Shrimp Bisque

My Chefs in Le'Cole are teaching me many dishes which I never tried and also  never heard about. One example is Shrimp Bisque. According to our On Cooking book, bisques are not either clear nor thick soups because their preparation uses a combination of cooking methods. We say "bisque" about shellfish soup which is enriched with pureeing mirepoix and shells, adding cream and butter, and garnishing with appropriate shellfish. At the Le'Cole lab we cooked Shrimp bisque, and it was an amazing process. A lot of ingredients, complicated procedure and wonderful result waited for us in this lab. I've not tried this dish in any restaurant but I really liked what we did.

Frech Onion Soup

A couple times in my life, I tried French Onion soup in a restaurant, and it wasn't a good experience.  Then I decided that French Onion Soup is not a delicious dish.  In one of my Le'Cole classes we cooked this soup, and I realized that this dish is very delicious.  I just never had a properly prepared soup when I tried it.  It is really important not to burn the onion while making it very caramelized.  To catch the taste of french fried onion without blackened bits is a goal. Our Chef helped us to reach this goal as successfully as possible, and we made it.

Manhattan Clam Chowder

We've made this beautiful soup twice for the last couple weeks and I believe that the second time progress was shown, because our grades became higher. There is the improved version which we cooked for our midterm exam in the picture.

Manhattan Clam Chowder is the thick but not creamy soup. The bright red color of this soup comes from the tomato base. Our recipe included a pretty big amount of ketchup, but our Chef  helped us to figure out that too a sweet taste of ketchup can be offset by regular tomato paste. Little bit sour because of tomato acid, the soup had a distinctive clam flavor

Now a little bit about my cooking experiments. This year I tried for the first time fried plantain and I love it!  Of course I tried to cook it at home and my experiments were not bad.  Twice fried tostones with fried vegetables and "Vegenaise" sauce was full of flavor and had the same texture that I experienced in Puerto Rico.  I was really happy that I could repeat this dish at home.  

Stuffed fried plantain with guacamole on the side was very good also.  

"Mise en place"

In fact, this strange and unfamiliar French phrase "mise en place" means a very simple process which is familiar for anybody using a kitchen at home. For example, I try to keep most useful utensils as well as salt, pepper, oil, etc. just next to the stove. There is a sample of  casual home mise en place, which means to put everything you'll need for your cooking process on the place.

When I cook something particular, it is easier for me to have everything needed before I start cooking.

Then, it is more likely to have the desired result soon:

 Now you can see that up-scale restaurant's elements exist in every house. In other hand, nobody in your house depends on your cooking except your own, so you can cook your crab salad as long as you wish. The different situation is in a restaurant kitchen. Many cooks, many stoves and tables, and limited time for cooking requires everybody to follow strictly all principles of mise en place. Only a consciously organized operation can guaranty order in the hottest spot in a restaurant and keep guests by serving delicious food on time.

Creamy yummy soups

This week I became familiar with American style soups such as Cream of Broccoli and Cream of Mushroom Soup. I've not tried them before, especially since, I've never cooked them. Probably, I was the most curious person on this lab because, honestly, I had no idea which consistency those soups have to be and how they are supposed to look when finished. It is an interesting idea to put in a liquid soup roux, fried flour with butter, which makes the soup thicker and even gives some flavor, especially, if roux was fried to a darker color. By the way, it can have different names with different colors: white, blonde, and brown roux. I just wonder who and when developed this addition to the soup. If you know who, can you tell me?  I worked mostly on Cream of Mushrooms soup, but watched with curiosity the process of cooking Cream of Broccoli, too. In the end, our team presented two hot tasty dishes. The Chef noted that they were too thick, but had a rich flavor and good taste.

Off course, I'm going to learn how to make these creamy yummy dishes properly, and I'm glad to do my best in cooking these soups and many others, but my favorite forever is those I rose with, and this is Ukrainian Borsch.

First edible dishes at school

During the first weeks in the L'Ecole school we already produced stocks and cooked dishes. Even though stocks are full of the rich smell mix and they look like melted gold, they are not really edible because no salt is added. Making stocks is more about Miss en Place (I'll talk about it in next post)  than about exactly cooking some dish. However, we cooked finished dishes as well. My first experience with cooking the own dish in the L'Ecole lab (in fact, the kitchen for students is the laboratory) wasn't delicious at all. Our Chef told us to cook chicken, but I misunderstood that it was our own project and didn't matter in which way we would cook it. I started cooking in unusual for myself way, on the grill; then, when I figured out the actual task, I thought it was to late for changing, and I became nervous. As a result, I had a tough dry peace of chicken breast. I tried to fix it with melted verb batter and nice presentation, but it didn't add moister to my chicken. My findings include: to listen to people more carefully, to ask twice if I need to, to be faster in making decisions, to be calm and concentrate in the kitchen because my future depends on it. Below, it is not my chicken, and mine was much  worse but I was too upset to make picture of it. 

