Serrated for Melons

Al let me in on a secret yesterday. Using a serrated knife makes slicing a watermelon must less painful. I think I am actually getting better at slicing the watermelon. Of course, I still have a long way to go to make my watermelon pieces perfect cubes.

Brain Dead

I feel pretty brain dead. Like my brain has been filled to capacity on culinary information and it has not had a chance to digest it. So, to help with that, Chef Matt brought two books for me to read about how science and culinary arts are intertwined. I can't wait to read them! I am going to start with Molecular Gastronomy first.

Vinegar Duck + Salty Chocolate Pudding = Disgusting

Today Chef Lipford asked us to bring in a duck recipe. I grabbed a really simply one for Duck with chocolate: Anatra al Ciccolato off of the Food Network because we have all the ingredients on hand. I've copied and pasted the recipe at the end of this post. Chef broke us into new groups and at first the recipe seemed to be promising, the duck looked good, the mirepoix looked good and then...we added 3/4 quart of vinegar instead of 3/4 cup of vinegar. It was all downhill from there. In the attempts to fix the duck, I found that vinegar can be leached out of the duck by cooking it in a stock. I also found that after three hours of boiling a duck and trying to fix it, it becomes really dry and tough. In trying to fix the sauce, I ended up creating a salty chocolate pudding that was completely unpalatable. Better luck (or should I say duck) next time.

Here's the recipe:
Ingredients
1 (3-pound) duck, cut into 8 pieces
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 tablespoon pine nuts, un-toasted
3 cloves
1 tablespoon golden raisins
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/4 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened chocolate, chopped fine
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
Chopped parsley leaves, red pepper flakes, extra-virgin olive oil, for garnish
Directions
Heat a 12 to 14-inch saucepan over medium heat. When the pan is hot, add the duck pieces, skin side down. The duck skin will provide more than enough fat for browning without adding excess oil. Cook, occasionally pouring excess fat off carefully, until golden brown, about 8 minutes per side.

Meanwhile, in medium-sized saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Add the onion, celery, and carrot, and saute over medium heat until softened, about 12 minutes. Add the fennel seeds, pine nuts, cloves, raisins, bay leaves, flour and 1/2 cup vinegar and continue cooking for 2 minutes. Add duck pieces and 1/4 cup vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover and lower the heat. Braise over low heat until the sauce is thick, about 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the cloves.

Remove the duck to a large plate and spoon vegetables over.

Stir the chocolate and sugar into the cooking liquid. Serve sauce with the duck and garnish with chopped parsley, red pepper flakes and a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

CHICKEN! BWAK BWAK!

I learned how to debone (read mutilate) a chicken today. After I hacked up the breast and leg, I let the other people in my group give it a go. The key point that was reinforced today was LET THE KNIFE DO THE WORK. Just let the knife coast around the bone and the joints and then cut into the soft joint. Kevin and I also made the chicken fricasse and unfortunately our sauce separated. Chef Lipford reminded me that the cream has to be heated before adding it to a mixture.

Since Marta and I cleaned the spice rack yesterday, I had a pretty good idea of the ingredients and spices we have available for experimenting. Koren and I came up with an idea of slicing eggplant really thin and threading julienned peppers through it. It worked for the most part until I realized I could have saved myself so much time by using a mandolin. We coated the duo in a batter made from pancake mix, panko crumbs, wasabi powder and some garlic and onion powder. Then we fried it in canola oil. It was delicious! I usually don't like eggplant, but my this was divine. MMM!

Chop't

Inspired by a customer's request to make his salad chopped up like baby food (or he requested like Chop't), I decided to go to Chop't today after a study session at school. Ahh the evilness of Cosi and Chop't right across the street, just waiting to take my money away from me. So, I got in line and paid almost $9.00 for a "chop't po'boy," which included home-fried chicken, tomato, red onions and white cheddar cheese chop’t with romaine lettuce. So apparently, they just take all the ingredients of a salad and chop them together, similar to Cold Stone Creamery, but for salads. I probably won't go back unless it's with a group of people.

