¡Que Aprovecho!

REMINDER: Daily culinary blog has moved

2010-02-25T07:56:00.000-08:00

If you aren't looking at SFGate.com's City Bright's blog, then you are missing the continuation of my culinary blog. Go there to read:

* 'Nothing happens unless first a dream' -- Carl Sandburg

* Dieting? You might want to skip this (including this photo!)

* The croissant: decadent, delicate, delicious, 'defiled'

* It's magic: from dough to done in 20 minutes

Am I cheating on my first love?

2010-02-18T10:39:00.000-08:00

My new relationship, with Baking and Pastry class, is not leading to early relationship euphoria. Quite the opposite. Read why, at my blog's new location: www.sfgate.com.

Specifically: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/mchihak/index?

15 days, 27 breads and pastries; can we do it?

2010-02-17T09:40:00.000-08:00

Ambitious to say the least is Chef Richard's production plan for us in the first three weeks of Baking and Pastry class.

Read about it at the new location of my blog, at the San Francisco Chronicle's Website, www.sfgate.com.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/mchihak/index

Specter of weight gain rears its head again

2010-02-16T07:10:00.000-08:00

Now that we're into Baking and Pastry at culinary school, the issue of weight gain is again before us.

Read about it in my blog's new locale, SFGate.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/mchihak/index

Blog on the move

2010-02-15T06:53:00.000-08:00

   My daily blog entries are moving. Effective today, Feb. 15, read them at SFGate's City Brights.

   Today's blog post -- LEADING WITH MY THUMB -- introduces me and my blog to what I hope will be a wider audience.

   There's room for you there, too. If you have been following me here, please link to SFGate.

Cook goes into hibernation; flour child emerges

2010-02-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

Eighteen weeks of cooking classes ended on Thursday, giving us a pretty complete going-over of the basics of classic French cuisine.

Now comes the hard part for me, starting on Monday.

"How long do you cook a cake?" Chef Instructor Richard Sanchez asks rhetorically. "You don't 'cook' a cake, of course. You 'bake' a cake."

That's new territory for me, and I enter with trepidation. I am not a baker. The good news is that Chef Richard seems more than willing to start with the basics.

For example: "The first thing you will learn is to say 'baking,' not 'cooking'."

Starting with that change in terminology, it means a whole new mentality about the kitchen and a new set of mechanics. It means exact measurements, by weight. It likely means less knife work, more whipping and rolling. It means working more with eggs and flour and sugar and ...

Chocolate!

Say, maybe this won't be so bad after all!

We will learn to make a chocolate butter cake, Chef Richard promises.

We also will learn to bake bread and make croissants and a host of other delectables.

Frankly, baking and pastry making have never been part of my attraction to the kitchen; my preference has always been for the savory side. But the territory we covered in cooking classes was far beyond anything I expected, opening my mind to all possibilities.

The newest frontier beckons. I stand ready, whisk in hand.

How does he keep his slender figure?

2010-02-14T07:29:00.000-08:00

Chef Dan Fluharty scores final platings from five students in Culinary Foundations III. This plating was worth 50 points. Chef tasted each component to score doneness, seasoning, temperature, appearance and portion size. He also scored each plate overall on food color -- minimum of three colors required for full credit -- cleanliness, design and height. The rectangular plate in the center and the round plate on the far right are grilled pork chops; the plate nearest Chef's left hand is sauté of duck breast; the plate near his right hand is fillet of sole and salmon mousseline; the plate in the lower left is mine, grilled New York steak.

Last supper: Culinary school final exam platings

2010-02-13T08:29:00.000-08:00

My final competency exam platings in Culinary Foundations III class:

Sauté of boneless chicken breast over a mushroom sauce suprême, broccoli florets in a butter sauté with julienne of tomato, potatoes tourné.

Grilled New York steak with roasted garlic compound butter, creamed spinach, pommes duchesse, grilled tomato slices.

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 18

2010-02-13T00:35:00.000-08:00

Nothing dull about it
"Those were some scary sharp knives."
-- Culinary student John Briggs after the class viewed a video in which an experienced butcher broke down a side of beef in quick time.

You've been warned
"He always has such off-the-wall questions."
"And, I've got lots more."
-- Exchange between Chef Dan Fluharty and culinary student Alfie Regadio (left) during a review session for final exams.

Quiz on synonyms
"It's shred vs. grate. With hash browns, you want to grate. Grate, like grate on my nerves. You know:
g-r-r-r-r-a-a-a-a-a-a-t-e."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty critiquing our less-than-stellar performance in making breakfast potatoes.

Just so it's edible
"Parsley and lemon sauce; it's from a cook book."
-- Culinary student Jorge Olmos to Chef Dan Fluharty when Chef asked him about the sauce he was planning for his final exam chicken dish.

Thanks for the memories
"Remember the day we made chicken ballotine?"
"That was a bad day."
"That was my worst day yet."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty reviewing our cooking, with culinary students Molly Lester and John Briggs reacting.

Class picture: Culinary Arts, 2010

2010-02-12T17:48:00.000-08:00

Our class; in front: Chef Instructor Dan Fluharty. Left to right: Barry Gose, Aline Brown, Molly Lester, Fontaine McFadden, Jorge Olmos, yours truly, John Briggs, Alfie Regadio, Rob Park, Richard Johnson.

NEWS FLASH: ¡Que Aprovecho! goes downtown!

2010-02-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

The gracious folks at SFGate, the Website of the San Francisco Chronicle, have agreed to include ¡Que Aprovecho! as part of the City Brights community blog feature.

Look for it there starting Monday morning, Feb. 15.

It won't be called ¡Que Aprovecho! on SFGate. To begin with, there is a dispute among bilingual family members and friends over the grammatical accuracy of that phrase.

¡Que Aprovecho! will remain accessible as a blog site, serving mostly as an archive for my last six months of postings, to preview my posts at SFGate's City Brights and to link you to it.

The wit and wisdom of Chef Dan

2010-02-11T19:52:00.000-08:00

A good teacher does more than impart knowledge; a good teacher imparts inspiration.

Chef Dan Fluharty inspired us from the first day of class in early November, and he did so every day for 12 weeks after, in Culinary Foundations II right through today's final class in Culinary Foundations III.

Chef told us as we prepared to depart his classroom kitchen at day's end today: "In a few years, I'll come into a restaurant and see one of your names on the menu as chef. ... "

That's an inspirational thought in and of itself.

In his honor, here are select inspirational, motivational and just plain funny moments from Chef Dan Fluharty in the last 12 weeks.

"The fish always stinks from the head down."
-- Explaining that if there's a problem with food in a restaurant, it starts at the top.

"It's about learning the basics. Today: more basics."
-- Responding to students asking if they could alter, add to or otherwise make more complex the techniques and recipes he was teaching to us.

"Your daily challenge will be: timing, correct mise en place, plate presentation."
-- Spelling out the keys to success in class.

"Chuck got shanked in the ribs over a plate of loins. But he was flanked by his friends, sirloin and round."
-- Chef's way of helping us remember the subprimal cuts on a half of beef.

"For the fryer, where's the magic spot? There's a magic place on the flame. Find it."
-- Admonishing us to pay attention to the deep fryer's oil temperature. We often had it too high or too low, resulting in inadequate cooking.

"Remember, eight weeks ago, you couldn't rub two sticks together."
-- After seeing our collective reaction to his spelling out the elements of a rather daunting final competency exam.

The most important ingredient in cooking

2010-02-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

Fail to salt a vegetable or a piece of meat, and its flavor will be lessened.

Don't put sugar in lemonade, and it will be too sour to drink.

Remove all fat -- butter, oil, other rendering -- from cooking, and it becomes much more difficult, in fact nigh impossible.

So which of those is the most important ingredient in the kitchen?

None of the above.

"We only have so much time," Chef Dan Fluharty told us in a recent lecture in Culinary Foundations III class. "You must make it your friend."

And your most important ingredient. More than anything else, time can make or break a meal. Day after day in the last 18 weeks of classes, we have faced one time crunch heaped upon another. In some cases, we spent too much time on something, in others not enough, and in still others time simply ran out.

Take Wednesday's time crunch in the competency final exam. We had 15 minutes to fabricate -- cut into specified pieces -- a whole chicken. We had 45 minutes to cook a five-part meal with one piece of that chicken. We had one hour to cook another five-part meal right after that.

Time-line organization and planning were keys to success, along with execution of the time line. In each instance, time was tight, and there was some, but not much, margin for error.

Most of us completed the chicken fabrication with plenty of time to spare. Mine was done in 9 minutes.

My chicken dish, too, came together according to my timeline and plan. I was the first in class to present the dish to Chef, with about five minutes to spare.

The grilled New York steak went to the last tick of the clock. The steak itself was the final ingredient to go on the plate, and I placed it there literally as Chef walked by to declare time was up. I could have used another 3 or 4 minutes, time I had lost on two do-overs -- my potato mixture for which I had forgotten the egg yolks and my spinach, which I had over-blanched, leaving it as a small glob of green.

We've seen it on "Iron Chef", "Top Chef" and "Chopped". The tming matters, more than just about anything else.

Today, all 10 of us were 'Top Chefs'

2010-02-10T20:10:00.000-08:00

Ten of us plated 20 flavorful, attractive and culinarily correct meals today to complete our competency final exam in Culinary Foundations III.

We had an under-seasoned vegetable here and a sauce that was too thick there, but we did ourselves proud. We also did Chef Dan Fluharty proud. He prodded, poked, pushed and most of all taught us for the last 12 weeks.

Chef Dan honored us with a standing ovation as class ended.

Everyone turned in good meals well made. All waited patiently for Chef to individually critique and grade every plate, giving each recipient his or her due upon completion of the scoring.

For the record, I scored 18 of 20 on the chicken dish, which included fabrication of a whole chicken, followed by cooking of one breast with accompanying starch, vegetable, sauce and garnish. I missed one "oyster" in a thigh, and Chef judged my sauce suprême slightly thick.

My grilled New York steak scored 44 of 50. It was a smidgen on the rare side, and I had not thoroughly cooked the roux (butter and flour combination) on the creamed spinach.

High marks and high praise came for my flavors and seasoning on almost every component of both plates, and Chef singled out my vegetables as having been cooked just right.

One day remains in the six-week term, and it will include a written final exam. Afterward, we will cook -- for fun!

It's a shellfish party: lobster, shrimp, oysters, clams, mussels. We will apply our best creative techniques to them, plus make side dishes to complement.

We will celebrate the completion of our 18 weeks of immersion in classical French cuisine.

Technical difficulties mean I can't post photos from today at this time, but I will post them soon.

Meantime, a toast to my classmates:

¡Saludos, Amor y Dinero!

Top to bottom on the left: Aline Brown, Barry Gose, Richard Johnson, Molly Lester, Alfie Regadio.

Top to bottom on the right: John Briggs, Fontaine McFadden, Jorge Olmos, Rob Park

On the last lap of 'cooking marathon'

2010-02-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

Early on in Culinary Foundations III class, Chef Instructor Dan Fluharty (right) promised students a "cooking marathon that gives you a real world feel."

He has fulfilled that promise.

Today, we finish the marathon with two meals of five parts each. The first, with a chicken breast at its center, must be completed and presented in 45 minutes. The second, for which I drew New York steak, must be completed and presented in one hour.

All 10 of us should be ready. The chefs have been working us out for 18 weeks. In the last six weeks, we have had intensive, timed cooking exercises almost daily. In that six weeks, we have prepped, cooked and plated two dozen full meals, including three-course offerings and all rooted in the classic French techniques and flavors we have been learning.

We can see the finish line ahead, and we must run hard through it.

The real world lies just beyond.

The problem with garnish, or, relevance in dining

2010-02-09T19:24:00.000-08:00

You know the scene: Order dinner at a restaurant and on the plate is a sprig of parsley or a slice of citrus or some other nondescript piece of something presumably edible.

That's garnish, meant to enhance the meal and serve as something attractive. Often, though, the diner shoves it aside. That's after the thought behind it got shoved aside by the chef or whoever plated the meal.

Garnish in French means "to adorn" or "to furnish." As the French have done with most other aspects of cuisine and eating -- e.g., 100 or more ways to cook an egg -- they have attempted to standardize garnish preparation and presentation. A 1914 handbook to assist chefs and cooks lists 209 items in the garnish section, according to Wayne Gisslen in "Professional Cooking," the key textbook we use in culinary school.

In our current class, Culinary Foundations III, we get a point on a plated meal for a thought-out and appropriate garnish, and we lose a point if the garnish is inappropriate or nonexistent. Chef has taught us that the garnish can be an offshoot of some aspect of the dish and overall should complement the dish, including adding color where needed.

For Wednesday's all-important final competency exam, garnish will be a factor.

For my chicken dish, I will use a couple of small mushroom caps as garnish, and if I have time, I will carve a small design into them. If not, I likely will go with a sliced and fanned mushroom cap on the plate. The mushroom will be appropriate because it will be part of the sauce I plan to make.

For the grilled New York steak, I plan to thick slice a roma tomato and grill it for a few moments to provide some texture and color on what otherwise will be a pretty neutrally colored plate.

Seems like lots of attention, but every point counts. More important, the plate must look good and be appetizing. My garnishes are intended to achieve those ends.

It's like CSI: Spinach gets creamed, steak gets grilled

2010-02-09T07:06:00.000-08:00

Grill a steak? Should be no problem. Cream some spinach? That's a bit more complex. Compounding the matter is butter -- compound butter, that is, with roasted garlic. Then there are the potatoes duchesse.

That's menu No. 2 in the mystery basket for Wednesday's final competency exam. It is what I will plan, prep, cook and plate for Chef, all in one hour.

Grilled New York steak sounds simple, but it must be done to Chef's exacting specifications -- medium rare with good grill marks.

But first things first: The potatoes must be boiled and the garlic roasted as starting steps. Compound butter takes a while to set, so my plan will be to handle it and get it in the reach-in refrigerator as quickly as possible.

Spinach needs thorough washing, at least three complete dunkings and rinsings in cold water. And the cream for it must be light. As Chef said the previous time we cooked it, this is creamed spinach, not spinached cream.

Piped potatoes into the oven, spinach on the stovetop with light cream, the steak cooks and then rests. Plating starts now.

It will be an intense hour.

(Photo shows what the steak ought to look like, with compound butter, when presented. Photo credit: www.occidentaldc.com.)

Final exam plating: Can I make it 'suprême'?

2010-02-08T19:26:00.000-08:00

The first of two platings for our final competency exam on Wednesday will be chicken. For the first time in the 18 weeks we have been cooking in school, we must plan, prep, cook and plate the dish without specific direction from the chef.

What he said is that it must be chicken -- use the breast from your chicken fabrication competency test was his pointed suggestion -- and the plate must include a sauce, a vegetable, a starch and a garnish.

My plan is to sauté a skinless, boneless chicken breast, slice it and make it the centerpiece of a plate that includes broccoli blanched and finished in a sauté of butter, potatoes turned in small ovals and browned, sauce suprême and a garnish of mushrooms.

