Stocks to Stock

I no longer like tarts. On top of that, I think my partner looks at the course load and when it's heavy she stays home! I wound up having to make 3 tarts crusts and fillings all by myself. At first, this didn't seem like a lot. My crusts came together nicely and easily but when I looked up, it was 8pm already! I still had to make custard, bacon, onions, apple compote and pastry cream! The chances of survival were slim. Thankfully, Chef noticed I was alone and gave me custard to fill my quiche. I managed to get the apple compote together and the apple tart in the oven but then things went downhill. The apples didn't brown as nicely as I expected but it still looked OK.

Then I realized I had the onions and bacon ready for the quiches but I didn't have my crusts fully prepared. I needed to blind bake my tarts for the quiche and the oven was full! I wound up waiting a while for the oven. I managed to get the quiche into the oven so that it was ready at 10:45pm - the exact end of class. They both turned out looking pretty nice so I brought them to work for lunch.

In the end, we never even made the pear tart but it's definitely a recipe I want to try at home sometime.

Admittedly, I tried to make pate a choux on the Friday before class and it turned out terrible. I tried to fry the dough to make zeppoles and it turned out more like funnel cake. So I was pretty curious how it was going to turn out in class. Pate a choux is like poor man's dessert. It is eggs, flour, butter, sugar and water. Who doesn't have that laying around? The trick was to get the dough to the right consistency by adding just the right amount of eggs. We successfully piped the dough onto baking sheets and baked into the beginnings of profiteroles and eclairs.

While the Pate a choux baked we prepared the creme patissiere for the filling and the caramel and custard for creme caramel renversee. The custards used the same basic principal of tempering eggs into hot milk and baking in a hot water bath. I was a little nervous about making caramel as I have screwed this up before too but it turned out beautifully! We poured the caramel to cover the bottom of ramekins and filled the rest of the way with the custard.

While the creme caramel baked, we finished the creme patissiere by folding in fresh whipped cream. We carefully piped the filling into the eclairs and dipped in glazing chocolate. We filled the profiteroles with whipped cream infused with vanilla. It was like a small taste of heaven.

The last thing we made was chocolate pot de creme and will get to finish and eat it at the next class after it chills in the fridge.

Eggs, eggs and more eggs. Our Chef instructor was a breakfast cook in a former life, so class started with a demo of "eggs any way." He showed us scrambled, poached, sunny side up, over easy, omelets... you name it, he could cook it and flip it! We started by trying to mimic some of these techniques by making poached eggs, eggs over easy and an omelet (crepe style) with Gruyere cheese. Everything was tasty and relatively easy to make. I even managed to successfully flip my eggs over easy. The Chef taught us a neat "vortex" trick for making poached eggs in which you take 180 degree water and swirl it until a whirlpool type vortex forms. Then, you crack the egg into the vortex and the force forms it into a cute little egg package. You could almost tie a bow around the top.

After the egg experiment, Chef showed us an omelet "Basquaise" which is more scrambled than flat. It makes the eggs really fluffy and nice. We filled it with tomato, onion and bell pepper.

Then the real fun began. Instead of making "Oeuf Cocotte," which is an egg baked in a dish with cream, we made a "Tortilla Espanola," which is like an omelet but finished in the oven. This started by frying hand sliced potatoes and onions (separately) in a pan. The potatoes and onion slices are then combined and mashed up (by hand) with the eggs, chorizo and salt, pepper and fresh parsley. The egg mixture is then started on the stove in a small non stick pan, flipped and put into a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes to finish. On the side, we make a tomato mixture similar to bruschetta with tomato, sherry vinegar and garlic as a dipping sauce. This made a pretty good dinner.

The final dish was the real test. The Chef instructed us to make 6 hard boiled eggs, a Bechamel sauce and then from that, a Mornay sauce. Other than that, no instructions! I had to think back to sauce class to remember how to make the Bechamel. We also sweated some finely chopped mushrooms and shallots in butter. I made the Bechamel while my partner worked on the eggs and mushrooms. At first the Bechamel didn't thicken enough which I found quite irritating but I made some more roux and fixed the problem. I added Gruyere cheese to make the Mornay sauce. By this point, my partner had passed the egg yolks through a strainer and we combined the yolks, mushrooms and Mornay into a stuffing like consistency. We piped the mixture into the hard boiled eggs and finished with a drizzle of Mornay and Gruyere cheese in the oven. This dish takes the concept of "deviled eggs" to a whole new level and will definitely make an appearance at Thanksgiving this year!

In this class, we learned a lot about the preservation of food. Everything from smoking to salting to brining. To start, we carefully made and assembled Salade Nicoise which has canned tuna as one of the main ingredients. My partner and I started by putting potatoes on to boil (start in cold water) and hard boiling eggs. Now, there is a bit of an art to hard boiling an egg. First, you must always start with cold water, then add salt and vinegar. Boil for 10 minutes and then quickly submerge the egg in an ice water bath. Promptly peeling the egg under water while hot will significantly aid in the peeling process.

While the potatoes/eggs boiled we prepped the lettuce, green bell peppers, green beans, tomatoes and olives. To peel the tomatoes we cored and submerged them in boiling water for about 30 seconds. This made the skin easy to remove without cooking the rest of the tomato. The green beans were cooked for about 4 minutes a l'anglaise.

After cutting everything and marinating lightly in a champagne vinaigrette we assembled the salad on a plate and garnished with nicoise olives and parsley. Beautiful!

After indulging in some salad we made Potage St. Germain aux croutons (split pea soup with croutons). The soup didn't particularly excite me but the croutons were sinful! The croutons were probably the most fabulous thing that happened all night (maybe with the the exception of homemade chocolate oreo ice cream after dinner). We sauteed cubes of bread in butter until golden brown and crispy. Amazing!

