What happens when a culinary student takes a consumer cooking class?
Posted on | September 22, 2009
Two nice things keep happening to me after my exams. First, the exams are a wonderful confidence-booster because I’m always convinced I will embarrass myself, my husband, and my entire family then, miracle of miracles, I always end up doing “A” work.
Second, they are a great way for me to see where I can improve.
In the first term, it was my knife skills. They are still not as good as I want, but I continue to work on them. In my second term, it is my hollandaise and my biscuits. Yes, I got nearly perfect grades on both, but I knew I could do better.
So, today, thanks to the farming skills of Chef Rushmore, the kindness of She Chef, and a can of Red Bull, I worked on both.
“Why did the student eat his homework?”
~ The teacher told him it was a piece of cake
Welcome to Sunday morning. There is no school today, so my goal is to take this time to perfect my hollandaise and my biscuits. See, I made great hollandaise up to the day of the exam. Then, during the exam, my hollandaise broke. Twice.
The indignity.
I managed to make a third one which did not break, but, still, you gotta know my confidence was shaken.
So, today, I announced to the husband that I was making eggs florentine for breakfast.
He was game. He always is for my kitchen experiments.
Now, I had formulated this plan after my exams. See, on Friday, I bought a dozen eggs from Chef Rushmore for $3. Every Friday, Chef Rushmore wanders ’round the school, pulling a little wagon piled high with eggs and everything from seedlings to homemade chutney behind him, walking in and out of classrooms and selling the contents to students.
He told me he wants his garden to pay for his home. And, dollar by dollar, I believe he will do it.
First, I fill a pot with a few inches of water, put it on the burner, and crank up the heat (this is an electric stove and I am so used to gas from school that I hate working on this one). I take another pot and fill it with some clarified butter I made a while back. I turn the heat on this, too, but, in this case, the heat is very low (I just want to melt the butter).
Then I grab a large bowl, crack an egg, and ditch the egg white, leaving only the yolk in the bowl.
I take the pot off the stove, put the bowl on the pot (the whole point here is to keep that yolk warm), drizzle in some vinegar, and start whipping.
Whipping, whipping … yes! The emulsion is started.
I drizzle in some of the melted clarified butter. Slowly. Drop by drop.
The emulsion is holding.
I start pouring the butter into the bowl in a very slow stream.
The emulsion is holding. But the hollandiase is getting a bit thicker than I want.
I drizzle in a bit of water, say half a teaspoon, to thin it out. The texture is just perfect.
More butter. Faster. More. Until I am dumping it in by the sloppy spoonful.
The emulsion is still holding. And the hollandaise is gorgeous.
Salt, pepper, more salt. Few dribbles of Tobasco, taste, salt, taste. Good squirt of lemon. Taste, salt, taste, lemon, taste. Smile.
“Wanna taste my hollandaise?”
“Oh yeah. That’s great! When will breakfast be ready?”
Breakfast? Oh yeah! Now I have to make all the stuff that goes under the hollandaise.
Jeez, you think he’d be satisfied with a perfect hollandaise, wouldn’t you? Heaven knows, I was.
“What do you get when you put three ducks in a box?”
~ A box of quackers
One goal achieved, the second to tackle this afternoon. But, first, out to buy the biggest can of Red Bull I could find.
Let me explain.
My school holds classes for the public (if you have a chance to take a class at a culinary school, I highly encourage it – they are a great opportunity to play with your food while getting insight from a knowledgeable chef). I keep trying to sign up to assist She Chef in one of her baking classes, but Other Guy, who has a tremendous crush on her, always manages to sign up first.
Bother.
Move on to plan B: Simply attend the class as a student. This is achieved by She Chef’s kindness (she lets me attend the class without formally signing up). The can of Red Bull is to thank her for her generosity. See, she’s addicted to the stuff.
And, as a good guest, I clean up my work station and help to clean up after the class has gone. One interesting side effect of my cleaning up during class … the other students clean up their stations, too! The student helpers tell me this is the first time a consumer class has ever cleaned anything. I know this very well from the class I assisted Chef Rushmore with in my first term.
