Knife Skills, Cream Soups

This week we made soups. First were consommés. Then cream soups. Of course they were Dalliscious! Bwoop! Bwoop!

I was assigned cream of broccoli. Additionally, my team mate was assigned sous chef for the day so we had to make mirepoix for some veal stock that was being made for the kitchen. For this task I was assigned chopping five onions. That's enough to make me cry so I put on my onion goggles that were given to me as a gift. As I somewhat expected, I got a "You can leave those at home," comment from the chef. Oh well, thought I'd see. Now I know.

First, we organized all our mise en place for the soup. The recipe calls for a velouté sauce to be incorporated thus we had two sets of mirepoix, two portions of clarified butter and two sachet d'épices. The first for the soup and the second for the velouté. The velouté also included roux and chicken broth. The soup mise en place also included broccoli, florets and stems separately, and of course cream.

Mise en place also includes equipment. We gathered our pots, one for the soup, one for the velouté sauce, one for hot water to blanche our florets, an ice bath to shock our florets, a spider to remove our florets and get them into the ice water, a wooden spoon to stir the soup, plus our usual cutting board, trash bin, knives etc.

The chef then announced we'd be making the velouté sauce directly in the soup pot. Sounds good, that's one less pan to wash. He would demonstrate the soup later. My teammate and I started sweating our mirepoix and waiting patiently. Remember, to extract the flavors patience is needed. I added the stem pieces and sweat those. Now we were ready for the velouté sauce, but there was no demonstration. "Chef we're ready to add our velouté."

Now I had to sweat a second batch of mirepoix. It seems this should have gone in at the beginning with the first batch. Oh well. We moved along and added our roux and stock. The soup didn't look very good to me. I was a little worried. It tasted really bland. Chef had told us to season some as we went along and not wait until the very end so I added some salt and pepper.

Meanwhile my partner was blanching and shocking our florets. They looked good, but we had a hard time judging if they were done enough. We were instructed to cook them through and I thought they still had some crunch (which I like). I told my teammate to cook them a wee longer but she should really ask chef if they were done enough. She did. "Take them off." So much for understanding the directions. I was pleased to know he didn't want them cooked more however.

I selected a few appropriately sized florets for garnish and chopped the remaining florets. These we added to our soup. My partner tasted and added salt.

Then the chef shortened our time frame. My partner and I were planning to add our sachet d'épices in 15 minutes and cook for another half hour, per our recipe directions.

"Add your sachet now and cook for another 15 minutes."

Yikes! Is that long enough to draw the flavors out of our herbs? Oh! We have two sachets, one for our velouté and another for our soup, so we have double the herbs. Okay, I'm on board.

We finished up our soup and awaited the emulsion blender from the lentil soup team. I quickly worked to heat our cream so it'd be ready to add to our pureed broccoli soup. All ran smoothly. Now we needed to season. I added some salt and pepper. We tasted again.

"Needs more salt," we both agreed. More salt added.

"Still needs more," I said. I added more salt.

"We just need some to get it to his level." I added more salt.

Next we reheated and plated (or bowled) our soup with our lovely florets for garnish. All the soups are aligned now, minus the white bean. That team was still working.

First was a shrimp bisque. It looked a little thick to me and needed some garnish, but otherwise fine. The chunks of shrimp were inviting.

Second was a minestrone that looked heavenly. There was a pesto on top made from blanched basil leaves, making the pesto a beautiful bright green. It was really nice against the orange carrots and yellow peppers in the soup.

Third was our broccoli soup. It now looked lovely, not like it did when all I saw was floury roux and stock. It was green.

This was followed by the lentil soup. I thought it would look icky, but it looked good. It had bits of bacon on top and nicely squared croutons. I was ready to eat some.

Last was a Manhattan clam chowder. Being a New England clam chowder fan, I wasn't as enthusiastic about this one, but it wasn't a dark red so it still seemed appealing. It also had several open clam shells with baby clams in them which looked yummy.

The white bean soup didn't make it to the table. The student was still working on it behind the scenes, but from the looks of it, very liquidy with a white tint, it wasn't making it to the table anytime soon.

Now to the tasting! The shrimp bisque tasted like wall paper paste, not quite that bad but pastey. It had no seasoning. It reminded me of our soup in the beginning when I was worried about its advancement.

The minestrone tasted as good as it looked, heavenly. There were nice textures from the beans, pasta and vegetables. There was a sprinkle of Parmesan that tasted yummy and the pesto was a huge boost. I could eat and eat this! Most of the class agreed as signaled by the moaning noises when people ate it.

