Techniques of Fine Cooking 1, Day 1

Techniques learned:
Knife skills, blanching and refreshing vegetables, sauteing, theory of protein cooking, simple salads, vinaigrette, compound butters and macerating

Menu:

• Spicy Vegetable Soup

• Sauteed Lamb Chops with Herb Butter
• Sauteed Broccoli
• Diced Sauteed Potatoes with Persillade
• Simple Salad

• Oranges and Berries Macerated with Gran Marnier

Lexicon:

brunoise - Literally "of brown," an 1/8 inch cube. (We cut our potatoes into brunoise in class today)

blanching - When I think of blanching I imagine dropping string beans into boiling water then "shocking" them with cold water to keep the bright green color (like Rachael Ray does). While this is the way you would blanch leafy/green vegetables, I was surprised to learn that you blanch root vegetables a bit differently. You start the root vegetable in cold water, then bring it to a boil, and "shock" with cold water once the water has reached a full boil.

shocking - stopping the cooking process (with cold water).

persillade - a combo of parsley and garlic (crushed to a paste). Yummm. Persillade is a finishing agent - we used it today for our diced, sauteed potatoes.

sautee- literally "to jump." To sautee: heat pan first, then lubricate and immediately put in product. Product contracts and lifts (and therefore shouldn't stick to the pan if you did it right).

sear - to cook on the outside and leave uncooked on inside

compound butter - unsalted butter that you can add fun ingredients to (i.e. herbs, citrus, mustard), mix it and shape into a log. We did a parsley-lemon compound butter in class. I'm dying to try a wasabi compound butter - I think it would be delish on salmon!

emulsify - to blend...we emulsified vinaigrette in class.

supreme - literally "best of" or "off the frame." Supreming an orange is to remove the segments from the membrane.

macerate - When I heard we were going to be macerating fruit, I couldn't help but picture a bloody raspberry or a slayed banana. Richard asked someone in our class if he was late because he was "macerating." Not a nice word, but its actually a really great technique to bring out the sweetness in fruit (without the end result turning out too cloying). Macerate literally means "exchange of flavor." To macerate you add sugar and liquid (we used Gran Marnier with our oranges).

Things to Start Your Life With (According to Richard):

1) 3 knives
-an 8-10 inch chefs knife
-3 1/2 inch paring knife
-10 inch bread/pastry knife

2) A steel

3) Cutting boards
-wood (for veggies and fruit)
-plastic (for protiens... because plastic is easier to clean)

4) Pots and Pans
-8-10 inch sautee pan
-1 1/2 quart saucepan
-6-8 quart saucepan
-a wok

How do you think my kitchen supplies match up?


Richard said he prefers knife holsters or strips rather than blocks like mine because they are harder to clean. Not to worry if you have a block like this! Just rinse out with distilled vinegar every so often!


I think I have all the essential knives!


My pegboard wall for pots, pans and kitchen utensils a la Julia Child!



I was actually pretty impressed with myself...I have almost everything but a 6-8 quart saucepan and a wok. Not bad for a 50 sq. ft. NYC kitchen!


Top 5 Lessons I Learned Today:

1) When sauteing, heat the pan first then add oil. Once you've added oil you have committed to putting in your product. Put it in immediately! I've been doing this incorrectly forever-letting the oil and pot heat up together and waiting for who knows what until I put the product in. Yikes! It's going to take some work to correct my bad habit.

2) If you are using garlic raw, make it into a paste. If you are cooking garlic it doesn't need to be a paste (can be minced, sliced, whatever!)

3) How to test doneness:
rare - touch your lip, the meat should feel like that
medium - touch the skin between your thumb and forefinger, the meat should feel like this
well done- touch your nose, meat should be this texture

4) Kosher salt vs. regular Morton's salt
There's no difference! You can "feel" Kosher salt better and television chefs like it because their audiences can see it on camera. I was duped into thinking Kosher salt was superior up until now!

5) When blanching, Richard's rule is:
Vegetables you can eat raw, put in cold water then bring to a boil.
Vegetables you can't eat raw, drop into boiling water.


Cooking SAT Question of the Day:
BOIL : BLANCH ::
(a) sear : saute
(b) emulsify : vinaigrette
(c) supreme : macerate
(d) compound : butter

ANSWER: (a)

Quote of the Day:
"A sharp knife works for you, a dull knife you have to work"

What Not to Do:
DON'T cut your finger on the first day, otherwise you will be subject to wearing this humiliating contraption for the next four days of class. Sorry Melissa :(


Day 1 in Photos:
(Wasn't quite comfortable in the class yet, so only took a few today! I promise more tomorrow)


Artistic shot of the soup


Lamb Chops that are resting after they have been seared