Day ninety five

Minestrone soup on the buffet

What is Minestrone soup (with a recipe)?

We have cooked a new menu today in a class. The menu was: Turkey stew; Biscuits; Warm Cabbage Salad; Rosti Potatoes; Seasonal Vegetables; Minestrone Soup; Pork Loin; and Sauteed Apples.

I was responsible for a Minestrone Soup. I like this soup, it's Italian vegetable soup with small pasta and  beans. What I did not realize yesterday is that a lot of cutting and chopping involved. We made a big batch (five gallons) and also we did not have chicken stock on hand, so we had to make vegetable stock for the soup (even more chopping and cutting). At some point

Day ninety four

Root vegetables for Yankee Pot Roast

What is brine? Will it help to keep turkey moist?

Today we had the same menu we cooked yesterday, but with different assignment. I was responsible for vegetables for Yankee Pot Roast. Our roast was good, but not great. There were a number of reasons: the meat we got probably was not the best choice for roast; due to mistake at the beginning we had too much tomato paste (and I noticed, that tomato does not help to tenderize meat, I think it because of acidity). At the end pot roast was close to 'fork tender' but a bit dry. By the way, when we speak about doneness and use term 'fork tender', it means that we are able to insert fork into meat easily and more important easily remove it.

Vegetables for garnish we used an assortment  of different root vegetables. We used carrots, turnips (yellow and white), parsnip, peas, and pearl onion. We pre-cooked them in boiling water and then, just before service, reheated in a glaze (mixture of chicken stock, lemon juice, butter, salt, pepper, and sugar).

Day ninety three

Roasted turkey on the buffet

The secret of roasting a turkey.

Today we have started a new class - Modern Banquet and Catering. This is our first class where our goal is to cook food for the real customers - students at the school. All classes we have had before were designed to build our knowledge and practical skills in cooking. Now we are moving to the production.

Our menu for today was: green salad, New-England clam chowder, Yankee pot roast, root vegetables, roasted turkey, stuffing, Mariera sauce, whipped potatoes, cranberry relish, and seasonal vegetables. As my friend said this is banquet for the poor people.

All these dishes were distributed between class and everyone was responsible for something. I was responsible for a turkey. It was not so difficult. What I found out is that the best way to cook turkey is to separate legs from the carcass and cook them separately as they tend to cook longer and the breast will be overcooked by the time the legs are cooked properly. So I have them cooked separate. The turkey was simply roasted. Season it with

Day ninety two

What do you know about sea urchin?

It was Thursday and it was final day for Seafood identification and fabrication course. Also we had the mid-term exam for the College Writing.

Final for the Seafood was three parts. We had theory exam, practical part, and product identification test. Theory was alright, I think I did ok. Fabrication was good, however the Instructor said that I missed small piece of fillet and reduced grade by whole point (completely unfair). Product ID was also good, probably missed a couple out of a dozen.

As a part of the last day we had sea urchin and caviar tasting. Before yesterday I have no idea about that creature. Yes, I knew that they are exist and even saw them in Egypt. I know they can be dangerous, people stepped on them

Day ninety one

Fabricated lean cod

 Where scallops came from...


This was a day for review and preparation for our practical for Seafood identification and fabrication.

We had flounder, lean cod, and trout. Also, quite by a chance, we received scallops in shell, soft shell crabs, and whole anchovies.

To take fillets from anchovies is a messy job. They are small, they are not gutted, so the cutting board was really dirty. The good thing is that we handled them at the end, so I just brought my cutting board to dishwasher pit.

Soft shell crab was an interesting creature. It had really soft

Day ninety

An assortment of shrimps for today. The
first one with long legs is funny

Shrimps, are they safe to eat?

Today we had final for our management and seafood class.

Management started from the final quiz and then two more teams were giving their presentations. I was in the very last group to present. We had quite a serious issue within our group. One of the member hold all material and basically was making powerpoint as he would like to see it, all our efforts to do something were rejected. Yesterday evening we had no powerpoint and we made another one as a contingency plan. Today he brought the powerpoint, unfortunately not exactly what we were looking for. So it was 10 minutes of shame and it's over. Our instructor is aware about this and unfortunately, the trouble maker is a guy with learning issues. Will be waiting for the results.

For seafood class we had a shrimp day. To be more precise we had shrimps, scallops, and squid (they are all my favorite). Also we smoked salmon today, after four days of curing. In the beginning  of the class we watched a short documentary about shrimp farming in Bangladesh. The people (in the movie) were complaining

Day eighty nine

Our crab

What is the meat/shell ratio in a crab?

