Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 5

Turning up the fire
"It needs some heat."
-- Culinary student Alfie Regadio, grabbing the container of cayenne pepper for the gazpacho we had just made in Culinary Foundations I class.

But not too much
 "Don't turn it into salsa."
-- Culinary Foundations I Chef Tony Marano admonishing us not to add too much cayenne to the gazpacho.

Panic! It's MSG!
"For years, we saw signs in restaurants, 'No MSG.' My God, it was like saying 'no heroin.' MSG is a naturally occurring substance. Some doctor in New Hampshire started the FDA on the way to banning it. Of course, now it's no longer banned but is listed as a possible allergen."
-- Chef John Meidinger (left) on what he called a misdirected ban on monosodium glutamate, a flavor enhancer in seaweed and other edibles used in many Asian restaurants.

Table for one, please
"The president of the United States ate half of my strawberry cake. That was Bill Clinton. It was during that time when the president was dining alone."
-- Food scientist Shirley Corriher (right), discussing her experience when she was invited to cook and bake at the White House.

Molotov cocktail, anyone?
 "You don't want to pour the brandy in when the pot is on the burner. The fumes are volatile, and they will cause a heat backup that will turn the bottle into a rocket."
-- Chef Tony Marano, showing us in impressive fashion how to flame the brandy for a shrimp bisque.

Carrots, onions tremble at the sound of my name

Wielding a knife with skill is the most basic need of the chef and even of the casual home cook. That's why they are the first skills taught, practiced and tested for at the California Culinary Academy.

My knife skills test was delayed from Oct. 9 because of a little gash I put in my left thumb practicing the day before, requiring an emergency room visit and five stitches.

Today, I will take the test -- 10 cuts on eight vegetables in 30 minutes. The cuts are part of classic French cooking, and all are designed to make the vegetables look nice. Several also have the function of ensuring that the veggies cook evenly by being the same basic shape and size.

Tune in later to read if I'm newly skilled or stitched again.

----------UPDATE----------

Thirty minutes flew by, yet I got the 10 knife cuts completed in fine fashion. Chef Tony's cumulative grade, based on up to five points for each cut, gave me an A.

Now I simply have to repeat that for next week's final practical exam, on Wednesday.

Venison? No, it's me looking into the headlights

Shrimp bisque was on the menu in Culinary Foundations I today. The action:

"May I have a couple of volunteers? One for the mirepoix ... "

My hand shot into the air, but Chef Tony Marano pointed to fellow culinary arts student Rob Park.

" ... and one to make velouté."

What the hey, I thought, my hand going up again.

"Michael, what will your proportions be?" Chef asked.

Uh, geez, what does the recipe say? I thought, glancing toward my open copy of "Professional Cooking," our key textbook.

"No, not from the book. From memory," Chef gently admonished, bringing on my deer-in-the-headlights look. He added: "Am I putting you on the spot?"

"Yes, but I need to be put on the spot," I muttered. I am smart, I thought to myself; just slow.

"What's the proportion I told you to remember for the rest of your lives?" Chef asked me and the rest of the class. "Eight to one."

He was referring to the proportion of stock to roux to make sauce. Hence, 1 gallon of stock, 1 pound of roux; 1 quart of stock, 4 ounces of roux.

I hastened to the stove top, weighed out 2 ounces of flour and 2 ounces of clarified butter, the requisite 4 ounces total for the roux, to be added to 1 quart of fish stock. The stirring began.

Relatively speaking, the rest went smoothly, and we produced a nice flavorful shrimp bisque, with an 8-to-1 proportion of stock to roux.

Eight to one. Eight to one. Eight to one.

I shant forget it again.

(Photo shows the bisque before straining -- with the shrimp shells still in it.)

Gazpacho, the real way: It's all in the wrists

Most recipes for gazpacho, the fabulous Spanish cold soup, include the phrase "in a blender" or "in a food processor." But in Culinary Foundations I class today, Chef Tony Marano said he wanted our three-member team to fully use our knife skills. No blender, no food processor, no Robot Coupé. Just wrist power: knives and chopping, lots and lots of chopping.

Three of us put together the gazpacho, finely chopping onion, bell pepper, cucumber and garlic. Oh, and tomatoes. Fellow student Keejoo Hong Park concasséed the tomatoes, and I took them to a near purée with my chef's knife.