If all goes well, it should look something like the photo above, taken from our textbook, Wayne Gisslen's "Professional Cooking."

BULLETIN: Egg demand falls as market bottoms out

2010-02-08T19:18:00.000-08:00

Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but I wasn't necessarily looking at it as a good way to start final exam week in culinary school today.

Cooking eggs -- omelets, over easy, scrambled and elsewise -- by classic French standards hasn't been my forte. Suffice it to say that in learning to make a proper omelet, I've had to break many an egg, several dozen in my first practice round a few weeks back.

Today, however, the demand for eggs declined significantly as I rolled out three egg dishes in decent fashion.

Key was the omelet, which like the other egg dishes in classic French cookery, must be done without browning, cooked through and not runny. On my first try, for a grade, I left it a bit runny, but scored well because all other components on my plate, roasted red potatoes with a paprika dusting and country gravy, were done well.

Chef suggested I make a second try on the omelet, albeit not for a grade. I completed it without runniness and little browning. The mechanics are key: moving, moving, shaking, shaking, rimming the egg in the pan, flipping, folding once in the pan, a second time onto the plate. Done. Order up!

The egg market had a crack in it today.

Jazz bassist Charles Mingus and the culinary arts

2010-02-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

Making food and making music have much in common. Both coalesce the cognitive and the creative. Both require focus and discipline while finding a way to keep innovation unfettered. Both require mastery of the basics and attention to simplicity, rather than a striving for complexity.

What? you say. What is classical music if not complex? What about the complex counter beats of jazz, the riffs of some popular music, the harmonies of gospel? All have their complexities, as do many of the world's cuisines. Agreed. But bear with me on this thought for a few minutes.

Culinary-musical commonalities bring to my mind the late, great bass player and composer Charles Mingus (left), who is among my favorites in jazz.

His innovation, his discipline in getting the music just the way he wanted it and his musical attention to the region of his roots -- the U.S.-Mexican border -- all capture my attention. Mingus was born in the border town of Nogales, Ariz., the same town in which my mom was born.

My favorite Mingus music is his Tijuana Moods set, in which he played a few essential pieces of music several times over, adjusting in each to gain a slightly different outcome. Each is distinct, yet familiar and connected.

About music, Mingus said: "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."

The thought clearly applies to cooking, and it is especially in my mind this week as we approach the stress of final cooking competency exams in Culinary Foundations III.

In short, keeping it simple will serve us well.

Chef Instructor Dan Fluharty reminds us to keep it simple. He does so every time one of us asks about making a twist or turn in the proposed menu, every time one asks about adding an ingredient or using a cooking method other than what is prescribed, every time one says what if ...

Chef's response: Keep it simple.

He knows and is teaching us that the only way to get to complex is to start at simple. That's the key to success in our class.

Just as Charles Mingus found it to be in music.

Mystery basket menus for final exam

2010-02-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

What one knows about cooking is only as good as how well one can apply the knowledge when those 60,000-BTU burners are fired up. That's the left brain-right brain dance that occurs in the kitchen.

Then there's what I call the "third brain," a mystical element that catalyzes the cognitive and the creative in the culinary arts, bringing about magical results that a scientist could explain but whose properties are better left to the imagination.

All the knowledge we have acquired in the last 18 weeks, and all the skill we have built in applying it must come together for magical results on Wednesday in final competency cooking exams in Culinary Foundations III.

First test will be that after fabricating a whole chicken, we will take one breast and make a meal of it, in 45 minutes. More about my plan for that in a blog posting later today.

Second test will be prepping, cooking and plating another meal from a specified menu in one hour, what Chef Dan Fluharty has called "the mystery basket." He revealed mystery basket contents on Friday:

1. Seared and oven-finished breast of duck with sauce bigarade, herbed couscous, seasonal vegetable, garnish.
2. Grilled New York steak with roasted garlic compound butter, pommes duchesse, creamed spinach and garnish.
3. Poached snapper with salmon mousseline, caper beurre blanc, rice pilaf, seasonal vegetable and garnish.
4. Seared and oven-finished rack of lamb with hazelnut crust, mint demi-glace sauce, potatoes croquettes, Brussels sprouts and garnish.
5. Grilled pork chop with sauce chasseur, potatoes anna, sauté of green beans and red bell peppers and garnish.

Before we drew numbers on Friday from Chef's toque blanche to determine who makes which plate, the buzz among the 10 of us was that the highest degree of difficulty is with the poached snapper because of the mousseline. That's a stuffing that must be prepped and piped into the rolled fish fillet.

Perhaps. But every one of the five has its challenges, not only in getting the protein cooked properly, but in the balance between crispness and overdoneness in vegetables, the delicacies of the sauces and the seasoning needed to bring the starches to full flavor.

On Tuesday, I will reveal which of the five I drew and my game plan for it.

Sharpening my knife and my mind for final exams

2010-02-07T10:06:00.000-08:00

Fabricating a chicken -- that is, cutting it up for cooking -- to meet American Culinary Federation standards is required to pass Culinary Foundations III. The test will be on Wednesday, and we will have a maximum of 15 minutes to complete it.

(My latest practice effort took 7 minutes, but there was no pressure.)

The ACF certification requires cutting the bird into 10 parts:

* The wishbone. This is the collarbone, and it is removed first, to make it easier to cut the breasts from the bone. Not all chefs or butchers remove it first, but it is required for ACF certification.
* 2 legs and thighs, with "oyster" intact. The oyster is a small lump of dark meat on the back of the thigh, prized by many as the most tender and flavorful part of the bird.
* 2 breasts, both boneless, one skinless.
* 2 tenderloins. The tenderloin is an oblong piece of white meat attached to the breast by a thin piece of membrane. It can be pulled off or is easily cut off.
* 2 wings, including one with the meat pulled down off the bone "lollipop" style.
* The remaining carcass. This is inspected to ensure that as much usable meat as possible has been cut from it.

Martin Yan of "Yan Can Cook" fame fabricates a chicken with a cleaver in under 20 seconds, as seen on this YouTube video. Included is Yan's heartfelt lesson to the students about the need to entertain restaurant guests.

Makin' bacon and other culinary delights

2010-02-06T12:33:00.000-08:00

Making one's own bacon, from the raw, just-cut pork belly, seemed as foreign to me a week ago as growing one's own wheat in pots on the back porch for making bread.

Once the process began unfolding, the peculiarity went away, largely because the formula is fairly simple: Cut the pork belly slab (left) into appropriate sizes and thicknesses, coat thoroughly in a salt cure formula, consisting of Kosher salt and brown sugar, wrap tightly in plastic for a wo-day cure, turning the package over after one day. Then one towel dries the meat, hangs it to dry for a day or two and then puts it in a smoker for a couple of hours.

On Monday, we will cook the bacon as part of a breakfast comptency test in which we also must prep, cook and plate a French omelet, eggs over easy and a poached egg.

Any bread that comes with the breakfast won't be from wheat I have grown on my back porch. I won't be doing that.

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 17

2010-02-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

Social Security for sheep
"Here we have a geriatric piece of lamb. It's been in the freezer a long time."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty with a leg of lamb (right) that he was preparing to butcher in a demo for the class.

Case for Agatha Christie
"How mysterious is the basket?"
-- Culinary student John Briggs asking about what will be in a five-ingredient "mystery basket" from which we must cook a meal for our final exam.

What's this yummy filling?
"What could you do with that pork chop if you don't brine it? Could you cut a pocket in it and put a little schmutz in it?"
-- Chef Dan Fluharty on how to bring flavor. "Schmutz" is a Yiddish/German word meaning "soil" or "filth."

Cleanup on Hwy. 101
"The Brussels sprouts road kill ... came from an attempt at flavor profiling. The vinegar caused a pickling, and it really didn't work."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty describing how one student's effort to build flavor and cancel bitterness in cooking veggies fell short.

Pasta meltdown
"I had a pappardella disaster. ... It was almost like dumplings."
-- Culinary student Molly Lester (left) describing how her ribbon pasta went awry.

Cooking -- and eating -- like Julia Child

2010-02-05T19:58:00.000-08:00

Julia Child, the mother of American gourmancy, experienced what she called her culinary awakening with her very first meal in France more than 60 years ago -- sole meunière.

The almost-too-delicate-to-handle sole, filleted from the dover sole or other flat fish such as the flounder, is cooked in a butter sautè and served with butter sauce, or beurre blanc.

Sole meunière was on the menu today in Culinary Foundations III as the entrèe in a three-course offering for Chef Dan Fluharty. It was one of our last efforts before next week's final exams.

We cut the fillets from whole flounder, no mean feat. The trick is avoiding the nasties inside the fish, getting as much of the flesh as possible while avoiding bones and cutting the skin off without massacre of the delicate flesh. I nearly managed, getting one almost perfect fillet and a second that was -- well, suffice it to say that I served its two or three broken pieces hidden beneath almost perfect.

The cooking is lightning quick, two minutes or less on each side, and is the very last task in a rush of heat on the stovetop. The beurre blanc is a finicky sauce and must have one's full attention to avoid breaking the emulsion with too much or not enough heat. I managed mine well and turned out what Chef called a winning sauce, including mushrooms and capers.

The sole and sauce were plated with couscous, which I cooked right but slightly under-seasoned, and sautè of broccoli that was cooked and seasoned well. I garnished with tomato provençal, a crowned roma tomato with the seeds removed, stuffed with bread crumbs, herbs and parmesan cheese and baked for three minutes.

First course was clam chowder, which turned out as I like it, if a tad thick for Chef. Second course was a fennel and red pepper salad, marinated in a lemon zest vinaigrette. Chef said mine was seasoned as it should be.

Experiencing the delicate flavor of the sole meunière, accompanied by the mushroom and caper beurre blanc, made clear to me why Julia Child's inner gourmand was stirred when she partook of this most French and most gourmet of meals.

(Photo credits: Sole meunière, www.sunset.com; Julia Child, www.awardsdaily.com.)

Why do chefs wear the tall hats?

2010-02-05T08:29:00.000-08:00

¡Que Aprovecho! reader Maria asked:

Why do some chefs where these toques? Is there a reason they're so tall? Do they need to store eggs in them, ala I Love Lucy? I've always wondered about this. Maybe you can shed some light?

Good question, and thanks for submitting it. Your reference to hiding eggs as in I Love Lucy actually has a connection to the history of the toque blanche. Here's an excerpt from the Website www.cheftalk.com:

Chefs as far back as the 16th century are said to have worn toques. During that period artisans of all types (including chefs) were often imprisoned, or even executed, because of their freethinking. To alleviate persecution, some chefs sought refuge in the Orthodox Church and hid amongst the priests of the monasteries. There they wore the same clothes as the priests-including their tall hats and long robes-with the exception of one deviating trait: the chef's clothes were gray and the priest's were black.

It wasn't until the middle 1800's that chef Marie-Antoine Carême redesigned the uniforms. Carême thought the color white more appropriate, that it denoted cleanliness in the kitchen; it was also at this time that he and his staff began to wear double-breasted jackets. Carême also thought that the hats should be different sizes, to distinguish the cooks from the chefs. The chefs wore the tall hats and the younger cooks wore shorter hats, more like a cap. Carême himself supposedly wore a hat that was 18 inches tall! The folded pleats of a toque, which later became an established characteristic of the chef's hat, were first said to have been added to indicate the more than 100 ways in which a chef can cook an egg.

Every chef at the California Culinary Academy wears a toque in class and around school. Every student is required to wear the small cap, call a commis, along with the full uniform when in class and on campus.

Today's menu: Could be flounder, could be omelet

2010-02-05T07:49:00.000-08:00

A dose of reality for the culinary classroom today: Depending on what is delivered, and what is not, we will cook either a flounder dinner or an egg breakfast.

Chef said Thursday that he put in an order for fresh flounder, and if the flat fish with the bulging eyes arrive, each of us likely will get a whole one to clean, fillet and cook to chef's specifications. First course will be a salad that hasn't yet been defined and second course a soup, possibly based on cauliflower.

If the fish don't arrive, we will cook breakfast -- French omelet, eggs over easy, scrambled eggs in a vol au vent tube of pastry or poached egg. And, maybe, bacon. Our bacon slabs are at the end of their curing, hanging in the walk-in cooler to await today's smoking in cherry-wood chips.

That's the reality. In a restaurant, one must make do with what is available.

Chef and we students are banking on the fish coming in. Then we can cook breakfast on Monday, our final daily cooking lesson before the midweek final exam.

Lifting the veil on the "mystery" final exam

2010-02-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

Six days before our final exam in Culinary Foundations III, Chef told us a bit of what to expect in his "mystery basket" challenge. We will prep, cook, plate and present one of five entrées, plus a starch, vegetable, sauce and garnish.

The five are New York steak; salmon fillet; duck; rack of lamb; a white fish with mousseline, which is a stuffing made from salmon. We have cooked them all, and we know that each has its own particular challenges, mostly involving the right temperature and timing to cook it to Chef's specifications.

Classmates walked away hoping aloud that they wouldn't draw the white fish and salmon mousseline, which probably is the most complex of the five.

My preference is rack of lamb, which I did best with when we cooked it earlier. But I will be prepared for and take on whatever the culinary gods direct my way.

Chef said we will draw slips of paper from a box on Monday to determine who cooks what. That will give us two days to plan a production timeline.

(Photo shows my rack of lamb plating from earlier in the term.)

Now I know how congressmen feel: making sausage

2010-02-03T22:22:00.000-08:00

Pasta poured forth in the Culinary Foundations III classroom kitchen today, along with a half-dozen versions of link sausage.

At our station, we encased two kinds of the cured meat -- Swedish potato sausage and andouille. Both were delicious, and there was enough to take home. (Photo shows the Swedish potato sausage in the lower left, the andouille in the upper right.)

We also jammed through the making of three pasta dishes in 90 minutes, using freshly made pasta and other ingredients.

First was butternut squash and ricotta ravioli, fried and served with a marinara sauce. I had made that very sauce the night before at home, so I knew that getting it on the stovetop early to intensify the flavors was the key.

Second was fettucini served with a parsley pesto and one link of the andouilli that had been blanched and sautéed with onions and red bell pepper.

Third was pappardella -- 3/4-inch wide pasta noodles -- served with a mushroom cream sauce and sauté of chicken.

The action was hectic, almost frantic, in getting the dishes plated on schedule. Each had its special elements and flavors, and each was completed with satisfaction.

March madness? No: February frenzy

2010-02-03T08:06:00.000-08:00

My classmates enjoy a calm moment in the kitchen, but a storm is brewing.

Seven days remain in Culinary Foundations III, the final class in the basics of classic French cuisine at the California Culinary Academy. That means with each day the pace quickens.

All is leading to a monstrous final exam at the stovetops in one week: two hours of cooking to plate two full meals, to specific, prescribed menus that we have covered in one form or another.

