Culinary School Update: New England Clam Chowder, Hollandaise, Pound Cake & more!

So I'm gonna have to catch you guys up a bit on how school is going.  We're a little behind!

In Food Production class a couple weeks ago, we made espagnole sauce.  It is one of the 5 main "mother sauces," or sauces from which many other sauces are derived.  It is basically a brown stock to which a brown roux, tomato puree, and mirepoix are added.  We also made a New England clam chowder to practice bechamel, another mother sauce, and knife skills.  A bechamel is a roux-thickened milk or cream sauce.

New England clam chowder.

I missed baking class that week, so we're moving on.  In Food Production last week, we made tomato sauce, yet another one of the 5 main mother sauces.  Sadly, I don't have a photo of the tomato sauce.  We also made hollandaise, a 4th mother sauce, and arguably the trickiest to make. 

Made me crave eggs benedict.

We also made maple glazed carrots, to practice blanching and knife skills.

 These are batonnet, or french-fry cut.

In baking class last week, we made pound cake. 

 Chocolate swirl pound cakes, strawberry coulis, lemon glazed pound cakes.

The chocolate pound cakes were made European style, where the butter and sugar are whipped, the eggs are then added in stages, and the flavorings and dry ingredients are finally added. 

Chocolate swirl pound cakes.

We made the swirl by adding a paste of cocoa powder, sugar, and milk to half the batter, coloring it brown. We then gently folded the brown batter into the light batter, stopping after a couple of folds so the chocolate wouldn't become completely incorporated.

 A cross-section, with strawberry coulis.

The lemon pound cakes were made American style, where butter and shortening are first creamed, and dry ingredients are then added alternately with lemon juice and eggs.

Lemon-glazed pound cakes.

I preferred the slightly lighter texture of the chocolate swirl (whipped) cakes, but I think I would have like a simple glaze on them, like the lemon glaze we added to the American pound cakes. 


That should do it for the time being. Be looking forward to my new custom blog design, which should be installed in the next week or so.  I know I am!

Tim's Birthday Feast

I've got to start this post by apologizing for the annoying gap between posts! I've been super-busy this week, which is no excuse, so here is a nice long one for those of you who've been so loyally keeping up with my little blog.

 

The lineup

My buddy Tim celebrated his 25th birthday this past weekend.  Much to my dismay, I had to work Sunday night, so I was unable to join our little group of friends at Charleston Grill.  So, I promised him that our next day off together we would get together and cook a big feast. 

We didn't really have a plan for what we wanted to eat, so we shopped around until we found something we liked.  We ended up with a pork loin roast, which is kind of silly because the last time we cooked we did a pork roast too.  But, they're good, and affordable, and can feed several people at once.

We decided to rub the roast down with a paste of finely minced garlic and rosemary, salt, and pepper.

 All rubbed down.

Then, we seared it to give it a nice head start on the browning process.

  Onion bed.

So, in the oven it went, and we got started with a fun game of Apples to Apples, which always seems to get broken out when this particular group of kids gets together.  While everyone got started playing, Tim and I puttered around in the kitchen and whipped up some Caesar salads.

I love a good Caesar salad.

Tim's girlfriend, Amanda, got started on a kickass risotto, made with lots of chicken stock and wine.

 Tim was a big helper.

When we got closer to eating, we made some green beans with bacon (one of my favorite things to throw together)...

  Bacon makes everything better.

...and some carrots with chile and mint, inspired by this recipe from the March 2010 issue of Bon Appetit magazine.  We didn't roast them because the pork was roasted.  Instead, we blanched them and sauteed them with butter, mint, and crushed red pepper.

Carrots are good for you.

Finally, it was time to eat.  I'm not gonna lie, we managed to overcook the pork, because, well, you saw the wine lineup.  So we threw together a simple red wine-pan sauce-reduction-type-thing for a little moisture, and it tasted fine.  Granted, the pork could have been a little more on the medium-rare side for us foodie restaurant kids, but the taste was there.

 

 Mmm.

It was all good, but I've gotta give it to Amanda- the risotto was outstanding.  She stirred it the entire time- I don't have that kind of dedication.  But it was sooo creamy- and it didn't have a drop of cream or milk in it (one thing we forgot at the store)!

Happy birthday Timmy!

And now for the post-dinner, full-belly, wine-drunk pictures that everyone will just love that I posted:

Patrick, Cindy, Tim

Amanda, me, Brandon  

Let's not forget sweet Stella.

 She was so GOOD the whole time!

Mmmkay so that's about all I've got. Cheers to Timmy on his quarter-century!

My First Thanksgiving!

The spread

I really, really wanted to cook Thanksgiving dinner this year. I kind of toyed with the idea last Thanksgiving, but I had to work and there just wasn't time. This year I planned ahead and asked off several days, and Mom agreed to let me cook *and plan* everything.  Actually, she was pretty happy about not having to be the Thanksgiving cook for the first time in 20-ish+ years.  Of course, she was happy to help.
 