Class finished with the chef demonstrating the preparations for duck confit. This starts with liberally salting the duck and applying other seasonings such as garlic, thyme and bay leaf. On Thursday we will cook it in duck fat and continue the process. He also showed us the preparation for Brandade de morue which I found kind of fishy but interesting. It's one of those things that's probably better with wine.

Sauce, sauce and more sauce. I've been pretty excited for this class. Sauce is one of the most important elements to a fabulous dish. When I arrived to class, my partner wasn't around yet but I figured she was just running late. No problem. I can make a sauce, right?

Class started out seeming pretty easy with a Fond de Veau Lie and a Bechamel. The first is basically reduced veal stock with a slurry of Madeira wine and arrowroot to thicken. Simple - I can do that! Just boil. Bechamel is pretty simple too although I managed to brown my roux a little too much and had to redo that element before I could continue. Regardless, you're basically just looking at a roux and milk. No sweat. Chef quickly turned our bechamel into truffle mac and cheese for the class. If only I had some truffle laying around my Manhattan kitchen.

Then things started to get interesting. Chef demonstrated the next two sauces, tomato and Espagnole. It always looks so simple when he does it! And isn't exactly challenging if you have someone to share the chopping with! As chef is chopping like a mad man, I'm searching frantically for my partner. Still not here. I guess I really am on my own for this one.

I started on the Espagnole confident and happy. I have this under control. I am organized and maintaining excellent "mise en palce." I got the sauce on to simmer and started collecting ingredients for the tomato sauce. I think this is where things started to go downhill. Since the tomato sauce isn't strained it required a lot of carrots, onion and celery chopped "brunoise." (about 1-2 millimeter cubes - YIKES). Needless to say, this took forever on my own. I chopped straight through the dinner break.

Just as I was thinking I was getting back under control the chef started demoing the final 2 sauces while I was still stuggling to get the tomato on the stove. Now, these final sauces are derivations of the previous made mother sauces so it's important that I get caught up. I tried to utilize my multitasking skills and pay attention to his instructions and tips while finishing my own sauces but it's not easy! Not to mention it is sounding like I need to cisele a bunch of shallots and collect a million other ingredients.

I am still convinced that I will do this but time is looking short. 1 hour left and 2 sauces to go. I reduced the red wine, shallot, mignonette of peppercorn, thyme and bay leaf for the sauce bordelaise while prepping mushrooms and ingredients for the sauce chasseur. Long story short, I almost flambeed my arm but did succeed in making some pretty tasty sauces. As the clock approached 10:45pm I was cleaned up and ready for review. I looked around and realized that I had accomplished 6 sauces all by myself in the same time it took other teams of 2 to do the same. Not too shabby. I left the kitchen with 6 quarts of sauce and I'm looking forward to turning these sauces into some tasty dishes in my own kitchen tonight.

Lesson 3 covered stocks. We each made a chicken stock and a fish fumet to learn the principles of building a good stock. As a group, we made a veal stock (fond brun) and a beef stock (fond blanc) both of which will simmer for over 10 hours. I understand now why people just buy the stuff in the box! Although, it definitely doesn't compare to the real thing. Before we even simmered the veal stock it looked amazing!

To prep for the fumet, I got to use a meat cleaver to hack apart a Halibut carcass. Talk about a great way to releave stress after a long day at the office. I promise next time there will be pictures.

While we simmered our stocks we learned the basics of an emulsified sauce by making a cold emulsion and a warm emulsion. I also learned that furiously whisking an emulsion can really hurt one's arm! I'm also still convinced that Hellman's is OK and homemade mayo really isn't necessary. Although, I can't wait to make salad dressing!

Hollandase can be scary. When done properly, it's beautiful and rich but I saw some real sauce horror stories the other day. Under no circumstances should a sauce ever look like scrambled eggs. Gross. Thankfully, my partner and I managed to keep the sauce at the right temperature and it didn't break! Amazing. Can't wait to make a bernaise and pour over steak. Yum.

My final thought after stock class is: Does clarified butter smell like lobster or does lobster smell like clarified butter? Either way, I love butter.

Tournage: The purpose of tournage is to produce a particular uniform product that ensures the even cooking and enhances aesthetic presentation.

AKA: Make your vegetables look like footballs.

This lesson brought me one step closer to my goal of focus. I peeled a ton of potatoes, carrots and turnips and attempted the tournage technique. (you take a pearing knife and cut in a ovular motion toward yourself) At first plain old fear of slicing off my fingers got in the way of success. Once I realized the chances of losing an entire finger were pretty small I managed to create some interesting shapes including my version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and that cucumber shaped building in London. Failure seemed not only possible but likely.

After 5 hours, more wasted vegetables than I care to imagine and a thoroughly wrinkled brow I managed to create 8 potato footballs, 9 carrot footballs and 8 turnip footballs. Seeing as I'm attending a French school, I then cooked them in salt and butter to perfection. The potatoes were especially delicious as I prepared them "rissolez." While the plate presentation was beautiful (they poured out of and surrounded an artichoke "cup") I highly doubt I will be "turning" enough vegetables for Thanksgiving dinner. Although... you never know.

As far as the market is concerned, the past two years have been tumultuous to say the least. After surviving the mortgage crisis, the Bear crisis and a few re-orgs along the way, I decided it's time to do something for me. I have a strong passion for cooking so I enrolled in an amateur culinary course that meets twice a week for 5 hours per class. My goal is to not only become a better cook but to grow as a person, find focus outside of work and an art medium for self expression. For the next 22 weeks I will record my experiences, frustrations and accomplishments in the kitchen as I go from stocks and bonds to stock and fonds.