So, good things.
We were broken into groups of two. I ended up teamed with a potential student in the pastry program. And she ended up being a lot of fun – willing to experiment with the recipes and just get in there an cook (bake!) unlike the student across from us who had a dread of getting her hands dirty.
I can’t imagine tossing a salad, kneading a dough, even marinading a steak without getting my hands in there. They are my best cooking tool: Very precise and they tell me all about the food.
What did the cannibal order for take-out?
~ Pizza, with everyone on it
The first thing we made were scones.
These were plain lemon scones dusted with sanding sugar. We made a bunch of individual-sized scones and one large disk which was scored to break into wedges. They were pretty enough and nice enough, but nothing terribly exciting.
Second, we made muffins. We were given a plain muffin recipe, so we decided to jazz it up by adding blueberries and chocolate chips.
These came out perfectly – nice, juicy, blueberry flavor (we used so many blueberries that the batter really just served to keep them all together!) with a secondary taste of dark chocolate. Delicious.
And, third, we baked pound cake. Actually, we broke our recipe into quarters and made four, smaller, pound cakes.
Two of the cakes we made were lemon with lemon extract and lemon zest. For the third cake, I toasted almonds (here’s a good cooking tip: Toast your nuts in a hot oven for a minute or two to bring out the flavor and aroma) and mixed them with shredded coconut and a bit of coconut extract. For the fourth one, I tossed some pecans in a hot saute pan with a bit of maple syrup and a pinch of cayenne for some heat. Then I added these as an inner layer to the cake.
They were beautiful when they came out of the oven, but what really grabbed you was the aroma – the lemon ones, in particular, smelled heavenly.
But, then again, I never met a lemon I did not like (I mean, I have a meyer lemon tree growing in a pot in my living room, for heavens, sake!).
And as for the biscuits I came here to make …
“How can you tell if an elephant has been in your refrigerator?”
~ There are footprints in the cheesecake
We decided to make savory biscuits, so, first, I grabbed another saute pan (I was the only one in the class sauteing anything) and browned some diced pancetta. Then I minced some chives. We threw these, and some shredded montery jack cheese, in with our dry ingredients. Then we added our butter and our milk.
We had a barely cohesive dough which I cut into individual portions and put on a sheet pan. Everybody got a little milk wash and into the oven they went.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Pull them out.
These were the most beautiful biscuits I have ever made. And, when I brought some home to share with the husband, he agreed.
Although he did say he thought they’d be even better smothered in hollandaise.
FYI: It’s harder than you think to hit a moving target with a biscuit. Just saying.
Comments
5 Responses to “What happens when a culinary student takes a consumer cooking class?”
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September 22nd, 2009 @ 7:47 am
Should I assume that the pace in a commercial class at a culinary school is somewhat different than a class for culinary students?
I’ve a feeling that if I were paired with you, I’d learn lots, but you’d run circles around me (a mere muggle)!
Hmm…I wonder how many chefs/chef instructors can be bribed with red bull…
BTW, love hollandaise! That reminds me…I really should tag the brunch blog entries I that include either Eggs Benedict or a variation thereof…
September 22nd, 2009 @ 8:33 am
Very entertaining- loved your writing. I went to culinary school as an “over 40″ way older than you I imagine, but I so relate to practicing at home and your ambition. It was an amazing adventure-loved it. Really enjoy u on twitter too.
September 22nd, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
Ahh, I love reading your blog. Whenever I’m feeling anxious about starting school you remind me to be excited!
September 22nd, 2009 @ 9:34 pm
Oh those biscuits sound divine!!! What fun. Whenever I take a class at the local school, I always clean-up and people look at me very like I’m crazy. It’s kind of as if paying for the class you don’t have to have your courtesy skills with you. weird.
September 24th, 2009 @ 7:48 am
I just wanted to tell you that I came across your blog yesterday and have since read through your entire journey thus far. You are great with words and I have really enjoyed your perspective on culinary school. I have wanted to go for many years but it hasn’t worked out, now I am putting plans in place to hopefully attend one in the next year or two. I can’t wait to see what your third term brings. Keep up the great work.