Beef Stew

Practicals day 3 of 3. Not only am I done with my practical exams, I am done with this trimester! I am more than ready for a week off!

Today I was cooking again, this time I was totally comfortable with what I was doing and with the meat I was given. My father has a beef stew that he has been making for as long as I can remember so when I was handed a hunk of beef I knew exactly what I was going to do!

I altered the recipe a bit from what dad does... I used a variety of onions (pearl, yellow and shallots) instead of just one type and put the mushrooms in at the start so that their flavor could spread through the whole dish.

That gamble played off and Chef really enjoyed the mix of different flavors that the variety of onions brought to the dish.

It was a great way to end the second trimester at Johnson & Wales!

Comis

Practicals... Day 2 of 3.
Today was a fun fluffy day, I didn't actually have a practical exam today I was in the role of helper. I floated around the room helping out if I was needed. I also took a mid morning field trip to starbucks to grab a mocha for me and a latte for Chef. A few of us who were on the comis team today made fresh lemonade... I was entertained by the fact that as we are making this drink that is associated with summer there were a few flurries of snow drifting down from the clouds.

After the lemonade we experimented with an Indian rice pudding and a roasted veggie medley... not exactly flavors that go together, but it was fun to play with food.

The Little Things DO Matter!

Ox Tails...

Day 1 of 3 days of practical exams... and I get to braise ox tails. Prior to this morning I have cooked ox tails all of... oh wait... I've NEVER cooked them before!

With a grade in the balance of how this dish turns out I decided to keep it super simple flavor wise. I cut a very basic mirepoix of celery, carrot and onion, for a little extra I added some pearl onions and some fresh sprigs of oregano. From there I followed the 9 steps of braising!

1. mise en place (get it all together... thought up what I was doing!)
2. prep main ingredient (trimmed some of the fat from the very fatty ox tails)
3. Sear meat (nice hot braising dish with some oil in it too. Seared the ox tails in batches and got them all pretty and carmelized on the outside)
4. Sear aeromatics (where I took all the meat out of the pan and added in the mirepoix I'd cut up earlier and got a hint of color on them.)
5. Deglaze (I added a healthy amount of red wine to the mirepoix and scraped all the yummy good bits off the bottom of the pan.)
6. Return the meat (I added the ox tails back to the pan and filled it with veal stock til the ox tails were almost submerged, but not quite)
7. Seal (exactly what it sounds like... I got a nice tight seal on the pan with heavy duty tin foil)
8. Oven (again... into the oven it went until it was "fork tender." Because ox tails are so tough it took a good long while to braise and I checked it every 30 minutes or so to be sure that there was still enough liquid in the pot.)
9. Create Sauce (once the meat is done you take it out of the pan and strain what is in the pot so that you have just the liquid to work with. I took the liquid and cranked the heat up and let it reduce to a thick syrupy goo that was divine!)

Turns out that the first time was the charm with ox tails... Chef said that the dish was fantastic and the sauce was perfect!

Monday...

Mondays are never the best day of the week, and today was no exception. The whole class was just sort of "off." The required work got taken care of, but nothing was over the top fantastic. I think that it had a bit to do with the fact that we'd just come off a 5 day week and that we were in the home stretch to spring break.

Hopefully we will survive these next four days...

Why am I Eating Rabbit at 8:30am?

It is thoughts like this filter through my head at least once a day while at JWU. With class starting at 7am, we are usually cooking not long after that so food is being tasted. I've never been a fan of eating early, my mother would force me to eat breakfast when I was a kid, so having to taste food, especially heavy food is a challenge for me in the mornings. The rabbit was pretty good, and when we were done preparing the dish it was fantastic.

Aside from the rabbit I worked on a new knife cut today... the Tourne! If you've ever eaten out and seen potatoes (carrots and hearty root veggies are also used) that are shaped similar like footballs that is probably a tourne cut. It is pretty easy to do once you get the hang of the motion and chef was complimenting mine after a few quick moments of playing with the knife.

All I Want is Salad...