Keejoo diced and toasted bread for the bread crumbs, while fellow student Alfie Regadio assembled all the ingredients, and we jointly added a little water and tomato juice.

Finishing touches included salt, white pepper and cayenne. Alfie did the honors, and we all agreed that our gazpacho needed some heat. In went a dash of cayenne. Alfie stirred, and we all tasted. Needs more, we all agreed. Twice more we went through that ritual, getting it to the level of heat we wanted. We completed it with a little acid, from champagne vinegar, and some olive oil for smoothness and a sheen.

We presented it to Chef Tony, who suggested a touch more salt and a bit more acid via the vinegar. He also said it should be slightly thinner, suggesting that we used too much bread crumb. He also said the cayenne was at its maximum.

The challenge came on multiple levels -- no puréeing equipment, just our knives; combining the right amounts of key ingredients so they complemented rather than competed; keeping it cold; getting the seasonings, especially the cayenne, just right.

We felt successful, and it gave us a leg up: Making gazpacho, as individuals and not as a team, will be on the final exam next week.

Simple perfection: cream of mushroom soup

Nothing's better than a hot, flavorful bowl of soup on a cold San Francisco day. When it can be made simply, even better.

The cream of mushroom soup we made in Chef Tony Marano's Culinary Foundations I class on Tuesday fit the bill: hot and flavorful, done in 30 minutes -- perfect!

In efficient, assembly line fashion, the class whipped out the soup. I cleaned and sliced the mushrooms, and classmates handled the onion, saute in butter, addition of a brown veal stock (we didn't have any white stock, which Chef Tony said would have been preferable), immersion purée and the cream.

Another successful adventure, and another example of how good, classical cooking doesn't always have to be complicated.

Ballad of the dark creatures of the kitchen

The dark creatures of the restaurant kitchen -- VERMIN! -- are necessary to learn about but certainly no fun.

Unless one is privileged to be in Chef John Meidinger's Safety & Sanitation class at the California Culinary Academy. Chef John took guitar in hand on Tuesday, picked out "the only three or four chords I know," and sang the ballad of "Integrated Pest Management." Most memorable lyrics:

      Close the doors,
      Clean the floors.
      When the mice get in,
      They make a lot of love.

Cooking and chemistry: What's the connection?

If you are a disciple of Shirley Corriher or Harold McGee, the cooking-chemistry connection is as plain as, well, as plain as how the heat of cooking makes proteins unwind and rebind.

We students of the California Culinary Academy had the great pleasure of hearing Corriher, "the grand dame" of food science, according to Academy Chef Tony Marano, and McGee elucidate prosaically in an hour-long session today at the Academy.

Corriher is a Vanderbilt University educated biochemist; McGee is a California Institute of Technology and Yale University graduate. Both have written much-relied upon books on the science of food.

They were most loquacious and most gracious in discussing their specialties in terms we all could understand. As Executive Chef Tim Grable said in thanking them for appearing, it was difficult to tell who liked it more, the faculty or the students.

A few gems from their conversation with us:

* "Salt suppresses bitterness," Corriher said, so when it is called for even in sweet recipes such as for pastries, it is meant to push down bitterness and thus exaggerate sweetness. So it shouldn't be used necessarily for its own flavor but rather for what it does for other flavors.

* Mold on fresh berries -- straw, blue, black and rasp -- can be minimized by dipping them in water at 120 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 seconds or so once brought home from the market, McGee said.

* If boiling vegetables, use salt in the water to help keep them nutritious by counteracting the osmosis that occurs in a search for salt balance between the interior of the vegetable and the water, McGee said.

* "McGee says fruit is nothing but a pretty wrapper for water," Corriher said. "I'm still trying to find where I said that," McGee laughingly retorted.

Exposure to such luminaries is a bonus for students at the Academy, and we look forward to other appearances by people atop the lists of experts when it comes to food science, culinary arts and other "foodie" issues.

(Photos show Corriher and McGee signing their books for students at the end of today's session.)

'Good soup ... good living."

