The heat is on...

... and I am starting to feel it.
Week one of Culinary Foundations II and we immersed ourselves deeply in the study and preparation of stocks and sauces.
The French word for stock is 'fond' and it's literal English translation is foundation. These days the making of a stock from scratch is not as common anymore in a professional or home kitchen as it used to be 50-60 years ago. The making of, and tending to, a pot of simmering stock involves a lot of time and effort, considering that beef stock, for example, should be simmered for 8-10 hrs and that the liquid needs to be skimmed off on a regular basis to remove impurities (fats & coagulated protein) that collect at the surface. As far as home cooking is concerned, I have yet to hear one of my friends tell me that they "made veal or beef stock over the weekend". Chicken stock, yes, probably, vegetable stock, perhaps. But even preparing fish stock is not really part of the general repertoire of today's home cook. Who keeps fish bones in the freezer, just in case a recipe requires 2 oz of fish stock? It is far easier for all of us to buy a packet of cubed concentrated bases at the supermarket that can than be readily added to any sauce recipe as required.

Sauce Robert

Until now I certainly always have had cubes of vegan vegetable bouillon at home that I use whenever necessary. Having said that, I might change my mind though; a good stock is the best foundation for a fabulously tasting sauce and I certainly experienced that more than once this week. It was a kind of revelation to me to be honest since I am not a 'sauce person'. I usually decline any sauce or gravy served with roast turkey, beef chicken etc. But perhaps that's exactly why; a sauce extraordinaire is hard to find these days.

The first two days of the week were all about veal stock, chicken stock and fish stock, the latter part of the week was dedicated to making the sauces. As I already alluded to in one of my previous posts, there are five leading (mother) sauces from which all finished sauces are derived. Two of those leading sauces are based on the stocks described above, one is a tomato based sauce, one is based on milk and the other is based on butter.

Cauliflower & Cheese

The leading sauce based on milk is Béchamel which is the basis for a cheese sauce as used in a Mac&Cheese dish, for example. As I wanted to get away from the heavy starches this week, I actually substituted the pasta and prepared Cauliflower&Cheese one night. It's something I grew up with in Germany and I'd forgotten how much I used to like it. Very tasty with a good texture if you don't overcook the cauliflower and a lot lighter than Mac&Cheese.

The leading sauce based on butter, clarified butter to be correct, is Hollandaise. And as reported previously, this is quite a tricky sauce to make. I have to say the preparation of it put a damper on my excitement this week; I struggled with it. Again. At class and at home. I can't say that I don't learn every time from it, but it is frustrating, particularly since I have to prepare it as part of my first practical test this coming Tuesday. So, I will keep you updated on this issue. No picture either. Who want's to see a broken Hollandaise? You do? To learn from my mistakes? Well, okay than as a reminder, have a look at the post from Jan 27th. As I remember, I already struggled there with the same sauce. Although with hindsight and looking at the picture I labelled 'broken Hollandaise', I am not sure if the sauce is really broken or just too cold and hence not as viscous. However tricky it's temperature profile is, Hollandaise is a warm sauce and should be served as such. There is a very fine balance to be kept between too cold and too warm. Too cold and it rather looks like mayonnaise, because the clarified butter starts to solidify; too warm and the egg cooks and than the emulsion breaks and the fat and egg separate.
Okay, below is a picture of my mishaps.

Hollandaise, egg & fat have separated

Spanish tomato sauce

As for the tomato based sauce, we prepared it a little differently than I would usually do. We used cubes of salted pork to sweat the vegetables, and it was really good. Now, I appreciate that if you like your tomato sauce to be vegetarian, than this is not an option but if you don't mind pork you might want to try it, perhaps. You won't eat the salt pork because it get's strained out and you can discard the fat before you add the tomato to your sweated vegetables. But it really makes a difference to the flavor profile. Will I use it all the time from now on? No, probably not but as a special treat now and then definitely. The reason why the version we made is called Spanish tomato sauce is not the salt pork (that is typically French), it is the addition of garlic, green bell peppers, mushrooms and hot sauce.