First will be somewhat of a free-form session. We will have up to 15 minutes to cut a whole chicken into 10 specified parts. Then after putting away nine parts, we will have 45 minutes to prepare a five-component meal around a chicken breast from the bird we just cut up. We choose a sauce, starch, vegetable and garnish from what is available in our classroom kitchen.

Second part, immediately after, will be similar to the Food Network program "Chopped." Each of us will get what Chef called a "mystery basket" of five ingredients from which we must make a five-course meal in one hour. Each basket will have a different protein in it.

Timing as well as food preparation and cooking quality will be emphasized.

Are we nervous? Right down to the bottoms of our black-and-white checkered chef's trousers.

Culinary school: What a grind

2010-02-02T19:49:00.000-08:00

Charcuterie, the aspect of culinary arts devoted to prepared meats, was on the agenda today in Culinary Foundations III.

We made sausage and began curing bacon. The processes are fairly simple and straightforward -- and there's quite a bit of room for creativity in each with flavors from added aromatics, spices and herbs -- yet the machinery for grinding the sausage and the smoking of bacon are not home kitchen items, normally.

Chef allowed each station in the kitchen to prepare one or two sausage recipes. At my station, we went with fellow student Rob Parks' old family recipe of Swedish potato sausage and with an andouille recipe that Chef handed out. There's quite a contrast between the two, the Swedish being light in color and mildly savory, while the andouille has a darker hue and a sneaky little bit of heat that comes in the back of the mouth.

Both sausages will be stuffed in casings for links on Wednesday, and the bacon cure will be completed on Thursday, when we will smoke it.

(Photos: classmate Richard Johnson having a go at grinding our Swedish potato sausage; the potato mixture before grinding and after grinding.)

Back to being an ink-stained wretch

2010-02-02T07:25:00.000-08:00

Monday's lesson in Culinary Foundations III left my fingers temporarily stained with black ink, a reminder of my days in the newspaper business.

Squid ink, to be precise.

It came from cleaning and prepping a half-dozen of the slippery little sea creatures for fried calamari, accompanied by a hand-made aioli dipping sauce.

The squid came to us whole and fresh, ink included, and it took me awhile to work my way through them (a pair of them is pictured on my cutting board). We kept tentacles and the tubular bodies sliced into small disks.

After breading lightly in flour and deep-frying for a couple of minutes, the calamari were delicious, along with the aioli, which is a mayonnaise infused with roasted garlic.

My previous report that on Monday we also would make lamb stew with puff pastry -- vol au vent -- was incorrect. We made the lamb stew but no pastry. We made polenta to accompany it.

What's the rush? Someone's hungry

2010-02-02T07:06:00.000-08:00

Controlled chaos in the kitchen is the norm, not the exception, I am learning as culinary school progresses.

Take Monday: Chef had a full agenda for us, including review of previous cooking challenge, preview of the week ahead, lecture on charcuterie and -- lo and behold -- cooking!

We got around to the cooking part with slightly more than one hour left available before the scheduled end of class. Yet, most of us prepped, cooked and plated in that time.

Chef had predicted it would be an easy day for us. That's debatable, but it was pretty near the routine to which we have become accustomed. That meant we were all in a hurry, especially at plating time.

It was quite a rush and more chaotic than has been our custom. He didn't say so this time out, but methinks Chef is prepping us for whatever organization or lack thereof we may encounter in the real world of restaurant cooking.

Photo shows several of my classmates in action on Monday, under the watchful eye of Chef Dan Fluharty, in the tall hat, which is known as a toque.

What's cooking today? Lamb stew in vol au vent

2010-02-01T08:02:00.000-08:00

Turning into the home stretch in Culinary Foundations III this week means puff pastry, known in French as vol au vent. It will provide the platform for a lamb stew today. The way the pastry is supposed to look is at left.

We will also make fried calamari, accompanied by garlic aioli (a mayonnaise infused with garlic).

On another track, prep work will begin for making sausage later in the week.

We have nine days left in the term -- nine days more of learning all we can about classic French cooking before moving to other classes.

Understanding how to control and adjust flavors

2010-02-01T07:20:00.000-08:00

The key ingredient to successful cooking isn't a secret sauce or a rare spice or even a tender piece of meat. It is getting the flavors right -- flavor profiling is what chefs call it.

Anyone who cooks knows how to do it, at least in the most basic ways: To make something sweet, add sugar; to make something sour, add lemon juice; to make something salty, add salt.

Flavor profiling as we are learning in culinary school is instilling the five flavors -- salt, sweet, bitter, sour and the one that borrows from all the others, umami -- in combinations or sometimes in contrasts.

In reviewing a cooking assignment in class last week, Chef Dan Fluharty talked about the flavors and how we played with them in one way or another to the betterment of the dish. It was a simple dish -- chunky tomato soup, a good one with which to play the flavors off one another.

The key was the tomatoes' acidity and how to minimize it. A little sugar could do it easily. So could salt, because salt stifles bitterness and sourness, allowing a little sweetness to come through. That's what I did -- it's also what I do most often to tame the acidity in hand-made vinaigrettes -- and it worked well.

That's flavor profiling, in the simplest manner.

It can be complex, as with multi-ingredient sauces and broths. Take tortilla soup, for example. We made it in class last week, and I made a pot of it at home this weekend. I built the broth with several strong agents, including tomato, cayenne, cumin, thyme, oregano, salt and white pepper. Any of them can be a take-charge flavor; the secret for this soup and for many other dishes is to not let any one flavor take charge, but rather to get them to work cooperatively.

That's flavor profiling, in a more complex manner.

Home cooks do it all the time: a pinch of this, a spoonful of that and soon enough, deliciousness!

Making it happen on purpose and getting a consistent result one day to the next is the trick.

(Chart credit: www.phoodie.info.)

Cashing in on culinary arts: the business side

2010-01-31T08:13:00.000-08:00

The chefs-instructors at the California Culinary Academy are focused on showing us the realities of restaurant kitchens. Their curriculum covers the basics and more, with an atmosphere of timed cooking competency exams and fine-point critiques and grading vividly demonstrating what it will take in the real world.

And, mostly in subtle ways, they are showing us pieces of the business side of restaurants, of how important adherence to efficiency is and to making every meal correctly and using food wisely.

It showed up on several fronts in the last couple of weeks. Chef Dan Fluharty (left) our instructor for Culinary Foundations III, taught us not only good technical butchery skills for beef, fish, veal, lamb, pork and poultry. He taught us that good skills include preserving as much of the useful flesh of the animals for cooking and selling. He walked us through the economics of a piece of beef tenderloin and of a whole salmon that he and class members fileted.

"Cut toward the bone," Chef said in demonstrating breakdown of a pork loin. "If you cut toward the meat, what's that called? Money. You don't want to ruin the meat."

This week, we had occasion to observe Chef Marco Ilaria taking month-end inventory in the kitchen classroom he shares with Chef Dan. Everything is accounted for, he said, so that the business types can determine not only what it all cost, but how much money was made.

"When I applied to work here, they told me they thought I knew how to cook, that I was a nice guy and seemed like I would make a good teacher. But they emphasized that I had to make my P&L," Chef Marco said.

Chef Dan linked kitchen performance to the bottom line in a frank manner on Friday, critiquing our day-before performances on béchamel sauce. With one possible exception among the 10 students, Chef said, our sauces were too thick and unfit to serve.

"You lost a point over it (in the grading)," Chef said. "You would lose a customer over it (in a restaurant)."

Successful meat cookery is all in the squeeze

2010-01-30T15:23:00.000-08:00

Chef Dan Fluharty took his time critiquing my entrée plating (right) on Friday.

First, he looked a the texture of the hollandaise sauce, then tasted it and commented that it had good flavor.

Then came the asparagus, which he judged to be just the slightest undercooked.

He inspected the potatoes for browning and tasted one. "Well done," he said.

With a spoon, he dipped into the demi-glace and mint sauce beneath the lamb chops. "Good flavor, good seasoning," he said.

Finally, Chef picked up a knife to cut into a lamb chop to check for doneness to medium rare. I told him with confidence that the squeeze, pinching a chop between my finger and thumb, told me it was cooked correctly.

"That works," he said. "It's the only way to check on a small piece of lamb like this. You're not going to stick a meat thermometer into it."

He cut in and exposed the meat, cooked just right. "That's perfectly medium rare," Chef said. "It's turning to medium here on the edge, but it's medium rare in the center. Good job, mate."

The squeeze worked. It had a resilient firmness, showing some resistance and then springing back. That means medium rare.

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 16

2010-01-30T09:43:00.000-08:00

Self-answering question
"If you burn it, is it food?"
-- Chef Dan Fluharty to the class warning that it wouldn't take long to cook lamb chops.

Can't touch this
"It makes a difference whose are whose, because mine are perfect."
-- Culinary student Richard Johnson (left) to fellow student Rob Park when Park asked if his just-cooked potatoes could share an ice-water bath with Johnson's.

Selective breeding
"How do you decide who's a kip? Do you just look at 'em and say, 'You're a kip'?"
-- Culinary student John Briggs asking, during the veal presentation, about calves raised only for their hides and not meat. They are called "kips."

Not coddled as a child?
"That's better treatment than I got when I was a baby."
-- Culinary student Molly Lester after hearing a description of how calves are raised for veal.

Controlling the heat
"What rose its ugly head again yesterday on the stovetops? The fryers."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty admonishing us once again to watch the oil temperature in deep fryers so food can cook properly and we can prevent fire.

Today's menu: lamb, asparagus and hollandaise, soup

2010-01-29T10:39:00.000-08:00

Another challenging three-course meal is on the board for today's Culinary Foundations III class. This will be our fourth three-course plating this week. Not complaining; the cooking practice and learning are why I'm in school.

First course: Salad of unspecified ingredients and dressing.

Second course: Cream of mushroom soup.

Main course: Roasted rack of lamb, accompanied by a sauce from the pan drippings; poached asparagus with hollandaise sauce; Potatoes Anna (sliced, arranged in an iron skillet in circular pattern with butter for sauté, then baked into place before being sliced like pie for service).

My biggest challenges will be: cooking the lamb to medium rare; extending my streak of five straight successful hollandaise sauces without breaking one.

As always, the key to success will be timing.

Learning from cooking mistakes

2010-01-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work," inventor Thomas Alva Edison (right) once said.

His viewpoint could well be the watchword of the culinary school kitchen, where mistakes are plentiful, but failures few.

Take for example a butchery lesson in which too much useful meat is left on the bone.

Or the making of a complex pate a choux in which the mixture turns bread-like.

How about a deep fryer that got so hot it burned anything dropped into it within seconds.

And those were just some of Chef/Instructor Dan Fluharty's mistakes. Chef Dan (left) is fond of saying, during a demo, some version of: "See how I did that? Don't do it that way."

Don't misread this: What Chef shows us and cooks as part of his teaching and demonstration process turns out most flavorful and favorable. That's because his skills are superb, his experience deep and broad. Probably his greatest skill is making adjustments to get the process back on track.

Food is the big variable, because all chickens are not the same, nor all veal cutlets, nor all green beans. The adjustments as we proceed are what we must learn and what Chef is best at teaching us.

It's good to see his human side and to learn from it.

And the star of the culinary show is ... a simple soup

2010-01-28T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today's three-course menu in Culinary Foundations III included two of the most complex dishes we have had to learn, both from deep within classic French cuisine.

Yet, the two tastiest parts of the meal were the simplest: chunky tomato soup and sauté of Brussels sprouts chiffonade with julienne of red peppers.

The tomato soup was hearty and most flavorful. It was simple -- tomatoes, chicken stock, a little onion, seasonings and fresh mint -- but hit the spot perfectly. The difficulty in cooking tomatoes for a soup or a sauce is their acidity. Deal with it by using salt or a little sugar or honey as neutralizing agents. In the case of my soup today, salt did the trick.

The main course provided some complex flavors, too, following the challenge of its assembly. First was veal cordon bleu, which is like the classic schnitzel -- two pieces of veal pounded flat, then wrapped around cheese and prosciutto before being breaded and sautéed.

The accompanying starch was pate a choux, which is an assembly of mashed potato, egg, flour, milk, more egg and butter, combined in a series of folds, whiskings and heatings. The resultant thick batter is piped in small cylinders or droplets into a deep fry until golden brown.

What's cooking today? You guessed it: veal

2010-01-28T09:56:00.000-08:00

Veal cordon bleu, to be exact. That's two veal cutlets stuffed with gruyere cheese and ham, rolled together, then dredged in flour, egg and bread crumbs before browning in a sauté. It will be served with a Béchamel sauce.

Even more challenging will be the starch side dish of potatoe dauphine and paté a choux. That's a mashed potato whipped with flour and eggs to a shiny mass that is then piped in small pieces into a deep fry.

The vegetable will be shredded and sautéed Brussels sprouts.

First course will be a spinach salad with egg, bacon and tomato, topped with a warm mustard vinaigrette.

Second course will be chunky tomato soup, spiced with mint and topped with a small dollop of sour cream.

Tune in later to find out how well I do on this challenge.

(Photo, courtesy of www.truecamelion.com, shows how my veal cordon bleu should look.)

The culinary side of the veal story

2010-01-28T08:20:00.000-08:00

You've heard the arguments from PETA and other animal-rights groups, and you've seen the pictures. Now comes the culinary side of the story about how calves are raised for veal.

Humane or cruel?

Chef Dan Fluharty presented the case on Wednesday, saying that calves being raised for veal are, indeed, restricted in movement. But it's not cruel, he implied.

Calves are kept in clean environments that are well lit and heated, and they are fed a formula of fats, carbohydrates, proteins and minerals for 3 to 4 months before they are ready for human consumption. Those facts were part of Chef's presentation for the veal part of our curriculum in Culinary Foundations III.

My view: While I don't eat veal often, I know that like other meat, it's here to stay in the human diet. I am OK with how it is raised. Decent treatment of the animals being raised for food makes good business sense as well as good moral sense.

The heat is on: cooking at a torrid pace

2010-01-27T09:35:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has seen the frenzy of a restaurant kitchen in the middle of service can appreciate the steadily accelerating pace we face in Culinary Foundations III.

Chef Dan Fluharty reminds us repeatedly that he is pushing us so we are prepared for the hectic routine of most restaurants.

The past week is a prime example. We have gone from making two plated meals in 90 minutes to making a three-course meal in two hours. The difference might seem minimal. But the three-course meal always involves four or more of the seven basic cooking techniques and three-dozen or more ingredients for eight or nine plated items.

Take Tuesday's entrée: We made osso buco for the first time, braising it as we have done with other meats. On the same plate, we prepared a side dish of risotto Milanese, which we have made a couple of times before, along with braised leeks and carrots. First course was a Salade Nicoise with hand-made vinaigrette, and second course was a soup, borscht.

Chef's requirements for the repeat dishes are getting tighter, as are his overall standards. He wants proteins cooked to his specifications, sauces that are seasoned, flavorful and consistent in texture and starches and vegetables that are neither crunchy nor mushy.

