfortunately, one of our chicken stocks had gone bad over the weekend. Not sure why, but most likely the stock wasn't kept at a simmer. We make plenty of stock, so it wouldn't be a problem. If anything, it made the job slightly easier.
On the other hand, the classrooms were unusually cold this morning, which meant that it took my hands longer than normal to warm up after numerous immersions in ice water. Consequently, my knife cuts at the beginning just seemed rather slow. Or perhaps it was simply that I always feel slow and disorganized after a quiz, dropping stock and figuring out what all the mise cups on my station contain and which recipe they're for. And, once again, we had recipes that needed to get into the oven for a significant period of time. This is always a source of a sense of urgency, since you need to finish prep as fast as possible so whatever needs to spend time in the oven, can.
Production today was: Whole Roasted Young Chicken with Giblet, Apple and Chestnut Stuffing Served with Roasted Root Vegetables, Pine Nuts, Arugula and fortified Pan Jus; and, Roasted Leg of Lamb (Butterflied) with Herbs and Garlic and Served with Salt-Roasted Fingerling Potatoes and Lamb Jus.
Roasting is generally faster than braising, but it still takes awhile to properly cook a large chunk of meat such as a leg of lamb. Even whole chickens take a good 40 minutes or more. Roasting is also less forgiving than braising, so you have to make sure to keep an eye on your meat. Depending on the cut and any oven/roasting pan peculiarities, your meat might brown extra fast (cover it with some foil to stop the browning), or simply cook faster than you think. The recipe might say 1.5 - 2 hours, but your roast might only take 1 hour.
Another thing about roasting is that not everything roasts at the same temperatures. For example, the chicken was started at a high temp to brown, then the temperature reduced to finish cooking. The lamb and potatoes were roasted at a temperature between these two extremes. And, not only did we roast the chicken, leg of lamb and potatoes, but the chestnuts had to be blanched, peeled and then roasted separately before going in the stuffing. The beets also had to be roasted separately, and the darn things took longer than an hour to be properly roasted.
So, you need to have a roasting plan. What will go in when and at what temperature. What will happen if you need to change temperatures in between. For some things it might not matter too much, just changing the amount of time it takes. If you're working with a partner, as I was, you need to communicate and stay on the same page, otherwise, not only will you have problems with the oven temperatures, but you'll likely run into space problems (not enough room in the oven).
Thus, it wasn't surprising that around 9:10am or so, Chef Merino told the class that if they didn't have their chicken in the oven, it was too late, don't bother, they wouldn't be able to turn in their plates (properly finished, anyway) by the 10am deadline. However, the students were given the opportunity to finish their chickens the next day; they just had to put all their prep on a sheet pan for storage. More than a few sheet trays went into storage. There probably should have been more, but some students pushed the deadline a bit, perhaps more than a bit in a couple of instances.
I was pretty happy that I was able to meet the deadline, though it was closer than I would have liked. Part of the problem at the very end was that the plating instructions for the Roasted Chicken weren't terribly clear. Even Chef Knight wasn't sure what they meant.
In any case, sometimes it seems that cooking is more about logistics and organization than anything else. Mise en Place, the most important thing you learn in culinary school, I think.
 Roasted Leg of Lamb (Butterflied) with Herbs and Garlic and Served with Salt-Roasted Fingerling Potatoes and Lamb Jus
 Whole Roasted Young Chicken with Giblet, Apple and Chestnut Stuffing Served with Roasted Root Vegetables, Pine Nuts, Arugula and fortified Pan Jus
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
On Sunday, March 12th, the Arclight Cinemas hosted Explore-A-Story: A Celebration of Books for the Wonder of Reading organization. It is basically a children's book festival with book readings by authors and celebrities, screening of popular movies based on children's books, activities and etc. Of course, there was food as well, frequently themed to children's books, such as donuts for (what else?) Arnie the Donut.
As Kitchen Academy is in the same complex as Arclight Cinemas, we provided a venue for serving the food provided by different sponsors.
We students did prepare some hors d'oeuvres for the VIP room: gravlax on toast with herbed cream cheese; savory pastries stuffed with ham and cheese; pate on toast; and, etc. Other than that, however, this was mostly a serving event. Students portioned and readied for buffet service food provided by other sponsors of the event, such as California Pizza Kitchen.
Although there wasn't much cooking done (I did learn a couple of tricks for the gravlax, though), learning proper service is an important skill for the well-rounded chef. Either you're going to be directly involved in organizing service, or you're going to be supporting service so it is good to know what it is like.
Since I've done so few events, each one is quite a learning experience for me. For example, I'm getting a much better idea of when you need to swap out hotel pans of food. You never want to run out, of course, but you don't want to leave too many servings in the hotel pan either. It is an experiential thing learning how quickly portions get used.
I also learned a bit more about keeping an eye on things like plates, napkins, utensils and condiments. It may sound trivial or easy, but if you're not used to it, it takes some attention to ensure that you don't run out of one of these things.
