Lesson 6 - Salads

Okay, when you think of salads, what kind do you think of?  I think of green leafy salads with various toppings.  That is not the type of salads we made in class.  Not at all.  We talked about green salads, but we made something very different!

This was all of our prep ingredients:

The first salad we made was composed of 6 different vegetables and was meant to be served cold.

We made celery root dressed in a remoulade sauce (mayo, mustard, lemon juice), carrots dressed in a cintronette (oil, lemon juice, salt & pepper), cucumbers dressed in a cream sauce (heavy cream, lime, mint, black pepper), and red cabbage, mushrooms and tomatoes dressed in vinaigrette (vinegar, oil, salt & pepper).  This was the result (the celery root looks a lot like fettuccine) - everything tasted great:

We also made Vegetables a la Grecque.  This is a style of preparing vegetables that can be served hot or cold.  Usually involved is a mixture of olive oil, onions, dry white wine, coriander, peppercorns, lemon, salt & bouquet garni.  The vegetables have to be cooked separately because the cooking time varies for each.  The same sauce is used for each vegetable (ingredients above), but each also has another special ingredient depending on the type of vegetable.  We made cauliflower, which had saffron, mushrooms, which the book said should have had tarragon (but the recipe did not), and zucchini with garlic and tomatoes.  We didn't plate the vegetables after we made them, so there are no pictures, but they were all really good and I could see serving any or all of them as side dishes.

Chef Bruno told us that in France, they eat dinner salad at the end of the meal (unless it is meant to be a main course) - always tossed with a  light vinaigrette - because it aids in the digestion process.

We didn't make the final salad because we were out of time, but it was called a cooked vegetable salad.  The chef did a demo:

He pretended that he sliced the radishes that thin himself, but I saw him using the mandoline!

Level 7 is intro to soups.  Yummy!

Lesson 5 - Beans & Legumes

Okay, this lesson was called beans & legumes, but we made miscellaneous stuff.  We made: split pea soup with croutons, nicoise salad, brandade, and pickled vegetables.

I was so excited to make something that we could eat &/or take home!  We had been working on the bases for so long that I wondered if we would ever make anything I could serve outright.  Well, we finally did.

Split pea soup is made with bacon, butter, leeks, carrots, onions, garlic, bouquet garni and cream. Of course, also split peas.  Chef Bruno told us to also use basil and lemon even though it wasn't in the recipe.  This is a very simple recipe to follow.

We made croutons to go on top, which is just cubes of bread cooked in a skillet with butter and tossed until brown.

The soup is fantastic.

Sometimes, we get to take a break.  Not every class, but sometimes.  When we do have a break, the 4 of us classmates sit in the break room together.  It is always a nice 15 or 20 minutes to just hang out and talk.  It was during one of these breaks that I learned that Amy is in public relations, Sheryl is in accounting, and Coba is a professional poker player.  No joke!  We all have a great time together and I feel fortunate to be taking the class with such funny & nice people!

Back to class: we also made pickled vegetables, which included cucumber, carrot, celery, turnip, mushrooms, serrano chile and dill.  This is then marinated in salt, sugar, cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, water and some spices.

A picture of the soup and pickled vegetables:

Next on the agenda was a nicoise salad.  Here is a picture of the chef demo:

Nicoise salad has a lot of components: new potatoes, eggs, tomatoes, green beans, green bell pepper, boston lettuce, canned tuna, anchovies, parsley or chervil, and pitted nicoise olives.  The dressing is made from garlic, wine vinegar and olive oil (w/salt & pepper, to taste).

To prepare the bell pepper, we had to char it and then remove the skin with a towel.  I have never charred something on the burner before.  Not sure I would try this at home:

The eggs are boiled, the tomatoes are boiled and skinned (by the way, that method is called to monder), potatoes are boiled beginning in cold water, the green beans are cooked a'langlaise (in a large amount of salted water and then cooled in an ice bath).  Lettuce leaves are rinsed.  All in all, quite a lot of work to make this salad.

