Just add Butter

I have been in culinary school for two weeks now and the best thing I have learned is when in doubt…just add butter! Butter goes with everything and will make anything taste better!

The idea of this blog is to follow my journey through culinary school. In our skills classes we have to keep a journal of what we are learning about each recipe, the recipe itself, step by step pictures and any changes or ideas we may have, so I thought why not do it so you can all follow along. I will be putting in recipes and techniques that I am learning so if you are inspiring home-chef, go ahead and try some of them!

The first class will be mostly referencing will be Fundamentals of Classical Technique, where each week we learn the basic foundations of cooking!

WEEK 1

The first week we worked on knife skills and stocks.

I never realized how hard it is to get a square out of a round carrot… but that was our task! There are multiple types of cuts that we are supposed to master! Here are some of my practice pictures.

In addition to mercilessly turning round carrots into perfect squares we are also tested on:

Minced Garlic

DID YOU KNOW that that garlic’s flavor will

change no matter how you manipulate it.

Cutting it different ways will give it different flavors.

Slivers= a more sweet taste, Chopped- a more hot

taste.

Diced Onion

Orange Slices: First cut the ends off the orange. (You can do the same thing with a melon) Next you turn the knife all around making slices. Third go in between the orange lines (what looks like the oranges veins) with a straight edged paring knife.


As well as turning parsley into pixie dust, and the Tourne – a football shaped, with seven equals sides and blunt ends.

HOW TO CUT A TOURNE:
When using a potato to do this first cut it into quarters, start with 1 inch thick 2.5 “ long. The Key is how you hold it, the thumb of the dominant hand, and index finger of the other hand. Squeezing the knife through the thumb of the dominant hand, the left hand turns the potato – use your thumb as a guide. 2nd, 4th and 6th cut will be long. 3rd and 5th will be thin and the 7th should even everything out. Then cut the tips off and you should have a 7-sided football potato


Our first stock was a brown stock. A brown stock consists of :

*7. 5 # Roasted veal or beef bones cut 3-4” long.
*5-6 qt Cold Water
*1 # Mirepoix (Mirepoix is a mixture of 50% onion, 25% carrot and 25% celery chopped or large dice if practicing your knife skills!)
*4 oz Tomato paste and a
*Sachet: 2 bay leaves, 3 fresh thyme springs, 6 parsley stems, 2-3 garlic crushed, ½ crushed peppercorns

After roasting the bones until well caramelized place them in a stock pan. Cover with cold water by at least 2”. Bring to a simmer – skim the surface of any impurities. Add caramelized mire poix, sachet and tomato paste. Simmer for 8 hrs… skimming scum occasionally

Our second stock was a white stock! As a class we made a very good white stock!

The stock on the left is our classes; the one on the right is another classes white stock. See the difference?? Chef said ours was perfect color!

The white stock consists of:

5# Bones: veal, chicken, fish or veg.
5 qts cold water
1# mirepoix
Sachet

There are only a few differences between the two stocks that we made.
1. We used chicken bones.
2. We did not roast those chicken bones; they went straight into the pot!
3. The mire poix is not caramelized, that too goes straight into the pot.
4. This stock only cooked for 3-4 hrs.

WEEK 2

In week two we learned about MOTHER SAUCES. The five mother sauces are
1. Béchamel – milk thickened with roux
2. Veloute – white stock with white roux
3. Hollandaise - egg yolk and oil
4. Espagnole – brown sauce (essentially gravy!)

5. Tomato Sauce

We also learned how to make a classic tomato sauce.

The basis of most of these sauces is the ROUX. Now roux is traditionally made with clarified butter but can be made with any fat. Like live oil or bacon fat.

When making these sauces you know when it’s done when a nape has formed. If you can run your finger through the sauce on the spoon and it doesn’t run.

TIPS on stock: You canNOT fix burnt or lumpy but you CAN fix it if it’s to thin or to thick.

Mise en Place for Mother Sauces

Step 1 - Roux

Step 3 - Simmering Béchamel

The VELOUTE sauce is also very simple

• Just like the Béchamel you start with a roux made of flour and butter. Instead of adding milk you add stock to the roux!
• Constantly whisk in the stock to the roux to avoid lumps, bring to summer
• After simmering for 30 min, skim the surface.
• Season to taste

Basically Gravy!

The last sauce we made was the tomato sauce! Again SUPER easy!

Tomato Sauce:
1 oz of Olive oil
1 oz salt pork
6 oz mire poix
3 cups tomato fresh or canned
TT salt
¼ t granulated sugar
3 cups white stock
Sachet


**** To make this vegetarian use a vegetarian stock and use liquid smoke instead of salt pork!****

1. Sautee the salt pork with the olive oil over low heat.
2. Add mire poix, sweat but don’t brown
3. Add tomatoes, sachet, salt and sugar
4. Add stock
5. Simmer for 45 min or until mirepoix is tender
6. Remove sachet and pass through food mill or blender

Step 1 – Sautéing salt pork

Step 2 – mire poix (getting close to being to browned!)