Other tricks you just pick up. For example, we didn't have enough fuel canisters to keep the warming pans, well, warm. So, we periodically filled them with boiling water. This means pouring out the old, cool water. This means some large buckets under the table at the station. Not a big thing, but this knowledge will come in handy should something similar happen in the future.
Anyway, I enjoyed serving children and their parents.
 Explore-A-Story
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
March 15, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
Most of today was spent fabricating the biggest piece of meat that we'll work on in the course: Lamb.
First, of course, we needed the fabrication demo by Chef Guevara, which included the requisite Silence of the Lambs reference ("Brave Clarice. You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won't you?"). How strange is it that one of the movies most often cited in culinary school is about a serial killer? Or that those watching the demo had to note how much like a dog the lamb carcass looked?
In any case, we worked on fabricating our lambs in groups of four. I payed close attention as the scheduled final calls for fabricating one lamb per student, though I suspect that due to lack of space we'll actually work in groups of two. I don't think there is room in the classroom for everyone to fabricate their own lamb.
We had to prioritize our fabrication because our scheduled production was Braised Lamb Shank Provençal. Proper braising takes time, in this case two hours, so we had to fabricate the shanks first thing in order to get them in the oven and going before tackling the rest of the lamb.
Fabricating shanks is relatively quick. For the final we're going to have to fabricate, debone and butterfly a leg which will be produced the same day. That takes a bit longer, although we won't get a fabrication demo either.
Usually, one of the first things you do when braising is to sear and brown the meat in a bit of oil. This dish was no different. However, the recipe called for pouring out the oil after browning the meat and adding new oil before sweating some onion and garlic. This seemed somewhat strange to me (wouldn't you want to keep the oil for the flavor?) so I asked Chef Knight why. The answer is actually quite simple. The oil used for browning was extremely hot. If you put the onions and garlic immediately in the hot oil, you'd flash saute them, which is not what you want. You could wait until the oil cooled off, or you could simply pour out the hot oil and add new, cooler, oil so that you get a sweat, not a saute. Not everyone followed the recipe though, and I witnessed a quite crispy onion and garlic "sweat".
With the braising shanks in the oven, it was back to the lamb fabrication. Other than the sawing through bones thing, lamb fabrication is fairly easy and straight forward. I'm certainly no expert after just one lamb, but I feel confident I could get pretty good fairly quickly.
With four people working on the lamb, we finished with plenty of time. So, a little deep cleaning while we waited for the shanks to finish braising. Still, at the end, time was tight. Once the shanks were finished braising, you still had to reduce the braising liquid for use as a sauce. I braised my lamb shank as long as possible and then reduced the liquid using one of our largest saute pans, a 12-inch, so that the reduction would go as quickly as possible (more surface area, a faster reduction).
Actually, it worked too well. Chef Knight noted that my sauce should have been a bit looser. The flavor was very good and rich, but as the plate cooled, the sauce would start to become a bit too sticky from the high concentration of gelatin. Although tasty, some might not like the texture of the cooled sauce, and it simply isn't sauce consistency. One has to be careful not to overshoot a reduction, although it is usually easy to fix with the addition of a little water.
Personally, I thought the sauce clung nicely to the meat and, especially, the croutons used for garnish.
 Whole Lamb for Fabrication
 Braised Lamb Shank Provençal
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
March 14, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
Pictures. I'm taking pictures of all my dishes now. I should have been taking photos from the beginning, but I had misplaced my digital camera. Now, hopefully, readers will be able to see the dishes I'm talking about. I'll also include some photos from the kitchen on occasion as well. The blog posts will feature a thumbnail, which will link to a much larger version of the photo, should you desire more detail. For the present, I'm going to try things with the photos at the bottom of the post.
Today we worked on basic Indian curries (yellow curry chicken and green curry chicken) and some of their traditional accompaniments (raita, chutney [recipe], and naan). Once again, because of the complexity and labor involved, we worked on the dishes in groups of four.
Well, in the case of the naan, in groups of eight. You see, our professional stand mixers won't mix a small recipe of dough for naan. We needed a double recipe (for a group of eight students) so that there was enough dough in the mixer to be kneaded. And, even then, the dough hook was barely able to grab the dough at the bottom of the mixing bowl.
The naan was something that we had to get started right away, as it would take several hours for the dough to rise. Indeed, it would essentially be the major bottleneck for plating the Yellow Curry.
Although the curry recipes were somewhat complex and would have probably severely strained a single student's capabilities, they were fairly easily broken up into separate tasks and taken on by a group of students. In our group of three, I did the naan, mango chutney [recipe], raita and cooked the yellow curry (easy after my partners had prepped all the ingredients).