Tall orders, yes. We are running fast but managing to keep up.

(Photo: My cooking station mates Richard Johnson (left) and Rob Park (center) and Chef/Instructor Dan Fluharty.)

I say, 'OSSO!' You say, 'BUCO!'

2010-01-26T18:54:00.001-08:00

Veal is generally known for its tenderness, but the veal shank needs some extra cooking to get it falling-off-the-bone good.

That was the case today in Culinary Foundations III as we continued our ongoing series of three-course meal platings for Chef Dan Fluharty.

Osso Buco was the entrée, along with risotto Milanese and braised leeks. We tossed in a few oblique-cut carrots for color and flavor. Osso Buco is braised, meaning low, slow heat, and the result, as seen in my pot of Osso Buco on the right, is wonderful umami, the fifth and most complex of the food flavors.

Before the main course, we prepped, plated and presented Salade Nicoise, including green beans, hard-boiled eggs, bacon, anchovies, red potatoes and other goodies, with a mustard-lemon zest vinaigrette drizzle.

The soup course was borscht, a bowl full of scarlet beauty, taking on the rich earthy color and flavor of beets, which are its main ingredient.

For a cold winter evening, this was the perfect meal.

Culinary challenges continue; confidence climbs

2010-01-26T09:45:00.000-08:00

Monday's Culinary Foundations III class ended in a rush of finished entrées and kitchen cleanup, with barely enough time to scribble down today's menu. Here's what I scribbled:

Salad Nicoise, sans tuna. Beet borscht. Osso buco with risotto Milanese and roasted root vegetables.

Daunting on the face of it, because the only components I have made are the risotto and root vegetables. Yet this is what culinary school -- and eventual work in a restaurant -- is about: taking the unfamiliar and applying familiar techniques.

Osso buco is braised. I can do that.

Salad Nicoise is an artfully arranged collection of raw vegetables and a few other items. I can do that.

Beet borscht is a soup, made similarly to many soups -- slow cooking to gain flavor and tenderness. I can do that.

I can do this. I can cook.

¡Finalmente! My cooking sweet spot: Cocina Mejicana

2010-01-25T19:40:00.000-08:00

Ma, no te preocupes por mi. Yo puedo cocinar.

A three-course Mexican meal was on the board for today's culinary class, and I completed it comfortably, on time and with high praise from the chef for my flavors.

First up was a salad of roasted corn and chiles atop a bed of mixed greens and an orange-mustard vinaigrette. I've had a time with vinaigrettes in class, often not putting enough on the greens to satisfy the chef. My fear has been that I will drown the salad, something I have experienced all too often in restaurants. This time, Chef was pleased with both the flavor and the amount of vinaigrette.

Next came tortilla soup with shredded chicken. Slow, long cooking with herbs, spices and seasonings is the key to delivering this dish. My soup had a deeply flavorful caldo to accompany the chicken. I garnished with fried tortilla strips, a teaspoon of diced tomato and queso fresco. Another perfect score from Chef.

The entrée had some complexity to it. At the center was carnitas, marinated, diced, slow-cooked pork that turned into a flavorful stew. Accompanying it were black bean cakes, quenelles of guacamole and a pico de gallo garnish. That's chunky tmato and jalapeño salsa. Chef commented most positively on the flavors of everything on the plate. My one shortcoming was in the black bean cakes; they lost shape a bit on the plate, but still had good flavor.

A most satsfying and confidence-building day at the stovetop.

All the senses at play in culinary school

2010-01-25T08:49:00.000-08:00

Taste and smell are the most obvious of the senses needed for cooking, and certainly both have become more developed in me the last four months in culinary school. Or, perhaps, I have simply become more keenly aware of those senses.

"Did you taste it?" often is Chef Dan Fluharty's first question when he critiques a plate and finds something amiss in the seasoning. The only right answer is "yes."

Smell is a close second to taste in culinary sensory need. "What's burning?" Chef will shout above the kitchen din, his nose thrust into the air. Invariably, someone has left a pan too long on the fire, and whatever is in it is now inedible.

Sight and feel also play important roles, sight for many obvious reasons -- for color in meat, vegetables and overall plating design and appearance -- but also as a partner with feel to check for doneness.

As we prepared to grill skirt steak a while back, Chef Dan advised: "If you see moisture rising (in the form of blood) on the steak's surface, it's an indicator that it will be medium. This is mostly visual based on what you see on the grill; you're not going to be looking at the clock."

Combine that with the sense of feel:

"Is it practical to push a little thermometer into (the grilling steak)?" he asked. "No. So what do you do to detect doneness? Touch, touch and push, push." Fingertips on a piece of meat can tell a lot -- softness generally means it's not done, firmness may mean it's overdone; springy resiliency is the best outcome for red meat.

In what may seem a curiosity, the sense of hearing also plays a role, more so than what one might think. Here's an exchange between Chef Dan and classmates during a cooking demo last week:

Chef: "I'm putting the julienned leeks into the oil now. They'll cook fast, so keep a close watch."
Leeks hit the oil and begin to sizzle.
Chef: "What do you hear?"
Student John Briggs: "It's talking to you, Chef."
Chef: "Yes, it's talking. And it's a good thing for us to listen to."

The sizzling sound, as we are learning, can help judge when something is nearing doneness.

There's a sixth sense at play, too, I am learning. It's both the accumulation of the other five and an inner knowledge, based mostly on experience, that something is ready to serve.

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 15

2010-01-23T07:26:00.000-08:00

Up in flames?
"Pay attention to the fat so we don't catch the place on fire and burn it down."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty, noting that the last time we used deep fryers in the classroom kitchen, oil temperatures rose to a dangerous 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

That's Mr. Knucklehead to you, buddy
"Look at this pot. What knucklehead cooked the couscous?"
-- Culinary student Rob Park seeing the grain burned black in a pot. The prescribed way to make couscous is to add hot liquid, not put it over a flame. The pot was mine.

Season with care
"Do you want to put so much seasoning on it that it burns the chef's mouth? No!"
-- Chef Dan Fluharty's reference to one student's liberal use of white pepper.

Culinary grammar
"Do we still lemon it? It's a verb now."
-- Culinary student Aline Brown altering language usage as part of her kitchen experience.

Goldilocks spinach: just right
"This is not spinach soup, and it's not a brick. If you do it right, there's little better than creamed spinach."
-- Executive Chef Michael Weller upon learning that our class had a bit less than success with the dish on our first outing with it.

Three-course meal fit for ... a chef

2010-01-22T08:51:00.000-08:00

Thursday's classroom cooking exercise was as close to reality as we have gotten in 15 weeks at the California Culinary Academy. Trial by fire, literally.

Chef Instructor Dan Fluharty pushes hard, yet consistently encourages us by saying, "You can do this," whenever we face a difficult cooking assignment. On Thursday, he acknowledged as we raggedly wrapped up the day's three-course, 30-ingredient assignment that it was more difficult than most.

We had two hours to do it all: mise en place -- setting up our stations with the ingredients and equipment needed -- preparing the ingredients, cooking, plating and presenting. Chef set up a schedule for service similar to what it would be in a restaurant.

The first course, a mixed-green salad topped with shredded duck confit and a mustard vinaigrette, was due at 4 o'clock.

The second course, a white-bean soup with Spanish chorizo and topped with fried julienne of leek, was due at 4:15 p.m.

The main course was a grilled New York steak, bearnaise sauce, roasted red potatoes, artichoke and cauliflower gratin in a mornay sauce and sun-dried tomato garnish. It was due at 4:30 p.m.

Everyone hit the mark on the first two courses. The main course was another matter, a heavy lift of a total of 21 ingredients and two complex sauces. Add in cooking the steak on a crowded grill top where it seemed all 10 of us gathered at once. Most plates were late to Chef, including mine, which I delivered at 4:45 p.m.

That wouldn't be acceptable in a restaurant. But then, as Chef pointed out when I fretted and shook my head: "You're still learning. Mistakes are a part of it. This was a difficult day."

Among other successes, my sauces were done well. My bearnaise even held up until I got home, and we enjoyed it for dinner with good portions left from the New York steak.

Sheer exhaustion overwhelmed me at day's end, yet there was a glimmer of accomplishment behind the veil of grill smoke.

We need magic -- read that sauce -- in our lives

2010-01-21T20:56:00.000-08:00

Culinary school has taught me -- nay, convinced me! -- that no dinner is complete without a sauce. That includes home-cooked dinners.

If that sounds like too much trouble for time-starved home cooks, consider: Many sauces are easy to make; several practically make themselves. All that's needed is a smidgen of this and a pinch of that and one has a sauce. As Chef Tony Marano taught us in our first culinary class: "It's magic."

The partnership of a protein and a sauce is as natural as the partnership of Laurel and Hardy, Penn and Teller, Pedro Aldomovar and Penelope Cruz.

What would they would be without one another? The missing element would be obvious, for certain.

Forget fancy and complicated; think natural and easy. For example, the other night I cooked boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a sauté pan wit a small amount of oil.

When the chicken was cooked, I removed it, degreased the pan and added four ounces of chicken stock. Over low heat, the stock warmed, and I used a spoon to loosen the brown bits from the chicken. When done, I added a slurry -- 1 ounce of corn starch and 1 ounce of water -- to thicken, then seasoned with salt and pepper.

One to two minutes of stirring and it thickened. There was the natural pan sauce for chicken. I spooned it onto the chicken breast for a magical partnership.

(Photo: Penelope Cruz. Now that's saucy!)

Old-fashioned steak perfection: the Delmonico

2010-01-20T20:33:00.000-08:00

Several culinary school classmates agreed with my statement as we began the red meat part of the curriculum: "If we can't cook a steak to Chef's specifications, we ought to give it up."

So far, no need for that. Last week, we did filet mignon and skirt steak, and I cooked both medium rare, just the way Chef ordered.

Today, a major challenge: the Delmonico, a bigger version of the rib-eye. More accurately, the rib-eye, the New York and the club steak are newer versions of the Delmonico. It was first cut and served at Delmonico's restaurant in New York City in the 1850s, according to the Steak Perfection Web site.

Once again, a winner for me, as my 12-ounce Delmonico was judged by Chef to have been cooked to perfection based on his standard for doneness -- medium rare.

One more version hits the grill in class on Thursday, a New York steak, as the centerpiece to a three-course meal. First course will be a mixed greens salad topped with shredded duck confit. Second course will be a white bean soup garnished with crispy fried julienne of leek. Third course will be the New York steak, medium rare, with a sun-dried tomato bearnaise sauce, roasted red potatoes and an artichoke and cauliflower gratin.

Why so much fat on a duck?

2010-01-19T20:07:00.000-08:00

We fabricated duck today in culinary school, in preparation for sauté of duck breast in class on Wednesday.

We knew going in, and Chef confirmed for us, that duck is pretty fatty. It adds flavor, certainly, but also must be dealt with in the prep work and the cooking so as not to be overwhelming when serving and eating.

Cutting into the duck gave us a literal first-hand look and feel for the mount of fat there, contained largely in the thick, luxurious skin. A good bit of it had to be trimmed away, yet we kept the piece attached to the breast meat. On Wednesday, we will score it ith a knife before searing to allow a good bit of the fat to render.

We will serve the duck with what Chef calls "poor man's port balsamic sauce." It will include the deglazed bits from the duck breast sauté pan, shallot, sugar, flamed red wine and brandy and balsamic vinegar.

Also on the menu: couscous laced with toasted pistachios and red bell pepper; curried green beans and carrots.

For our second plate, we will make a grilled rib-eye steak, accompanied by garlic mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, onion rings and compound butter made from roasted red pepper.

So why do ducks have so much fat? For insulation and bouyancy in the water.

(Photo shows what the dish should look like.)

'Fat is a good word'

2010-01-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

Steadily increasing American obesity notwithstanding, consumption of food with fat in it is a necessity. That means use of fat in the culinary arts is a necessity. Fat does many things in cooking, most of them good.

"Fat is a good word," Chef Dan Fluharty said in one recent lecture at the California Culinary Academy. "Fat transfers heat, makes flavor, adds moisture, adds texture and feel in the mouth, provides a semi-permeable barrier and serves as a lubricant."

No question arises about the need for fat in good cooking, all good cooking, not just gourmet cooking or French cuisine. At-home cooking needs fat, too.

We use fat in culinary school, but the quantities are limited and utilitarian, not only for flavor.

Limiting fat intake is of course a necessity. It's not as difficult as it seems. Mostly, if Americans avoid or severely limit the amount of fast food, "junk" food and other food with processed sugar in it, they can remain healthy.

Here's a quick primer on use of fats in cooking:

* Let animal fats speak for themselves. If there's more than a quarter-inch strip of fat on a steak or a pork chop, trim it off. The skinless chicken breast is healthier and can be kept flavorful if cooked properly. Ground beef is now sold with the fat percentage on the label; simply buy one with a lower percentage.

* Butter is necessary in sauces and other cooking, but its intake can be limited, too. In cooking, use unsalted butter. Something else to note: Chef Instructor Tony Marano told us in class one day that U.S. commercial butter is 20% fat, while European butter is 10% fat. Good to know.

* Be selective in using vegetable oils in cooking. The best oils for cooking are canola and grape-seed. Both have high smoke points and are relatively healthy. Extra virgin olive oil should never be used for cooking; the heat changes its chemical composition. Read labels to avoid oils that include hydrogenation and say they have trans-fats in them. The trend is away from these ingredients, but some products, especially mass-produced breads and pastries and some other fat-inclusive food products, still contain them.

* Some fats are actually good for us, relatively speaking. Unsaturated fatty acids, like the omega-3 nutrients, aren't produced by the human body so must be consumed. Oily fish, such as salmon, have omega-3, and some milk and eggs can be found that include omega-3, depending on what the animals that produced those products were fed. Again, read labels.

* Be careful about claims that some foods burn fats in the body. While it's true that some foods do this, the effects are very limited. For example, cayenne pepper is known to burn fat, as are ginger, garlic and cinnamon. All should be part of a healthy diet, but the amount of those we can consume is pretty limited.

None of this is meant to justify unlimited or random consumption of fatty foods. Yet, unless one is on a medically restricted diet because of a certain heart condition or other ailment, fat remains a naturally occurring and necessary part of nutrition.

And that includes its use in the culinary arts and all cooking.

(This posting is also available at my daughter Ann Chihak Poff's blog, www.gofitgirl.com.)

Getting to the meat of it: 'The Jungle' revisited?

2010-01-18T15:07:00.000-08:00

'The Jungle,' Upton Sinclair's game-changing look at the meat-packing industry in early 20th century America, paved the way for creation of sanitation safeguards and other improvements in the field.

We've been getting our own version of it in culinary school, where the syllabus for the Culinary Foundations III cooking class includes lectures, demonstrations and discussions covering a wide range of proteins used in restaurant service, and in the home, to, for that matter.

Not that conditions now -- at school, in restaurants or in the industry at large -- are anything like they were 100 years ago. But the basics are the same: Raise animals, fatten them, take them to market and, eventually, turn them into edible bits.

