Taking stock ... no, that's making stock

Wednesday's session in Culinary Foundations II was about as real as it gets when it comes to simulating restaurant kitchen work.

Besides the final practice run for today's five-dish vegetable and sauce competency exam, two of us had to start and mind a big pot of chicken stock. We did so under the watchful eyes of Chefs Dan Fluharty and David Isenberg.

Into the huge pot we dumped 75 pounds of chicken bones (photo at left) for a pre-heat and rinse to get impurities out. Then we emptied and discarded the water, refilled and added 15 pounds of mirepoix -- coarsely chopped onions, carrots and celery. Fellow culinary student Alfie Regadio prepped the herbs for inclusion once the temperature came up to simmer. He also did one pass of dégraisser and ecumer -- degrease and skim -- to remove excess fat and foam from the simmering stock. The night class would finish the stock, we were told.

Amid it all -- mostly getting the stock started and occasionally eying its progress -- we did our prep and cooking work on vegetables and starches.

If my artichokes (photo at right, with hollandaise sauce), rice pilaf and pommes duchesse turn out today as they did in Wednesday's practice, I will be happy.

Making sauces: The heat is on

Culinary school is getting down to the pure culinarity of it. Today, three classmates partook in the making of a white roux, a pale roux and, from them, a bechamél sauce and a velouté sauce.

Chef Tony Marano walked us through the process, which included tasting before, during and after seasonings were applied so we could catch the subtle differences. Salt, white pepper and, in the bechamél a little nutmeg, made subtle, delightful differences.

The "magic" that Chef Tony says occurs in sauce-making was very much present. There was indeed a magic in the way the roux came to color, texture and flavor and then how it combined with the liquids -- milk for the bechamél, chicken stock for the velouté -- to get to the end products (in photo, velouté is in foreground, bechamél behind it).

On Wednesday, yours truly steps to the stove with the assignment of making a brown roux as the key step toward an as-yet undisclosed brown sauce.

Whisk, small ladle, spoon are all at the ready. As am I.