After a couple of hours or so, it became clear to the chef instructors that we were moving very rapidly and would be finished with everything but the naan well before the scheduled presentation deadline. So, just as we were organizing and cleaning our stations, thinking that this was going to be a very relaxing day, the chef instructors announced that we would also be presnting two plates of Coq au Vin, the chicken for which had been marinating since the day before.
There wasn't panic or anything, but a definite sense of urgency could suddenly be felt in the classroom. I was no longer simply putting together a single dish, the Yellow Curry Chicken, but having to multitask, pulling the ingredients for the Coq au Vin, prepping them and getting it started. Coq au Vin has to braise for about thirty minutes, so there wasn't much time to waste getting the chicken into the braising state.
It was certainly a good exercise, shaking us up just when we thought we had everything well under control. Once I knew that I would have my dishes finished on time, I was also fairly happy knowing that we wouldn't have to worry about the Coq au Vin tomorrow.
In the end, all my dishes came out fairly well. The flavors were excellent. It might not have been ultra-traditional, but it was delicious.
 Green Curry Chicken with Jasmine Rice
 Yellow Curry Chicken with Basmati Rice, Mint/Cucumber Raita, Mango Chutney and Naan
 Coq au Vin
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
Two words: Dim sum.
If you've never eaten dim sum, you're missing out not only on wonderful flavors, but a very good social experience. Dim sum is definitely a dish to be enjoyed with a friend or friends during a leisurely late morning.
It is an experience that I always took advantage of when I visited Hong Kong while in the Navy. I usually went out with some fellow officers fairly early in the morning to a large dim sum restaurant near Kowloon Park. One could watch the morning T'ai Chi in the park and then head (as some of the practitioners did) to the restaurant where one could try a seemingly infinite variety of dishes.
Of course, dim sum can be found in many different places. It may not be Hong Kong, but there are some pretty good dim sum places in Southern California that my family enjoys.
In any case, I digress.
Today, for production, we had to make four different types of classic dim sum: Cha Siu Baau; Shu Mai; Har Gau; and, of course, Potstickers.
Making dim sum, however, is quite labor intensive, so rather than each student producing all four, the dim sum was produced by groups of four. Or, in my case, a group of three. Unfortunately, my partner for the week, Liz, had to drop out of school due to illness.
As for the labor intensive part, making the fillings for the various dim sum and their dipping sauces is actually quite reasonable, just your normal chiffonade, mince, chop, and mix. There were a great many ingredients though. In this case, it really makes sense to pull the ingredients per recipe, otherwise you'll end up with dozens of small cups on your station and quickly forget which one has the fish sauce and which one the oyster sauce. One might also want to go ahead and put the ingredients that are going to be mixed anyway in a single mise cup.
The labor intensive part of dim sum is making the wrappers (which must be rolled quite thin and then cut out) and then filling and folding the tasty treats. Each of the different types must be folded and pleated in a specific manner. With my rather large fingers, it wasn't terribly easy to get the five pleats into a Har Gau. After making a few dozen it gets easier, but this is not a task for those in a hurry. Presumably, if you make sim sum often enough, you'll get quite fast, but I don't imagine I'll be making them frequently.
Once the dim sum are made, though, it doesn't take very long to cook them. All but the potstickers are cooked via steam. The Shu Mai take 15-20 minutes, and everything else clocks in at under 10. The major problem here is making sure that the steaming pans stay filled with water. Because everything had to be steamed in several batches, one needed to refill the water from time to time. Not everyone did. Consequently, some of the light, fluffy and perfectly white Cha Siu Baau were crispy, burned and brown. Hint: put a dime in the water pan. When you can hear the coin rattling, it is time to replenish the water.
The various dim sum are excellent for plating in creative patterns, so there was a wide variety of very picturesque platters in the class. However, the dim sum were so delicious that the platters didn't last long before going into tupperware for the trip home.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
March 9, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
Once again we got to fabricate Salmon. I'm still a bit rough, but much improved, with many thanks to my classmate and former station partner Brent, who is expert at filleting fish (he ran a fish restaurant for a couple of years) and is always willing to give some guidance. A few more fish and I'll probably have it down.
Today the menu is moist method cooking, for which fish is very well suited. We produced: Poached Salmon with Sauce Ravigote [recipe], Watercress, and Gaufrette Potato Chips; and, Salmon En Papillote with Fingerling Potatoes, Fennel, Olives and Teardrop Tomatoes.
There is not much to say about the preparation of the Poached Salmon. The poaching liquid was a Court Bouillon and you simply had to keep the liquid just below a simmer for a few minutes. For the Sauce Ravigote [recipe] we got to use a drum sieve, or tamis, for the first time in order to turn a hard-boiled egg into very fine particles. The recipe also calls for mincing an entire onion. That's a lot of mincing. Were I do it myself at home, I'd use a food processor. Finally, the gaufrette potato chips take some practice slices with a mandoline to get right. Some students needed more practice slices than others. Good thing we got an entire potato to play with. Other students went home with an entire bag of beautifully waffle-cut potato chips.