Louis P. De Gouy said in "The Soup Book," his 1949 prosaic ballad to the humble bowl of nourishment:

"Good soup is one of the prime ingredients of good living. For soup can do more to lift the spirits and stimulate the appetite than any other one dish."

We began formal study and work in soups this week in Culinary Foundations I, and already, De Gouy's thought has proven true.

Chef Tony Marano on Monday started soup week by making the simplest and most humble of soups -- potato and leek -- in two versions, the regular and the creamy. Both were the fulfillment of what De Gouy said about "good living": nourishing and flavorful, warmth for the belly and the spirit.

It's no coincidence that Chef Tony started with potato leek or that Chapter One of Julia Child's most famous work -- "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" -- is "SOUP -- Potages et Soupes" and that her very first recipe is potage parmentier -- potato leek.

In today's class, we will explore soups thickened with cream, starting with another humble yet fulfilling concoction -- cream of mushroom. Yours truly has volunteered to prepare it. Visit later to read of my experience.

The epic poetry of 'le braiser'

   (Note: The final essay assignment for Culinary Foundations I class at the California Culinary Academy was to describe either the soups at a local restaurant or one of the seven techniques of French cooking. I focused on le braiser. This is my essay.)
 
   To analyze poetry is to demystify it by removing the romance and the magic. The same applies to the romance and the magic of the culinary art. For at its best, it is poetry.

   If that is so, the epic poem of Les Cuissons Francaise is braiser, or braising.

   Braising is the Beowulf, the Odyssey, the Bhagavata Purana of the culinary techniques because of what it does for an average -- or worse -- piece of meat or poultry. The deep, complex flavors it coaxes from every ingredient are nonpareil in all other techniques.

   Additionally, it demonstrates the height of skillfulness in the chef because of its very complexity. The slow, deliberate, low-temperature approach requires the chef’s full concentration, patience and timing. It also requires a bold, visceral, artistic knowledge that extends well beyond simply following the recipe or the directions.

   "This technique separates the chefs from the cooks," California Culinary Academy Chef Instructor John Meidinger says.

   He may just as well say that braising separates the epic poets from the writers of rhyme.

   Braising brings a tender, submissive romance to the toughest piece of beef. And it uses the toughness itself to create a magical potion of sauce, elevated to untold heights of flavor in the skillful hands of the chef poet.

   Just as Beowulf himself was attended to by “the ring-adorned queen, of excellent heart, (who) bore the mead-cup … ”, the poetic chef brings the romance and the magic of le braiser to the table as the finest offering of Le Cuisson Francaise.

'The simplest sauce there is'

Anyone can make this sauce -- it's a delicious one -- to put on a sautéed steak. Chef Tony Marano did it swiftly, with a flavorful result, when he demonstrated sautér in Culinary Foundations I class last week.

When the steak is resting after coming out of the pan, wipe out the accumulated fat in the pan. Pour a small amount of red wine, 2-3 ounces for one steak, into the still hot pan. Reduce it to burn off the alcohol and to leave just the flavor in the pan. Add 6-8 ounces of veal stock and simmer. When it is reduced by about half, add a tablespoon of clarified butter, a technique called monter au beurre or mounting with butter. That thickens the sauce. It's now ready to serve, spooned over the steak.

"This is marchand du vin -- literally 'wine merchant sauce'," Chef Tony said, "a red wine reduction with veal stock. It's the simplest sauce there is."

(Photo credit: www.deliaonline.com)

Everyone, including the dog, ate my homework

Practice, practice, practice makes perfect, and while my culinary skills are far from that, they took a big step forward this weekend.

I practiced braising, making stock and creating sauces. All went reasonably well, making Sunday dinner a decided hit among family members. "Oh my God, it's delicious," was No. 1 fan Hilda's reaction. Zipper the Shih-Tzu rated the espagnole sauce, drizzled lightly onto his kibble, "two slurps."

Here's what transpired as I endeavored to take on techniques learned in the first four weeks of classes at the California Culinary Academy:

* On Saturday, I found veal bones at a local meat market, and that led to my making a brown stock. To my delight, it congealed nicely, just as I have seen in school, where we are under the careful supervision of the master chefs who are our teachers.

