Day twenty-five: A delight, a disappointment, and a recipe development
Posted on | July 27, 2009
The end of fish cookery. Almost.
And it ended with my biggest delight and greatest disappointment. At least when it comes to fish.
Let me explain.
Lisa: “I’m going to become a vegetarian.”
Homer: “Does that mean you’re not going to eat any pork?”
Lisa: “Yes”
Homer: “Bacon?”
Lisa: “Yes Dad”
Homer: “Ham?”
Lisa: “Dad all those meats come from the same animal”
Homer: “Right Lisa, some wonderful, magical animal!”
~ The Simpson’s
(I know, I know, bacon doesn’t have anything to do with fish cookery, but I got all these amusing Homer Simpson quotes and, damn it all, I’m gonna use them.)
The day started with some fun culinary math (no day at culinary school, clearly, is complete without) then segued into a scintillating conversation about fish.
Don’t get me wrong, the Chef Ewok is a wonderful lecturer and the topic is interesting. But, hey, itching to get into the kitchen and all.
But before we got to go the kitchen, we had a little something I like to call “team meeting.”
“When you’re in my house you shall do as I do and believe who I believe in. So Bart butter your bacon.”
~ Homer Simpson
For the first time, I got to see the recipes everyone in my team had prepared.
I emailed mine to Mama yesterday and she put them into a beautiful format. Ditto the menu.
Her recipes were as nicely formatted as mine were, but the structure was off.
Mr. Big’s recipes were not formatted at all. See, just before class, he hand wrote two recipes and just handed them to Mama. He was supposed to do four recipes. And he was supposed to email them to her so she doesn’t have to type them up.
And his structure was off, too.
This is the structure the Chef asked us to use:
- Name of the recipe
- Total yield; number of individual servings; amount per serving
- What, if anything, it is served with
- Ingredient list
- What, if anything, can be prepared in advance
- What, if anything, can be prepared before service
- How the food is dealt with during service (held, served, etc.)
It’s a great structure. But, instead, both she and Mr. Big had the name of the recipe, the ingredients, the instructions (so far, this is just like a recipe in a home cooking book) and then a note on what can be prepared in advance.
Not quite.
So I showed both how to do it. We’ll see if they figure it out.
Wanna see a recipe the way the Chef wants it? Here’s one I am currently developing.
Recipe for Hero sliders
Yield: 10 portions, three 2 ounce sliders / plate
Serve with salad
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 cup finely grated Parmesan
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
6 garlic cloves, minced
3-4 large eggs
4 pounds ground beef chuck
1/2 cup panko crumbs
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 cans (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes in puree
30 slider buns
Preparation 1 – 3 days in advance
- Mix Parmesan, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, eggs, beef.
- Using 2 ounce disher, form into balls.
- Sautee in a sautoir until browned.
- Put in a container and cool in an ice bath until below 41F. Put in container, label, place in reach in.
Before service, 1 hour
- Put tomatoes into pot, add meatballs.
- Simmer 10 – 15 minutes, until meatballs are cooked through.
Service
- Serve one meatball per slider; three sliders per plate. Using 1 ounce disher, top each slider with 1-2 ounces tomato sauce.
- Serve with salad.
“Mmmm. Move over, eggs. Bacon just got a new best friend: Fudge.”
~ Homer Simpson
Before we went into the kitchen, we sorted out which team would do what recipe. See, we had frogs legs, catfish, and crawfish.
I wanted the crawfish. Badly. And we managed to snag it because I was shamelessly enthusiastic about it.
“Who wants the cra … ”
“Me! Yes! We’ll do it, Chef! We’ll do it!”
“Yeah, okay.”
Then I realized something important. I, erm, forgot to confer with my team.
“Hey, guys, crawfish, okay if we do that?”
“You already got us doing it.”
“Yeah. Sorry. You mind?”
“Naw. Thass okay.”
“You?”
“No, I don’t care. Anything.”
“Good, then.”
“Is it bacon day?”
~ Homer Simpson
Now, last night I already had visions of red crawfish swimming through my mind so, so this morning I went onto Twitter to get some advice on what to make with it (a bit presumptuous seeing as it had not been assigned to us, but I’m not kidding when I say I really was determined to make this.) I got all sorts of great advice (and Dawn even sent me a wonderful recipe). I would have loved to make everything, but between limited ingredients and limited time, we could only make two dishes to go with the crawfish. So we made fried okra and hush puppies (thanks Dawn!).
And here’s the scary part.
Remember a while ago I mangled first one, than the other, nail when I tried to do my cuts faster? Well, to keep the nails from ripping down and exposing the sensitive part of my finger tip, I bought something called a nail bandage.
You are supposed to stick this to your nail and it will hold it together. Good plan, right? Well, the thing is little more than a piece of tape.
It said it would not come off in water or anything, but I was still a bit concerned, so I did all sorts of field tests. And, damned, if it did not stick, even through days of non-stop cooking and hand washing.
Erm. That is, until today.
They are gone. And, while they could be anywhere, my nightmare is they ended up in my hand-formed hush puppies.
Ah well. They were devoured by my fellow students and the chef’s, so there’s not much I can do about it now. And these things were so tiny (maybe a quarter of the size of a penny) that I doubt they could do any harm. But, still, that’s a bit horrifying, isn’t it?
“Pork chops and bacon, my two favorite animals.”
~ Homer Simpson
So here was the best part of today: I got to make what I wanted to make and it turned out really well (Mama made a dark roux that was the color of the richest caramel, a perfect base). And (nail bandage aside) here’s the disappointment: The crawfish we used wasn’t in a shell. It wasn’t even the fresh I expected and wanted so much to make. Alas, it was merely frozen crawfish meat we scooped out of a cold, drippy bag.
I wonder if restaurants do that? Sigh.
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July 28th, 2009 @ 5:52 am
Crawfish up this way (New England), are almost always frozen and disappointing. One day I’ll get fresh, but I know I’ll prolly have to get down to Jazz Fest to get ‘em!