Day ten

Correct seasoning - should you taste salt?

I have received my chef jackets today with my name on it. So now this is serious. No kidding!

Today was Culinary Fundamentals, which means we were in the kitchen. On our third day in the kitchen it was much better, but we were still behind schedule and finished almost 1 hour late.

All our tasks are divided between class, group and individual assignments. For the class assignment we have to make chicken stock and veal stock. For the group we were doing Glace de viande. As foundation for the contemporary cooking came from France we (our chefs) love to use these fancy words. Glace means
highly reduced stock (let's say 1 gallon reduced to 2 caps). It has extremely concentrated flavor.

Personal assignment was to clarify butter and prepare beef vegetable soup. Will gladly publish recipe for the soup in case somebody interested. It is quite simple and straightforward, may be 12 different vegetables and stock. OK, that will be test for feedback. If readers would like to see it, I will do it, please just leave a comment.

What was really important and it was new for me is how to season soup (probably this applies to other dishes as well). You put salt carefully. The perfect seasoning is when you still do not taste salt, but you vegetables become sweet. That balance of perfectly seasoning is not an easy thing to achieve, however this is standard we suppose to meet. Indeed I was quite happy with my result (stupid me, did not take picture) and for my taste salt balance was close to the soup chef made.

In the afternoon I went to yoga class. We have such a class on campus, as we are lucky to have certified yoga teacher working for us.

In the evening there was wine club. People who learn wine organized this club to share some knowledge with other students. It was interesting, for a nominal fee we were able to taste six wines and compare them (Old world vs New one).

As a result of these extra activities I felt behind and now going quickly to sleep.