Aaaand we're back.

Sorry about that. My computer had some major issues, but I'm good now. I will be backdating with dates in the titles and pictures all around. The full picture list is on Picasa right now as well. For today, we're in pastry week, so we made buttercream frostin (NOT what you buy in stores, bleh) and finished cakes. I have a four layer cake with two Grand Marnier pastry cream layers, and one raspberry Grand Marnier layer, topped with buttercream and piped roses. And I got to bring it home. Dad's is a bronco cake, see pic plz. I was VERY happy with mine today. Not a bad day overall.

Pastry day 2

Finished the tarts today. They looked pretty, but I still feel like we aren't finishing fast enough. Is it the demos? Is it the fact that we're watching the entire process and then doing the entire process? I just don't know, but I still don't feel good about how it went. I don't feel like it was a complete disaster, but...the whole day felt a little off.

Menu

Finish tarts

Puff pastry (we're finishing up with them tomorrow)

Pate a choux (it's what eclairs and cream puffs are made out of) that we are also finishing tomorrow

Pastry day 1

The above picture is of Chef Adrienne's tartlets. I feel really unproductive today. While doing pastry is somewhat relaxing, it just seems like we didn't really get anything done.

Menu
Pate brisee (a flaky pastry crust)
Pate sucree (kinda like a sugar cookie in the form of a pie crust)
Pastry cream (a stirred custard)
Lemon curd (lemony stirred custard)

They all turned out okay, but we didn't even assemble them today. The components are resting and we're fixing it up tomorrow. We were supposed to have a test this morning, but we postponed until the afternoon since pastry keeps us in the classroom for a while longer. I wanted to take it early, cuz I studied for it, but I was okay with a little postpone. Then we took too long on the pastry stuff, so the chefs put it to a vote: finish pastry and clean within the next hour (might've been a little less or a little more), or finish what we were working on, do one of the components tomorrow so we could take our test. Three voted for taking it, six against. Gah! I studied ALL WEEKEND to take this test today, and suddenly my study schedule is thrown off for the rest of the week because of this! Ironically, we'd likely have gotten out earlier if we'd just taken the stupid thing...

NOT happy

I'm not mad, necessarily. I'm just not happy today. We had a practice practical exam today, paired with another person (in the real one, we won't be paired). There were a lot of problems today. First, the chicken was frozen, so when we cut it the skin shrunk. The bain marie got kind of pushed to the back, so our sauce and soup were cold. The oven we used wasn't on, so our plates weren't warm when we got food on them. I sauteed the zucchini in the chicken juices, which made it taste good but there was too much liquid and they were squishy. The picture above is the meal. I was proud of the plating, which I came up with, but other than that...unhappy. The good that came out of it is this: I learned what worked and what didn't. I know what needs to be done first and what doesn't need to be done until the last minute. And I know what to watch out for when we actually do the practical. Oh, and I learned that while I'm undersalting on purpose (I like a lot more salt than most people do), the food is still not salted enough. Oh, and the potatoes are quenelles. They're little diamondy shapes. I'm rather proud of those. I think plating was the only thing that chef actually thought was noticeable on our team. Maybe the sauce too.

Vinaigrette

Menu

Composed mediterranean salad with vinaigrette (Mine)

Turned zucchini

Turned potatoes

Tomato sauce

Stuffed chicken leg and thigh

Chicken consomme

Today Dad and I both ended up on vinaigrette, and I'm telling you we do not plan these things. They just happen. Mine was decent, his looked like mayonnaise, but still tasted good (he had to thin it out a bit). I was kinda...off today. Felt a little floaty and weird all day long. Dunno why. But the food tasted okay, we need to have a better idea for plating before we go into this, and I dislike stuffed chicken a little bit. I'm not entirely sure why, but I very much prefer tasting just chicken and sauce. In any case, I now have pictures off to the right of Chefs Adam and Rebecca. It was from our wine tasting today, which I will post some thoughts about as well.