"En Papillote" basically means to cook in a parchment or foil pouch. It can be used for a wide variety of ingredients, from fish fillets to whole fish, veal chops, vegetables, and fruit. And, technically, those potatoes wrapped in foil and tossed in an oven to bake are "en paillote." So, it is a handy technique to know.
It can also be a fairly showy way of presenting a meal, most or all of which has been cooked in the pouch. The pouch will rise during cooking and possibly brown slightly. You bring this pouch to the table and open it in front of the diner, releasing a cloud of steam. In fact, this was how we were to present one of our plates today.
One plate was for practice, we still had to present it, but it would already be out of the pouch. The other pouch we had to open and plate in front of the chef instructors as if we were serving a diner. There were a few rules: we couldn't touch the food with our hands, we couldn't use any kitchen implements (none of our knives, just a fork and spoon), and the plate had to be identical to the one already plated.
I sort of had fun with this one, getting into the role of serving staff, plating the dish with a flourish as one might see in a restaurant. It also helped that I keep a non-kitchen tool swiss army knife in my pocket to cut open the pouch smoothly, without having to tear it.
Speaking of which, being serving staff is no simple task. There is a great deal to learn ... something more I'll have to study.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
March 6, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
Mondays. Not a good day for culinary school.
Today I was especially tired, having worked the Academy Awards the night before (Catering the Academy Award's Governors Ball with Wolfgang Puck - March 5th).
First thing, a new station and a new partner. Second, dropping stock. Has to be done on Mondays, but it's tedious and uses valuable prep time. It also messes with my mise. While some students drop stock, other students starting doing some but, generally, not all of the mise for the entire class. This saves some time, but disrupts my organization. Once I get back to my station it takes me several minutes to figure out what's been mised, and what hasn't. Furthermore, when I mise, it allows me to consider what each ingredient is to be used for and gets me ready for production. Having someone else start my mise is no big deal, but it does interfere with the routine I've gotten used to. It was probably especially disruptive today because I hadn't reviewed my recipes the morning of or night before, due to the Oscars.
So, I was a bit behind schedule and not feeling particularly organized. This was not a good thing because we were learning moist cooking techniques today, which require a lot of time to do properly. Both of our dishes called for a minimum of two hours once you got everything going in the pots, which meant you had to get them prepped and in the pots right away.
The two dishes we produced were Pot-au-Feu (as a four-person group) and Beef Goulash with Spaetzle in Brown Butter.
I was so disorganized that I started cutting the meat for the Pot-au-Feu into 2-inch chunks. Oops. You cut the meat for the Beef Goulash into 2-inch chunks. The meat for the Pot-au-Feu doesn't get cut until it's ready to plate. Luckily, Chef Knight caught me before I had cut the meat for the Pot-au-Feu into anything more than 2-inch wide strips about 8 inches long. Wouldn't hurt the dish. Still, that goes to show why one should review and have a better understanding of the recipes before starting class. It also shows what sort of mistakes you can make when you're behind schedule and feeling rushed.
The Pot-au-Feu ("pot on fire") is basically a peasant stew where everything gets thrown into the pot. It takes time to tenderize the meat (you use a tougher cut) in a long simmer, but other than the time involved, the most difficult part of this dish is plating it. You have a lot of really nice, whole vegetables that you want to make attractive on the plate. Our arrangement was pretty good, but the only thing fancy we did was to take our quartered potatoes and dip one side into butter and then chopped parsley so that you had a nice green/white contrast on the cut edges of the red bliss potatoes.
The Goulash was very tasty. You really want to get a good brown on the meat, so you use a really hot pot to sear it before braising. It also helps to have a good veal stock that will reduce into a thick sauce during the long braising process. This is not something you could easily do with veal stock from a can or a box because they usually have salt, and when they reduce they'd be far too salty.
Making the spaetzle was fun. I also rather like the texture. As for the flavor, it's a starch, so it's not too exciting, but like many starches there is much potential depending on how it is used. It will definitely be something I make at home on occasion, a change of pace from the usual pastas, rice and whatnot.
I wonder if you can make a dessert spaetzle? Cinnamon spaetzle with baked, sliced apples, perhaps? Chocolate spaetzle with raspberry coulis? Okay, so maybe I'm still a little tired from the Oscars.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
Well, the big day finally arrived.
I had feared terrible traffic, but it wasn't all that bad, but only if one followed the directions on the parking pass. Those who didn't ended up wasting a lot of their time in various road blocks. In any case, I got there at the time recommended by Kitchen Academy, which meant an hour's wait before going up to the kitchen.
Where we waited some more.
Kitchen Academy had told us to bring two things to this job: a complete uniform and our knife roll. Upon arrival we learned that security wouldn't be allowing us to take our knife rolls to the fifth floor. Apparently, we wouldn't be able to find any knives or dangerous implements in the kitchen, should we be criminally inclined. This is known as "security theatre".
