Day nineteen

Why do we use lemon juice as part of seasoning?

Another day in the kitchen. Today we made Puree of Lentil Soup (individually) and Beans in a pot (as a team). I would probably say that this is not my favorite so far. It seems I am not a big fun of lentils and other beans. I can eat then if they cooked properly, but do I enjoy it? Not exactly.

Puree soups are a separate category of soups. We use beans as a thickening agent or starchy vegetables. Beans have better thickening quality, therefore we use less beans (2 pounds for 1 gallon as to compare with 3-4 pounds of vegetables). Since beans, as well as starchy vegetables, have not enough flavor, usually we use pork product to add flavor (salted pork, bacon, smoked pork, etc).

With the Lentil Soup we cooked today we have started to use additional seasoning - lemon juice. Why we do this today? The main reason is
that lemon juice cut fat on a palate. Since we add pork product and bring additional fat, we use lemon juice to reduce taste of fat. Simple. What was not so easy is to get right amount of lemon juice. I got it a little bit too much.

Also we cooked roux today. Roux is flour cooked in fat (clarified butter for now). It may be cooked to a difference stages, each of which has different color and thickening abilities. It's a great way to thicken soups, sauces and other products. The ratio is 60:40 (60% flour and 40% fat). When we cook flour in fat we cover each of smal particles of flour with fat and cook it. As a result, when roux is added to a liquid (you product) starch from the flour begins to swell and gelatinization begins. It does not mean that your flour become a gelatin, it simply refers to the consistency you product get from roux.

Roux cooked by chef, mine was not so colourful

Tomorrow we will continue to cook soups. This time it will be Fish Chowder. This sounds much much better, because I like it. So very excited to cook it tomorrow. Also we are going to have taste for Culinary Fundamentals and to addition to our production, we will have timed cut trays. It going to by busy day....