Pomme anna

Menu

Chicken consomme

Stuffed chicken leg and thigh (stuffed with mousseline in half and olive/bread stuffing in the other on Team A)

Braised leek

Pomme anna (potatoes anna, explanation below)

Mushroom sauce

Composed salad

Kay, so my contribution today was the pomme anna. Basically you get some clarified butter in a pan. Make thin slices of potato and layer them into the pan in a rosette, weight it down, cook until crisped on the bottom, and flip it. You then get it back into the pan (and this was not an easy task, believe me), and cook that side. You take it out, let it cool so the starches in the potatoes can seal themselves and make a crispy potato...pancake...thing. After it's cool, you can cut it and heat it back up in the oven to serve. I think it came out okay, but it needed salt. For the rest: I don't like leek that squishy. It tasted fine, but bleh on texture. I LOVED the mushroom sauce, loved it. The chicken was good, but nothing spectacular. The skins weren't as nicely crispy as I'dve liked. Dunno why really, I think it just got served too chilly. The consomme was very good. I love clear soups (as I think I mentioned yesterday) and the flavor on Team B's was nice. I liked it quite a bit. Oh, and the salad was good. Composed its where you have all the ingredients and componenets all separated out so the person eating it can mix it the way they like.

Piggy...

I'll get to the menu in a minute. I got to cut up a piggy today! Not the whole one, we had ribs and loin. But it was still pretty cool, that was one of my favorite things ever. Tomorrow we take apart a chicken for a grade. Nervous about that one, I wasn't great at chicken. Anyway.

Menu
Braised pork loin (Mine for today)
Turned steamed potatoes (see tourne on 1.19.09)
Turned glazed carrots
Lentil soup with applewood smoked bacon
Salad with vinaigrette (see a pattern? Check pics for differences)

The way the pork was cooked wasn't ideal for the cut of meat. The loin isn't all that tough and braising is for tough meat, generally. So it was a little more tough than I'd have liked (overcooked texture). I braised it in coffee and chicken stock, which turned out better than I'dve thought, but the meat didn't taste of coffee. The sauce did a bit, but I'm thinking a little more coffee in the future (or at least more grounds in satchels). I do like cooking with coffee though. It's...temperamental, so it's a challenge. ^_^ The veg came out good, I liked the other side's carrot glaze. I'm rather fond of sweet veggies, so that was nice (two days in a row, even). Potatoes were good, about like yesterday. Kinda like mini mashed potatoes. I like tourne, it just takes a lot of work to get it right. The soups were pretty good too. I'm not fond of soup, in general. I don't really like eating it, I don't really like making it, but I'll try it. As a rule, I like the clear ones, more like broths and consommes than anything. I like Japanese clear soups very much. Oh, and miso even though it doesn't count. But stuff with chunks in it? Just not my thing. So I'm a little biased. Maybe Dad can give a better idea of the soup, he really likes them.

Tourne

No, this is not my team's main dish. This is Team B's, I'm on A this week. But I wanted to show the tournes and theirs was visible and looked better.


Menu
Pork loin
Potato tourne (which is a seven sided round shape, you'll see it)
Sweet glazed turnip tourne
Salad (this'll be pretty standard)
Cannellini bean soup (my contribution)
Apricot demi glace


Pretty happy with the soup other than the beans being slightly undercooked (which I personally like). Wasn't all that happy with the teamwork. We didn't do so well today, and I know we can do better. Tomorrow we have another practical, pretty sure tourne will be on it, and a similar menu. Our group leader has put us on a sort of rotation, so tomorrow I'm on grill. Or whatever meat product we end up with. Oh, and today the meat was dry, so I was sad.

Whoops, sorry.

So…A ton happened in the past few days and I forgot to even put the daily menu in. I’ll fix that now.

Thursday menu-
Endive orange salad with a shallot vinaigrette
Mushroom leek soup
Grilled salmon
Steamed veg
Beurre blanc (white wine butter sauce)
Gaufrettes (waffle cut fries)

I was working on the beurre, and I ended up plating the salmon and the salad. I also did the soup garnish, it was deep fried julienned leek. Which was actually very tasty. I don’t recall what Dad did on Thursday, but I’m sure he posted something. See my picasa site (to the right) for pictures on that.