The security theatre resulted in one humorous episode in which one of Wolfgang Puck's leading chefs was demonstrating some plating to a large group of eager culinary students and asked for a knife to cut something. We all stared blankly back at him. Luckily, a knife was eventually located. Imagine that, finding a knife that had somehow made it past security into a kitchen.
Unlike the "training" days (Day 1, Day 2) where there was generally a steady pace of activity, on the event night itself there was a great deal of waiting in between short periods of intense action. Patience is definitely a virtue in such a situation. So is bringing something to read, preferably culinary related, since noise and talking is somewhat discouraged.
So, I spent a good deal of time standing around studying some notes I brought (wish I had brought more) and trying to stay out of the way until we were tasked with doing something. Then, one got assigned a task and worked very hard until it was complete. Then, one stood around some more.
My first task was taking the excess fat off some poorly cut prosciutto, which would be used to wrap some green and white asparagus. Immediately following this, I was involved in the biggest task of the night: putting together the antipasti plates.
Everything had been prepared already; it was simply a matter of plating. I say "simply," however, it was anything but. We had to concentrate a great deal on good presentation and precise placement of the various items: 1 row of 3 green and 2 white aspargus, a layer of prosciutto, another layer of asparagus, another layer of prosciutto; 4 crab-stuffed peppers; 7 slices of grilled, sesame-encrusted tuna; etc., etc., etc. All of these items had to be placed properly and positioned to look their best. For example, some of the tuna had brighter red centers than other slices, so you had to be sure that the best looking slices were on top of the small pyramid. There were similar standards for the other ingredients.
The plates were assembled assembly-line fashion, one ingredient at a time. It took a few ingredients to get organized and have everyone working as efficiently as possible (working from one end to another, doing an entire column of plates before moving on to the next in order to avoid plates missing ingredients, etc.). It took a couple of hours to get the hundreds of plates ready, mostly because of the many different ingredients that had to be added.
After this I got sent to the main kitchen to work on plating the entrees. While there, Wolfgang Puck came through with a film crew and we also got moved into the ballroom itself for a "chef's picture". While we were in the ballroom, they were making announcements of who had won the Academy Awards. They were already to Best Actor and Actress as we got photographed, then moved out to work on the food.
Never did the entrees, however, as I got shifted to working on the dessert plates, which were assembled in the same place and in the same manner as the antipasti platters: 5 raspberries, 5 strawberries, crumbled nuts, etc., etc., etc. I never saw the antipasti platters go out, but I did see the desserts leave the assembly area. It takes some effort to do everything so quickly. This was especially true with the dessert plates, which included ice cream.
We were able to assemble the plates sans ice cream, with a nice cushion of time. However, the ice cream couldn't be plated until the last moment, for obvious reasons. Once you started plating the ice cream, the ice cream teams had to work in a precise order so that they were staying just a couple of minutes ahead of the serving staff. It was important to plan where the ice cream teams would be working so that they wouldn't get in the way of the serving staff who were getting the plates.
It all worked out pretty well. During the service, I mostly worked on breaking down the tables we had assembled the desserts on, getting them out of the way once they were clear.
With the last of the desserts served (around 10:45pm) and class at 6am the next morning, I was finished for the evening and given permission to leave. As I headed for the elevators for the parking garage, which weren't too far away, I had my only celebrity sighting of the evening, but it was a good one: Best Actress winner Reese Witherspoon, who was about twelve feet away from me as she walked past the elevator banks.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
March 5, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
The consumer education classes finished up the series on cooking techniques with a grilling and slow roasting class.
All the prepared dishes were fairly simple (isn't grilling one of the very first cooking techniques, period?), but simple is often best. The students produced Broiled Beef Tenderloin with Red Bell Pepper Gratin; Roasted Chicken with Rapini and Caramelized Onions; and, Grilled Jerk Chicken.
There is not much to say about the broiled beef, but the gratin was very good. I'm finding that I really, really like gratins. Not simply for the flavor, but for their versatility. It is a basic technique that can be applied to a near infinite number of combinations of flavors. Whether one is adding different (frequently starchy) vegetables in addition to (or as a substitute for) potatoes, or adding differing flavors to the liquid, or simply different toppings or spices, you can do almost anything to a gratin. They're hard to ruin and can generally be prepared ahead of time, simply awaiting cooking, or even pre-cooked and reheated. You can really go crazy in modifying this basic dish.
Gratins. They're what's for dinner.
The roasted chicken is actually a Chinese recipe that calls for duck. However, due to time constraints in the class, chicken was used in order to be sure everything was finished on time. The chicken was good, but I think I'll try the recipe with the original duck.
The final dish, Grilled Jerk Chicken, seemed to be a favorite for many. And what's not to like? The marinade includes a great many flavors and spices, but is simple to prepare. The end result is a juicy, very flavorful chicken. It probably would have been even better with a longer, slower cooking process but everyone really enjoyed it. I'll definitely be using it the next time I barbeque.