Today was a Crustaceans day. Each of us had lobster and crab. We had crayfish for the group and one guy cooked it in Louisiana style (with tomatoes, onion, garlic, paprica, a touch of cayenne). It was really tasty.

Lobster was easy. It has just two claws and a tail where meat is located. What I did not do is to skewer live lobster, so when you cook it the tail is not curve. May be it was my first lobster... I can imagine to put it in a boiling water (what I did), or stub it with my knife... But to skewer it first is not what I want to do. There is another way to avoid curving,

Day eighty eight

It seems we've got different salmons

How to make salmon tartar.

Another day of fish and seafood fabrication. The course is going to the end, only four days left, next Thursday we will have final and that will be he end of the course.

We are still waiting for a skate. I am wondering why it is so difficult to get skate. For the whole week we were waiting and waiting for it and every day it was magical word 'tomorrow'. We have not yet touched scallops, lobster, and crab. Again this is in agenda for the next week.

Yesterday we did revision of what we learned. We fabricated salmon, that time we portioned one fillet for 3 oz portions, and prepared the second fillet for smoking. We fabricated catfish

Day eighty seven

Oysters for today, just one variety

Oysters - the R month fallacy.

Today was oyster, mussels  and  clams day. We have a few type of oysters and clams, and mussels from Price Edward Island, Canada (PEI - is a common abbreviation).

What I did not know about oysters, is the fact that in case of rain, harvest is interrupted for three days (here in Tamales Bay). This is because rain water brings to the lagune area many undesirable thing (washes some fecal from farms around for example). Oysters are gastropods, which literally means stomach-foot, and therefore absorb all dirt very quickly. That will make impossible to pass inspection, since the flesh will have choliform level above limit. What farmers do is

Day eighty six

Dolphinfish is not a dolphin!

It was an easy day today. We had seafood class and management class.

First in the morning we have management class and we were talking about training. Who should ideally train people in a team (direct supervisor) and different types of training, as well as problems associated with a training.

Seafood class was good. Each of the three teams have different fish to fabricate. Our team has mahi-mahi (actually we have three of them for six people). Mahi-mahi is also called dolphinfish, however it has

Day eighty five

Tuna for the day. In front is its pectoral finn.

Tuna day!

Today was tuna day. We have one tune for two people. The fish we have was albacore tuna, smaller variety with light color flesh. Even that smaller variety fish on average weight 35-40 pounds!

Tuna is usually frozen in the sea. As soon as it caught, fisherman will freeze it. They use liquid nitrogen, so freezing is a quick process. Also important part in using liquid nitrogen, is that ice crystals have no sufficient time to form, therefore there is no damage for the flesh. If you freeze slowly, the ice crystals will form and they can damage cells.

Handling tuna was not easy. The fish itself is almost round, however the structure of the fish required to  take each fillets separate and there four of them, two on each side. The flesh was really

Day eighty four

Today's victim - sturgeon

What is so special about sturgeon?

Today we had only one class - fish fabrication. We did stripped bass again and it was really easy to it second time. The other fish we had today was sturgeon.

Sturgeon is considered to be an expensive fish, however not everyone likes it. For example, my instructor said that for him, sturgeon has muggy  taste and he does not like it. I do like sturgeon. The smoked sturgeon is the best.

Fabricating sturgeon is not so easy. It has a lot of fat inside, the skin is slimy and it's difficult to hold it. What is aso interesting about this fish - it has no bones structure. Sturgeon is a cartilaginous fish and has no bones. Spinal cord is

Day eighty three

'Catch of the day'

What is specific about catfish?

TGIF.

Today it was only one class - fish fab. The list of victims includes catfish, trout, and rock cod. Rock cod  was familiar for us, we did it already. Catfish and trout were for the first time.

Trout is very similar to salmon. The size is different, but the bone structure is the same. Flesh is also more delicate as to compare to salmon. We fabricated boneless, skinless fillets from trout.

Catfish was completely new. It has

Day eighty two

A courtesy of

Arctic Char what kind of fish is it?

Thursday, we had only one class for today - fish fabrication. Great thing that the class begins at 8:40 (the time we suppose to be in the kitchen and set up stations). So I was able to sleep a bit longer. This a bit was not enough after three days of waking at 6 and finishing work around 8:30 in the evening. So I came to the dorm after lunch and slept for an hour...

Yes, back to fish. Today we had arctic char. This is very gentle fish, it has very delicate flesh and require gentle handling, otherwise you can easily destroy it. The bones structure is the same as salmon. Arctic char is closely

Day eighty one

Salmon for today

What are the challenges to fillet and to skin salmon? Is it easy fish?