Now ours..... wow. It actually tasted Dalliscious! Chef commented "Nice seasoning, may be a little thick." I could live with that. Plus the class was oohhing, ahhing and moaning some more. To me this was a good sign.

The lentil soup tasted yummy. The bacon and croutons added a nice crunch and flavor. If this was health food I could eat it. Note I said health food not vegetarian. The soup was made with chicken stock and had bacon. My experience with most vegetarian soups is that the cooks don't bring in mushroom broth or another taste to add depth. They are flat. This soup had depth and was tasty!

The last tasting was the Manhattan clam chowder. I dove in. The broth was nice. It didn't seem like a cream soup however. I need to check the recipe, maybe it wasn't supposed to be. I bit into a clam, chewy. Someone added them too early. What a shame as there were several in there to eat.

The one student was still working on her white bean. It looked awful. I think she packed up soon after our tasting. I didn't notice if she participated in the indulgence that followed. We were allowed to take 15 minutes and eat whatever soups we wanted. I went for the minestrone. It was so good! Then had a cup of our cream of broccoli, also good. My now my salt meter was on high. I decided to see if the shrimp bisque would be good with seasoning. I put some in my bowl, added some salt and pepper and tasted. It needed a wee more salt. (I'm turning into a salt monger now. Pathetic.) Now it was good! This I could enjoy. I don't think it was top of the class, but it could earn a much improved award.

Now I need to make the lentil. This will be on our practical. I need to inquire how the croutons were made, did they have garlic, etc.

Next week, it's on to meats! YUM! Bwoop! Can't wait!

Knife Skills Continues, After Knife Skills Even Better!

Today we made consommé. It's relatively easy, but looks kind of gross at points. First, I mixed ground meat with egg whites and chopped up mirepoix. This is similar to making a meatloaf, but there are lots more eggs whites than with meatloaf so it was much souper, otherwise similar.

Then we started cooking it up on the stove. It looked like someone had puked into my stock pot (sorry gross I know, but that's what it looked like). There were all kinds bits and pieces of food floating around the top of the pot. ICK! Slowly that turned into a big burger floating on top of the broth, called the raft. If I were Ratatouille, the cartoon rat, I'd probably like to float on a big burger. I guess that's a fitting name.

I tasted the raft. It tasted like bland meatloaf. It was better with salt. Still I think Ratatouille would be okay with it.

I got some good praises for my dicing skills used in the garnish. Unfortunately I didn't blanche the pieces long enough. I also got kudos for seasoning my consommé well. My strategy is working. Season the salt to taste, then add more.

Compared to other classes, this one seemed less eventful. Maybe that means we're settling into the routine of the kitchen.

After class however was really cool! The class after ours fabricated a pig and we were invited to participate. First the class broke each half into its five primal parts. There was a big bone saw involved. I didn't get to run it, but it still seemed exciting. I noted the chef/saw runner didn't wear goggles. Somehow I think that's a no no.

Then we broke apart each of the five primals (ten total because there were five on each half) into the various meats, tenderloin, ham, picnic, shoulder, spare ribs, etc. There was a lot of meat there, but I was told only about 5 to 10% would go to waste. Someone offered me the spinal cord. I declined. I guess the waste just went up to 6%.

Hollandaise Sauce, Oh My What Work!

This morning I made Eggs Benedict for my mother-in-law's birthday. I thought the sauce was relatively easy to make in class so I figured, no problem. Right? WRONG!

I planned ahead and brought a strainer so I could easily remove any of those eggy pieces that might get from the sides; what else could go wrong?

I shopped for all the ingredients and brought them with me, English muffins, a pound of butter (yes, 12 of the 16 ounces are needed for four egg yolks according to the recipe), multiple eggs for the Hollandaise and for poaching, Canadian bacon and some spinach. The dish doesn't traditionally have spinach, but I thought the dish needed color and vitamins. Plus I planned to serve it to three young nieces/nephews and children always need vitamins.

(I just realized typing this that Eggs Benedict is an international dish... English Muffins, Canadian bacon, Hollandaise sauce. Ha! Ha! Some lame humor on my part.)

I wanted to engage the children in the cooking process. Thus I told them the first step is to get your aprons on; I stated this like a Nascar race, "Aprons On!"

Next we organized and got all our ingredients and equipment together, or in culinary language prepared the "mise en place" literally translated as "settings in place." I pulled out my whisk.

"What's that?"

"A whisk"

"What's a wisssk?" Adorable, aren't they? "I want a wisssk of my own."

"A whisk is used to fluff the yellow part of the egg and make the sauce. I don't have another whisk, but here, put this in your apron pocket." I handed them each a spoon. Thankfully they each seemed satisfied.