Comments (1)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
Having gotten a demo on the fabrication of a beef forequarter yesterday (Kitchen Academy - Course II - Day 9), we now got a lesson in fabrication of the beef hindquarter, where the majority of the more well-known steaks come from.
Production today started with a Steakhouse Tomato Salad (2 plates), followed by three steaks at various levels of doneness along with two sides.
The salad was actually quite tasty, though one might dispute calling the rich plate a "salad". The base was Heirloom Tomatoes in a balsamic vinaigrette, which were really quite good, but the salad also included a generous portion of deep fried shallots and crumbled blue cheese. There were a few leaves of baby arugula as well, but this was a salad a steak lover could enjoy.
Because of the ease or preparation for the dish, most students finished it quite early.
Cooking steaks doesn't really take all that long, so most of the production effort really goes into getting the side dishes and sauces ready. For a green, we had Sauteed Rapini, aka Broccoli Rabe, with garlic and chile. For a starch, we made Smashed Red Bliss Potatoes with Caramelized Shallots. Both of these dishes were fairly straight forward in preparation. You do have to cook the Rapini somewhat carefully in order to reduce its bitterness (a dash of acid at the end can do wonders) without overcooking it, but otherwise it is sort of difficult to ruin these dishes.
The real difficulties were in the sauces. We made two: Bearnaise and Bordelaise. The latter isn't too difficult, but it does take time to reduce and one has to control the amount of fat in emulsification. You don't want to hit it with too much fat in the beginning.
Bernaise, like its mother sauce Hollandaise, is a technically difficult yolk and butter emulsion. Bernaise differs from Hollandaise primarily in the addition of tarragon. A nice sauce, but a bit of a pain. Recommendation: make this sauce absolutely last, just before service; it is too difficult to hold long.
The students did get to choose which side dish went with which sauce. I followed the basic rule: dairy sauces with vegetables (i.e., Bernaise with the Rapini) and brown sauces with starches (i.e., Bordelaise with Smashed Red Bliss Potatoes).
All in all, a fairly simple day, which was highly appreciated after the busyness of the previous days.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
March 4, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
Day two of "training" for catering the Academy Awards with Wolfgang Puck. It's actually "work," but I'm learning a lot about how such a major operation works. Not everything, certainly, but I'm getting a taste of how things are organized.
Yesterday (Catering the Academy Award's Governors Ball with Wolfgang Puck - March 1st), we students worked on a number of dishes that will actually be served at the Governors Ball. Today was very different. We mostly worked on dishes that would be served to security, production, press and others who provide services for this major event.
Catering the Oscars isn't all glamorous caviar and black truffles, you see. All those security guards, lighting technicians and others have to be fed as well. That's what we worked on today.
I started with the sandwich team: producing 655 sandwiches (mostly tuna and turkey, with a smattering of roast beef). This was assembly line work at its most basic. Slice all the bread, slice the tomatoes, stack it all on various trays. Next, lay out all the bottom slices of bread (we were working with Ciabatta, mostly). Put a small amount of greens on each slice. Next, the tuna (or turkey or roast beef). Top with two slices of tomato and the tuna is done. The turkey and roast beef, however, also get a slice of cheese. Slap on the top slice of bread and the sandwich is done. These tasks were divided, with each person dealing with one ingredient at a time. For example, I would follow those adding the tuna with a container of tomato slices, adding two slices as soon as the tuna was down.
Making the sandwiches was pretty darn quick, actually. The slowest part of the process was wrapping each sandwich in plastic wrap. Here we were taught a technique to wrap several sandwiches at once by laying out a long length of plastic wrap on a table, putting down sandwiches spaced several inches apart and then covering them all with another length of plastic wrap. Cut the plastic between each sandwich and wrap.
Once all the sandwiches were wrapped, it was time to assemble the box lunches (macaroni salad, sandwich, candy bar, apple, chips, condiments and utensil pack). I missed out on most of this, however, as I got pulled off sandwiches to work on lasagna, again for staff and crew.
I rather liked working on the lasagnas, as they weren't nearly as assembly line. Each lasagna has to be assembled by an individual. So, tomato sauce (don't want the pasta to stick to the bottom of the hotel pan), pasta, sauce, ricotta cheese, grilled bellpepper, grated cheese, pasta, sauce, ricotta cheese, grilled bellpepper, grated cheese, pasta, sauce, ricotta cheese, grilled bellpepper, grated cheese, pasta, sauce, ricotta cheese, NO bellpepper, grated cheese, plastic wrap, foil wrap and done. We had to make thirty.
It was also satisfying to know that the food I was making was for staff and crew. They deserve to eat well too. It may not be glamorous, but I wanted to make sure that my production was quality. Who wants to work a long, hard day and then get a poorly sauced lasagna?
