Day eighteen: Constipation, foie gras, and a split nail
Posted on | June 29, 2009
Welcome to day three of beef cookery. Day one, I had food poisoning and missed class. Day two, my team came second place with another team and we had to make a hollandaise as tie-breaker. As it takes about the same amount of time to whip up a hollandaise as it does to grill a steak, I was out of luck. Again.
Today, day three, I am bound and determined to finally cook some beef.
Let’s see if the third time really is a charm.
What? Another mirepoix challenge?
Yes. Another one. But this one was different. For this one, each student was required to cut two onions, two carrots and four celery stalks in five minutes. Medium dice.
A lot of the students didn’t make it. Including me. So I got smart. I asked the chef how to speed up.
His best advice: “Push yourself.”
So I decided to try a better source of help: A student who had completed the challenge. And I asked him to show me what he did.
And his cuts were a lot rougher than mine. And were only medium dice in some weird Lilliputian world. So, clearly, my going for pristine, perfect cuts, was slowing me down. Okay. I’ll try fast and dirty next time.
In the meantime, I have to do something about my nail. See, in my never ending drive to speed up, I was trying a new way of peeling carrots. This one, alas, included my nail. Which now has a nasty split.
I have to start packing nail glue in my knife kit. Assuming that will keep this split nails together until they grow out. Anyone out there know about this stuff? Perhaps a kind manicurist who is interested in food?
“Do the mushrooms squeak? I can’t eat anything that squeaks”
~ Chef Rushmore (told to him by a student)
Sweet Line Cook is not here so Asian Guy and myself get all the beef to ourselves: Three flank steaks and three hunks of shank for osso busso.
We end up working very nicely together.
He butterflied the steaks, mangling the first one pretty badly (and understandably; you know how thin those flank steaks are), did a decent job with the second one, and a really nice job with the third. As he was doing that, I made the two stuffings, cooking and dicing and seasoning as we conferred.
“Okay, I’ve got celery and onions sauteing in one pan and carrots in another. So what do you want to add?”
“Wanna put ginger in?”
“Sure!”
“Okay, so ginger with the celery and onions and … ”
“No, wait, let’s put it with the carrots and do a Chinese thing.”
“Yeah, yeah I like that.”
“Okay. I’ll mince some ginger. How ’bout we add brown sugar and soy sauce?”
“Brown sugar, perfect. But not too much.”
“No. Okay. Teaspoon, maybe. And panko crumbs in that one?”
“Oh yeah. How about the other?”
“Bread, for sure. Parsley? Or savory?
“Parsely.”
“And black pepper. I’ve only got white. I’ll grind some.”
“And cut the bread.”
“Okay. How’s the steak coming?”
And so on.
Once the steaks were butterflied he helped finish the stuffings, tossing the bead one in some brandy and grating more ginger into the Asian one.
We were told we also needed a starch. So I made garlic roasted fingerling potatoes (the other two groups made gluey mashed potatoes) while he stuffed the steaks. He dusted the steak with the Chinese-oriented stuffing with Chinese five-spice powder, a touch of genius that just elevated the flavor. The other two got the basic salt and pepper treatment before they were stuffed.
Then into the oven with all three steaks and the potatoes.
“Lips and bunghole is the typical hot dog.”
~ Chef Rushmore
The mangled steak was, well, mangled when it came out, so we cut it up and tasted it as our tester. The other two steaks came out perfectly: Medium rare and aromatic. We sliced them and plated them with the perfectly done potatoes.
They were the best steaks there. And were gobbled up. This, despite the fact that some of the guys were saying they were sick of beef and, in fact, all that beef was having a negative effect on their, erm, regularity.
I suggested they might want to eat a salad, instead!
Then, on that note, we seared the mirepoix and the shanks for tomorrow’s osso bucco. Which I’ve never had before. And can’t wait to try. (When I told this to the chef, he asked me if my family kept me chained in the basement. I’ve had snails and ‘gator and marrow, and French food and Egyptian food, and Moroccan food, so my food experience has hardly been one-dimensional, but it certainly can’t be all inclusive.)
And, guess what? Chef says tomorrow we’ll have a foie gras tasting. Finally!
Comments
3 Responses to “Day eighteen: Constipation, foie gras, and a split nail”
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July 27th, 2009 @ 1:53 am
just make sure you have lots of dietary fiber in your food and you will be able to reduce the chances of having Constipation.
September 7th, 2009 @ 5:20 am
it is easy to avoid and treat Constipation. Just eat lots of Fruits and Vegetables with fiber in it. Drink lots of water and fruit juices too.
October 18th, 2009 @ 2:50 am
whenever i get Constipation, all i need to do is drink lots of orange juice and eat foods that have very high fiber.