We are learning just enough butchery to understand the primal and subprimal cuts of beef and pork and how they are broken down. We also have begun learning how to cut meat, or as it's known in restaurant kitchens, fabricate proteins for the range of cooking techniques we have undertaken.

For example, we have twice practiced in class the fabrication of a whole chicken. That is, cutting it into 10 pieces for cooking. Doing so in 15 minutes and in a specified manner, keeping intact the most meat possible, is required to gain American Culinary Federation certification, something we will be tested on the last week of class. More about this in a future blog.

For now, suffice it to say that beef comes from cows, pork from pigs and chicken from, well, chickens. And hot dogs? Don't ask.

A menu fit for a foodie

2010-01-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

Imagine a restaurant with a menu featuring these entrées:

MEAT

BEEF STEW: Hearty chunks of beef in a richly flavored thick veal sauce; potaoes, peas, carrots and pearl onions.

FILET MIGNON: Wrapped in bacon and seared to medium rare, with a mushroom Madeira wine sauce; accompanied by blue cheese soufflé, haricot verts (green beans) sautéed with julienne of carrots.

SKIRT STEAK: Marinated in olive oil, tarragon and thyme, then grilled to medium rare; accompanied by prosciutto and parmesan potato croquettes, warm artichoke heart salad with julienne of red bell pepper, parsley and mustard/sherry vinaigrette.

PORK SHOULDER: Rolled in minced fresh sage, seared and roasted, with a sweet apple pan sauce; accompanied by sautéed asparagus spears and bulgar wheat pilaf.

POULTRY

TURKEY SCALOPPINE: Sautéed in brown butter, with a roasted shallot and shiitake mushroom pan sauce; accompanied by potatoes croquettes and a mixed greens salad drizzled with mustard vinaigrette.

DUCK CONFIT: Marinated, pan-roasted whole duck leg, with a sweet-and-sour bigarade sauce; accompanied by rice pilaf and sauté of root vegetables.

CHICKEN BALLOTINE: Boneless rolled chicken breast stuffed with a mousse of dark chicken meat, rehydrated cherries, prosciutto and pistachios, then braised, with a Madeira wine sauce; accompanied by sauté of Brussels sprouts and potato pancakes.

CHICKEN BREAST: Grilled, with sauce supreme; accompanied by turmeric and ginger flavored lentils, spicy fruit salsa.

SEAFOOD

ROCK COD AND SALMON MOUSSELINE: Cod fillet rolled and stuffed with salmon mousseline of cream and egg white, with sauce vin blanc; accompanied by quinoa pilaf and sauté of broccoli florets.

Add in a few starters and a dessert or two, and one has the makings for a decent little restaurant menu.

All of the above main dishes, sauces and side dishes we have made from scratch in the first two weeks of Culinary Foundations III. Not a bad beginning.

Soufflé or not soufflé; that is the question

2010-01-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

The soufflé became a most appropriate symbol this week amid the fracas of the culinary school classroom kitchen. It represented one fundamental fact that has been taking shape for a while, almost unnoticed by the 10 of us working our way through Culinary Foundations III.

We made soufflés on Friday, each of us doing so successfully to varying degrees. Among the more difficult-to-make offerings of French cuisine, the dish is part art, part science and all kismet in the hands of the culinary gods and goddesses.

Chef/Instructor Dan Fluharty pointed out the emergent truth on Wednesday in the end-of-class go-round at which he seeks comment on what the day's work taught us. Several of us mentioned making adjustments and adaptations to often-changing conditions. From that, Chef concluded:

"You are starting to think like cooks."

It was a statement that is profound for its simplicity and despite its obviousness. What he described is in fact occurring as we get a tighter grip on the basics and routines of the kitchen and as we face cooking challenges with increasing complexity.

The soufflé, for example. Chef did an aborted demo on it at the end of class on Thursday and promised to show it again at the beginning of class on Friday, less than an hour before we had to make them ourselves as part of a plate for a grade.

We all watched intently, some taking notes but most committing the timing, texture, touch of the hand and temperature of the oven to instant memory for recall as needed. Then we did it ourselves, not as a stand-alone exercise but as part of the complications of plating two distinct meals of five parts each.

Hence, just one-tenth of what we were cooking was the soufflé, but the degree of difficulty made it seem a much larger fraction. Yet, we all fit it into the production work, made needed adjustments and kept the work flowing.

That each of us was able to complete it in the hectic schedule, handle it with some perception of the grander scheme of things and emerge at day's end with success manifest our ability to think as cooks.

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 14

2010-01-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

Kitchen crime scene
"I looked at their plates. It looked like a drive-by shooting on every other table."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty (right) on viewing the rock cod and salmon mousseline work of another class.

Some like it hot
"I know what a hot plate feels like."
-- Culinary student Aline Brown's retort to Chef Dan when he told her to feel another student's hot plate after admonishing her for bringing him her cooking effort on a plate that had not been heated.

Meat: the new money
"Cut toward the bone. If you cut toward the meat, what's that called? Money. You don't want to ruin the meat."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty demonstrating how to bone a pork loin so that the meat, which makes the money in a restaurant, is left intact.

He can dish
"Which plate do the lentils go on?"
-- Culinary student John Briggs' facetious question about Wednesday's menu after he served lentils on the wrong chicken dish on Monday.

Just a pinch of Curcuma longa
"What did we learn about turmeric? It's really, really strong. It's mostly for color, not flavor."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty on overuse in our lentil dishes of the yellow-orange spice, which comes from the Curcuma longa plant grown in South Asia.

No mis-steak about it: good day in the kitchen

2010-01-15T20:38:00.000-08:00

Friday was filled with optimistic signs: The sun was shining, birds were chirping, the buses ran on time.

Oh, and we cooked red meat at culinary school. Specifically, filet mignon and grilled skirt steak.

Accompanying them were a wide range of side dishes, from the very daunting -- blue cheese soufflé-- to the routine -- sautéd green beans with julienned carrots. All went well.

The filet mignon was cooked to Chef's desired doneness, medium rare. The mushroom and Madeira wine sauce I made for the filet was the proper consistency, that is napér or thick enough to coat a spoon, and was seasoned right. The soufflé came out of the oven golden brown and the right height. Chef dinged me a bit for the green beans as a bit overcooked, and that's because I left them in the sauté just a bit too long.

The skirt steak had marinated overnight in olive oil, garlic, tarragon and thyme. After patting it dry, it went on the grill. Its thinness made it a challenge to keep at Chef's order of medium rare. Yet, I delivered it that way, sliced cross-grain on the bias and lined up neatl down the middle of the plate. It was accompanied by potato croquettes laced with prosciutto and parmesan cheese and a warm salad of artichoke hearts with red bell peppers and parsley and sherry/mustard vinaigrette. I lost only a half-point on the plate, for underseasoning my steak. I had neglected to salt it before going to the grill, and Chef noticed right away.

Not quite mistake free, but certainly mis-steak free, ending the week on a high note.

The rise and fall of the soufflé

2010-01-14T20:15:00.000-08:00

That most pretentious and, by reputation, most difficult to make dish of classic French cuisine is on the menu for Friday in Culinary Foundations III class.

The soufflé.

It's from the French verb souffler, "to blow up." A premonition about Friday's cooking exercise, perhaps?

We will make a blue cheese soufflé to accompany bacon-wrapped filet mignon, mushroom Madeira sauce and haricot verts or green beans.

Not to worry, Chef Dan Fluharty said. First, he said, he would demo a soufflé for us the day ahead. Second, he said, this is not a difficult soufflé to make.

Chef had to rush his soufflé demo as we ran out of time in class. He promised to show us again Friday before we are obliged to make one for his scrutiny and grading.

"This is a safe soufflé, an easy one," Chef said, attempting to assure us. "You know how to make a béchamel (sauce), right? Just add blue cheese to it, like a mornay except double the amount. Then put in onions, have your egg whites and butter. You have to do it perfectly so it comes out. Put it into a 400-degree oven. ... It's very particular."

Oh, and the easy part is what, Chef?

Friday's exercise looms. Will we rise to the occasion? Or will we fall from grace?

'You're only as good as your last plate'

2010-01-14T08:36:00.000-08:00

Short attention spans and impatience seem to be driving forces in a good bit of society, and they are the driver in restaurants, where one mediocre or bad meal or a bad experience with service will send someone away permanently. Thus, they also drive the assessment agenda in culinary school.

"You're only as good as your last plate," Chef Dan Fluharty said Wednesday, just after applauding my classmates and me for what we prepped, cooked and plated. Then he moved on to discuss what's next.

That will be two plates, actually, on Friday. Preliminary menu calls for plate No. 1 to be a beef fillet with Madeira sauce and an artichoke and plate No. 2 to be a grilled skirt steak with green beans, a bearnaise sauce and - yum! -- French fries.

My "last plate" was turkey scaloppine, accompanied by a shiitake mushroom pan sauce, potato croquettes and a mixed greens salad with hand-made mustard vinaigrette. It was good, Chef Dan Fluharty said, giving it a high grade. He specifically mentioned the sauce and its seasoning. The assessment was confirmed later at home where I rewarmed and served the leftovers.

(I got away with one on that "last plate." My shiitake mushroom sauce lacked shiitakes; it had what was available, white button mushrooms, which I used after my shiitakes burned in the pan when I left them too long while talking to Chef about my previous "last plate." If he noticed the sauce had other than shiitakes, he didn't comment. That's a shiitake above, a less flavorful white button mushrooms below.)

Bringing order to chaos -- in the mind, in the kitchen

2010-01-14T07:52:00.000-08:00

Orderly chaos or chaotic order: Which contradictory statement better describes the atmosphere in the kitchen at culinary school?

Both, is the answer. Initially, and still on some days, orderly chaos has ruled, although we are slowly moving to chaotic order. That is coming with increased skill and confidence and as we work in assigned stations. That allows us to get accustomed to one another's movements and style.

The station at which I work has classmates Rob Park (at right in photo) and Richard Johnson (not pictured) assigned to it, too. We share a 4-foot by 10-foot stainless steel work table, or "deck" as the chef calls it. We also have access to a dozen stovetop burners and two commercial ovens. The entire class of 10 students shares a grilltop, and when needed, we assemble a couple of makeshift deep fryers using big pots.

As the photo depicts, the stovetop is usually crowded with pots and pans and us hovering over them, hands gripping whips, spoons, spatulas and panhandles. Yet we all tend to move with some sense of order, calling out to one another letting others know where we are, especially when carrying a hot pot or bending down at an open oven. Collisions have been few, catastrophic spills nonexistent.

Will the chaos ever disappear as order prevails? No, not in culinary school and not in restaurant kitchens where meal service time is always going to have an element of rush to it.

(Photo courtesy of Kejoo Park Hong.)

Making the old switcheroo work

2010-01-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

Minutes before the start of our cooking competency exercise today, Chef Dan Fluharty did a rundown with us of the production timeline, to make sure everyone was on the right track after Monday's near disaster.

He mentioned the need to get the duck leg in the oven first thing. Gulp! That's not what my carefully-put-together timeline called for. I tuned in to listen for his reasoning. It was, he said, that the duck leg could take much longer to cook than any of us might anticipate.

So, I started by searing the duck and putting it in the oven, and that automatically moved the plating of the duck dish to first on my timeline. The turkey scaloppine, with a much quicker turnaround time, would come second.

Nervous about switching at the last minute, I nevertheless hit the mark on both plates, getting everything done on time and with good flavors and the right amount of cooking. Just a couple of shortcomings: less taste than desired in my vinaigrette, because the oil and mustard separated; a bit of sticky sweetness in my gastrique, a sweet-sour orange-juice-based sauce for the duck.

Elsewise, it was a good cooking day and a good confidence builder via shuffling things around and doing so with success.

(Photo shows turkey cutlets with mushroom sauce at upper left, duck leg at right, potatoes croquettes at bottom.)

Redemption comes on the wings of a ... turkey

2010-01-12T20:28:00.000-08:00

Another cooking skills challenge is in the offing on Wednesday at culinary school, and I will seek redemption for my mediocre performance of Monday.

Two plated meals are on the menu, and we prepared the mise en place for them today.

First will be turkey scaloppine, dredged in egg and coated with bread crumbs before a quick sauté. Accompanying it will be a basic pan sauce of oil and butter, white wine, shallot, shitake mushroom caps and, as needed, chicken stock. The starch is potato croquettes, which essentially are balls of breaded mashed potatoes which then are deep fried. A mixed green salad will be garnished with a hand-made mustard vinaigrette. i already made the vinairette, and it is pretty tasty.

Second plate will be duck confit, with a sweet bigarade sauce. That is a sauce of caramelized sugar, lemon and orange juices and a little demi-glace, which is reduced veal stock. The starch will be rice pilaf confetti, with the confetti for color being celery. Root vegetables -- rutabaga, carrots, turnip -- will be blanched and then put in a sauté of butter. I plan to garnish with a parsley and thyme compound butter, made by classmate Richard Johnson.

I will spend the morning putting together my production plan and timeline and the afternoon cooking to fulfill this ambitious assignment.

The lingua franca of the kitchen

2010-01-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

From deglacer to the dish pit, from crowning a tomato to court bouillon, from fariner to forcemeat, the world of culinary arts has its own language. It's a language one must learn quickly, a mix of French terms and long-used English terms that standardize the discussion in the kitchen.

The lingua franca of the kitchen is no more or less arcane than that in many other professions, trades and crafts: It is mostly functional though sometimes awkward, mostly logical though sometimes archaic and mostly takes time to catch onto though not in culinary school.

At the California Culinary Academy, the catching-onto is aided by frequent quizzes in which we students must write definitions of the mostly French terminology and by daily use of the language in class and our cooking exercises.

For example, one does not simply cut a carrot. Rather, one can julienne a carrot; battonet a carrot; large, medium or small dice a carrot; brunoise a carrot; oblique cut a carrot; bias cut a carrot.

As the Chef might put it: "Battonet carrots for sauté to go with the pommes duchesse and the chicken ballotine grandmere and a pan sauce."

That is: Cook carrot sticks by simmering in water and completing in melted butter in a frying pan to go with potato purée piped into elegant shapes and baked golden brown and a roll of boneless chicken stuffed with a mousse of chicken and flavorful additions, seared and roasted, served with a sauce made from the pan drippings and other flavor enhancers.

Getting a handle on the lingua franca of the culinary arts brings an energy and an inviting peek at the broad and deep base of knowledge it takes to work in a restaurant kitchen.

Disappointing day all around at culinary school

2010-01-11T19:53:00.000-08:00

Chicken ballotine grandmere and the fixings were first on the menu today, followed by grilled chicken breast, lentils and fruit salsa.

In short, the day was an ordeal for me.

Chef Dan Fluharty and I were in agreement. In Chef Dan's words: "It was a pretty disappointing day."

My proteins -- the chicken ballotine and the grilled chicken -- turned out well, cooked right and flavorful.

