Advanced Cooking, Day 3

This one is fairly overdue.

In all honestly I have a not so kind virus making itself at home in my throat right now.  I never intended to be such a great host. I'm toughing this one out in the general Boston area with a boatload of family, a couple of boxes of matzoh, and a decently sized stack of homework. Before I get to the excitement of Passover and recipes of matzoh-packed madness, I'm gonna fill you in on my cooking class.

Day four was all about the classics. Classic French of course.

Each group had to get their recipe from Georges Auguste Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire, written in 1903. The book is majorly entertaining, and packed with over 2,000 recipes that are written more like simple how-tos sprinkled with some floral language. It's pretty amusing.

My group made that little bitty steak bite above.

What is it exactly? Tivoli Tornedos with Béarnaise Sauce & Soufflé Potatoes, which basically means a crostini with a mini beef filet medallion, butter cooked tomatoes, grilled mushroom, béarnaise sauce and crispy potatoes. It was pretty tasty, though the potatoes were a challenge because they were meant to puff up but our chef didn't order the right potatoes.

That being said, I really want to try these potatoes out again. They are supposed to puff up like crispy little potato pillows. I can roll with that.

Here's what the other groups made. I love tasting everyone's different meal choices.

This canape trio below was one of my favorites. Really clean crisp flavors, and pretty fun to eat too...

Bon Appetit! Happy Pesach/Easter/Weekend!

Advanced Cooking, Day 2

Ok so we've already declared that I'm back in the kitchen, day one: mystery basket success and now it's time to tell ya about day two.

The theme you ask? Childhood Memories.

The goal was to recreate a food we associate with our childhood and turn it into a restaurant quality dish. I had a hard time choosing just one dish from my childhood because, well...honestly, I ate some damn good food growing up. And while my mom can cook THE BEST chicken wings and sweet potatoes (among soooo many other things) you will ever eat in your life ever, I decided to go with my dad's vegetarian lasagna.

Both my parents are great cooks, they're the reason I love food and cooking so much.

When my dad cooks he usually is more of a recipe man while my mom is definitely more of a go with the flow, don't fuss about it kind of cook. Both are successful in their own methods.

But when it comes to my dad's lasagna, he goes with his gut and makes a day of it.

We used a variety of roasted mushrooms, made fresh spinach pasta, homemade ricotta, and a creamy béchamel sauce. We rolled the pasta super duper thin and did lots of light, small layers with the sauces and filling, then we topped it off with a fried basil leaf. We also cut it out in to circles in hope of making it a little shmancier. (here's a similar lasagna recipe)

Notes for future lasagna making: always make a bechamel and add some cheese to it, also use a simple red sauce, and do lots of very thin layers. 

Fried basil should be a more major part of my life. Fact.

It was really fun to taste everyone else's dishes too, the tasting portion of this class is awesome because we a.) get to eat tasty food and b.) people make stuff I would never think to do, and it's interesting to check out. Here are a couple shots:

Lobster & Crab Poutine with Smoked Gruyere and Foie Gras enriched Gravy

(and a view of our dining set up)

This group did a different childhood memory for each person, The Bibimbap was my favorite, and so adorable. I mean look at the quail egg on top. I loved the chili sauce on it too. Have you had bibimbap? It's a signature korean treat, and so very tasty.

There were some other dishes too and all were delicious. Next week we are doing very classic French recipes from La Guide Culinaire, Escoffier's cookbook from 1903. Should be interesting. I hope no one does poached chicken!

Advanced Cooking, day 1

You or may not know that I am in culinary school. Cool right? Mostly, yes.

You may or may not also know that I have graduated from the culinary part and now I am getting a bachelors degree in restaurant management (basically).

Well, you probably definitely (I'm pretty sure) don't know that I get to take one more cooking class, if you do are already know this than, we are probably pretty good friends or acquaintances and I totally treasure that.

Moving past that exciting intro, let me tell ya about Advanced Cooking!

In short: It was a blast.

Long version: We assembled into small groups, were given a tray of mystery ingredients, 10 minutes to come up with a dish and about 2 hours to get that baby made and plated.

You know it's going to be a good time when your Chef starts off the class with "I'm sure you all have probably heard through the grapevine that I'm an ass. Just to clarify, I'm not like that in Advanced Cooking"

And turns out that he was sarcastic and funny and gave great feedback. Score.

Our Mystery Ingredients:

1. Wellfleet Oysters (in the shell)
2. Raw Shrimp
3. Salsify (this a weird one, heres some info)
4. Tarragon
5. Oyster Mushrooms

So...what would you do?

This is what we came up with:

We called it something along the lines of "Fish & Chips" but then found out Chef does not like dishes that are "plays/takes" on other dishes. (i.e. a play on fish and chips)

We thought we were screwed but had faith in how tasty it all came out and guess what? It was a hit!

I was pleased with it. And it was a damn good time.

 So the dish included:

• Fried panko-breaded Shrimp and Oyster
• Tarragon Aioli
• Pickled Roasted Oyster Mushrooms
• Crispy Salsify Chips

It all tasted pretty awesome together.

Loved the pickled roasted oyster mushrooms. Have you had oyster mushrooms? One word: yum.