Or maybe a vegetable that hasn't been braised or stewed or covered in butter. I mentioned that to Chef today and he laughed and pretty much said that the closest I could get to salad in this class would be an endive. My eyes lit up as I thought of a salad that I could whip up the following day, then he burst my happy salad bubble by telling me that not only would he find me an endive or three that he would bring me a recipe for braising them.

I understand that we need to be eating the food that we are cooking, but the food in this class is so incredibly heavy it is unreal, and it is a huge amount of meat!

Letting People Fail

I have a hard time letting people fail when I think that I can help. There is a girl in my work group who doesn't quite get what we're doing, and to be honest she hasn't really gotten it all term. Some of the chefs we have worked with have been telling us to help her, to work with her, to support her. The chef we have now has told us to let her make mistakes, to not fix things behind her, and to stop coddling her. He's told us to let her fail. While some might see this as cruel, I sort of see it as a weight lifted off my shoulders. I have been given permission to really focus on my work, I realize this might seem selfish, but that is the way things are. I have a limited time at Johnson & Wales, and I am going to make the very most of it that I can.

Braising and Fresh Pasta

Today was my first day working in the kitchen today, and it was great fun! My group had to create a braised beef and vegetable dish, a carrot and onion dish, a puttanesca sauce and fresh pasta!

The braised beef was super easy and wonderfully delicious. I always think of braising as this long drawn out process that has tons of steps and requires lots of work. In truth it is 9 steps. Nine simple, easy, tidy steps. Knowing this it bums me out that spring is around the corner and there won't be many days I can braise something for dinner. While I'm not a huge fan of cooked carrots the dish was pretty darn good.

Fresh pasta is something I've never made before and will totally make again. I think there might be a pasta machine attachment for my super duper kitchen aid mixer added to my wish list of fun kitchen gadgets. Making the pasta is super easy; I really don't see why I bother buying the stuff...

Traditionally Speaking

Today I started Traditional European, my last class of the 2nd trimester, I can't believe how quickly time has flown by! In this class we will be doing lots of stewing and braising. Those two cooking methods can turn even the toughest cuts of meat into something delicious.

Family Style

Last day of this class and what a great time it has been! I've loved this class, the little things I've learned about how to serve and the different styles of service will serve me well from here on out. Today was a bit more casual in the dining room. Instead of everyone having their own table to serve we worked in groups of 4 to serve tables of 10. It was interesting to work in groups, having to coordinate the service of the table took a few minutes to figure out but once we got the choreography worked out it was actually fun.

Practically Speaking

Today was practical day for most of the class, thankfully I got mine done with yesterday. I got to be the "bartender" for the class, which means that I had to have all the beverages set up and ready to go for my fellow students when they came through the service bar. It was a very low stress day for me today!

Tea Party!

Today was the tea tasting, other than the food and wine pairing this was a day I was looking forward to. I love hot tea and the service that goes with a proper afternoon tea. Ms. C, our fantastic instructor, asked two of us to make scones for the class. Scones are something that I not only adore but have a killer recipe for! The lemon poppy seed scones and fresh lemon curd were a huge hit today!

Wine Pairing

Today was one of my very favorite days in class! It was food and wine pairing day today. I have done this very cool deconstructed tasting three times now and I always find something new that I either adore or can't stand. The one that makes me laugh the most is the pairing of a Riesling and something spicy!

Allergies

We had a really interesting discussion on allergies today and what servers and managers can do to work with guests who have allergies. Allergies are a hot topic in the food world because when not taken seriously the consequences can be horrible.

First Day of Service

Today went really well, or what I define as really well. I served my first table of guests and didn't spill a thing on anyone!

What Happens When it Snows?

Today should really be the third day of class but due to a 'snow day' we are on our second day. We have yet to serve a table, and really that is just fine with me. I'm not great at serving, so the longer I can put it off the happier I am. We learned more about the different kinds of service today. Let me tell you that there is far more to serving a table than just setting a plate down in front of a guest and telling them to enjoy.

Snow

So it snowed last Friday and we have a snow day today. And yes, I am well aware that today is Monday.