Friday menu-
Vichyssoise (potato leek soup)
Grilled ono (Also known as Wahoo, it’s a fish with a shark-like texture)
Salad with hard boiled eggs and vinaigrette
Rice with veg
Beurre rouge (red wine butter sauce, which I prefer, but it’s purple)

I worked on the ono. I also got to plate it, since the day before with the salmon, I screwed up which direction the grill marks faced. I redeemed myself, it looked much better. Unfortunately, our soup came out lukewarm (our plates weren’t warm enough and we pulled the soup too early), and our main plate only had warm fish on it, since we got 11 minutes to plate and 7 of those had fish cooking. There was no way we could get seven plates done in four minutes. Just not happening. So the rice and sauces were colder than the fish. But I’m pretty happy with how our plate came out considering we got an extra addition to the plate at last minute and it got messed up at last minute. It had a lot of changes, but we got the plate out looking pretty nice. That one is above if you’d like to see. We got asparagus added, but it didn’t come out right, so we ended up with an asparagus coulis (basically it was pureed asparagus and a little liquid) which tasted just like asparagus. I liked it.

The past two days, I’ve been kind of responsible for getting our production chart up and running. I got our menu, ingredients, and rough times written down so we know what’s going on, as well as pitching ideas for plating. It’s been interesting. Granted, I’m not doing that next week because we have team chefs for the week and that’s their job. But it was interesting to get an idea for it and I think it went fairly well.

Beyond that, Dad got his business name and ideas all up and running so that’s pretty cool. It’s B&B Culinary Creations and he’s “hired” me for it (That’s where the second B comes in). So. We’ll see where it goes from here.

Okay, pictures are up

I've switched from facebook over to picasa, I've updated the link on the right, and I won't be using facebook as steadily anymore. The picasa one is a little jumbled, but it'll get better. And it'll get descriptions. Please bear with me for the changes, I don't have a lot of spare time. Thanks.

The site is picasaweb.google.com/pyricin

No more chicken!

Today was grilled salmon, steamed veggies (red pepper and leeks), waffle fries (thinly sliced), cauliflower soup, and endive & orange salad. Turned out pretty well, I have some nice pics. Today, my dad and I got to talk to Chef Deb (she is a graduate of the same program we are in and is a private chef) about our goals and ambitions. It was very cool. She is just packed full of energy and useful information. We only talked for a little while, but we're going to set up some times that we can talk more and get a little more information. The part that was just awesome for me was that she had this book called Alinea. This book is about a restaurant. I saw a show a while back about this restaurant that actually helped me to consider cooking as a career. The chef doesn't cook anything that's just basic, or filling, or anything like that. His style is an ART. There is no other way to describe it. The things he makes are just beautiful and that is my goal. I will work the line, and I will learn the basics, but that is the ultimate goal. Forget anything else, I have an eye for art and I am going to use it. So it was a pretty good day.

Oh, and apparently there has been a little trouble with the pictures. Facebook was set up to let people in regardless of being in there or not, but it doesn't seem to be working. I'm going to look into a Picasa hosted album. I'll let you know.

Test scores and practical tests

Test score = 100% Woo! Congratulate me and Dad as well plz. He got 100 too. I'm very happy. We also had a practical exam today, it was on knife cuts. We had ten minutes to cut a carrot medium dice, a stalk of celery small dice, and mince a shallot. I got through the carrot with very nice dice, through the celery with decent dice, and halfway through the shallot with a good mince. I was the closest to finishing on my side, so I'm VERY happy with that (I've been very unhappy with my cuts lately). I'm a bit of a perfectionist, if you hadn't noticed.
We did stuffed chicken again, but this time it was chicken mousseline (which is basically a very pureed and strained chicken mixed with shallots, garlic, egg white, and whipped cream) and yes I'm aware it doesn't sound great but it just tastes like chicken. We also had zucchini (which was my contribution), beurre fondu again (which I love), rice, salad, and minestrone. We switched the service order so it wasn't salad first, but still a three course meal. I did the chicken cuts this time, and made SURE the skin wasn't sliding off and getting cut. It kinda annoyed me yesterday. It looked very good, and I was pretty happy with it. I also did the dressing garnish on the salad and helped with the plate layout for the chicken (which I wasn't entirely happy with). It was very geometrical, which is not my style, nor my favorite. Anyway, I have a bunch of pictures up on facebook. They're labeled with Team A/B, as well as what it is and the date. Enjoy.