I look forward to Sunday, though it is going to be a very long day (4pm - past midnight), with class just a few hours later.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
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.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
This Sunday, March 5th, famed chef Wolfgang Puck will be catering his 12th Governors Ball for the Oscars.
Catering such a large event obviously requires an enormous amount of effort. And, while the Governors Ball is the largest and most famous event on Oscar night, the Wolfgang Puck Catering operation will also be providing service to a number of private parties and events as well. So, where to get the additional culinary help necessary to pull off such an enormous operation? Why, Kitchen Academy, of course.
A couple of weeks ago, thirty Kitchen Academy students were offered the opportunity to work for Wolfgang Puck during the Academy Awards show. We would be unpaid, but it would be excellent experience. There were to be two training days in addition to working the night of the Oscars themselves. Sounded good to me, so I signed up. This would be my first experience working in an professional production kitchen.
Having passed the background security check, apparently, I made the list and showed up for the first "training" day on Wednesday, March 1st. My fellow students and I would be working on the 5th floor of the Hollywood & Highland Center, which is basically all Wolfgang Puck's operation and is right next door to the Kodak Theatre, where the Oscars will be held.
Honestly, there wasn't much "training," it was more like "work". Once we showed up, the students were organized into various teams working on prepping parts of the menu for the Governors Ball. Speaking of which, here is the planned menu:
Tray-Passed Hors d'Oeuvres - Spicy Tuna Tartare in a Sesame Miso Cone
- Mini Prime Burgers With Aged Cheddar and Remoulade
- Warm Gougeres With Potato, Cheese and Herbs
- Baby Potatoes With Caviar and Chives
- Steak Tartare in a Black Pepper Parmesan Cone
- Smoked Salmon Pizza With Dill Creme Fraiche and Caviar (Recipe)
- Duck Sausage Pizza With Leeks and Spinach
- Four Cheese Pizza With Tomato and Fresh Basil
Antipasto Platter Assortment- Marinated Baby Artichokes With Lemon Aioli
- Tuna Tataki With Sweet Soy
- Smoked Salmon "Oscar" Matzo With Osetra Caviar
- Chopped Vegetable Salad
- Sweet Crab Stuffed Tiny Spanish Peppers
- Citrus Marinated Shrimp
- Green and White Asparagus With Prosciutto
Soup- Celery Root Soup With Fuji Apples and 24k Gold Sprinkle
Entree- Pan-Roasted Organic Chicken With Black Truffle Risotto
DessertI was put on the "Oscar" Matzo team. We were tasked with producing 3,000 of the statuette-shaped crackers. That's a lot of crackers, particularly when Matzo dough is fairly tough. The specially made cutters had to be hammered through the dough using a skillet and hand towel. Do that several hundred times and you've gotten quite the workout.
Of course, that was probably the "training". Lesson learned: Catering includes an awful lot of repetitive, assembly-line-like work. A valuable lesson.
Another lesson. When you read that the special Oscar molds and cutters are kept under lock and key, they're not kidding. Keeping the cutters secured was emphasized several times by various chefs with the catering organization. As soon as we were done with them, they were collected and, literally, put under lock and key.
My attention didn't have a chance to wander much, but I did see my fellow students working on statuette-shaped cookies (a few of which broke and ended up going home with the students). Again, there was even a lesson here. These cookies were being produced days before the event, so the type of cookie had to be of the sort that would last that long (likely, they included a lot of butter). Putting a menu for such an event together can't simply be done based on flavor, but must take into account the ability to put it all together and store it for service.
Many apples were peeled, most likely for the soup. Unfortunately, there weren't any spare peelers, so the students had to use paring knives. Good knife work practice, I suppose, but I'm glad that I keep a good peeler in my knife roll. So is Manny, who was the first to ask to borrow it from me (everyone in my class knows that I keep a variety of additional tools with me).
After a couple of hours of work, Wolfgang Puck himself actually came into the kitchens to inspect things and made friendly conversation with some of the students. Not too long afterwards, several different camera crews, both American and international, came in to do some filming for their Oscar coverage. Chef Puck displayed some demonstration items from his menu, as well as a basket of black truffles worth about $30,000. Additionally, he had tins of the finest Ossetra caviar worth about $40,000 (some of which will go on the Oscar Matzos I produced).
Definitely a good learning experience.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
March 3, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
There were only two dishes to prepare today, and plenty of time, but I was feeling pretty tired and didn't have a sense of urgency. Consequently, I was a bit rushed towards the end.
The day started with a tuna fabrication demo. This was sort of important because we needed that tuna for our first dish. The layout of tuna is almost absurdly engineered for processing, as it divides quite readily into four nearly equal quadrants. This is not to say that taking one apart is simple. Fabricating almost any animal is not as easy as it sounds and takes a good deal of practice to gain any skill in it.
Once the demo was over, the prep went on apace. Organization was really a consideration today.