Apparently, us Americans do not dress salad properly.  Each item is supposed to be dressed separately in a little bit of dressing and then placed on the plate.  I guess we have a tendency to just drench everything (most often in ranch!).

Here is the finished project:

The last part of our lesson was brandade, which the chef demoed for us.  It is this really gross mixture of salt cod and potatoes.  I guess back in the day in France, it was a blue-plate special.  Yum!

I had to take a photo of the pastry class projects that were on display in the hall (they are all made of chocolate):

Randome tip: do not keep fruits (keep in mind that tomatoes are a fruit) and vegetables together in the fridge because they will react chemically with one another.

Next lesson is salads. :)

Lesson 4 - Sauces

In lesson 4, we learned how to make some sauces.  The sauces we made were espagnole, tomato fondue, fond de veau lie (bound veal stock), béchamel, bordelaise and sauce chasseur.

Espagnole is made with veal stock, bacon, carrots, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and garlic.  It is very good!  The espagnole sauce is used to make bordelaise sauce.  Bordelaise is typically served on steak.  It has bone marrow in it, which is unbelievably oily and fatty in texture.  I made the mistake of touching my lip after working with it and it left this horrible film.  The sauce is good, but incredibly rich.

Tomato fondue is a combination of tomatoes, butter, garlic, shallots and a bouquet garni (leek leaves and other herbs tied with twine).  The proper way to prepare the tomato is to take the core out and cut an x shape in the bottom.  You then boil it for about 30 seconds and drop it into an ice bath.  Because of the boiling, the skin will peel off easily.  The tomato is then cut and the seeds need to be removed.  We used tomato fondue for the sauce chasseur and in a lot of other recipes following this lesson.

Fond de veau lie is made with veal stock, mushrooms, madeira wine, cornstarch and chervil.  Chervil is a green, leafy spice that is very hard to find.  One of my classmates is growing it from seeds because she couldn't find it anywhere.

Béchamel is made with butter, flour, milk, and nutmeg.  Typically, béchamel sauce is used on vegetables or eggs.

Sauce chasseur is made with tomato fondue, clarified butter, mushrooms, shallots, brandy, butter, white wine, stock, chervil and tarragon.  This sauce is used on veal and chicken.  We got to flambé with the brandy - and I was too afraid of setting myself on fire, so the chef helped me.  But in lesson 11, I handled it myself!!!

For lesson 5, there are pictures and we actually made a salad and some soup!

Lesson 3 - Stocks & Emulsified Sauces

We handled the stocks as a team because we made huge pots for use in later lessons.  An important note for making stocks is not to add salt.  Stocks are usually added to other recipes, which can be seasoned later.  Most stocks are made using a vegetable mirepoix (consistently sized, rough cut vegetables - usual ratio: 1/2 onions, 1/4 carrots, 1/4 celery), a bouquet garni (typically thyme, bay leaf, parsley stems wrapped in leeks and tied with twine) and bones.

Here is our chef, picking out the produce we are going to use:

In class, we made a beautiful veal stock after roasting veal bones and vegetables in the oven:

We also made fish stock - luckily our brave classmate Coba put the icky fish in the pot (at this point, we were not fish savvy - still a bit squeamish about touching them).

The other part of the lesson included emulsified sauces.  We learned how to make mayonnaise, hollandaise and béarnaise.  It was really interesting to learn that traditional mayonnaise is actually made with a bit of red wine vinegar and dijon mustard.  Hollandaise sauce is made from egg yolks, clarified butter, water and lemon juice. Bearnaise is made from a hollandaise base, then shallots, tarragon, black pepper and white wine vinegar are added.

The chef demos hollandaise: 

Hollandaise is very touchy to make.  You cannot overheat it or the sauce will break.  You cannot keep it too cool, or it will break.  It took me 3 tries and the sauce broke every time.  Then, the chef told us an interesting story about how long ago, they would not let women near the kitchen because at certain times of the month, they had high electrical energy and would always break the sauce...  Yeah, that is not why I broke my sauce, thank you very much!!