Next we proceeded to get out the eggs, muffins, and bacon. Oops. Someone ate half the muffins I brought since they were placed on the counter the previous night. No problem, there were two more packages that happened to already be in the household. I opened them and discovered that each muffin was completely covered in green mold. I guess throwing out deteriorating food goes by the wayside when you have kids because they weren't just spotted with mold, they were coated with fuzz and there wasn't just one half-eaten package of them, but two. No problem, there was some bread that wasn't fuzz colored.

On with breakfast... we needed to separate the eggs. Each child wanted to crack an egg. Easy enough, they cracked and I separated.

Snag two arrived. Uncle Joey went out to purchase hula hoops because my neice wanted to win the hula hoop contest at school the next month. Of course she'd need to practice. Conveniently, she remembered seeing hula hoops for sale at the CVS. Only the errand took nearly an hour because she remembered incorrectly and Uncle Joey had to drive the opposite direction to Walmart instead.

While holding breakfast preparations my neice and nephew proceeded to wear the bowls on their heads, toss the muffin pieces in the air to practice flipping, name and label each one of the eggs. Of those that I can remember, my neice named her eggs Delinda, Anna, Allie, Alex, and Crystal and my nephew named his Nicko, Dicko, William, and Maui. He wanted to name one Sicko, but I told him that was an ugly name. Dicko is a derivative of Richard so I felt that was an acceptable name.

Simultaneously, I started my vinegar reduction. With the flying muffins and equipment I managed to burn the reduction twice. Luckily this isn't difficult to redo.

Also to keep them engaged, I had them mix the eggs whites even though these would be tossed into the trash. This lasted quite a while; I was pleasantly surprised. But it didn't last long enough. Soon both of my apprentices were elsewhere never to return, particularly once the hula hoops arrived. My shortlived days as an influential aunt recruiting for Future Chefs of America ended.

On with breakfast, the actual cooking part... I started my first batch of Hollandaise sauce. All seemed to progress well. I thickened and whipped my yolks and incorporated my vinegar reduction. I incorporated the melted butter slowly at first and my sauce was progressing well, a little thick, but it looked good and was a nice color. In class we thinned the sauce with water, so I also did this.

BLAM! My sauce broke! No need to panic; I had eggs and butter I'd start over. This time I started with a little more vinegar reduction. My yolks whipped up better than the first time. Alright! One false start isn't bad, all in the learning experience. Plus as I told my husband, the screaming children and added stress of starting over was good stress practice for the approaching practical.

I started adding my butter, a little at a time, not too fast. Progressing well.... progressing well... more butter... incorporating well... more butter...

BLAM! My sauce broke again! Now I was getting nervous. I was running out of eggs and butter. I also had to make a new batch of vinegar reduction (this is #5 I think). I took it slowly. I told myself not to fear using lots of the reduction in the yolks as this seemed to work well last time.

My yolks were looking really good this time, nice and frothy, no egg scramble on the sides of the bowl. Hot dog! I'm cookin' now!! Finally! I managed to incorporate all the butter!

I tasted my sauce. Holy crap! It was salty!! Normally I'd use unsalted butter, but Target wanted to charge nearly twice as much for it so I purchased salted butter. I think all the salt had settled to the bottom of my melted butter dish and as a result I'd used super concentrated salted butter for my third batch of Hollandaise sauce. I didn't have the ingredients, nor time to make a fourth batch. Maybe it would be okay when eaten with unsalted eggs and spinach.

Finally I served up the Eggs Benedict! All in all, it was okay. No one could cut through the muffins because they were super toasted on the bottom awaiting my second and third batches of sauce, but at least the salty sauce wasn't as bad as it was by itself.

Something tells me I need more practice.

Knife Skills Day Five, Sauces

Today we made the mother sauces, espagnole, tomato, velouté, béchamel, and hollandaise. (Wow, I didn't think I could remember all those from merely hearing them in lecture, but after making them and knowing which teams made what, I actually can name them all. See... experience does matter.) My team made espagnole and tomato and each student had to make his own hollandaise.

I told my husband I had to make eggs benedict over the weekend and got a big "Alright!" He may get surprised with some asparagus or steak too with hollandaise. Something tells me he won't mind.

The sauces generally weren't difficult. I did learn that when you think you've sweat the onions enough, or carmelized the carrots enough... you didn't. When you think you added enough oil, you'll receive an "add more" from the chef. I'm guessing this is true too with salt, but I have yet to experience it firsthand. From appearances across the classroom, the other sauces were also completed without difficulty.