For example, the first dish seems pretty simple, but it takes awhile to get going: Seared Albacore Tuna with Black Rice, Maui Onion Confit, and Tropical Fruit Salsa (recipe). Searing the tuna takes but a few minutes. It's the rest of the dish that requires a significant amount of prep. The salsa requires dicing a fair number of fruits, which takes a bit, but also has to macerate for at least an hour, so you have to finish it quickly. The black rice (aka Forbidden Rice) still has its bran coat, so it takes a good deal of time to cook. A couple of students didn't realize this and had to present their dishes with undercooked rice or no rice at all. Additionally, to really develop flavor in the Maui Onion Confit, you have to let the dish go for a good period of time. You can't just throw it together at the last minute. Oh, and did I mention having to make a teriyaki glaze that has to simmer for at least twenty minutes?
Sounds like a quick dish, "seared tuna? that'll take seconds", but the entire plate, ain't.
On the other hand, our "Contemporary" Bouillabaisse was actually much quicker and easier to prepare. You have to make a lobster stock first, but that isn't too difficult: sweat some aromatics, add lobster shells, pince with tomato paste, add stock, brandy, a sachet and you're done in an hour. You'll be adding some more veggies to the soup, but they're mostly the same as what you need for the stock, so you can cut them all at the same time.
Once the soup is simmering, it is simply a question of cooking the fish and shellfish in the soup, which must be done in the proper order so as not to overcook the various types of seafood as some cook quicker than others. However, the fish take very little time to cook overall. Plate and you're done (but don't forget the Rouille on toast garnish).
Lesson for today: one needs to maintain a sense of urgency even if one is tired.
Comments (0)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
Posted by Ernest Miller
Fat Tuesday, but no pancakes on the production list. Instead, we make: Grilled Lobster Tail; Grilled Quail with Israeli Couscous, Pomegranate Molasses, Pomegranate Seeds and Mint; and, Grilled Pizza with Pesto, Prosciutto, and Buffalo Mozzarella. Appetizer plates all.
After getting the mise well under way, we got the demo on lobster fabrication. This was disturbing to several of the students as the process included sticking a bamboo skewer lengthwise through the still living lobster before boiling in order to ensure the tail did not curl during the cooking process. Immediately after the demo, the lobsters were distributed.
The lobsters had come straight from the refrigerators, so they were pretty lethargic initially. I wasn't planning on cooking mine immediately, so I put it in a hotel pan and stuck in my lowboy. When it came time to cook mine, it was still lethargic. Others, however, kept their lobsters on top of their stations, which meant that, as the lobsters warmed up, they became more active and less accommodating to getting a bamboo skewer up their tail. Lesson: keep your lobster chilled, unless you like fighting with it.
Cooking and fabricating the lobsters took very little time, so that was the dish that most people knocked out first. Of course, you have to be a little careful taking the meat out of the claws, as that will be part of the presentation for a dish the next day. Although there are many ways to open the shells, a nutcracker might come in handy next time.
Our quails came deboned, so there wasn't that much prep involved there. The most difficult thing was seeding the pomegranate (really delicious) and making the Israeli Couscous. I've never had Israeli Couscous before and I rather liked their consistency. A nice change of pace. Definitely an ingredient worth playing some more with.
They also reminded me of tapioca pearls, which made me wonder what some savory applications for tapioca might be. Could it be used as a starchy side dish? How so?
The pizza was generally the last thing people prepared, mostly because we wanted to give our dough a chance to rise and develop flavor before use. It was definitely a favorite dish. Students from classes ahead of ours made a point of dropping off some sample dishes in order to grab a couple of slices of pizza on the way out.
We did have some portioning issues with the pizza. People were slathering on ingredients, such as cheese and pesto, when the recipe calls for a thin layer. This isn't the pizza you get from the local delivery service. In this case, when you work with quality ingredients, less is more.
To replace some of the pesto, we also used left over romesco on the pizza. Is there anything you can't use romesco on? Pizza Romesco was great. At home I've used romesco on pasta (fusilli holds the romesco very well) and salad (with kalamata olives and shaved manchego cheese), both worked very well.
In any case, a pretty nice day's work.
Comments (2)
+ TrackBacks (0) | Category: Culinary School
February 27, 2006
Posted by Ernest Miller
Mondays really are Mondays in course II.
I was running a little behind schedule, so I immediately made my way to my station. Well, it turns out that my station wasn't my station - there was a piece of tape with the names "Danny / Nina". Forgot. We'll be changing station partners on a weekly basis. Walking around the lab I find my new station near the front (away from the dishwashing sinks) with Lauren, one of the youngest students (she is only 18).
She and I haven't worked together other than doing dishes, so it will take some additional time to organize ourselves to get things done more efficiently.
The class starts with a short quiz. Of course, the time you have to finish the quiz is quite short as well. I'm usually a pretty quick test taker, but I didn't |