* On Sunday, I prepared to braise two meaty beef ribs, for which I had asked the butcher to leave the rib bone long. I dried the meat, tied it to the bone and browned it. Forgetting to season it before it was browned was a mistake, I admit, but the quality of the sauce pretty much made up for that.

* Two and a half hours of cooking time left the meat tender on the bone and the pan drippings rich with the meat flavor and that of the mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery). I strained it, skimmed off the fat and added some of the brown stock. Now came sauce-making time.

* Into the concoction, I added a few ounces of diced fennel and the rubies from one pomegranate. The combination was Chef Tony Marano's suggestion, saying the contrasting flavors would complement one another and add a sweetness to the finished sauce. He was dead-on correct, and the resultant sauce, after two more strainings and a reduction by half and then half again, was the hit of the meal.

* Green beans called for a béchamel sauce, as described by Julia Child in her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." So I used clarified butter and flour to make a roux, stirred in the scalded milk, flavored it with onion, bay leaf and a whole clove. It came out very tasty, but the texture was a tad pasty. More milk might have helped.

The short ribs were falling-off-the-bone delicious, and I must pronounce my first major venture into multi-tasking a French meal a success.

Can coq au vin and sole meunière be far behind?

(In my rush to serve dinner, I neglected to take photos of the finished plates. This photo shows the gelatinized veal stock and the deep brown espagnole sauce.)

Culinary school quotes of the week, Week 4

Obey your thirst
"A beer can hat would be convenient: It keeps your hair back AND allows you to hydrate."
-- Culinary student Fontaine McFadden's fix for restaurant sanitation standards that stop cooks from keeping open drinking water containers at their stations.

Any leeway?
"Never."
-- Chef Tony Marano to a student asking when one would use meat tenderizer in a restaurant kitchen.

Rose by any other name
"My mom called it squab, but we knew it was pigeon."
-- Culinary student Alfie Regadio on gourmet cooking in his boyhood home.

Tasty? No, but square and flat
"What kind of cheese? American processed? Not even a rodent wants that cheese."
-- Chef John Meidinger discussing what in a school lunch menu has potential for causing food-borne illness.

Where chicken comes from
"This grew up in a box and never knew its mother."
-- Chef Tony Marano responding to a student who asked facetiously if the bird he was preparing for roasting was "free range".

Gather 'round for REAL cooking: braising, that is

Chef Tony Marano's Culinary Foundations I students took a deep dive today into the world of long, slow, low-temperature cooking that is braiser, or braising. For my money it is the best of the French techniques because of what it can do for an average -- or worse -- piece of meat and for the deep, complex flavors it coaxes from every ingredient.

As Chef John Meidinger said to us as we headed to the braising lesson: "This technique separates the chefs from the cooks."

It was the finale of a full week of cooking demonstrations by Chef Tony, with our willing participation, on the seven techniques of classic French cooking.

Paprika chicken (left) and chicken fricassée (right) were the dishes of the day, one a brûn, that is cooked brown and with a brown sauce, and one a blanc, that is cooked white and with a white sauce.

The paprika chicken was browned in oil, followed by the browning of onion and bell pepper, with a little brown stock and flour for thickening, before going into the oven for a one-hour braising at a simmer. It was finished with a sauce made from the stock, a dollop of sour cream and tomato.

The fricassée was seared in butter at low heat to avoid browning, with a chicken stock and flour for thickening, then into the oven for the braising at a simmer. It was finished with a white sauce thickened with a liaison -- egg yolks and cream -- and in the sauce a "point" of nutmeg, salt, pepper and tarragon.

The tastes were most distinct and most sensational, the highlight of a strong week of cooking.

We left the class abuzz with the possibilities, including plans being made for weekend meals. Mine will be braised short ribs in a brown sauce with fennel, over garlic mashed potatoes.

(Top photo: The Culinary Foundations I students gathered 'round the stove top as Chef Tny (second from left, in tall chef's hat) teaches)

Stitches out; Heidelberg Scar in the works

"Oh, it's the guy with the thumb."

That was physician Gerald C. Lee's greeting for me when I appeared this morning so he could remove the five neatly sewn stitches in my left thumb. The problem was that I stood too close to my rapidly moving paring knife during knife skills practice in class at the California Culinary Academy on Oct. 8.

