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.  :)