First quiz

Today was horrible. Traffic was so stupid. Yes, there was snow. No, you don't have to go 2 miles an hour. We got to class an hour late and missed the test. Because of the snow (and more than a third of the class not making it in time) we only got a tardy and no points were taken. We also had to stay after class to take the test. So it didn't end as badly as it started, but gah, I hate snow drivers. The test wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating. Granted, I overstudied a lot. Obsessively almost. I only got a couple things wrong, and I'm pretty sure I nailed 9/10 product identification questions. Cuz balsamic vinegar is difficult to identify. ^_^ The only ones I almost had trouble with were questions asking us to list the ingredients and amounts of ingredients for particular recipes, but I figured it out after a minute. We made chicken roulade, rice, beurre fondue (butter sauce), salad with vinaigrette, and a barley soup today. First we had to get a goat cheese filling in (and that was my job today). Shallots, green peppers, and red peppers get sweated first, add thyme, and fold into the cheese. That goes into the chicken thighs (that the bones got pulled out of) and the chicken gets rolled around it. Then we seared the chicken and baked it. They were pretty good (see picture of Team B's chicken and rice above). I did the garnishing on that plate. All in all, pretty happy with it. Oh, and we find out our test scores tomorrow.

Oils

Last one. Let me know what you think of them.

1. Grape Seed

I gotta be honest, I didn't really smell much of anything on this one. It was thin, fairly clean feel for an oil, and was very slightly nutty.

2. Sunflower

Again, I couldn't smell much of anything on this one. It tastes a bit like sunflower seeds, and it's a little more viscous than the grape seed.

3. Canola

Not a lot of smell, thicker than the other two, tastes like oil. Lot of people already have and idea of this one anyway.

4. Olive (Pure)
Light smell, light flavor. This is fairly thin as far as olive oil is concerned.

5. Carli EVOO (Italian)
The next three are different brands from different areas, but they are all EVOO olive oils. This one was a nice strong smell to it, kind of delicate. The color was better on this on than on the pure (picture doesn't do it justice).

6. Almazara EVOO (Spanish)
Smelled slightly fruity. The color was even darker than the carli and it tasted a little bit like butter (Dad said something about movie theater popcorn). This one was my favorite.

7. D'opio EVOO (French)
Smelled like grass. No kidding, go outside and smell grass clippings and that's what this smelled like. Tasted like it too. It was a little peppery as well.

8. Walnut
Strong sweet nutty smell to this one. Tasted like walnuts. Definitely a salad dressing oil, something you'd want to taste in the food.

9. Sesame
Smelled and tasted like toasted sesame seeds (which is what they did to the seeds before they made the oil). Very nice, but very strong. Too much...would be obvious.

10. Mustard

Smells like lemon/mustard. So it smells a little citrusy and you'd think it wouldn't be so bad, yes? I tasted this one and it just tasted like oil at first. It's viscous and thick, but I sat for a minute thinking it wasn't so bad. Then the flavor hit me over the head with a board. It's like spicy Chinese mustard. And I grew up hating that mustard. Oh, it was a bad couple of minutes, this stuff leaves the tongue very slowly. Do not overdo this sucker, it will hurt.

Vinegars

These were...hard to keep tasting. I drank so much water for these tastings.

1. White Vinegar

This one was fairly pungent. It's kind of bitey and sour, but it burns off quickly and you don't notice the flavor anymore after a bit.

2. Rice Vinegar

Lighter smell than the white vinegar, but still a bit of a bite to it. It's slightly sweet and it reminds me a bit of sake. It's slower to leave the tongue.

3. Apple Cider Vinegar

Bitey smell. Tart, slightly sweet, and a little fruity. Flavor burns off quick.

4. Champagne Vinegar

Sharp smelling, but slightly flowery. Slower than the apple cider to leave the tongue and I tasted this more toward the front of my mouth than the back (like with the others).

5. White Wine Vinegar

Lighter smell than the champagne. Slightly sweet, fairly acidic.

6. Red Wine Vinegar

Less bitey than the white wine, with a slightly lighter smell (not by much).

7. White Balsamic Vinegar

Bite on the smell, with a little sweetness. Flavor is a bit sweet, with no real bite in the back of the throat. It's very gentle and leaves the tongue quickly. This is one of my favorites.

8. Balsamic Vinegar

More pungent than the white balsamic. Has more of a bite as well, but it's still a bit sweet. A bit stronger and more viscous.

