Day forty six

Today's plate

Shallow poaching and submerged poaching, what is the difference?

Today was a continuation of cooking fish. This time it was shallow poaching and the fish was sea bass.  Quite dry fish, naturally, because it has less fat then salmon. For garnish we made rice pilaf, this time from basmati rice, glazed carrots, and cooked greens (spinach).

The idea of shallow poaching is to partially submerge protein (at least 1/3 and 1/2 maximum). As protein is not covered completely, cover is used to have combination of cooking methods. The bottom part is cooked in liquid and the top part is cooked by steam. We may use a lid for the pan, or we can make cover from parchment paper (cartouche). If we use parchment paper, it should be big enough to cover pan and do not touch main item (the place where parchment is in contact will not be cooked).

Some other differences between these two methods are:

Day forty five

My first complete plate

Why is poaching is so special method of cooking?

Today was the first day when we suppose to plate a whole entre. Protein (fish), starch (potato), vegetables (green beans and julienned vegetables), as well as sauce, all of these item expected to be on a plate. And we were able to serve all of these items. Indeed, that was the best day in the kitchen so far.

Salmon was poached today. I did not quite know about this cooking method, I though it's kind of put piece of fish in a cooking liquid and simmer it slowly until it's done. That was close, except for the temperature.

Day forty four

a courtesy of

What are the main methods of transferring heat?

Friday, the second day of classes. Also that was a day for two quizes. We had one for Math (semifinal) and another one for Nutrition.

Math was quite easy and I hope to get 100%, because there was no linguistic questions, only math. Will see, the result should be next Thursday.

At Gastronomy we finished perception of the taste. How we analyse all information we receive from all around. Some interesting facts: 1) the average sniff lasts 0.5 second; 2) nostrils alternate approximately every 3 hours, to avoid adaptation; 3) also to avoid adaptation in taste we should clean our palate by alternating what we are eating or drinking. After perception we moved to the methods of cooking. How heat transfers from heat source to a product. There are three main methods:

Day forty three

Do our basic tastes change with temperature change?

Today is the day out of the kitchen, completely. My classes were for Liberal Art and I did not work today. Feel like a holiday, almost. Still I had four classes - Math, Gastronomy, Nutrition, and First Year Experience.

For Math I feel sorry, I completely forgot that I suppose to give a speech, to explain one of the chapter for tomorrow test. Luckily, I was able to create problem on the spot, and solve it. What was good, that the problem was slightly wider than my chapter, so the chef made a good reference point and that was really useful.

Gastronomy getting more and more interesting. Today we talk about perception. How we gat information from all of our senses, how it transfers to brain... What was really surprising for me is that basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter) are changing

Day forty two

Do you know how to cook egg? Are you sure?

Today was the second day in the kitchen this week. I was worried about this day, as our production was huge. We had team production: devil eggs, eggs benedict, warm goat cheese custard, hollandaise sauce. Individual production was: hard cooked eggs, poached eggs, scrambled eggs, fried eggs (over-easy, ever-medium, and over hard), and mushrooms duxelle.

So before today I was quite confident about eggs. What can you tell me about cooking eggs? Do you think I have never cooked them? Today

Day forty one

What is better - fresh pasta or dried one?

Culinary Fundamentals is my favorit subject so far. We are back to the kitchen and as promised, our production is getting bigger and bigger. Today each team prepared different sauce (our team made pesto). Individual production was fresh egg pasta, mayonnaise, and Pomme Anna.

Fresh egg pasta was delicious - very rich, very silky. There were a lot of eggs (4 eggs per 1 pound flour). The pasta cooks literally in a couple minutes (depends on the thickness of your pasta, how thick you roll it). The big differences between fresh and dried pasta are:

Day forty

Can diet help you loose weight?

TGIF! Friday is always good.

Today I had another day of classes.

At math, somebody tried to stretch the time, as person was clearly not ready to speak. The task was to explain to the classmates the main point of the chapter from the text book. Next week we are going to have test. The strategi was successful and talk was postponed till next week (due to good reasons - not enough time).

Next was Gastronomy. This subject is getting more and more interesting. Thoughts about cuisine,