But the highlight of my week at school were the French sauces made from the stocks we've prepared. I rarely eat these classic sauces because the quality can vary greatly and, until this week, I had yet to try a really good one. But here they were and we had produced them ourselves. What a joy! We prepared two sauces which were both based on brown veal stock - sauce Robert and sauce Chasseur. I won't bore you with the details of preparing the stock and the leading sauce to be able to prepare the final sauces, it is just sufficient to say the effort was worthwhile. The complexity of the flavor is amazing, nothing really that one can create with prepared stock cubes. I don't really know how to describe it, I am afraid. All I can say that, should you ever dine at an upscale French Restaurant take notice of the sauces and hopefully they will be as good as the ones I was lucky to prepare and taste this week.

Sauce Chasseur ('the hunter')

Stay safe and check in again next week to read more of my kitchen adventures. ... And hopefully a happy ending to my sauce Hollandaise story.
Happy cooking everyone.

P.S. By the way, guess what we will be having for dinner tonight. Chicken with sauce Chasseur. I can't wait.

Cooking without power

I am sitting her, looking out of my window watching the second severe snow storm within a week and I am wondering whether the power will go out again.
Yes, that's right.  I apologize for not writing and uploading a blog last Sunday; we had no power for 4 days. Blizzard Nemo forced us to get back to the basics of life; burning logs to keep warm (or at least trying too), cooking on the gas stove top only and arranging one's timetable to the natural daylight hours. We had quite an adventurous time; one I wouldn't want to live through again so soon. It's not that we weren't prepared, we just didn't think it would last 4 days. The temperature in parts of the house actually dropped close to freezing. We are lucky none of our water pipes froze.


The fun part for me was to see how I can make the most of the food that was left in the refrigerator and freezer. And so we had big breakfasts, simple freezer dinners and lots of cake, which I had baked before the storm in anticipation of a possible power outage. I am amazed how many carbohydrates we ate and still felt hungry all the time.  Our bodies really needed the fuel to be able to keep us from shivering.

As an acquaintance said "We went out to shovel snow just to stay warm."
We had 20 inches on the driveway, so that kept us plenty warm. As for keeping the food safe, the garage became our refrigerator and the snow drifts on the upstairs balcony our freezer space.

 The only other place to escape the cold was of course my culinary school and I relished the time spent in the warm. We completed our first 6-week module this week and I am proud to say, I finished with straight A's and a 100% attendance record, despite the snow. But unfortunately, it was less actual cooking this week and more revision for the final exams; a written one on Thursday and a second Knife Skill's Test on Friday. I can't believe it's already six weeks since I first got up at 4 am to go to school and I am really looking forward to start Culinary Foundations II on Monday. This is where the cooking starts; less demos by the Chef Instructors and more cooking by us, the students.

So, keep tuned in. I promise that next week I will tell you more kitchen stories.
... If we have power, that is.
Keep save and stay warm wherever you are.

