Lesson 15 - Beef & Veal

I have to admit that I was really tired of cutting meat by now...  Now we were on to beef and veal.  What would we have to do this time?  Cut up a whole cow?  Or worse yet, a calf?!?!?  Yuck.

In this lesson, we learned about dry cooking techniques (grilling and broiling) and moist cooking techniques (boiling, poaching, and simmering). For the steak, we used the grilling method and for the veal we used the submersion poaching method.  There are two types of poaching: one is submersion poaching, which is completely covering the food with liquid, the second is shallow poaching, which is covering the food halfway with the cooking liquid.

The recipes we made in this lesson were grilled sirloin steak with pommes frites and veal blanquette with rice pilaf.  Oh yes, no chicken to cut!

And it turns out, no whole cow or calf. We had a large block of steak that the chef carved for us and we had to trim. Here is the meat:

We grilled the steak, double fried the fries (if they are thick cut, you first fry them at a 300-320 degrees until tender, then at 350-375 degrees until golden brown and crispy. Drain on a paper towel and add salt immediately, so that the salt will stick). The steak was served with béarnaise sauce. The result was fantastic - steak, french fries, béarnaise sauce:

As for the veal, we trimmed the meat into cubes then poached it and rinsed the meat and the pot. We pealed the usual vegetables (carrots, leeks, celery, onions), added a clove, thyme sprig, peppercorn, and garlic and put them in a cheesecloth bundle.  We then covered the veal in stock, added salt and brought to a boil, skimmed, added the cheesecloth vegetables and returned to a simmer.  The mixture had to be simmered without bringing to a boil, loosely covered for about an hour.  To check to see when veal is done, pinch one of the pieces between your fingers and the veal should crush easily; not spring back.

The sauce is the reserved poaching liquid run through a chinois. Then we made a roux, added the poaching liquid and simmered until the sauce thickened.

Here is the veal (the garniture is pearl onions and carrots (cooked in water, sugar and butter, covered in parchment paper), quartered mushrooms (tossed in lemon juice and butter and cooked covered in parchment paper), and we served all over rice pilaf:

That is it for the veal and beef.

Side note: at one point, classmate Sheryl said to the chef, proudly, 'I am a woman, if you haven't figured it out', to which Chef Bruno said, 'yeah, I did realize that'. Then I said, 'yeah, you realized it when she asked you to check her breasts (see duck lesson)!'  Too funny!

The pastry class surprised us with a beautiful chocolate dessert:

Next lesson is the incredible, inedible and edible, egg.