The next time, when we cooked from the products on the table, I was much more successful. My rice  was fully cooked and tender but not mushy or dry; fried mushrooms with consomme gave my dish a sweet and distinctive flavor. I would like more sauce in this dish and the salt wasn't enough, probably. 

For me, really unexpected dish was ratatouille. I had no idea what is behind this name and was surprised a lot to find that famous French name is hiding casual Ukrainian dish from eggplants and zucchini called "eckra". The smell of summer and taste of homeland expected for me in L'Ecole Culinary School's laboratory. It was amazing.

I found important information about the team work and the presentation in those class. It is really cool to cook in the team, and trust and respect make team work efficient and successful. Also, our Chef showed us the best way to garnish ratatouille with fresh basil to accent its flavor (second picture).  

Chopping or dicing:)

At least ones in life most people have seen on TV or in real how a professional cook works and were impressed by something particular in this show. When I was seeing a real professional Chef  the first time in my life, I couldn't pull my eyes off  the knife in the Chef's hands. It was an independent magical tool that cut vegetables for the salad by itself, and the cook just watched this process. At least, this was how I've seen it because I was absolutely sure that to move hands so speedy and accurately is impossible. Then, I tried to repeat those action at home and cut my fingers badly. Those time I quite my attempts and continued to work with а knife as I could. However, new phase of this story started in the first week of my studying at L'Ecole. Of course, I can only dream about acquiring speed which I've seen, but my Chefs in the school are going to teach me accuracy in my skills. Cuts have names, and they are French names because most of terms in the professional cuisine exactly French or came from this delicious language of love. For example, Julienne is a fine long cut used for garnish, salads, or mirepoix. Small, medium, and large dice also can be used for different purposes in the cooking process. In the pictures bellow are shown norms of cutting and my first results.

Finally, I clearly understand what the difference is between dicing, chopping, slicing, and cutting. All of these are cutting. Dicing is cutting in cubs; slicing is cutting in thin peaces; chopping is cutting without actual forms. Don't laugh if it is obvious for you because it was very confusing information for me as a foreign person, and I'm happy that it is clear now. 

There is my yummy for now. While I was completing my Journal, my dear husband cooked for me the colorful and delicious dish. The baked cod covered with piquant jalapeno sauce and accompanied with fried sweet potato looks yummy and I'm going to take a brake.

Stocks

As my readers can see, to know rules and equipment of any new area where we come is the first important thing. Then, our Chef introduced us to basic dishes which are supposed to be prepared in advance in any kitchen to simplify the cooking process. I am talking about stocks. Stocks are made from different types of meat and vegetables (chicken stock, veal stock, beef stock, vegetable stock, etc) and using different technologies of cooking (brown and white stocks)
 Any prepared stock has a rich golden or red-brown color and a distinctive full flavor which defines the main ingredient of it. In the school kitchen, the first time in my life, I've seen such big steam kettles for making stocks with simmering bright fragrant liquid, and I was impressed. By the way, the prepared hot stock must be cooled to 41*F within 6 hours; if not, it must be thrown out. Moreover, keeping time of any TCS food (food most likely to become unsafe such as ready to eat food, fresh meat, eggs and poultry, dairy products, etc.) in room temperature has to be as short as possible and follow all time and temperature control rules.
I promised to share with my readers my delicious days, and for this time I've already had my every-morning delicious cup of coffee. I love a lot this hot dark drink with a little bit of spicy ginger and a generous pinch of sweet cinnamon. The cup of coffee makes me sure that the new shiny and happy day starts.

First experience in school.

 A lot of things have happened since March 14 when I started my studying in the L'Ecole Culinary School. I have two great teachers who are giving a bunch of new information to us, their students. During the studying week we have lectures and lab work every day, and I'm excited to have this experience. The fist week was about kitchen behavior and simple rules such as washing hands, sanitizing and uniform. My reader can say that it is obvious stuff, but we were not only instructed in details how to do things properly but also informed why it's so important for safe preparation in restaurant business to follow all these rules strictly. The reputation of the place, financial success, and, the most important issue, health of consumers depend on how scrupulously each of the kitchen team is keeping norms.
Also, at the first class I'v learned what my first professional set consists of, and what kind of equipment exists in the kitchen. For example, knives can be different shapes and sizes for different purpose. Some of them like chef knife, boning knife, paring knife and others I already have in my set.