Day thirty nine

a courtesy of

Is alcohol high in calories?

We have started a new block  at school. Today we have two new subjects. The first one is Introduction to Gastronomy. The second one is Nutrition.

Gastronomy is very interesting. The only difficulties I can see now - it requires a lot of reading. I do mean a lot. That will be a challenge. I do like reading, but at my own pace. If I am tired, I like to close a book until tomorrow and then continue. With Gastronomy that does not work. And the reading is not simple.

With Nutrition is a bit easier, however it also requires reading, but a reasonable amount. That will be really useful to get knowledge about all nutrients, how to produce a nutritious meal and so on. The first class we just touched calories and basic nutrients. I was shocked to learn that alcohol

Day thirty eight

Risotto, is it a dish?

Today we had rice cookery. We made rice pilaf and risotto, also we made two sauces - Robert and Marchand de Vin, and Jardiniere vegetables. So it was a busy day again, however it was much better then yesterday.

What was new for me with risotto? First, this is a method of cooking rice. You coat rice grains with fat (butter) while applying the heat, then you introduce HOT liquid gradually, waiting while it absorbed by rice. Interestingly enough, that wine we add to the risotto, can be added at the beginning (the first part of liquid) or at the end. The wine (acid) will add additional flavor, but what is more important, will prolong cooking time. 

Rice pilaf is another way of cooking rice. It starts the same way -

Day thirty seven

What is the most important things in the kitchen?

This is a Culinary Fundamentals day. After mid term practical I can see a big difference. Our production is really big now. Today we made: 1) glazed beets; 2) braised red cabbage; 3) potato Duchesse; 4) Coccotte potato (Chateau); 5) potato gratin. That was our individual production. And as always we had a class task: chicken stock; roast veal bones; start brown veal stock (will be ready tomorrow).

It does not seem that today was difficult day with a big production for no reason. I think (looking for the production schedule) that this is a new norm. We have to make more and more during one day in the kitchen every time. So again, the most important things are:

Day thirty six

a courtesy of

If you precook squash with fennel, mix with béchamel sauce, add some cheese and put it into oven, what will be the dish?

Today I was at Google for my stage interview. It was four hours work, may be not under microscope, but under control.

First and the most important, I did enjoy working there. For sure, some things are done differently as we taught in the school (making bechamel by feeling and not by measurements). It was unfamiliar kitchen for me, but the experience was great. I was teamed with a cook from that kitchen and we worked together.

At the beginning we made vegetable graten. Butternut squash was peeled and sliced, as well as fennel. Then we partially cooked them together. Meantime we made bechamel sauce (milk with roux), mixed it with parmesan cheese for flavor. Then we mixed everything together and distributed mixture in a number of

Day thirty five

Sturgeon (a courtesy of)

Question of the day? None.

Sorry for being late. This post about Friday, but was really busy and had no chances to write it yesterday. Better late then never:-)

It was a cool day. I had two classes only, then break and a had stage at the restaurant at the school.

Math was as always easy, we are moving further calculating quantities of ingredients for different recipes. The next topic is going to be even more interesting - preparing 'shopping list' for a bunch of scaled recipes.

Product knowledge was a tast as it was the end of the class. We had to identify

Day thirty four

a courtesy of

Are all canned tomato equal? 

Today was a big day (may be not so big). I have had ServSafe exam. This is quite important, because you are not suppose to touch food in professional kitchen before you pass the exam and obtain the certificate. I passed the exam and certificate should arrive in about two weeks. That's right one problem down.

We are going to have our test for Product Knowledge tomorrow. There will be two parts. The first one is to identify 15 different product (all from produce category). The second part is multiple choice test. That should be fine.

It was an interesting experiment today, what was called

Day thirty three

What is the main point during practical exam?

Today we have mid term practical. It's amazing how fast time goes. It was just recently that I started my program and we are already in the middle of the first semester.

There were two parts of today's practical. The first one was written exam. If I remember correctly 35 questions. Some of them were multiple choice, some true/fals, and some essay questions. I think I missed a couple. The second part was cooking practical. We have to make Consomme, Espagnol sauce, Mayonnaise, and  Hollandaise. For all of our cooking we had 2 hours and 30 minutes and we had another 20 minutes for plating and serving.

I managed to do all these dishes on time. The main point I discovered -