Patience my dear, patience

It's already Monday and I apologize for being late with this week's blog. I hope you haven't been too impatiently waiting for me. I know, I have had my patience tested last week more than once. Let me say though, it's been to the benefit of my cooking.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, we have finally started to cook and after my first knife skill practical last Monday (see photo left), this week it's been all about different cooking method's, les cuissons as it is called in French.
I had to learn that some of those techniques really require more time and patience than I have appreciated until now. I've learned that I can listen, smell, observe, and touch (within limits of course) the food and it will tell me exactly when I can add the next ingredient or move on to the next step in the recipe. It's quite simple really but once I understood it ... oh so liberating. I admit, I have never been the best follower of a recipe, I like to make the recipe my own by 'tweaking it'. Depending on what I have in the fridge or how much time I have or even how confident I am on the day, that my version of the recipe will be better than the original. I know so far it's probably been a bit of an arrogant, or perhaps adventurous, assumption that I can improve on a previously tried & tested recipe, but in my defense, on most occasions the food turned out well. I guess the emphasis is on most occasions. Deep in the back of my mind, I always felt that there may have been a portion of luck involved. Now though, that I am learning the basics it will be luck no more, but pure knowledge! And hopefully that will someday turn into valuable experience, and then I'll be able to confidently read recipes, ignore them totally, and still turn out amazing food. Sounds good? Well, it sounds very good to me.
To give you an example, by looking in a pan I have always been able to differentiate between boiling water or simmering water. Big bubbles vs little bubbles, right?? Right. Subconsciously, I probably have been distinguishing the difference between boiling and simmering water by listening to it as well. The nice thing is, the same principle is applicable to every cooking method.
So, based om my culinary textbook, to sear is 'to brown the surface of a food quickly at a high temperature'. That means the fat should be almost smoking before you add the meat; the sizzling in the pan after you've added the meat should be an 'angry' one and you should see the meat concentrating i.e. shrinking a little. If the meat releases water or it's juices and it starts 'bubbling' i.e. cooking in it, the pan isn't hot enough. You won't be able to brown the meat until all the water has evaporated and the meat itself will become tough and dry. Next, don't move the meat until it is ready, that means don't tear it off the bottom of the pan. The meat will, for lack of  a better phrase, 'release itself from the pan' and you will be able to turn it easily without tearing it off the bottom of the pan.
The contrasting cooking method to searing would probably be sweating. For example, to quote the same culinary textbook, to sweat vegetables means 'to cook them slowly in fat without browning, sometimes under a cover'. This means that, before adding vegetables, the fat should not be smoking, but a drop of water should just gently 'dance' on the surface of the fat. After adding the vegetables you should have a slight, almost 'harmonious' sizzle, not an angry one. There should be no browning of the vegetables, but they should turn translucent. And here you should also be able to smell the aroma that the vegetables are releasing during this process. Only when you can smell the aroma of the vegetables should you move on to the next step. Otherwise, whatever flavor profile you are trying to build will not be happening.
And coming back to the title of this week's blog, the release of the seared, browned meat from the pan as well as the sweating of vegetables without browning will take time. Sure, the cooking times will be different but both cooking methods require patience so as not to destroy the texture of the food, and to ensure release of the flavor of the food while cooking it.

I hope these explanations of different cooking methods make sense to you. Unfortunately it is difficult for me to show you those techniques in pictures but I included a picture off my Beef Goulash which I cooked last Saturday, taking all of the above into consideration. It tasted great and I only needed half the usual herbs and spices to create a really good flavor profile. So, perhaps now you'll be sufficiently intrigued to more closely listen, smell, observe and touch the food you cook. I certainly have.

On a slightly different note, I have had a lot of feedback from you regarding posting any comments on this blog. I am sorry to tell you that I think you currently need to have a gmail account to be able to post comments. I am hoping to be able to change that, but have not found a way yet if or how it is possible. Please do not hesitate to contact me on my gmail account: h.ashcroft.13@gmail.com with any comments and feedback regarding this blog. Please be patient with me; here too I am still learning. 
Have a nice week and I will have more stories to tell next week.

It's getting hot and saucy in the kitchen

No, no. Don't worry. The subject of my blog hasn't changed to something more x-rated. Although, it's been quite a saucy week. :-)

Let me explain; it is getting hot in the kitchen, because this week, week 3, we finally turned on the stove in class. We are actually starting to cook. Hurrah. Why saucy? Well, it's been all about sauces. We've been talking about and cooking the five leading sauces, also known as 'Mother Sauces', and some of the small sauces derived from them. What I mean by that, is that the leading sauces are rarely used as sauces by themselves but by are forming bases for other sauces. To give you an example, let me start with Tuesday night's dinner where I made a Bechemel sauce (leading sauce) and turned it into a Mornay sauce (small sauce) by adding grated Gruyere and Parmesan cheese. Finished product - a lovely cheese sauce for Mac&Cheese.

