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.

Be warned, I make up words

Okay, shorter post since the last one was gigantic. Today was the same menu with one addition, as I mentioned. This time I worked on the stratified cream sauce. We'd cut up a ton of shallots from yesterday, so I didn't need to do any more of them but I also didn't know how many there were. I needed three, I got a tub of minced. So I kinda eyeballed it and hoped it'd work. The sauce is made from white wine (a whole bottle) reduced down to 1/4 of it's original amount with shallots and a bouquet garni. Once it's reduced, cream is added. And once that thickens properly, it's seasoned and strained. Mine was...shalloty. Kinda sweet and light colored. The other team's was much darker and a little less sweet. Course, their sauce didn't take the whole time. I think I had my heat too low and it was cooking pretty much the whole time we did the rest of the menu (that's about 2 hours). The addition to the menu today was a carrot soup. And yes, you get a picture. Ours was a little chunkier than I'dve liked, but still good. I didn't have a ton to do, so I cut up an apple in little Vs and put it in the center. Enjoy. Oh, and the green onions weren't my addition, don't ask.