9. Sherry Vinegar

Less of a scent on this than the balsamics. Leaves the tongue very slowly. Bit of a bite, and the flavor is fairly strong. Little sweetness comparatively.

10. Malt Vinegar

Lightish smell. Potent taste, but less bite than the sherry had (I don't know how much of this is due to having tasted quite a bit beforehand).

11. 6 yr Balsamic Vinegar

Smells sweet, with very little bite. Tastes very sweet as well. Smooth, viscous, with no sourness on the back end, and slow to leave the tongue. Lingers quite a bit. I'm fond of this one.

12. 12 yr Balsamic Vinegar

And even more fond of this one. Smells sweet, but with a woody, rich scent to it. Again, it's sweet, but even more viscosity. It has even less bite, less sourness, and leaves the tongue even slower than the 6 year.

Salts

The tasting evaluations will be done separately so you can search it properly (and so the amount of information isn't overwhelming).

1. Kosher salt
White, flaky, and dissolved fairly quickly. Didn't taste immensely salty, but did give a little crunch and texture.

2. Iodized salt

It's table salt. Please don't ask me how the flavor is on that one. It's salty. End of story.

3. Balien Fine Sea Salt

Finely ground Balien (French) brand sea salt. It's salty, not as much as the iodized, but about the same consistency and grain.

4. Balien Coarse Sea Salt

Coarse crystal Balien brand sea salt. Again, salty but with a little texture (like the kosher).

5. Smoked Sea Salt

Obviously a black salt. Heavy smoked flavor, with a deep nuttiness. It's a bit sweet on the back end, and it smells like woodsmoke. I love this one.

6. Smoked Sea Salt

A brownish, sort of wet salt (Texture is a bit like brown sugar). Again, a fairly nutty, smoky kind of salt. It has hints of hicory, and is very smooth. This one happens to be my favorite.

7. Smoked Hawaiian Pink Salt

Coarse grain, with chile chunks in it. Smoky aroma and taste, with a bit of spicyness to it.

8. Himalayan Pink Salt

A pink salt with mineral specks in it. Light in flavor and kind of dissapointing. You get what you pay for though, and this one was kind of cheap.

9. Hawaiian Pink Salt

Coarse granules, larger than the Himalayan was. It's less harsh than some of the others, and fairly pretty (picture doesn't do it justice).

10. Hawaiian Volcanic Pink Salt

Literally chunks of salt broken off a larger crystal. This one is pinker in reality. It tastes smooth, it's a fairly light taste, and it's got strong hints of minerals. I like this one quite a bit too.

Tasting day

Today we didn't do very much cooking. We made baguettes and epi (It's a loaf of bread made from a baguette shape, it looks like a stalk of wheat), but that was about it. After that, we did salt, vinegar, and oil tastings. I'm going to make a separate post for that, along with flavors, scents, and general impressions. Plus pictures, that's nice I'm sure. It'll be a long one because of the pictures. We also learned how to take the ovens apart, and we ate etouffee for lunch (Very good, Chef Rebecca made it for us since we weren't really cooking today).

Today, we had a slightly different menu. It was chicken of course, but breast only this time. We broke chickens down ourselves (two chickens each) and made airline breasts. That would be when you don't fully detach the wing from the breast, you only take the lower portion of it off. Then we sauteed the skin side to get a nice crispy side on them, popped them in the oven and let them cook. Oh, they were good too. Skin was awesome. Mine was a little oversalted, but I love salt so no one better could've gotten that particular piece. We also made mashed potatoes again, a little zucchini (which was much better seasoned today), veloute (it's a sauce, there's a picture up), salad with vinaigrette, baguette that I got to help make, and carrot soup. I made the soup on my side and Dad made the soup on his side. No, we didn't plan that. It just happened, okay. They came out almost exactly the same shade. We didn't talk about it, we didn't look over at each other's soup, we just managed to do it very similarly. I used all chicken stock to make mine, and Dad used half stock, half water. He also had ginger in his. I think mine needed salt. Dad's is in the white bowl, mine is in the pan. Oh, and don't mock my lack of presentation, I ran out of time. Plus we only had one bowl.

Oh, and pictures are now working. Somewhat

Check facebook for the full set of pictures, but here's a taster. Click to enlarge.