The hollandaise sauce I thought would be a different story. Rather, everyone was able to make theirs without breaking it, meaning the fats/oil would separate from the egg or the eggs get to hot and scramble instead of making a nice smooth sauce. There was one example of a broken sauce, made on purpose so we'd know what it looked like.

At the end everyone had to label their bowl and the were all compared at the end. I noted one bowl was not the original bowl in which the sauce was made. Thus there were no crusty pieces on the sides or other references to the actual process of making the sauce, just the finished product in a nice and clean bowl. "Who's is that? That's sneaky!" Of course if was our class leader's (same guy who had the nice tournés) and he got a shout out from the chef for cleaning up his presentation. Not fair! I asked before putting mine out if I should strain it and got a "don't worry about it." Obviously, I should have worried about it, especially since mine got used as the example of high sides of dried egg.

Next class sounds busy too. We're making several soups and consommé. I can't wait to see the raft that forms on top of the consommé with all the impurities! After learning this was sometimes used as family meal for peasants I felt bad for all the "Eeww that's for dinner tonight, Mom?" inquiries through the years. I suppose fast food beef could be equated to the contents of the raft however, meat bits, some protein additives, flavoring, sounds like a Whopper to me. Grill up the raft and put it on a bun! (Please don't! That's NOT Dalliscious!)

Serving Class

In addition to my knife skills class, I also attend twice a week a serving/front-of-the-house class. The uniform for it is a cotton button-down shirt with one breast pocket, black pants with a black belt, black dress shoes, black socks, a black bow tie, black apron, and our name tags. (Recall, I left this at home one day and lost points because of it.) The women in the class think its ridiculous that for this class no make up or jewelry is allowed, similar to the kitchen uniform. Isn't the waitstaff supposed to be pleasing to the eye? Our instructor states we're all beautiful and don't need make-up.

We are assigned a duty daily. So far I've been the bartender and a server. On the day that I was the bartender, I had to walk the class through those duties to prepare them for their day in that position. I had to make three batches of iced tea, using a white coffee pot not a black one for each batch and turning the handle forward on each batch. This is a "silent signal" that tells anyone who picks up the tea making process before it has fully completed which of the three batches is brewing. Other silent signals include a turned down napkin from the host at seating to indicate the place setting will not be used and needs to be removed from the table and a doily under the coffee cup to indicate it is decaf coffee.

After brewing iced tea I then brewed coffee. While reaching for the black coffee pot underneath the brewing machine, the cabinet door fell off. The class found this quite amusing and the instructor asked me what I did to break the door. "Nothing!!! Poor craftsmanship!"

In about two weeks we will have live customers in this class. There is another class that develops and cooks the menu for these customers. I have friends that will come one day while I'm serving. Knowing my friends, I'm sure they will point out any mistakes they can find and generally be difficult patrons. Can't wait! (Actually, I can. Bwoop!)

Knife Skills Day Ouch

No, I didn't cut myself. I'm still cut free, but a cut would have been better than forgetting my entire knife kit. That's major points off my grade for the day!

The last few days I've been completely absented minded so I'm not surprised I forgot my knives. The day before I forgot my name tag to serving class; that's points off for the day. The evening before I left my laptop power cord at work. I had to quickly put together a strategy document within my battery's one hour time frame. Then I realized I had to type up some recipes for class and had about 15 minutes of time remaining on the battery. I got through four of the five recipes and the screen went black. Luckily, I planned ahead and worked on my flash drive. I inserted it into my husband's computer and finished and printed my assignment. You'd think that would have been a warning then to get my head better into the game of school. Instead, out the door I went the next morning doing my mental checklist of class books, computer, snack, proper uniform and hot tea for the car ride--- no knives. Now I'll have to store them in my car, something not advisable in the neighborhood in which I live.

After approaching the chef with my tail between my legs, "Chef, I don't have my knives," he basically told me to make do, borrow, etc. (I wonder now if I should have even told him or waited to see if he busted me.) The lack of knives actually wasn't a huge inconvenience, more an embarrassment. I continued to work on my tournés, noting that I am improving, although the guy in front of me had tournés that really looked good, not perfect but good. Show off!! Bwoop! (He didn't really show off. I peered over slyly looking, but I have to add some drama here. Also I'm pretty sure he reads these blogs.)

The disappointment came when the chef told me my, I thought decent, tournés were a "C" level. Dang! I was hoping for a B- at least. Agreed they were no A. I will have to continue working on them.

The other in-class task for the day was to make white, blond, brown and dark roux. All came out nicely. I tried to take a picture to post here, but instead pushed the power button and not the shutter button. I noted chef saw me do this so I decided to slink away quietly. He must think I'm a complete ding-dong.