broken sauce Hollandaise

perfect sauce Hollandaise

There are obviously, as with everything, exceptions to this rule and one such exception is sauce Hollandaise. It's a lovely rich but light egg and butter based emulsion that is quite tricky to make but rewarding to eat. Hollandaise needs practice because timing and temperature are crucial to create a coherent emulsion out of two things which don't naturally want to combine egg & butter. I have to admit, that I broke the sauce in my first two attempts for Wednesday night's dinner and in the end gave up and defrosted something else out of the freezer to make it a complete meal. When I talk about 'breaking' the sauce, it means that the egg and the fat (in this case clarified butter) separate and do not form the desired emulsion to create the light fluffy sauce. I've added a couple of pictures to show the difference. We did a failure analysis Thursday morning in class and it indeed helped me to identify where I made the mistake the night before. And I am proud to say, last night, at first attempt, we enjoyed my home-made Hollandaise with steak. If you don't like the combination with steak, try it with cauliflower or asparagus, particularly white asparagus. That's how I remember it from my childhood in Germany.

The night before last, I prepared some tomato sauce and served it over pasta with seafood. Making my own tomato sauce is nothing new for me; I prefer it to the store bought ones. But what was new for me is that this time, I used a food mill to puree the sauce and, I must say I found the texture to be superior to anything I previously pureed in the food processor and/or with the stick blender. I am still learning to appropriately describing the texture and taste of food, so all I can say is the sauce was 'yummy'; rich & thick from the fiber of the tomatoes but smooth and velvety because it had been treated much more gently. I hope that explanation makes sense to you as you read it. If not, treat yourselves to a food mill and try it.


The timing to experiment with all those sauces could not have been more perfect for this week. The temperatures outside have been extremely cold, and having these rich comforting dinners all week long has been ideal for the weather and, of course, it didn't do us any harm to eat a few more calories than usual. I am sure we needed them just for walking the dogs.

A beautiful lemon cut - Dent de Loup (Wolves teeth)

In addition to cooking sauces, I have also been busy practicing my knife skills throughout the week to be fit for tomorrow's first practical knife skills test.
The biggest challenge for me has been and still is to judge the sizes of the cuts correctly, for example a standard Pont Neuf cut for potatoes is 1/2"x 1/2"x 2 1/2". By the way, for me and you, a Pont Neuf potato cut is usually called a potato steak fry cut. Posh French name for something very down to earth but very nice. I love potato fries, particularly with mayonnaise. Something the German in me treasures very much, unlike the English tradition of eating fries with vinegar. Sorry, but  I've never been able to understand that combination. Very lucky for me though that in addition to making sauces in class we also produced lovely homemade mayonnaise. And if you never had it before, believe me when I tell you it's worth the extra effort. It's so much nicer and flavorsome than the store bought version. And of course, you can season it to your taste. I, for example prefer more lemon juice than vinegar in mine.

I hate to sound repetitive, but I have to get back to practicing my vegetable cuts. Only practice makes perfect, right? And guess what we will be having for dinner tonight. Vegetable soup pureed through my lovely new food mill. I will let you know how it turned out next week.

a new year, a new beginning

It's 2013 and it is going to be an exciting year. I am finally realizing one of my dreams, going to Culinary School. Now I know a lot of you might think what a stupid idea. I am not 20 anymore or 30 for that matter and I have no illusion about the fact that I will never be a 5star chef or restaurateur. A) I am probably a little old for that to start off with and B) it is not my desire to chase any Michelin star. I want to cook, I want to cook extremely well, nutritious, comforting, soul food for my family and friends, catering clients and guests in our future B&B. I want to show people that cooking is simple and enjoyable, and that preparing home-cooked food does not need to be an arduous task.