The rest of both meals fell short. The pan sauce, which has been a strong point for me of late, simply didn't work to accompany the chicken ballotine. I tried to rush it, and that made it thin and lacking in deep flavors. The Brussels sprouts were undercooked. I thought my potato pancakes were done right, but Chef thought they were slightly underdone.

On the second dish, my fruit salsa to accompany the grilled chicken, was flavorful, but I left the juices from it off the plate, which was a mistake. My lentils were cooked right, but Chef said they lacked seasoning.

All in all, an off day in the kitchen. Tomorrow is another day, and it will be better.

$45 salmon and the cost of doing business

2010-01-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

A 2-foot-long eviscerated salmon of about 20 pounds appeared on the demo table in Culinary Foundations III last week. Chef Dan Fluharty used it to demonstrate knife work, cooking and restaurant economics.

The knife work took precision and accuracy. The cooking demanded a delicate balance of flavoring agents and good timing. But the economics involved the sharpest learning curve.

The California Culinary Academy curriculum is designed to teach the business of food service as well as restaurant-capable cooking skills. That means gaining knowledge from the point of the knife forward about how to prepare and serve good food and do it profitably.

There's the rub. Statistics on restaurant business success are daunting, so attention to costs and bottom line are critical. (One often hears that 90% of restaurants fail in the first year of operation, a figure that is without finding in fact. Studies done over the years at Cornell University and Michigan State University show the first-year failure rate to be around 27%, not nearly as bad but still noteworthy.)

The 20-pound salmon we used in class cost about $45 wholesale, Chef Dan said. After skin, bones and parts of the fish unusable for cooking and serving as fillet portions, about 14 to 16 portions of 6 ounces each remained. One must add in labor, overhead, myriad other costs and a profit to come up with a price per plate. Chef Dan put it at $18, meaning the cost of the fish itself would be covered in three servings.

How many more would have to be served to cover the remaining costs would be determined on a restaurant-by-restaurant basis. One can imagine a small profit from the 20-pound fish, but only after exacting P&L work and precise knife and cooking skills.

Those skills even drive the bottom line, Chef showed us during the demonstration. For example, one must pull the fish to the near edge of the cutting board so the hand holding the knife drops below the table. That allows a flattening of the knife blade and a precisely horizontal cut that removes the skin but little or none of the flesh that makes up the fillet.

Or, as Chef Dan put it: "If you don't keep your knife blade flat, you end up cutting money."

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 13

2010-01-09T21:53:00.000-08:00

Life imitating art?
"I like 'Worst Chefs in America,' because it reminds me of cooking school."
-- Culinary student Bary Gose's response when asked by the chef which TV cooking programs he liked.

Give warning
"Don't wait to pass out."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty to student Molly Lester when she said the heat and gas smell in the kitchen, with the hood fans off so we could hear the lecture, were making her feel woozy.

We want to earn our letter
"If you want us to move up to varsity, make us do seven sides."
-- Culinary student Fontaine McFadden reacting when Chef Dan said we could do a simple six-sided tourné of potato instead of the more difficult seven-sided cut required in classic French cuisine.

Silence is golden
"Say nothing when you're up there."
-- Culinary student Alfie Regadio's advice to fellow students when presenting their plated cooking efforts to the Chef. Alfie mentioned to the Chef a mistake on his plate that had gone unnoticed; he lost one-half point as a result.

Mystery meat
"Schnitzel in America is called chicken fried steak. Chicken fried steak: It's not steak; it's not even chicken. What is it? I have no idea."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty previewing one recipe we will be undertaking in this term.

Culinary school: from grammar lessons to life lessons

2010-01-08T20:10:00.000-08:00

Who knew that going to culinary school would include a lesson in grammar?

More important, who knew it would include lessons in sorcery, spirituality and life’s transformational moments?

Today ended the first week of my third term and the 13th week overall of my studies at the California Culinary Academy, and it seemed appropriate to reflect back a little.

The grammar lesson came early, in Chef Tony Marano’s class in October, the beginning-level Culinary Foundations I.

“Sauté is a noun,” Chef Tony informed us as he taught sauté as one of the seven techniques of classic French cooking. A chef and grammarian, I thought. Perhaps this is the place for me.

Three months later and working toward earning a certificate in culinary arts in June, I know it’s the right place, grammar lesson or not.

Similarities between my journalistic and culinary passions have already been revealed to me. The adrenaline rush, for example, and the deadlines. The creativity, accuracy and precision in preparation and presentation, for another. How many elements must come together all at once for the finished product, whether a newspaper or a gourmet meal.

Yet, there are differences, and they are revealing new life lessons to me and driving a new kind of passion. Foremost is the magic in the culinary arts; the magic is enigmatic yet natural. Call me a wide-eyed novice, but I’m not alone in the belief. Experienced chefs and gourmands acknowledge its presence in tasting a new dish or a familiar one that’s made so well it tastes new.

Take Chef Tony’s marchand du vin. He taught sauté using a New York cut – “This could be too good for you guys,” he said assessing it – which he cooked quickly on high heat. He rested the meat and put a little red wine in the pan, deglazed and reduced, added veal stock and finished it with butter. Spooning it onto the sliced meat, chef announced: “Marchand du vin – merchant wine sauce – the simplest sauce there is.”

It was superb, worth the price even without the steak. “It’s magic,” Chef Tony explained with a shrug. That was evident: a few liquids, some heat, butter – presto! – a savory, deeply flavorful sauce.

Before culinary school, I was a fair cook, with abilities beyond the basics. I could braise a short rib and turn the pan juices into a flavorful sauce, make tomato sauce and pasta from scratch, even assemble a decent molé with its complex layering of seemingly disparate flavors. But I didn’t know I was working with magic.

Now, culinary school has helped me get a small glimpse of it. Understanding how it works? Maybe never. But the pursuit is now my passion.

My mind, my hands, my palate and most of all my spirit have entered a transformation, moving toward an inexact and still mystical end. I’m eager to continue the journey.

'Hot pan!' 'Hot behind you!' 'Hot! Hot! Hot!'

2010-01-08T07:13:00.000-08:00

No, it's not Buster Poindexter, although his song seems to ring in the ears on cooking competency days in our culinary school classroom kitchen.

The protocol there -- and in restaurant kitchens everywhere -- calls for signaling to others that you are moving behind them with something hot. It's a crucial warning for obvious reasons and it often prevents mishaps.

In the classroom and in restaurant kitchens, the cooks are constantly moving from stove top and ovens to their work stations, usually turning around each time to do so. Others walking past must make the call in a specific, audible way. The basic rule is that the person with the hot object has the right of way.

We all heard it -- and called it out -- quite a bit during Thursday's competency as the 10 of us moved to and fro with hot sauté pans and steaming pots of water.

Sauciér in the making? Or magician?

2010-01-07T19:29:00.000-08:00

Ever see on Top Chef or Iron Chef when something goes awry? The key ingredient burns, a sauce breaks or something simply doesn't work the way it was planned. Yet the chef manages to put together a decent-looking plate and often gets good marks for it. A different kind of magic in the culinary world -- the equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

Twice today in culinary school, I successfully rescued sauces that went awry, to put it mildly. This is another sign to me that my skills are on a steady improving track.

(But, you might rightfully say, if I'm getting better, why did I have to redo two sauces? That's a question for another day's blog. For now, please let me revel in my meager success.)

In the first case, my pork roast pan scorched badly on the bottom -- I'm talking burned black to carbon -- including burning the mirepoix and the roast drippings for use in making the pan sauce called for in the exercise. Why the roast itself didn't suffer that fate, I don't know. I started a new sauté, tossed in some diced pieces of pork to render the remaining fat and some brown -- or glaze -- into the pan, then deglazed with veal stock, added flour for thickening and butter to finish. Apple slices as called for in the original pan sauce recipe went in for a minute to soften. I strained out the pork bits. Presto! -- a nicely flavored brown sauce for which the chef gave me full credit.

In the second case, making a sauce vin blanc for poached bass and salmon mousseline, I did the opposite of what I should have, introducing egg yolk to the hot poaching liquid rather than the other way around. Result: cooked egg yolk in the sauce, not a good thing. I strained out the cooked egg and went the way I should with a second yolk, introducing a little of the liquid to it. It caught, I added cream and stirred the sauce to such a successful finish that the chef took two or three spoons of it and commented on its full flavor.

Before that, at home on Wednesday evening, I used a sauté to heat some leftover beef short rib meat with sliced onion, letting the pan brown a bit and then deglazing with a little chicken stock (I keep some home-made in the fridge now) and adding in flour and butter to make a quick pan sauce that was, if I may say so, delicious.

Combine those three sauce rescues, and -- presto -- we have the culinary equivalent of pulling a hat out of a rabbit!

Today's fallback menu: gourmet peanut butter

2010-01-07T09:33:00.000-08:00

Today's culinary school challenge is to produce two fully plated meals, meaning five elements on each plate. We will have two hours.

Timing, as always, will be the key. In this instance, it will be of even greater import, because no one element of either plate will take more than 20 minutes to cook. Bringing it all together at once will be a scramble.

First plate: roast pork with sage, served sliced; sauce made from the pork drippings and a chicken stock deglaze; asparagus blanched in salt water and served in warm butter; bulgar wheat pilaf; garnish will be apple slices cooked with the pork and in the pan sauce.

Second plate: poached rockfish (also known as striped bass) rolled and stuffed with salmon mousseline; sauce vin blanc made from leftover poaching liquid, a liaison (cream and egg yolk) and finished with butter and lemon zest; broccoli florets blanched and finished in a butter sauté; quinoa pilaf; garnish will be chopped green ends of scallions and red and green bell peppers in the quinoa.

What's left after Chef tastes, appraises and scores can be brought home. Success means we will eat well tonight; less than could mean peanut butter sandwiches.

Of fore shanks, trim loins and jowls

2010-01-06T19:54:00.000-08:00

Butchery is as big a part of professional cooking as pots and pans.

We dove into it today, beginning to learn what comes from where for beef and pork. Chef Dan Fluharty got us off to a good start, and then we took knives in hand to trim, bone and cut our own pieces of pork shoulder for roasting on Thursday.

A good bit of what Chef showed us was vaguely familiar to me, going back many years to my gofer work in my uncles' meat market in Tucson. The closest I got to breaking down any large pieces of meat was breaking down and cleaning the band saws and scraping the butcher blocks.

So we're practically at square one. Learning the psrts and the cuts from them will come in time. Meanwhile, we're getting ready for roast pork.

Oh, and fish, specificaly rock cod. Chef demonstrated the fillet, and then each of us was issued
got a whole rock cod to scale, skin and fillet, also for cooking on Thursday.

Tune in then for more details on the two plates we will have to prep, cook and assemble for grading.

Chef as artist; plate as canvas

2010-01-06T08:22:00.000-08:00

Well cooked is the key concept. Well presented follows closely behind.

"Pay attention to the plate. The plate is your gift to the customer," Chef Dan Fluharty said in introducing the topic of plating and presentation on Tuesday in Culinary Foundations III.

"That plate is your universe; nothing else matters," Chef Tony Marano told us in Culinary Foundations I in October.

How the food looks on the plate could be a career in and of itself. In fact, people known as "food stylists" have done just that.

We were already pulled in to plating and presentation last term, out of necessity as we presented our cooking to Chef Dan for his assessment and grading. Chef paid minimal attention to how our food looked on the plate, other than pointing out if it was sloppy, the plate was not clean in the sense of sauce spills and if it was jammed with too much food.

Now, as we get closer to that moment when we will work in restaurants and be responsible for appearance along with good cooking, we are looking at the principles and elements of art, composition and how food plating has evolved over the last half-century.

The basic principles of composition include keeping it simple; the rule of odds, in which an odd number of items (potatoes, for example) is better than an even number; create a focal point or center of interest; purposefully seek an off-center presentation to create interest.

Chef Dan reviewed three generations of food plating:

* Old School: Three distinct servings of food on a plate, separated from one another. Think TV dinner.

* Retro: Starch and protein together, with veggie as decoration and sauce drizzled along the edge.

* Contemporary: Smaller portions overall (6 ounces of protein, for starters) with one aspect placed in relation to another, including on top. Sauces often used as pointer arrows to draw attention to the centerpiece, the protein.

Chef told us that for our purposes, a basic clean plate will suffice, with some height, emphasis on the protein and balance.

Good cooking and plating are works of art, and we are learning to be the artists for our families, friends and customers in restaurants.

Or, as Chef has suggested, be your own artist by going to Hometown Buffet.

Got the salt right; now pepper needs work

2010-01-05T20:34:00.000-08:00

Not enough pepper was the key criticism -- and disappointment -- over my "best ever" beef stew in culinary school today.

The stew was one-inch dice of beef chuck in a sauce flavored with veal stock, salt, pepper, tomato purée and a bit of stewed tomatoes, garlic and yellow onion. Covered slow cooking, like a braise, deepened the flavors and reduced the sauce to a nice hearty thickness. At the end of the hour-long cooking time, blanched carrots, pearl onions, potatoes tourné and peas went into the pot for final texture and flavor.

It was a good, non-heart-stopping exercise to get us back into the swing of culinary school after two weeks off. The crucial last five minutes did, of course, bring the stress level up a bit. But it appeared that everyone managed to complete the cooking, plating and presentation in the allotted time.

I was last to present, and Chef tasted nearly every component of my plate. He was happy with the meat, potatoes, vegetable and garnish. Only the sauce fell short, and then only for a slight lack of pepper, Chef said.

Monday's "salt band" lesson must have taken; Chef said the salt was just right.

How's it taste? Needs salt

2010-01-05T08:50:00.000-08:00

Salting one's food may be one of the more pressing issues of the day. It certainly is in culinary school, where seasoning to taste -- that means salt and pepper -- is the rule of thumb.

But to who's taste? For culinary students, it's the chef/instructor. Chef Dan Fluharty grades our plates, including seasoning. In most cases with my offerings so far, undersalting has been the issue. It seems the same with other students, so on Monday, Chef took us through a "salt band" exercise.

He set five numbered paper cups on a table, each containing milk. All but one had been salted to a different level. We tasted No. 2 first, followed by 3, then a sip of acidic water to clear the palate. Cup 4, followed by the water, then cup 5. Each tasted increasingly salty, with No. 5 registering with all of us as too salty. At Chef's instruction, we all cleansed our palates again, then went to cup No. 1. The taste was very bland; no salt had been added.

The exercise helped us gain perspective on salt flavor. A little aggressiveness with salting may be in order for me, and perhaps my fellow students.

Some complicating factors: As we grow older, our taste buds become less sensitive; a cold or other illness or a scorched tongue from spicy food or hot food can dull the taste buds; tasting ability differs from person to person.

Health specialists tell us that too much salt is not good for our hearts or blood pressure. Use of salt in general has decreased in restaurant cooking over the years, according to Chef.

Nevertheless, it is an irreplaceable component of good cooking and flavor. Salting to the right taste is an ongoing learning process and an ever-present need.