After spending the last couple of weeks in confusion about how to properly sharpen a knife, I woke up this morning and watched a video on About.com on how to sharpen a knife with a whetstone. So, I did and my knife was so sharp that I was able to cut through a blueberry without squishing it. The use of the butterfly clip really helped.

This is the end of week two at the W Hotel and my first week at the Terrace. I like working up there infinitely better. I feel like I am learning and inspired to get better and faster. I cut another watermelon today with a bit more luck and I got to try the seabass coated in a mint-basil batter today. Delicious! There were a couple of times that I got overwhelmed today, but I think I kept up alright.

I went (rushed) to the culinary club today after work. Since I was one of four students in the room, I am now the co-president of the culinary club. We will be hosting a cup cake competition to raise money and awareness for the club. I'll be looking into nearby butchers to help set up a field trip.

Floor R

This morning, I started my first day on the roof. I did a quick tour of the upstairs and got to see The White House and waved to the snipers. Working upstairs and during the day seems far less intense than downstairs in the steakhouse. I now cook for POV Roof Terrace. Here's a link to a review of the place: Washington Post Review.
In addition to garde manger, I also cook hot appetizers (Read: Ding. Fries are done).

Martha's Vineyard, I mean Marta's Garden

We went to Marta's garden today and her husband talked to us about The Growing Connection. It is a global network of a type of garden that uses minimal resources and can be grown just about anywhere. Their particular garden was organic. Here's some cherry tomatoes on the vine. Beautiful color:

Here's some of the loot:

The results? A mozzarella basil tomato salad, pasta with pesto and pasta with stir fried vegetables. It was fresh, wholesome and delicious!

In the Food Safety and Sanitation class, Chef Fleckinstein recommended Taylor brand digital thermometers. He also noted that the Lexington Fisherman's Wharf at New York had very high sanitation standards.

Today was my first day team leading. Items that a team leader need to check for:
- Uniforms
- Mise en place
- Recipe cards
- Understand vocab
- Do demonstration of new concepts

Our team had to make all six soup recipes in one day rather than spread it out over the course of two days because tomorrow we are going to Marta's home to see her garden. It was slight chaos today, but we finished out our soups. I made the clam chowder and the cream of broccoli soup with Sterling. Our product turned out really well. Sterling wanted to add more salt to the cream of broccoli, but instead we added chicken base per Chef Lipford's suggestion. It tasted much better because it had more flavor, but was not too salty.

Several of my classmates are extraordinarily interested in molecular gastronomy. The Big Fat Duck Cookbook was brought up as an excellent cookbook for molecular gastronomists.

We made Bechemel and Veloute today. We learned that Bechemel must be strained to get rid of the specks. A watery Veloute can be fixed by adding more roux. The butter that we used was not clarified very well and had residual scum. It did not make a large difference when making an opaque sauce.

Ben's Chili Bowl

Audrey and I headed over to the famous Ben's Chili Bowl in Dupont Circle. The chili cheese dog I ordered was delicious! MMM...They had a sign posted that I thought was amusing:

People who eat here for free:
Bill Cosby
The Obama Family (but he paid)

Marta shared with the class that her husband works for the UN created an organic garden that can grow with limited resources. We will be planning a field trip out to the garden that is part of The Growing Connection.

Chef Lipford asked Ty and Jonathan to make a hollandaise sauce for the the class to observe. It was a pale yellow and seemed to be very acidic.

I asked the chef what pointers he had for someone like me, with zero experience to get a job with in the restaurant industry. He basically told me to show enthusiasm and passion for the field. Volunteering is another great way to gain experience, Martha's Table was brought up as a good place to volunteer.

Art and Soul was brought up as a restaurant to try, the owner was a personal chef for Oprah and recently competed on Top Chef: Masters. The Little Inn at Washington was also brought up as a nice classic restaurant to try.

Online Journal Entries

As part of my skills class, we are required to keep a journal and I thought that it would be pretty fun to post the journal as a blog.