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%.