Every team got a different tray of ingredients and here's what they made:

Steamed Clams with Crispy Potatoes & Bacon with Roasted Cipolini Onions

Grilled Squab with King Trumpet Mushrooms, Demi Sauce, and a Frisee Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette and Camembert Cheese

Venison with Sunchoke & Cheddar Puree, Cranberry Beans, & Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

and

White Bean Puree, Salmon, Foie Gras Hollandaise & Crispy Salmon Skin in a Brussels Sprout Leaf

We plated up all of of our dishes and sat down to eat them with the whole class. That means 20 small plates from each group. Did I mention we get to choose wine pairings? A lovely touch.

Seriously Enjoyable. 

At the end of the class we sit around and give each other feedback and describe how we came up with our dishes and what we could do better. Sounds fun right? It is. 

Can't wait to share the dishes from our next class! 

In case you wanted to know more about culinary school

I've been back at school for about a month now. So I suppose it's high time I stop saying"back at school" and just realize that this is my life for a while now.

Culinary school is weird though. Weird in that it's really nothing like any other school I have ever heard of and I'll try to show you why...

For starters, our dining hall is actually a number of kitchens that we as students cook in as our classes.

Now that I am in the Bachelor's program I don't get to cook unless I'm working but this is still where I eat...

It's pretty crazy how spoiled we are.

This was a great dinner of grilled swordfish and veggies over sweet/savory cous cous.  There was also a smear of spicy harissa on the side and a side plate of Mediterannean Meze: falafel, hummus, whole wheat pita, tzatziki, baba ganoush & tabouli.

Sometimes in the big hall that we eat in, they display award winning cakes....

By the way, that colorful looking glass thing isn't glass at all, it's entirely edible. 

It's also rather unusual that we are able to save up our "dining hall" swipes and use them at the restaurants on campus. 

This was a stellar lunch of wood fired pizza with mushrooms, caramelized onions, arugula & truffle oil and a side salad of prociutto and mozzarella. 

Life is just so fancy here. Ha I'm not complaining though!

Kind of amazing that one of my classes is all about brewed beverages, beer being the main topic.

Last week we tasted seaweed ale. Interesting but truly unpleasant tasting.

Our school is pretty much one main building, a building that was once a Monastery.  It's beautiful and reminiscent of Hogwarts at times.

Though from this angle it looks more like a penitentiary.

Here's another meal on campus. Once a block (3 weeks) one of the classes puts on Grand Buffet where they make a variety of small plates based on different regions.

Then all the students fight their way through to get as many tastes as possible. It's incredibly stressfull so this was the first time I partook this year.

Here's a peak from when my class did Grand Buffet...

I got some asian noodles, a mini empanada, some type of duck terrine that I didn't like (it was too smokey), a cheese plate, a little falafel bite with amazing tahini, a french lentil salad, and some caponata. I don't remember what else there was but there was quite a bit of food floating around...

All that being said, I think the weirdest part is having a campus full of students walking around in chef whites(the uniform)...and those hats! The french toque, strangely expensive to replace and even more strange is how normal those hats are to me now....

Graduation

Ever wonder what a culinary school graduation looks like? downright silly. I'm a graduation critic though- it's a whole lot of cheeze and ceremonial moving around. but it is what it is right?

We marched in a single file line. totally normal, every day activities. (there I am by that woman's clapping hands)

Then we sat on the stage. I'm glad we had a small class because we got to have the ceremony in our dining hall, and I think it's a grand ol' room, don't you agree?

Cutest graduate?

After graduating on friday, we quickly packed up my room and headed into the city for the weekend. of course it was not a seamless move, my non-existent immune system played it's part and I was pretty darn sick, oh! and I lost my id mid-moving out so I was unable to get in and out of the dorm. nothing wrong with a few challenges to keep the day exciting.

We headed into the city and had dinner at ABC kitchen. Even if the food hadn't been out of this world, and it was out of this world, it was was wonderful...I'm just saying, if it hadn't, the atmosphere alone was perfect. Like how-I-want-my-home-to-look-perfect. Chandeliers, beautiful handmade ceramic bowls, vintage china, a big table full of vegetables, wood ceilings...just plain lovely.

I didn't snag any picture of the meal but I can tell you this dessert was a great invention: salted caramel ice cream sundae with candied peanuts & popcorn, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce

The next day we stopped by Eataly and my cousin who just started at NYU joined us, our hotel was conveniently only a block away. Eataly is one hell of a place, I won't even bother describing it. Just go.

The city was bustling with all the 9/11 madness but we manged to stop by ground zero/world trade center area on the 10th. Here's the new building in progress. It's enormous.

To finish off the weekend we headed to prune for brunch. My wonderful pops snagged a spot in line and my mum and I got ready like the divas we are and met him there just in time to grab a table.

The place fills up right at 10 o'clock

damn paparazzi just can't get enough of me...

Stewed Chickpeas with crispy coated poached eggs

Crispy Oyster Omelet with remoulade & a tobasco/powdered sugar slurry

Carbonara

& a taste of the pumpkin bread

a little bit of licorice with the check. I love how they have fun stuff with the bill, last time they gave us fresh cherries.

Oh, and of course a bloody mary! I'm on an endless bloody mary kick right now

And so the weekend flew by. Now, I am spending some time in Boston, catching up with family before heading back west for a bit. Gotta love them coasts!