Turning up the heat in culinary school

2010-01-04T20:03:00.000-08:00

"I want you to make some kick-ass food today, and the next day, and the next day."

Chef Dan Fluharty (right) presented that challenge today in introducing the agenda for Culinary Foundations III as the new six-week term began at the California Culinary Academy. It's the third and final class in the basic French-techniques curriculum taught at the Academy.

It promises to be a doozy, up several levels from where we left off last month in completing the second class in the triumvirate.

Chef Dan set the tone in an inspiring yet daunting rundown of what we will face for the next six weeks. Here are excerpts of what he said:

"Every day's cooking in here will be a competency exam on which you will get graded. ... I'd like to think when you leave this school that you have a good idea of what makes you a good cook, of what makes you marketable as a cook. ... We want you to achieve the highest level of performance here and in your careers. ... "

"Tomorrow we'll make beef stew. Will it be just any beef stew? We might tend to think, 'Well, it's just beef stew.' But we want it to be the best beef stew you ever tasted. ... So it's time we kind of draw the line a little bit. Do you agree? That means if it's good, I'll say so; if it's outstanding, I'll say so; if it sucks, I'm going to say so. ... Don't take it personally."

Chef said he wants the 10 of us in his class to be a part of the continuing tradition that the Academy "puts out better high-end chefs than the CIA (Culinary Institute of America, the granddaddy of U.S. cooking schools) or anywhere else."

Quite a charge, quite a challenge. Let's get cooking.

Back to the kitchen, foot on the accelerator

2010-01-04T07:59:00.000-08:00

Culinary Foundations III, the final basic cooking skills class in the curriculum at the California Culinary Academy, starts today, promptly at 1 p.m.

Chef Dan Fluharty will be the chef/instructor, and our familiarity with him from Culinary Foundations II should make the transition seamless. It also will mean that he knows us and our abilities, so he is bound to want us to step right up and resume, at an accelerated pace, where we were when we left off on Dec. 18.

Here's an excert from the course description for Culinary Foundations III:

... butchery skills are added as well as cooking techniques for proteins. Students will prepare secondary sauces and classic starches while applying different cooking techniques. Students have an opportunity to expand on the foundations of classic culinary repertoire including an introduction to the theories of plated presentation.

Further, the class syllabus outlines what we will be expected to know and do by the end of six weeks, or Feb. 12:

* Fabrication of a variety of proteins and cooking techniques specific to each protein. Properly use a variety of cooking techniques to make a single plate.
* Duplicate a picture or diagram in presenting a plate.
* Prepare and properly store stocks and primary sauces.
*An introduction to concepts inherent in the industry: Meeting deadlines and timelines for plate presentations, effciencies, space and equipment limitations, and personal, memorized recipes.

Most exciting and most daunting is that last phrase -- "personal, memorized recipes." Exciting because it should show that we have mastered the basics to the point that we can introduce a little improvisation to our cooking. Daunting because, having read it, my mind went totally blank, unable to provide me with even a single recipe of anything I had ever made.

My recovery from that is in the works. Stay tuned for what should prove to be another fun-filled, adventurous six weeks.

Adaptation brings about success

2010-01-03T20:12:00.000-08:00

Things don't always go as planned or practiced, and that was the case in my kitchen today in preparing dinner.

The braised beef ribs worked, as did the braised fennel and apples. The potatoes and pan sauce didn't go so well. Nevertheless, it came together.

Instead of pommes duchesse, the fancy piped potatoes, I made mashed because I couldn't get the piping to work. Putting too much roux into the pan liquid made the sauce thicker than needed, but it was flavorful. It ended up being more of a gravy, so perhaps needless to say, that worked well with the mashed potatoes.

All in all, a satisfying meal and good step tward getting back into the groove of school on Monday.

Getting in shape for culinary school ... by cooking

2010-01-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

Back to culinary school on Monday for my third term, and what better way to prepare than making Sunday dinner? Here's what's cooking:

Braised beef ribs (with the bone left long, 6-8 inches, for flavor and presentation. After browning and then "sweating" the mirepoix in rendered bacon fat, I am braising them in chicken stock and red wine at 225º F. for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, or until the meat is ready to fall off the bone.

Braised fennel and apples. Slicing the fennel lengthwise and the apples in eighths. I will sweat a diced shallot in 1 TB unsalted whole butter before adding water, bringing it up to a simmer and then adding in the fennel and apples. Should take 20-30 minutes covered on low heat.

Pommes duchesse, the fancy mashed, then piped, then baked potatoes.

Brown sauce thickened with roux and strained from the remains of the rib braising.

I will blanch and then fry a bit of the fern-like green tops from the fennel for garnish.

Check back later today to read how it turns out and for a full rundown on expectations in the first week of classes in Culinary Foundations III.

More quotes from culinary school

2010-01-02T08:45:00.000-08:00

(Note: These comments were heard or overheard during my first 12 weeks of culinary school.)

Unabridged version
"What's the world's shortest book? British cooking."
-- Chef Tony Marano (left), commenting on various national cuisines.

I ate his homework
"Michael, where's that pork chop?"
-- Student Rob Park (right) asking me what happened to a plated grilled pork chop that was left on the cooking station we shared. It was his, and he was planning to take it home to his wife. I ate it.

Follow your nose
"I said, 'It smells like something's burning.' The student said, 'Oh, there's nothing burning.' Three minutes later, he opened the oven and ... there was a horrified silence."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty, telling how the sense of smell is important in the kitchen.

Blue bin, green bin, black bin
"In the Bay Area, we tend to take our garbage seriously."
-- Chef Tony Marano, instructing us to separate throwaway trash from recyclables from compostables.

Unabridged version
"Half a bay leaf or a whole bay leaf? Make the right choice, because otherwise the dish will be ruined, and then the whole thing unravels."
-- Student John Briggs, facetiously weighing the consequences of how much bay leaf to put in a marsala mushroom sauce.

More Chef Dan quotes from culinary school's 2nd term

2009-12-26T12:24:00.000-08:00

(Note: All cited quotations are from Chef Dan Fluharty, instructor for Culinary Foundations II afternoon session, for the term that ran Nov. 9, 2009 to Dec. 18, 2009.)

To err is human; to opine is divine
"Making mistakes on your part is important. You'll need a second opinion on what you cook. That will be me."
-- In his introduction on the first day of class, Nov. 9, 2009

Worth the sacrifice
"I would go there and eat the nasty food just to watch the show. They served the eggs over-greazy. That is, over easy."
-- Relating why a certain San Francisco greasy spoon restaurant was his favorite; it was the performance the cooks put on preparing breakfast

In other words: 'No'
"Flaming alcohols are for show."
-- Response to a student asking if he wanted us to flame the brandy when putting it into a sauté.

Don't green for sake of green
"Don't put a garnish on the plate just to have one. The garnish should tell a story. That means it should be a component of what's in the dish."
-- Response to a student asking if a plated soup could have color added to it with a sprig of parsely

In emergency, break out couscous
"Couscous is your emergency, go-to starch. If you don't have any idea what starch you're going to serve, couscous is the answer."
-- Explaining that couscous, when mixed with hot chicken stock, can be ready to serve in 10 minutes

Prepping for a culinary holiday: Organization is a must

2009-12-24T13:19:00.000-08:00

Among the many skills that the chefs at the California Culinary Academy teach their students is a key and primary one: organization. "Plan your work, and wrk your plan," Chef Dan Fluharty says repeatedly when we have a deadline cooking assignment.

Making and carrying out a plan, in writing, is a must. And I find myself doing the same at home now, not just leaving to chance that the beans will be done on time or the meat will thaw. There's a regimen, and if that sounds too anal for you, you may just have to go hungry!

Seriously, culinary school has not only given me the beginning-level tools to work in a restaurant kitchen, it has taught me good meal combinations, what can be cooked or partly cooked in advance and how to store it appropriately. Getting organized, starting with the mise en place, is the key to success in the home kitchen and on the hot line in any restaurant.

Tonight's dinner will be a simple potato and leek soup, and Friday's holiday meal will be the aforementioned traditional Mexican fare -- highlighted by home-made tamales. For all of it, I have a plan and the ingredients all laid out. Tha's the mise en place.

Tune in later this week to read how it all has gone.

Fancy eats for the holiday? No, tradition rules the day

2009-12-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

My vastly improved culinary skills notwithstanding, we will stick to tradition for our main Christmas meal. That means home-made tamales (no mean culinary feat in and of themselves); hours-long, pot-simmered beans; spiced-up rice; two kinds of enchiladas, gorditas dipped in red chile sauce and rolled with cheese.

With two terms of culinary school behind me, I have the ability to put together at least the basics of a classic French-inspired meal. But I'm not even tempted. When it comes to the holidays, we want the food we grew up with, the food that nourished not only our bodies but our spirits, food made with loving hands in the traditional way.

Don't ask for recipes. As in many culinary traditions, these are hand-me-down methods, developed over generations of a handful of this, a dash of that, enough kneading of the masa until it feels right, somehow just knowing that it is cooked enough or that the chile has the right consistency.

Cooking this food transports me mentally and emotionally back in time, to the kitchens of my mom and tias, where no pair of hands was idle and no one -- even the most distant of drop-in cousins -- went hungry.

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo.

Back at the cutting board, with terrific sous chef

2009-12-22T13:18:00.000-08:00

Don't forget to practice your culinary skills during the holidays.

The admonition from Chef Dan Fluharty came across as a command as much as a reminder. Either way, it was good to have in mind.

Having departed the city immediately after the last day of Culinary Foundations II final exam for a brief trip to Tucson, I hadn't had a chance to put the command/reminder into action. That is until Monday night at the home of my most gracious brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Marco and Thelma Ruiz.

They turned over their kitchen -- and their daughter Luna B. Ruiz -- to me for the evening. Luna as sous chef and yours truly as chef de cuisine cooked up a small storm. We roasted a chicken. We made a sauté of green beans and red bell peppers. We made pommes duchesse, the fancy piped potato that is a beautiful addition to any plate. We concocted a sauce nateur from the chicken pan drippings.

Twelve-year-old Luna was by my side the entire time, taking it all in and pitching in on every task. She absorbed the information like a sponge, even taking written notes on some of the French terminology. It was a joy to work with her, and it was a joy to cook good food in a confident manner for beloved family members.

The Ruiz family clearly enjoyed the evening's repast, dazzled by my still novice but growing-better-by-the-day culinary skills.

Chef Dan, one practice session down, many more to come.

De los manos de mi suegra: tamales and other goodies

2009-12-21T10:56:00.000-08:00

Don't spread the masa too thin; don 't spread the masa too thick. Put two olives in each, not one. Squeeze the meat to get out the caldo -- broth or liquid -- before putting it into the tamal.

Expertise, advice, instruction, guidance all flowed freely at Sunday's tamalada in the kitchen of my suegra, Ramona Martinez. A small but focused and ambitious group of us turned out 14 dozen plus of the delicious beauties in a little more than two hours.

That is, after Ramona stoked us with a home-made breakfast of huevos rancheros, followed by a dose of sobrina Luna B. Ruiz's made-from-scratch banana and walnut pancakes.

The making of tamales for the holidays is a tradition of long standing in families of Mejicano descent. The tamale-making is the focal point, but the reconnection and renewal of family ties become the important byproducts of the day.

We mixed not only the masa with the manteca (corn meal with fat) to make the foundation for the tamales. We mixed the catch-up conversations of recently missed meals together with the richness of the busy lives we all live, sometimes farther away from one another than we like to be. And that becomes a renewed foundation upon which the structure and ever-changing dynamic of the family rests.

We walked away feeling rejuvenated in many ways: with family, with culture and with panzas full of good food and anticipating more.

(Photos, from the top: bagged dozens of tamales awaiting the freezer or cooking; my suegra's hands expertly spreading masa on an hoja (corn husk); beauteous masa blenders Hilda Oropeza (my wife) and Luna B. Ruiz nearly up to their elbows in the basic tamale ingredient; the all-important masa floating in a glass of water. When a small ball of masa floats, it has been mixed and kneaded properly and the masa is ready; when the ball sinks, more mixing is necessary.)

12 weeks of discovery, and it's still a mystery

2009-12-20T12:38:00.001-08:00

"We're having Brussels sprouts," doesn't exactly whet the appetite or pique the interest of many people. Yet the idea that Brussels sprouts can -- and more important should -- be part of a culinary repertoire is now in my reality. That includes that they can be cooked in a prescribed manner to achieve flavor and contribute to a well-rounded plate.

Getting to know the Brussels sprout serves as an apt embodiment of my culinary school experience. The strong smelling member of the cabbage family was to me as unapproachable as the complexities of classic French cooking were just three months ago.

In three months -- 12 weeks, to be exact -- my mind, my hands, my palate and most of all my spirit have entered a transformation in which they are moving toward an inexact and still mystical end. Chef Tony Marano of the California Culinary Academy makes the case for pursuit of the mystery being a lifelong joy.

Before, I was a fair cook, with good knowledge of the kitchen and more than basic ingredients. I could braise a short rib and capture the pan juices for a delicious sauce, create a baanced tomato sauce and pasta, even turn out a molé with complex layering of flavors.

Now, I can do those and so much more, with a peak at the mystery behind each. It's what some call chemistry. It seems more sorcery to me. As Chef Tony says: "We use the word magic to explain what we don't yet understand."

For example, I don't understand the magic of how something as minimally attractive and, frankly, odoriferous as the Brussels sprout can be transformed into a tasty, flavorful morsel. Yet, I know how to transform it.

Twelve weeks of culinary school -- and now a reflective break before plunging in again -- have helped me to get a small glimpse at the magic. Understanding? Maybe never. But the pursuit of it has my full attention.

Christmas season also means 'tamalada' season

2009-12-19T15:41:00.000-08:00

The tamalada is a tradition as old as -- well, as old as corn. And that's pretty old, considering the experts believe that corn was domesticated at least 5,600 years ago in what are now southern Mexico and Central America.

The tamalada, or tamale-making party, most likely originated out of necessity to secure a food supply during the times when corn and other products weren't available. Corn kernels were dried and treated, then ground to a flour. Mixed with water and other liquids, the corn flour became a dough from which many things were and are made. Tortillas, tamales and enchiladas are but the most obvious and recognizable.

Now, the tamalada is both tradition and celebration, in that it brings families and groups of like-minded people together to prepare food, refresh and rejuvenate relationships and celebrate the season.

Thus it is so that the long-standing -- yet recently dormant -- Oropeza-Martinez family tamalada will be on Sunday at the house of my suegra, Ramona Martinez. Three daughters, three sons-in-law and at least a couple of grandchildren are expected to take part.

A full report on the tamalada will be posted soon.

Fulfilling end to a fine term in culinary school

2009-12-19T12:23:00.000-08:00

Overcooking was the theme of the final day of culinary competency exams at the California Culinary Academy on Friday. Chef Dan Fluharty called several students on it, both for their pork chops and their veal scaloppini. He subtracted two points for my overcooking a veal scaloppini.