Step 5 - simmering tomato sauce

On the second day of the second week we FINALLY got to EAT! YAY

Pasta and Alferdo made from our Bechamel sauce – by just adding cheese!

Pasta mixed with our Tomato Sauce!

In order for the cooking process go more smoothly we prepare (this is called mise en place) everything we need for all that we are making that night.

Mise in place for contemporary sauces.

We prepped everything for the Beurre Blanc, Red Pepper Coulis, and the Hollandaise. Also known as the CONTEMPORARY SAUCES

While preparing for the Red Pepper Coulis I had my first causality of culinary school.

KNIFE vs. ALISHA: Knife-1 Alisha -0!

Because of my accident… Chef Gulliksen helped my partner out with our first sauce the Beurre Blanc. The Beurre Blanc is essentially a yummy butter sauce! In it you will find: (yld 1 pt)

1 T shallots, minced
4 oz dry white wine
1 oz white wine vinegar
1 # butter, cut into 1” chunks
½ oz heavy cream
TT salt
TT white pepper

1. Combine the shallots, wine, and vinegar. Reduce until nearly dry (aka “au sec”)
2. Add heavy cream
3. Reduce heat, gradually whisk in butter, one chunk at a time
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper

TIP: when whisking in order to save your wrist and forearm, use a Z pattern instead of circular. Also always but the salt and or pepper in your hand and pinch it into the dish NEVER just toss it in!

FINISHED Buerre Blanc

RED PEPPER COULIS

Coulis means puree – With the Red Pepper Coulis there is a lot of room to add in your own special touch!

Today we followed this simple recipe:

1 T canola oil
1 t garlic, chopped
1 ½ oz onion, small dice
1 ½ # red bell peppers, med dice
4 fl ox white wine
Water as needed
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oil - sauté the garlic and onion until translucent, w/out browning.
2. Add bell pepper, sweat until tender
3. Deglaze the pan with the wine
4. Bring to a simmer and reduce by half, season with salt and pepper.
5. Once peppers are tender, bring over to food processor and blend until smooth.
6. Adjust consistency with water.
7. Run through a chionis, using a ladle.

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM THIS RECIPIE:

*You want your red pepper and onion to be chopped in small dice or even a brunoise – this will speed up the cooking process!

*Adding a little clarified butter before pureeing (about 1 ½ T) adds a nice touch!

*Add more water to help along the red bell pepper until tender. Or instead of water you could use stock

* To enhance the flavor you could add ginger or I think adding a little hot pepper might be tasty. Also roasting the bell peppers and skinning it before cooling would be good.

* Needs quite a bit of salt!

Step 2 – after adding the bell pepper

Step 7 - Straining sauce through china cap

Finished Sauce! YUM

The last sauce we made that day was a HOLLANDAISE sauce.

Hollandaise is the typical sauce that is on Eggs Benedict. It is essentially made of egg yolk, butter, and lemon juice

1 oz white wine vinegar
1 oz water
4-ea egg yolk
1 # clarified butter, warm
TT lemon juice
TT salt and pepper
TT cayenne pepper - optional


1. Bring water to boil in a saucepan of a double boiler.
2. Whisk egg yolk, vinegar, and water in a metal bowl until frothy
3. Once frothy, place bowl over saucepan (creating a double boiler) continuously whisk with a wire whip. When the mixture leaves a ribbon (leaves a trail over the surface) remove from heat. Be careful not to overcook the egg.
4. Add clarified butter slowly until emulsified. Once emulsion has started can add butter more quickly until all the butter is incorporated
5. Whip in lemon juice and seasonings

Finished Hollandaise

After finishing the hollandaise sauce, we tried adding cayenne pepper and some of the Red Pepper Coulis – this made for it a delicious taste – added a little KICK!

So far most of the sauces that we have learned called for clarified butter. Clarified butter is when you separate the fats from the water in the butter.

When clarifying butter cook it on high heat or simmer (takes longer, but safer) and wait for separation, you must skim the top of the white foamy bubbles, after this you should see a clear layer, underneath will be the thick fat layer.

You do this so you can cook with the butter at higher temperatures without it browning and burning. Also, without the milk solids, clarified butter can be kept for much longer without going rancid.

Make sure you watch the butter carefully, especially when using high heat…other wise it may turn out like this…

Burnt Butter

Chef also demoed Mayonnaise

Interesting fact: the only difference between mayo and hollandaise is the oil vs butter. One would usually use olive oil, but you can also use canola, or sunflower.

When making mayo you want to whisk egg yolk, white wine and lemon ( you can also start with JUST lemon.) until you have a creamy frothy yellow, then add the oil. Whisk until proper consistency.

TIP: roll up a towel to put under the bowl to keep it in place while whisking.


On of the fun things about cooking is trying your own thing and experimenting with ideas and ingredients to come up with something new!

Next week SOUPS!