But, as with all new adventures and before starting culinary school last Monday, nerves were starting to set in and I started to wonder whether my new blog should be called 'drawn to the flame'. Will I find myself drawn to the professional cooking stove as I've been imagining it over the last couple of years  or will I be flying to close to the flame and burn like a moth? Well, I've completed weeks 1 and 2 without running for the hills and all I can say is 'wow'. I am loving it and I know I am at the right place.

Me

It's been a fascinating two week and a total change of pace. Let's start with the 4 am wake-up call; the 5 am drive to school and the 6 am role-call and line-up at the beginning of each day. It's a military style boot camp routine, believe me. One minute too late and I lose points for my final course grade. If I am not wearing a perfectly starched, ironed and complete uniform I lose points for my final course grade. The complete uniform doesn't just include the famous chef jacket but also a cravat which I had to learn how to tie, a fully starched and clean apron, two kitchen towels, a beanie, which is the rather less flattering hat for culinary students, as well as the checkered pants. In addition to that one is not allowed to wear perfume, make-up or jewelry and has to have extremely short finger nails. Ouch, all of this is hard getting used to for a woman; but at 6 am in the morning it is extremely tough. At least for the first week. Week two was easier. And at the weekend I am overcompensating with extra perfume and lots of jewelry.

Having said all that, I totally understand it's purpose. Professionalism, discipline, hygiene and food safety as well as teamwork and respect for the kitchen hierarchy are all vital to make a busy professional kitchen successful and work like clockwork. By the way, today's typical kitchen hierarchy system was actually established by Georges-Auguste Escoffier, who is by most chefs considered one of the most important French chefs of the 20th century. He introduced the 'Brigade System' which was modeled on his military experience. Hence my daily 6 am line-up. And of course, all this is what every respectable culinary school should teach you first if you are to be successful in your job.

The rest of the days during week 1 at the school went by fast with much new knowledge needing to be being crammed into my head. Not an easy task, believe me. And since most of classic culinary prep & cooking foundation techniques come from France, the terminology is, of course, French. Now as some of you may know, I am not much of a French language speaker and never really aspired to be despite Germany and France being close neighbors and me working for a French company for years. I guess this time though there is no way to avoid it and I  don't think Rosetta Stone for aspiring chefs exists yet. Niche market opportunity? Anyway for me it will have to be the old and trusted method of index cards and phonetic pronunciation and the help of my husband. 
And then there is, of course as part of my first module, the all important Food Safety and Sanitation course teaching details of running a food-safe and clean kitchen such as appropriate temperature controlled food storage (hot or cold), staff hygiene, cleaning routines etc, which are defining the basic standard of any restaurant kitchen. ...Or so I thought. Boy, was I wrong. Last week and by chance, I caught a couple of episodes of Robert Irvine's program of 'Restaurant Impossible' on the Food Network and I have never been more disgusted and appalled by the ignorance of these restaurant owners profiled about our (the customer's) health and safety. And where are the Health & Safety Inspectors, who are supposed to be inspecting and perhaps shutting down those restaurants? It's beyond the scope of my blog to tell you the stories of the episodes I saw but all I can say is that it certainly will make me look more closely of where I will eat out in the future.

Week 2 got a lot more exiting at school. We received our knife kit and are allowed to chop. Anything and everything; edible that is! :-) Practise and more practise is what will make me perfect. I am chopping all sorts of vegetables, we are having mash potatoes twice a week and will be having a lot more vegetable soups in the near future. All in the name of evenly cut Juliennes, Batonnets, Brunoise, ....

Mise en place with various potato cuts

Onions - Ciseler cut

Onions - Emincer cut

I am even cutting dog treats with a ruler these days. The dogs never had so evenly cut pieces; no more preferential treatment between them anymore.
By the way, I've got to go. I need to cut vegetables for dinner. Watch this space, I am planning to write weekly to inform you about my progress. If I can get away from the kitchen, that is.