Moving forward in the fish fabrication. Today we handled tuna. At he beginning of the class we were shown how to fillet a halibut and how to portion these fillets. After that there was demo on a salmon, how to remove a spinal bone, how to skin fillets, how to portion them.

Salmon is quite a big fish. Fortunately it has soft bones. By soft we mean that they are a little bit easy to handle (to cut through) and as a result of this softness method 'up and over' does not work. You will cut through the bones and at the end you will have a fillet with irregular bones which you will have to remove anyway. Therefore we use 'straight' method - we cut through the rib bones holding a knife against the spinal bones using it as a guideline. After that we remove the rib cage bones, trim all fins and skin fillet if required.

Just in case I did not explain the method 'up and over'.... In this method

Day eighty

Today's first victim

Ratio to feed tuna? 1 to 15 (15 pounds of food to get 1 pound of tuna)...

Second day of Seafood identification and fabrication. I love it. It is much easier as to compare with meat. In general fish has similar bone structure (there are difference between flat fish and round fish, but in these categories, they are very similar) and also because fish is so gentle. You do need to apply any pressure when filleting fish. The weight of the knife is enough.

Today our fist victim was dover-sole family member, flat fish. We had two fish for everybody and we filleted one fish in full side fillets and the other in quarters. There were almost no problems with that. Only one guy practically butchered these poor creatures for ugly fillets, and guess who? The one who talks more than anyone in our group...

Then we filleted sardines. We received them already scaled, so there were no scales all over the kitchen. Sardines are dirty fish. When you cut fillets you cutting board is unbelievable dirty, like you have never washed it:-)

The last victim for today was

Day seventy nine

Today's victim

How long does tuna live?

New class has started today - Seafood identification and fabrication. That is very interesting, as I am not really familiar with fish. I know a little bit about seafood (crustaceans), but fish is not where I am confortable with my knowledge.

A few facts. While average food costs are declining during last decades, fish and seafood are increasing in cost. For the last 10 years cost of seafood almost doubled. Since so many varieties of fish were over catch, and some of them almost extinct, the sustainability is important part of aquaculture in developed countries (some countries do not care at all). According to international rules, each country has 200 miles zone and this zone belongs

Day seventy eight

Courtesy of

The end of meat study.

It was Friday and the final for our meat course. The final consisted of three parts. The first one was written test where we suppose to answer many questions about meat and poultry. The big unpleasant surprise was that the test was not multiple choice. That was a real surprise. 

The second part was fabrication. Everyone from our group was given a half of pork shoulder and had to fabricate from this piece of meat two roasts and tie them. All reasonable trimmings had to be cut for stew meat. Also we got one chicken each and we had to fabricate two airline breasts, two wings, two boneless skinless thigh, and two drumstick optionally Frenched. That was

Day seventy seven

Tasting menu for today, ready to roast

Last day of chicken fabrication.

Today was the second day of chicken. We did almost the same we did yesterday with some small variation. For one chicken instead of fabricating airline breast we did skinless butterflied breast and chicken lolly pops. The whole leg (thigh and drumstick) was deboned.

We tried also another way of separating chicken - to take off legs first and then to take off beast. Even though the chef said that this is not the best way in her opinion, I found it easier to do, because when you take legs off you work entirely on the breast and do not need to handle the whole side of the chicken. Again this is personal opinion, I can do both ways.

It was a chance for us to taste different birds today - quail, squab, chicken, capon, pheasant, and something else (do not remember). Squab had

Day seventy six

Varieties of birds from quail to capon
(there is hand in the picture, this is not bird:-)

Chicken, how many way to cut it do you know?

So we have moved to chicken. It looks like an easy bird, but it depends on the intended use, what are you going to do and how to cook it. Indeed a chicken is the most versatile protein. You may simply roast it whole. You can roast it spatchcock (kind of butterfly). You can cook it in pieces. And so on, the list will be endless.

We trussed our three chickens (what each of us got) first to show techniques. Then we fabricated these chickens. We removed plates (or wing flaps - middle part of wing). Then we removed carcasses and got two halves with legs and breast with wing attached. We separated legs from breast - it was easy there was only skin connecting these two by that time. Breast was fabricated to an airline breast (funny name), which means skin on, tender removed, wing attached. The leg was separated for thigh and drumstick. Thigh was debones and skinned. As for the time, we had 5 minutes to truss three chickens and may be 45 minutes to fabricate three chickens.

Let's try to count traditional