I've been looking forward to it for weeks.  I kept the menu simple, because it was just the immediate family, and well, obviously I'd never tackled Thanksgiving dinner before.  Here's the menu I ended up going with:

Sage Butter-Roasted Turkey with Cider Gravy 

Rustic Bread Stuffing with Red Mustard Greens, Currants, and Pine Nuts
Glazed Carrots with Molasses and Marjoram
Bacon and Thyme Sauteed Brussels Sprouts- didn't use a recipe here
Dinner Rolls (Um, not homemade- I'm not that ambitious) (this year)
 

*and*

Cranberry-Apple Crumble Pie

I'm not going to post every recipe because I think that would feel monotonous. Instead, I'm going to walk you through my cooking and planning process.

~ 

The day before Thanksgiving, I made the pie. 

Fall flavors

I've never really been partial to cranberry sauce, and neither has the rest of my family.  I think my mom has always felt kind of obligated to make it because it's "traditional".  I decided to get rid of it.  This recipe appealed to me because I was still able to work cranberries into the menu.  The tartness of the cranberries worked really well with the softly-sweet Gala apples.

Going into the oven

For some reason, I've messed up a few pie crusts lately, so I was a little nervous about this one.  I used lard for the first time as a substitute for shortening.  I ended up scrapping the first one I made because I thought it came together a little too quickly. The second crust acted much better though, so I went with it.  The crumble topping didn't go on until halfway through the baking process.

Coming out of the oven

The recipe was actually pretty simple, so I kept my fingers crossed that it was a keeper. I'll come back to the pie.   

~

I also got a little prep work done the day before the big dinner.  I bought the Brussels sprouts on the stalk because they were soo much prettier than the pre-bagged ones.  

Just found out recently that Brussels sprouts were members of the cabbage family.

Don't know why that surprised me.

So, I cut all the Brussels sprouts off the stalk, trimmed them, and blanched them. This way, I figured, all I would have to do for dinner would be to slice them and toss them in a saute pan with some bacon, garlic, and thyme (my favorite way of cooking them).

~

Thanksgiving day, I woke up excited and ready to cook. I started, of course, by getting the turkey ready to go into the oven.  I love sage, and apple cider makes me think of fall, so this recipe seemed perfect to me.

Sage

Mom and I thought it was strange that the recipe didn't call for anything to go into the cavity of the bird.  So, we decided to stuff it with some onion, lemon, and more sage.

My dad made the comment that there is nothing pretty about a raw turkey.

So, in the turkey went.  While it roasted, we prepped the stuffing.  It could be made a couple hours ahead of time, which was great so it could be in the pan and ready to go when the turkey came out.

Ingredients

I was excited about this recipe because I love pine nuts, and I didn't want a meaty stuffing because of the bacon in the Brussels sprouts.  I thought the greens would be a nice touch.  Alas, Mother couldn't find red mustard greens at her little Morganton grocery stores, and I went to three places here in Charleston and couldn't find them either.  What really upset me the most is that I know they had them at the farmer's market, but I couldn't get off work last Saturday morning to get them.  So, we substituted kale for the greens, and it worked out fine.  We also substituted orange zest for lemon zest because I thought it might be a nicer flavor with the currants.  I added some extra chicken stock, because it seemed a little dry and I wanted to make sure it bound together properly. 

*Meanwhile*

Basting the bird

Also, Margaret brought some nice cheese and wine from A Southern Season, where she works in Chapel Hill. God, I love that place.  We enjoyed some bubbles and cheese while we were waiting for dinner. 

 Triple cream, Gruyere, and a local goat cheese from Chapel Hill

Dad and Margaret looking skeptical

Mom and I taking a break

When it came time to take the turkey out of the oven, it got slightly hairy.  The stuffing and rolls went in, and I started sauteing the Brussels sprouts and carrots. After those were just finished, I started the gravy.  No, I don't have any pictures of the carrots.  Not sure why except that I just got a *little* busy.  So, here's a turkey picture:

Gobble gobble

 

A good one of Dad carving the turkey

Finally, we sat down and enjoyed our meal. Margaret brought several bottles of red, including a Valpollicella Ripassato, a Rioja, and a Tempranillo from Argentina. We drank them in that order, and they were all delicous.

 Oh yeah

The food turned out really well! I loved the flavor of the gravy.  The stuffing was a hit, although we all agreed I could have doubled the kale and added a bit more stock as a binder.  The flavors were right on though, I just love greens and could have had more.  The carrots were a little sweet, even though I cut back on molasses and added apple cider vinegar. I didn't really mind the sweetness, because they were kind of like a substitute for a tradidional sweet potato or yam dish (another Thanksgiving tradition no one in my family is particularly fond of).

Didn't think I would forget, did you?

I absolutely loved the pie.  Considering how easy it was, it really turned out well.  The lard made the crust nice and flaky, and the overall flavor was nicely refreshing, not cloyingly sweet like some holiday desserts. I would totally make this again.

~

So, I think that pretty much covers it! I really enjoyed myself, and of course, spending time with the family was the best part by far.