Next week will be better, especially since there is only one class because of the holiday.

Knife Skills Day Three

Today there was little lecture and demonstration. There is a large banquet tonight so our class was predominately working to prep items for that dinner. Big guests are expected, the American Culinary Federation, here for its monthly meeting. I am excited to see the food for it; I heard there's a lobster mac 'n cheese. Sounds Dalliscious! There's also an oyster raw bar. I sure hope I won't be the one shucking all those oysters.

I did get a shout out from the teacher on my uniform knife cuts. I guess the weekend practice paid off some. The potato-leek soup I made from my scraps sure were Dalliscious. I believe the cream helped. Bwoop!

Today I was assigned the role of Sanitation Director. This means I assign members of the class for various clean-up activities. It was fairly straightforward since I was provided a list of tasks that need to be completed. Thanks go to each classmate for a successfully completed cleaning. Each person accepted responsibility and tackled assigned tasks without moaning or making faces. I think everyone just wanted to get through cleanup as quickly as possible.

Still cut free.... (I do have a minor nick, but hardly anything worth mentioning.)

Knife Skills Practice

This Saturday I spent at Lunacy Black Market. Chef Luna gave me some interesting challenges and assisted me in honing my knife skills. My biggest challenge through the day was following through on a complete slicing stroke.

I started the day julienning a red pepper into lozenges (diamonds)- TINY ones! Then I sliced a sweet potato into thin slices and proceeded to julienne those. We deep fried the strips and used them as a soup topper. They were a nice addition to the pureed chickpea and tomato soup, both aesthetically on top and a tasty, slightly sweet crunch while eating the soup.

Next I tournéd several carrot pieces. It is a challenge working with something so small, but little did I know I would get to work with something even smaller. After the carrot came a potato- seems manageable, until Chef Luna cut the potato into small pieces. My hand cramped up from trying to hold them. I whittled these away into what ultimately looked like cloves of garlic, hardly the football shape they should have been.

I worked more on my knife strokes and julienned more peppers and then thinly sliced some garlic, used in Black Market's shrimp dish. Chef Luna would make me cut forward and then make me switch and cut backwards. The switch can be equated to patting your head and rubbing your stomach. My brain didn't want to switch quickly.

Upon finishing the garlic, Chef Luna said I needed to get some coffee. I thought he was going to make me tourné a coffee bean. I was very curious to see his demonstration. Rather, he busted out laughing; the coffee grinds get the garlic smell off your fingers. Duh! (and phew!!)

CONCLUSION: I will soon purchase a tourné knife.

It was a good day of practice. I will continue some work at home and am looking forward to potato & leek soup with the scraps. Dalliscious!

Knife Skills Day Two

We all practiced our knife skills making all 17 of our required cuts. I proceeded at a decent pace, but I'm not sure if I'd yet meet the time requirement of the test. Some classmates were struggling, nearly all of us with the tourne.

Overall, I was told my cuts were pretty good. An "Excellent!" would have been better. I'll have to work on that this weekend. Luckily, I can use my neighbor's commercial kitchen down the street some so I won't be trapped standing inside at my own place all day. No injuries to date.

Here's a full list of the required cuts.

1. Chop
2. Mince
3. Chiffonade
4. Julienne
5. Batonnet
6. Frite
7. Brunoise
8. Small Dice
9. Medium Dice
10. Large Dice
11. Tourne
12. Paysanne & Fermiere
13. Lozenge
14. Rondelle
15. Bias
16. Concasse
17. Oblique

Knife Skills Day One

My Knife Skills class should be called Skills. Sure knife skills are the basis, but there is way more than just cutting in this class. Still two people managed to cut themselves on their first attempt to use the sharpening steel. I've remained injury free to date.

We're provided the final exam on the first day and there is a five-day practical exam at the end. Only the first day of the practical is knife skills. Check out this line up...


Day 1: 17 knife cuts and 4 mother sauces

Day 2: Sauteed Supreme of Chicken w/Fine Herb Sauce, Grilled New York Strip w/Bearnaise Sauce, Puree of Lentil Soup, Rice Pilaf

Day 3: Chicken Fricassee, Chicken Broth with Vegetables and House-Made Egg Noodles

Day 4: Roasted Chicken w/Pan Gravy, Cream of Broccoli Soup, White Bean Ragout

Day 5: Poached Fillet of Sole w/Vegetable Julianne and Vin Blanc Sauce, Chicken Consumme, Duchesse Potatoes

Day 6: Written Exam, Kitchen CleanUp- Done for the Quarter! Bwoop!!