Dr. Lee left me with the beginnings of what Chef Tony Marano already had called my "Heidelberg Scar", a badge of honor or, if you will, an initiation into the realities of the culinary arts.

A few days of practice on those 10 basic knife cuts, and I will be ready for my knife skills test in Chef Tony's Culinary Foundations I. He graciously delayed the test for me after that bit of unpleasantness on Oct. 8.

 Dr. Lee had one more thought for me as I departed his office: "As a chef, you will want to get a tetanus shot every five years now, instead of every 10."

Attention carnivores: Improving on perfect steak

Five of my seven uncles were butchers, and red meat has been a part of my diet since I grew teeth. Knowing how to cook a piece of meat, from the simplest hamburger to the priciest prime rib roast, is something I learned early and have mastered.

Or so I thought.

Who knew after cooking at least a couple thousand steaks in my life that my approach could be improved upon? Chef Tony Marano showed our class at the California Culinary Academy this week when he demonstrated two of the seven classic French cooking techniques -- sauter and griller.

The key starting point is a good, tender piece of meat. In this instance, Chef Tony used two cuts from the butt end of the New York strip, from the back of the beef near the ribs.

Another key: "Don't be stingy with the salt and pepper," Chef said. He used white pepper. Why? he asked us. Simple answer: "Because it's there." Black pepper will work just fine, too. Also, season immediately before cooking, not a moment sooner.

Then comes the cooking itself. For sauté, use a hot sauté pan and a drizzle of oil (Chef used canola). For grilling, season the grill with a little oil and put a drizzle on the steaks, oo.

In both cases, the thinner the piece of meat, the higher the heat and the shorter the cooking time. Thicker steak should be cooked at a slightly lower temperature, so the outside doesn't burn before the inside is cooked.

The browning or crusting of the surface adds a great deal of complex flavor through a chemical change called the Maillard reaction.

The ideal is medium rare (I like mine rare). One can learn to tell if the steak is done by touch, but watching the sides and the color creep up to the interior is an easier way. Cutting into it, though not ideal because it lets out the juices, is a good way to start learning when a steak is done; cut it open to see, then feel it to get accustomed to the feel at the right moment.

When Chef Tony's steaks were cooked, he put them on grill bars to let them "rest." Resting is less necessary for grilled meat. Rule of thumb is to rest meat for half the time it cooked. Resting allows the steak to re-absorb juices that came out in the cooking.

A bonus was when Chef whipped up what he called "the simplest sauce there is," marchand du vin, a red wine sauce made by putting a bit of wine in the hot pan, after wiping the grease from it. When the wine reduced, burning off the alcohol, he added four times the wine's volume in veal stock. He cooked it down by half. If a thicker sauce is desired, add a bit of butter.

Having cooked, as I said, a couple thousand steaks in my lifetime, I was amazed and pleased to have learned a few tips that will make the next steaks I sauté or grill even more flavorful.

(Photos: Chef Tony's grilled (upper right) and sautéed (lower left) steaks)

Was that a snap decision?

Dialogue in Culinary Foundations I class on Wednesday:
Chef Tony Marano, preparing to sauté steaks: "Is anyone a vegetarian?"
Student No. 1: "I am."
Student No. 2: "You are? Didn't you eat some roasted chicken in here yesterday?"
Student No. 1: "Yes."
Student No. 2: "So how is it you are a vegetarian?"
Student No. 1: "I became one yesterday."

The simmer of professionalism

Passion is easier to recognize by observation than by definition, so when someone sees me in my kitchen, they recognize my passion for cooking without my having to find the words for it.

Chef Tony Marano of the California Culinary Academy defined the passion for me today in his class, in word and deed. Both ways fed my own passion and reaffirmed for me why I am in culinary school, eagerly absorbing all I can.

The cooking method called simmering is defined in our textbook, "Professional Cooking" by Wayne Gisslen, as "bubbling gently."

Simmering describes my passion for culinary arts, and by the same definition, one must conclude that Chef Tony's passion for his profession is simmering.

Chef Tony demonstrates it daily in Culinary Foundations I, the class that by all rights sets the tone for student achievement, success and, yes, passion. Today, his demonstration was most vivid and at the same time humble and modest.