Now, lest one misunderstand: We're not talking about food that's charred beyond recognition. Overcooking is a matter of seconds and a degree or two, especially when dealing with these cuts. One of my two small pieces of veal was cooked right -- very slightly pink in the center -- while the other was cooked a few seconds over. That may have occurred in the keeping-it-warm phase while I plated other items or in the final saucing, that is dipping the veal into the heated sauce marsala just before plating.

Most aspects of the final exam went well. Chef scored my grilled pork chop as perfectly cooked. I lost two points on my sauce chasseur, one for it was a bit thin and one for it being a bit underseasoned. Thirty-eight points on the plate, out of a possible 40.

The veal cooking cost me two points, and undercooked Brussells sprouts cost me two more points. My pommes duchesse -- mashed, then elegantly piped, then browned potatoes -- turned out nearly perfect. For the plate, I earned 36 of a possible 40 points.

From a strategic viewpoint, it was a great success. I followed my plans for all meals in both days, and I plated highly flavorful meals on schedule, in fact ahead of schedule. I made a tactical mistake here and there, but nothing that made an item inedible or even the least distasteful.

All in all, it was a good conclusion to the six-week term in Culinary Foundations II. The four plates I prepared for the final exam garnered a collective 91.3% of the possible points. I'll take it!

(Photo shows remnants of the grilled pork chop-risotto-broccoli plagte, after Chef sampled and judged.)

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 12

2009-12-19T07:54:00.000-08:00

Global warming comes to one oven
"He had a very large carbon footprint today with that plate."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty on a student in another class whose roasted chicken cooked until it was charred carbony black.

Caught a fish this big
"I ended up with anchovy fillets."
-- Culinary student Rob Park (right) on his first experience filleting a fish, a nine-inch flounder from which we were supposed to get four 4-inch fillets.

Revenge of the blob
"Was it napér (pronounced nap-ay)? No, it was glopér (pronounced glop-ay)."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty describing the sauce supréme made by most students. Napér is the French term for desired sauce consistency, to coat the back of a spoon.

A short love affair
"Remember I told you I liked this stove yesterday? I don't like it today."
-- Culinary student John Briggs, using a new stove top for Part One of the cooking competency final exam

Flourescent food
"You don't want it to glow in the dark."
-- Chef Dan Fluharty, warning against using more than a pinch of saffron in the liquid going into risotto Milanese.

Chicken slightly overdone? I beg to differ

2009-12-17T19:05:00.000-08:00

Chicken roasted just so, accompanied by roasted root vegetables, a flavorful pan sauce, browned small potatoes and roasted mushrooms for garnish. Ah, culinary perfection.

Hold on there, rotisserie boy!

Chef Dan Fluharty didn't think so, calling my roasted chicken "just slightly overcooked." But Chef, I protested, it's moist, it's succulent, it's ... It's 2 points off, Chef concluded.

And another 2 points off for the thin sauce. All right, that's true; my sauce nateur just didn't have it today. Too thin, too buttery. I could blame it on the frozen demi-glace we had to use. But I won't.

Chef did very much like my vegetables and potatoes (yes, potato is a veggie, but in Culinary World, we count it as a starch). They were roasted just right.

Thirty-six points out of 40 for the roasted chicken plating.

Another 36 for my poached salmon, which he also called overcooked, deducting 2 points. It had a touch of pink inside, but ah, well. He very much liked the rice pilaf and was as happy with my beurre blanc as I was. The turned zucchini pieces ("turned" refers to the knife cut on them) were tender but a couple of pieces got just a little too brown; 2 points off.

All in all, a good first day of the cooking competency final exam. We complete the six-week term on Friday, when I will prep, cook and plate a grilled pork chop with risotto and broccoli and a veal scaloppini with pommes duchesse and a marsala wine sauce.

I made a duxelle -- minced, dried sauté of fresh mushrooms in butter, onion and a splash of red wine -- to prepare a compound butter. If it tastes good upon unwrapping Friday, I will use a piece for garnish atop my pork chop.

Menu No. 4: veal scaloppini

2009-12-17T07:14:00.000-08:00

The fourth and last plate for the Culinary Foundations II competency final exam, to be prepped, cooked and plated on Friday, will be veal scaloppini, with a marsala wine sauce, sauté of greens beans or brussels sprouts, pommes duchesse and a garnish.

The veal presents a dichotomy in handling and preparation. It's a small cut of meat that must be treated carefully. That is, seemingly, except at the beginning, when it must be pounded with the spike side of a meat hammer (left) to tenderize it, then with the blunt side to tenderize further and flatten uniformly for cooking. But even those actions must be done so as not to break the fiber of the meat entirely.

Even before that, one must prep the ingredients for the marsala wine sauce -- diced shallot, sliced mushrooms and fresh thyme -- and have on hand butter, the marsala wine and demi-glace (highly concentrated veal stock).

When those are ready, the sauté is heated, the butter melted in the hot pan and the veal lightly floured before going into the sauté for a couple of minutes on each side. The desired effect is a little browning before removing the veal from the heat to make the sauce. When the sauce is nearly finished, the veal goes back in for a few seconds before it and the sauce are plated.

Whether it's green beans or brussels sprouts, they are cooked similarly: blanched in salt water, shocked in ice water, followed by sauté in rendered bacon fat with julienne of red bell pepper and diced onion.

Pommes duchesse take the most prep, starting with making what in essence are mashed potatoes, adding cream, butter and seasonings, then putting the concoction in a pastry bag for piping into elegant little "cakes" that then are baked until golden brown (right). The keys are no lumps and the right color and crust on the finished potato.

Chef relents, but we still gotta cook

2009-12-16T19:12:00.000-08:00

We were taken by surprise Tuesday in Culinary Foundations II to find out that we wouldn't know which of four dishes we would be required to cook on the first day of our competency final exam Thursday.

Chef Dan Fluharty relented today, telling us our assignments. For me and four classmates, Thursday means prepping, cooking and plating roasted chicken and poached salmon. The other five in class will make grilled pork chops and veal scaloppini. On Friday, we will switch around.

Going into the all-important exam, it's good to know what we will have to do. It allows last-minute adjustments and tweaking of prep and cooking plans and a final revew of the steps needed to get Thursday's two entrees, complete with side dishes, to Chef within the allotted two hours.

Let the cooking begin.

Menu No. 3: grilled pork chop

2009-12-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

Continuing the rundown of menus for the Culinary Foundations II competency final exam, which will be Thursday and Friday. Grilled pork chop is the third main dish, to be accompanied by a choice of vegetable ("whatever is in the box," Chef said), risotto Milanese, sauce chasseur and a garnish.

The pork chop must be seasoned and grilled with appropriate grill marks (as in photo at left), and cooked to moist, with a minimal amount of pink inside. The quality of the chop's cooking will count for 10 points out of 40 total for the dish. "You only get one chop; you can't do it over," Chef Dan Fluharty warned us. "It will be five points off if it's overdone; zero if it's raw."

My vegetable will be broccoli florets, assuming they are available. I will trim to small florets, blanch in salt water, shock in ice water, finish in a butter sauté. If broccoli isn't available, I will do orange- and sugar-glazed carrots.

Risotto is cooked with chicken stock and must be brought to creaminess, including a small dollop of cream and grated Parmesan cheese to finish.

Sauce chasseur is made with butter, shallots, mushrooms, a sherry or white wine reduction, demi-glace, tomato concasséand seasonings.

My garnish likely will be a thick slice of compound butter, made with herbs and mushrooms.

Coming Thursday wll be a rundown of the final menu item: veal scaloppini.

Cramming for exams? No, for everything else

2009-12-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

Learning the culinary arts will last a lifetime, say the chefs who are our teachers at the California Culinary Academy. If so, why does it seem that they are trying to cram it in all into this one week?

Culinary Foundations II class is in its waning days; the written final exam will be today; cooking competency exams will be Thursday and Friday.

Yet on Monday and Tuesday, Chef Dan Fluharty was still pushing new dishes and techniques. On Monday he demonstrated, and put us to work practicing, two stuffed poultry dishes. On Tuesday, he demonstrated and again put us to work making a braised duck leg and fillet of sole. Both were appropriately challenging, the fillet especially so, because each of us started with a whole fish from which to exract the fillets.

Neither duck leg nor fillet of sole will be on the competency final exams. But several of the side dishes that we made will be, so we got to practice making rich, creamy risotto, rice pilaf, sauté of broccoli, turned zucchini, beurre blanc for the fish and a rich pan sauce for the duck.

Any and all cooking practice serves to improve our knife skills, our attenton to the details of the stove top and the oven -- temperature control, that is. It also improves our organizational skills and efficiencies, all headed toward the plating and service.

The rules of engagement, culinary school style

2009-12-15T20:09:00.000-08:00

Monkey wrench, curve ball, change of plans, the old switcheroo.

Or, maybe we should look at it as the surprise introduction of a new menu.

Call it what you will, but we students in Culinary Foundations II heard today what our lives will be like for the next three days, and it's interestingly different than what we expected, not to mention even more challenging.

First, on Wednesday, we will get a 50-question written final exam, rather than the 25-question exam we had been anticipating. Fair enough, I say. The written side of this is something that I for one am comfortable with.

Then comes the more challenging aspects of our final exams: the actual cooking on Thursday and Friday. We were looking forward to cooking two fully plated meals each day and have been working on our mise en place and production plans in anticipation.

Chef Dan Fluharty (above) revealed today, almost as an afterthought, that half of us will do one set of menus on Thursday, and half will do the other. Then on Friday, we will switch. We will not know until Thursday who will be doing what.

We all had expected to do roasted chicken and poached salmon on Thursday, and grilled pork chop and veal scaloppini on Friday. Now we will need to be prepared for all on Thursday.

Additionally, Chef said, we will work four people to a station for the exams, rather than the two to a station we have been enjoying. That means more competition for prep space and stove burners and more crowded conditions overall.

As my wife would say: Breathe.

It will all be fine. Even if it isn't, b y day's end Friday, it will all be over.

Menu No. 2: poached salmon

2009-12-15T09:18:00.000-08:00

Part 1 of the Culinary Foundations II competency final exam on Thursday will conclude with preparation of poached salmon. The complete dish will include a 4-ounce piece of salmon fillet, rice pilaf, sautéed zucchini, beurre blanc (butter sauce) and garnish.

Preparation of the poaching liquid, called a court bouillon, is the first step in getting the salmon just right. The liquid is one-half gallon of water, 1 cup dry white wine, 2 ounces of white wine vinegar, 1 cup mirepoix (diced onion, carrot, celery), herbs and spices and a bit of fresh lemon juice. These ingredients enhance flavor and cooking, including coagulation of proteins in the fish.

The salmon goes into the simmering liquid for no more than 6-8 minutes. The key is to cook it to moistness, leaving it slightly pink in the center.

Rice pilaf is cooked using a long-grain rice that has been coated in hot oil to opaqueness before chicken stock is added for a 15-20-minute simmer. It should be flaky and a bit moist, but not wet, and flavored with herbs added at the beginning of cooking.

The zucchini should be cooked to tenderness but not mushy, accompanied by crushed tomatoes, herbs and seasoning. Chef Dan Fluharty showed us a method using canned crushed tomatoes. I hope to use fresh roma tomatoes that I will blanch, concassé and dice before putting them in the pot.

Beurre blanc is a rich butter sauce made with shallots sweated in a reduction of white wine and white wine vinegar, thickened with introduction of cold butter bits at a time until an emulsion forms. Vigorous and simultaneous shaking of the sauté and stirring of the ingredients is required to create the emulsion.

(Photo: my practice poached salmon dish from last week.)

Yummy! Can't wait to eat some 'debris'-filled chicken

2009-12-14T20:06:00.000-08:00

Chef Dan Fluharty introduced us to Ballotine de Poulet Grandmère in class today. That's chicken subjected to, as Chef so succinctly put it, being "stuffed, rolled, tied, seared, braised, cut and served."

Let's go back to Step 1. "What do we make it from?" Chef asked, and then answered his own question: "Debris -- things that are left over."

Not really. We made stuffing of small diced carrots, shallot and celery, 1 beaten egg, bread crumbs, a little oil, salt and pepper. That went into a boned chicken leg and thigh, which was rolled, skin side up, tied and put in a sauté for browning. A sauce is built around the browning chicken before it goes into the oven for 35-40 minutes of braising. You can see the finished product -- rolled and stuffed chicken sliced down the middle, sauce and aromatics -- above right.

We also made Stuffed Chicken Breast Doria, using "forcemeat," a ground combination of chicken, spinach, cream, shallot, egg white, herbs and bread crumbs. the stuffing was piped into a pocket cut into the chicken breast. The concoction was rolled, wrapped in cooking-grade plastic wrap and aluminum foil and poached in a 180-degree simmer. We also made a white sauce, sauce supreme, to accompany it. Result, including a "crowned" tomato garnish, is at left.

Menu No. 1: roasted chicken

2009-12-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

The final exam in Culinary Foundations II will begin with roasted chicken. Here's the menu and some of the details for how this plate should come together on Thursday:

* Roasted whole chicken, with root vegetables, turned potatoes, sauce nateur and garnish.

For roasted chicken: Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Season chicken inside and out and truss with butcher's twine Lightly butter the exterior, place on an aluminum foil collar to elevate in roasting pan. Roast 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 F., and roast for up to one hour, to an internal temperature of 160-165 F.

For potatoes, other vegetables: Tourné 3-5 red potatoes to prep for roasting. Prep root vegetables for roasting: rutabaga, carrot, parsnip, turnip.

When chicken is done, remove and rest it for 15 minutes while roasting potato and vegetables. Degrease roasting pan and make sauce nateur: put mirepoix (onion, carrot, celery) into chicken drippings to brown, deglaze with white wine, add chicken stock and demi-glace, finish with butter.

Carve chicken and pair one leg-thigh with half breast, set atop roasted vegetables. Pour sauce over chicken, add garnish. Serve.

(Photo shows a practice roasted chicken before carving and plating.)

Heat is on: culinary school final exams

2009-12-13T11:36:00.000-08:00

Time to pull on the big boy pants -- checkered chef's style.

Hone knives on the steel.

Check stove burners and fire up the oven.

Se habla culinario. Solamente culinario por este semana.

We students in Culinary Foundations II have our menus for the final exam, cooking four fully plated meals over two days. Here's the rundown:

Thursday's first plate: Roasted chicken, braised root vegetables, turned potatoes, sauce nateur from the roast pan drippings and garnish.
Thursday's second plate (photo at left): Poached salmon, rice pilaf, squash and tomatoes, beurre blanc (butter sauce) and garnish.

Friday's first plate: Brined and grilled pork chop, polenta, braised fennel and apples, sauce chasseur made from scratch and garnish.

Friday's second plate: Veal scaloppini, risotto with saffron, sauté of turned zucchini and broccoli florets, marsala wine sauce from veal pan drippings and garnish.

Practice sessions begin tonight with poached salmon.