Glace Class

This is going to be kind of short. I have a lot of work to do today. First of all, let’s wrap up Meat and Seafood. I got an A- in both classes. I expected lower grades in both, but certain assignments never get handed back to us, we never get told our daily grades, and things are weighted so heavily that it makes final grade prediction really hard.

We had a three-day weekend because of the new block, so I was able to accomplish quite a bit. Most of Monday was spent getting work done and organized for the first day of Skills Development I. On Tuesday ay 1:15, we had to do to a kitchen safety lecture to learn about fire extinguishers and the importance of non-slip shoes. Thrilling. Then we headed on down to Kitchen #4. It’s in the basement of the school, not too far from the Seafood ID room. The kitchen has lots of stations for students to prep and cook. There are three lines (rows of burners, ovens, low-boy refrigerators, salamanders, and counter space) just like a restaurant would have. The difference here is that the front of the kitchen has three HUGE steam-jacketed kettles. They are the big, free-standing kettles that you see on TV that places use to produce big quantities of soup. The Skills I&II classes are responsible for providing the school with stocks. Everyday, these kettles get turned over twice with stock. Basically, about 200 gallons of stock are made every day.

My instructor is Chef Velie. He is truly outstanding. This is the level of instruction that I was hoping to receive here. He is incredibly nice and helpful. If we have questions or need to know what to do, we can ask him without being afraid of him. Also, if he sees us doing something wrong, he doesn’t yell about how dumb we are; he comes over and shows us how to do it right. He is a Certified Executive Chef, one level under CMC, and he has worked everywhere. He really knows his stuff and I can’t wait to spend the next six weeks in his class.

On Tuesday, we had a tour of the kitchen, had a lecture/demo on stock making, and had a demo on basic knife cuts. Then we practiced mincing shallots and garlic. We also had to chiffonade parsley. We wrapped up with another lecture on broth making. On Wednesday, we had a bunch of group work to do at the beginning like peeling/cleaning all the produce that the class will use the rest of the day and getting the stocks started. Then we had another demo on other knife cuts. We had to make our first knife cuts tray for a grade. This is something that we are going to do every day. We have to mice two shallots, mince two garlic cloves, produce a tablespoon of parsley chiffonade, make battonnets of one potato, small dice another potato, julienne another potato, make four tomato petals, one tomato concassee, make one boquet garni, one sachet d’epice, small two onions, and make 1/8th inch slices of another onion. We had an hour to do this on the first week. I got a 10.5 out of 15 on Wednesday. My cuts need some work. We will get less and less time every day as the class continues. Also on Wednesday, we had to produce one gallon of beef broth per person.

On Thursday, after group work and knife trays (12 out of 15), we made vegetable beef soup with the broth that we made the day before. My soup had good flavor, the veg was cooked perfectly, was seasoned well, and was not at all greasy on top. However, he said that my knife cuts were a little off and was a bit heavy on the pepper. We also each reduced 2 cups of chicken stock into glace de volialle. It’s cooks down slowly into about 2oz. of really flavorful liquid that can be used to fortify the flavor of other sauces and soups. Glace is really tasty and sets up like jello when it’s allowed to cool. It’s handy stuff to have around. Finally, each group made 1 gallon of chicken broth.
On Friday, I was really proud of my knife tray. I even finished a few minutes before the deadline. I turned it in and got an 11 out of 15. He said my parsley chiffonade looked like grass clippings. Boo. However, we got to do our first real cooking on Friday. We made Onion Soup. WE had to cut a bunch of extra sliced onions and then caramelized them in clarified butter. Once they were brown and the pan had developed a dark fond, we deglazed the bottom of the pan with calvados and then flambéd it. This was fun, but it was scary to have 19 other kids do it around me. I was afraid for the life of my eyebrows. When I turned in my soup and chesse-covered croutons, he generally liked it. My soup had good base flavor, the onions were cooked well, it was seasoned properly, and the crouton was the right texture. Once again, though, I put too much pepper in. Turns out, I like things kind of hot from pepper. I guess I will have to be better next time.

This weekend has been really great. Saturday night, I went to my friend Stephanie’s apartment and made dinner with her, Jen, and a guy named Andrew from our Skills class. We made some fresh pasta, a salad, steamed artichokes, and white chocolate mousse cups. It was nice cooking and cutting without being graded. I was free to add as much pepper as I see fit…