A Grand Buffet

Our Garde Manger class culminated into a big banquet at school, a chance for us to show off everything we’ve made and to practice the finer points of presentation. My contribution, along with two classmates? Canapes. In the culinary world, “canapes” is usually followed by a groan. Tiny toast points with a variety of spreads, odd protein fillings and tiny, finicky garnishes. When chef asked who would take these on for prep, almost everyone pulled an immediate “not it.” My only other option was a salad, so I decided to face the challenge. We made three: red pepper cream cheese with artichokes, scallions, and basil oil; smoked shrimp with red pepper jelly cream cheese; roasted chicken with a nut and raisin cream cheese and a curled celery garnish. Canapes deserve their reputation: marinating, searing and baking off the chicken; making all the cream cheeses and garnishes; brining the shrimp for smoking; cutting and toasting all those little toasts. Lots of work, but worth the result. Also on display: a huge fruit platter (mirrored trays are pretty standard), grilled vegetables with cheese (I made the plain and green chile queso frescos in the back), salads, the bacon, sausage, and gallantines we’d made earlier. You want to know something strange? After prepping all that food, I didn’t want any of it. Maybe after staring at it for so long, it wasn’t appealing. Or all the adrenaline kind of took over my appetite. The baking class had a lot of great desserts, and across the room, the cake decorating and sugar sculpture classes showed off their work.  Handling molten hot sugar and twisting it into paper thin shapes is even more intimidating to me than carving ice with a chainsaw. Pretty cool, huh? This summer, foundations of baking and a wine class…just in time for swimsuit season.

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Ice Carving

The possibilities of a blank slate, or blank slab. Jeff State is the only school with an industrial ice block machine, so we each got to carve our own. Ice is pretty temperamental (it is just water, after all). A change in air temperature, the water pressure in the ice machine, a look from a couple feet away……and this happens. The one block I stood next to was the only one that fell over. By the way, never try and catch one of these. They weigh about 300 pounds, all of it freezing and full of sharp edges. I’m lucky there was a back up block in back, but each one takes about 2 hours to temper, or sit out and melt so it won’t shatter when carved. This started off as an asymmetrical vase (we were all supposed to be making vases), but kind of became a fish/cornucopia/half a yin and yang. Everyone else had finished by the time I started (they’re all chilling out behind me) and I couldn’t even lift the darn chainsaw, much less point it the right way since I’m left-handed. Still, I persevered. Even though it takes at least 2 hours to get ready, once you start to carve, the ice melts FAST, so things got a little lopsided. But not bad for a first try, no?

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Eye of the Fish

Photo by She’s Cookin’

It’s looking at you, taunting you. “You can’t handle me,” it seems to say. “Don’t even try.” 

There’s a reason why the meat and poultry we buy in stores doesn’t look like cows or chickens–we just can’t handle being that close to the original source of our proteins (plus, who has time on a hectic weeknight to defeather a chicken? Who has a meat locker in their basement for 400+ pound steer?). But fish are different. Yes, fillets and steaks are always available, but you’ll find just as many whole creatures staring up at you from that glass case.

Fresher fish are always better, the pinacle being still sort of alive when it arrives. Breaking them down is a challenge: the flesh is incredibly delicate and you’ve got to watch out for pesky pin bones, scales that fly off like confetti, and dorsal fins that are spiny and will poke you while you work (call it a last-ditch defense mechanism). Did I mention they ain’t the prettiest things to look at? 

 

This week in class, I broke down one whole snapper and a whole flounder, for the first time. Brutal puns aside, you really just have to dive in here. Use only the tip of the boning knife to cut around the gills and across the back, then long, sweeping cuts down the length of each side, close to the bone so the fillets come off clean. Flounder have an actual line drawn down their side to guide the knife, as if God knew some poor culinary student would need a little extra help. I can’t say mine were all that pretty, but practice makes perfect.  Snapper en Papillote might be the perfect Cooking for One dish. Cut a giant heart out of parchment paper and brush with butter. Add a medley of veggie strips (I used red pepper, carrot, and fennel). Sit your fillet on the veg, season with salt and pepper, top with lemon slices, fold over your heart and crimp the edges. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. The vegetables steam perfectly in a lemony, fish-infused broth, the fish is tender and moist. I sauteed some asparagus and had one of the more elegant dinners I’ve ever made (I tend to be a dump-it-all, cover in Parmesan kind of cook). Hopefully, with some more practice, I can stare down any fish at the market.  

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Flank Steak Salad

I love that some of my best meals I’ve cooked for one haven’t been cooked at all. Again, it’s all about stellar ingredients. Farmer’s market arugula, tomatoes, and goat cheese. Flank steak I marinated and grilled in my meat processing class at culinary school, a squeeze of lemon…healthy, delicious, about as time consuming as washing a vegetable.I wish everyone could take a couple culinary school classes at some point. The chef just demystifies every ingredient you’ve ever been afraid of (meat is right up there for us budget-conscious folks). Each group got a 2 pound flank that we marinated in balsamic vinegar, garlic, dried oregano, and rosemary. We got some great grill marks and finished them in the oven–flank is best at medium rare, about 120 degrees when you first take it out of the oven, slightly springy to the touch. Let rest and cut against the grain, at a diagonal into long, thin strips. Easy, impressive, always good.

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