As if that weren't enough, I made my mayonnaise in the wrong order and messed that up!  What a night!!!  Course, I tried again at home and made both sauces perfectly...  Whatever!

Once in a while, we get treats from the pastry class.  During this class they brought us these (Yummy!):

That was it for lesson 3!

Thanks for reading.  :)

Lesson 2 - Tournage & Glacage

The one thing to remember about this course is that it is French.  Many of the terms used are French.  I took a little bit of French in high school, but we never covered words like Glacage and Tournage...

Tournage is a type of shape made with vegetables - faceted oval shapes, usually with 7 sides.  I honestly think tournage is French for pain in the butt.  These shapes are so difficult to make!  Chef Bruno said that he once worked in a restaurant where that was the only thing one guy did for his job - cut these shapes all day...  Can you say nightmare???

Glacage is the technique of glazing vegetables.  The vegetables are placed in water, salt, butter and a pinch of sugar and cooked with a parchment paper lid until the water has evaporated.  This creates a shiny glaze on the vegetables, known  as Glacer a blanc.  If you continue to cook until the syrup caramelizes, it is called Glacer a brun.

The dish we made was called a Garniture Bouquetiere.  This is the stove we use:

For the first few classes, the space was daunting because it was so large and industrial, but before long, we were all walking around like we had been cooking in this kitchen for years!

Below is my finished product (it includes an artichoke heart, turnips, potatoes, peas, onions, and carrots).  It was surprisingly good! 

Here is all of our plates together:

One of the interesting things I learned in this class is that when preparing a whole artichoke, if you attach a lemon slice to the bottom of it with some twine before boiling, the artichoke will not turn brown.

That does it for Lesson 2!

Okay, what I left out was the fact that we had all of our vegetables cooking in skillets separately with a cartouche (paper cover with a hole in the middle) & 4 skillets going, and I had my fire on too low, so the Chef turned up the heat for me.  Then he walked away.  And so did I.  And with the parchment cover, you cannot see what is going on...  So finally, I look below the parchment paper, and everything looks fine, until I turn them over.  They are BLACK on the other side!!!  And I look behind me and I know the Chef has seen this as well...  So when I plate the food, I turn it nice side up, of course.  But the Chef has seen that it was black on one side, so he turns it over in front of everyone and says 'oh, looks like the dark side of the moon'.  We all cracked up!  But then I said to my classmates 'if he hadn't turned the heat up for me, they wouldn't be burned!!!'  I realized then that we all had great chemistry and this class was going to be so much fun.  :)

Lesson 1 - Intro to the professional kitchen

I have always loved to cook, but wasn't sure I learned the basics correctly, so I decided to take a 'serious' amateur class at the French Culinary Institute in Campbell, CA (www.frenchculinary.com).  This class really is a serious class - 110 hours!  And serious subject matter, which I will get to in detail soon.  Class is held Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5:30-10:30 pm.  The tuition includes a tool kit (which weighs about 50 pounds and has things such as knives, whisks, tweezers, etc.), a text book and a uniform.  We got an actual chef Jacket with our name embroidered on it. We also have to wear hounds-tooth pants with an elastic waste and a neckerchief.  Oh, and the wonderful hat...  The uniform is super hot (and not in an attractive way)...  But the purpose is to protect us and as long as we have the fan on in the kitchen, it is fine.

The first day, we learned the different cuts for vegetables, as well as proper cleanliness in the kitchen and basic knife skills.  We also got practice at standing for 5 hours straight - which is not normal for any of us.  Shortly after the first class, I invested in some dansko clogs, which are not terribly attractive, but are very comfortable.

Our instructor's name is Chef Bruno.  He is very nice and has a great sense of humor.  I didn't even consider how much this would impact the class until I was sitting in the parking lot beforehand.  It then dawned on me that if we had a Gordon Ramsay-like chef, the class might not be so fun!

That was pretty much it for lesson 1.  Lesson 2 to come...