We students asked Chef Tony today to tell us his background. He walked us through descriptions of a series of jobs that started at dishwasher and led to the pinnacle of culinary achievement, in the best of restaurants and in his current calling to teach the profession -- and bring out the passion -- for successor generations.

"This is not just a craft. It's not just art. It's spiritual," Chef declaimed in response to a question of how he came to build professionalism and pride.

Twelve other students and I sat in rapt, silent attention, probably more attentive than we have been in Chef Tony's presence since the start of classes four weeks ago.

He spoke of the feeling one has at preparing a plate of food for someone who is willing to buy it, consume it and express gratitude for not only the taste and the flavor, but for the very act that brought it about.

"When you are preparing a plate for someone, that plate is your universe. Nothing else matters," Chef said. "It is sacred. When you come to that understanding, you can call yourself a professional. It is humbling."

That understanding and feeling, that humility at being able to create something pleasurable for someone -- and have the privilege of making a living at it -- is why I am in culinary school.

Now we're cooking! Roasting, to be precise

Seven are the techniques of Le Cuisine Francais, and today we began learning them intimately -- their names in both English and French, how and why they differ from one another and their special uses in the kitchen, and, most important, how to do them.

"It is important to know all seven cooking techniques," Chef Tony Marano said by way of introducing four days' worth of lessons and demonstrations. "It's what we do. It's what makes us chefs."

It's what will make us chefs, too, was my thought as we all eagerly made notes on the seven techniques:

Rôtir          Roasting
Griller        Grilling
Sauter        Sautéing
Frire          Deep frying
Pocher       Pocher
Braiser       Braising
Pôeler        No direct translation

Chef Tony demonstrated roasting, first with marque en cuisson -- prepare for cooking -- of a whole chicken. He trimmed the wings, removed the wishbone, seasoned and trussed the bird. The trussing technique he showed us is relatively simple and goes a great way toward ensuring evenness in cooking. He then seared it on the stovetop, then put it in a roasting pan -- meaning on a rack and open -- and put it in a preheated oven, for 45 minutes.

Roasting is used primarily for large meats that are somewhat tender, such as chicken, filet mignon and beef tenderloin.

Pôeler was next. Chef described it as a technique similar to roasting, but instead of being in a dry atmosphere, it is in a moist one, with a lid on the roasting pan and an aim to retain as much moisture as possible in the cooking. It is best used for duck and goose, he said.

Here's the best part of the day's lesson: When the chicken was roasted, Chef Tony carved, and we all ate. Moist and delicious!

What's on Wednesday's menu, Chef Tony?

Learning 'le cuisine' the hard way is the only way

The adage that we learn more from mistakes than successes has proven true at the midway point of my first term at the California Culinary Academy.

Five stitches and four blisters later, my knife skills are much improved, I can stir up a roux on my way to making sauces, I now know the fundamentals of restaurant and food-service safety and sanitation, and I can name and relate the uses for a wide array of pots, pans and fundamental kitchen equipment and tools.

As a result of the stitches, I learned a better way to core a tomato for concassé (turn the tomato, not the knife, to reduce the danger of knife slippage).

The blisters came when I was stirring my first in-class roux and bits of molten butter and flour splashed onto my hands. But I made a good brown roux, which helped me make a flavorful espagnole sauce.

I've learned these most basic of the basics from two excellent chef instructors and from listening to and observing my fellow students, both in their own successes and mistakes.

Executive Chef Michael Weller, who oversees the culinary arts program, said during orientation on Sept. 19 that the first six weeks, that is the first term, would be the most difficult. So far, it has been difficult and intense, but also energizing and challenging in many positive ways.

Next comes building confidence, manifest in increased assertiveness at the cutting board, mixing bowl and stovetop.

(Photo courtesy of fellow culinary student Keejoo Hon)

Pumpkins, squash abound, and recipes for them

The Fillmore Farmers Market was filled with good fall foods on Saturday -- big and small pumpkins, smooth-skinned and gnarly squash.

Naturally, pumpkins for jack 'o lanterns are at center stage, with Halloween less than two weeks away. But they're for dinner, too, or at least for parts of dinner. Take a look at www.pumpkinnook.com for a pumpkin patch full of ideas.

And enjoy, whether you're carving or turning pumpkins into something delicious and nutritious.