First Chef began prepping the Lomo Saltado. He served the dish with yucca fries, so he brought in already-boiled yucca cut into fries, and gave them to our TA to fry in the back kitchen. Meanwhile, he showed us three different Peruvian chile pastes, including Aji, which he then used as part of the Lomo Saltado. Aji is a vibrant orange, which he mixed with orange juice to create a sweet, sour, and spicy addition to the stir-fry. Chef brought in already-marinated hangar steaks and cut them into chunks. He diced 2 large red onions, 2 large Aji peppers (canned and seeded), and two tomatoes (peeled and seeded). He heated a large frying pan over very high heat—he said it really does need to be smoking to get a good sear on the beef. He then tossed the beef chunks in and let them brown. He added the vegetables and let them cook down a bit. He added the Aji pepper/orange sauce as well as some cider vinegar and soy sauce, and cooked the dish until everything was tender. He served the Lomo Saltado on a plate covered with the yucca fries. To top of the starch madness, he also scooped a nice mound of cooked jasmine rice on the plate next to the stir fry. He had classmates plate liberal samples for everyone. The food was delicious! The yucca fries were starchier and more dense than potatoes, which I like a lot. The hangar steak was tender and the final sauce was spicy, but not deadly.
After the Lomo Saltado, Chef assembled the ceviche. He butterflied 24 large cooked shrimp (tail off) and put them in the fridge. He juiced three limes, thinly sliced a red onion, and diced an English cucumber and red pepper. He then combined all the ingredients with some more aji pepper paste and stirred in the shrimp. He then added in some whole cilantro leaves. He laid down a scoop of the mixture on top of previously-roasted slices of sweet potato and we all sampled it. It was delicious! Light and brightly-colored and fresh-tasting. It made me want summer back!
As good as the food was, my favorite part of the morning was one of Chef’s anecdotes about Julia. He described a cooking event held at B.U. at which Julia gave a cooking demonstration with a whole fish. At some point, she went to drain off some of the fat in the pan over the trash can and accidentally dropped the fish in, too. She reached right down, plucked it out of the garbage, and plopped it back into the frying pan. She then told the audience that she had simply added a little “all spice” to the dish. Julia really could get away with anything. The story was especially hilarious given the ongoing joke Maurisa and I have about “floor beef.” One evening we were watching Chopped on the Food Network, and one of the contestants accidentally dropped a piece of raw beef on the floor, picked it up, and threw it back into the pan. He then served it along with the other pieces to the judges as part of his final dish. One of the judging chefs was pregnant (just to add to the wrongness). As expected, the judges had a thing or two to say about it, but he actually made it through that round! In any case, Maurisa and I took to calling any dropped food “floor beef.” Julia upped the ante with “garbage fish.”
A few random facts from Chef’s demo:
·
Peru
has the largest Chinese population outside of China.
·
In
most of the world (other than the U.S.), the names for lemons and limes are
reversed. For example, in Peru, what they call a lime is what we call a lemon
and vice versa. Who knew?
By the time lunchtime came around, we were all full of Chef Sifnugel’s two dishes. It was definitely a step up from the leftover oatmeal I had brought in for lunch. At 1pm, we reconvened in the kitchen for part two of Principles of Meat Cookery with Chefs Jeremy Sewall and Rich Morin. Most of the class was spent with Chef Morin—and boy did he work us hard! We broke into small groups, and my group of three was assigned to make braised rabbit with pappardelle pasta. So, not only did I have to butcher a whole rabbit, but we also had to make fresh pasta. The other two women in my group were so grossed out about the prospect of breaking down a rabbit that they basically made me do it. And as awful as it sounded to me, I think I really benefited from doing it. Yes, it was nasty, right down to plucking out the kidneys, heart, and liver and crunching away the joints and such. I feel like if I’m willing to eat rabbit, I should be willing to prepare it, too—even if I only ever experience it once. I felt the same way about going to the meat processing plant—kind of gross, but necessary. I managed to break down the meat pretty well (considering how miserably I failed at butchering duck and lamb) and we browned the rabbit pieces, dredged, in hot oil. After the rabbit was well-browned, we replaced the rabbit for mirepoix and cooked until caramelized. While the veggies were browning, we mixed up a pasta dough (using a “recipe” that Chef simply thought up on the spot—it included white wine as a moistening agent!). Our TA helped us set up the manual pasta maker, and Chef showed us the correct process to knead and stretch out the dough. After several passes through to flatten the dough, Chef had us cut the actual pasta pieces by hand. He folded a rectangle of dough in thirds horizontally and cut those in thick strips. It was a good trick for keeping the lines straight.
Once the mirepoix was done, we added garlic, crushed tomatoes, bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, crushed pepper and oregano. After mixing well, we put the rabbit pieces back in, covered the pan, and let the food simmer for about 45 minutes. We then boiled the fresh pasta and added it to the pan. Chef had us a do a family style presentation, so we mounded up the pasta on a large, oval dish and topped it with the rabbit pieces and the rest of the sauce. Finally, we sprinkled a goodly amount of grated Parmesan over the top. The finished dish was rich, peppery, and softly chewy. So good! I’m considering making it for Christmas Eve dinner this year, although I’m afraid the use of rabbits will freak out my PETA-loving vegetarian step-mother.
The other small groups made very different meats and accompaniments. There was: roasted leg of lamb (which a student had to de-bone), seared foie gras with figs and port, and pumpkin and blue cheese-stuffed pork loin (biggest pork loin I’d ever seen—it barely fit in the oven!). The lamb group also made a puttanesca sauce and parmesan-crusted haricot vert (aka green beans), both of which were served with the meat. I tried everything except for the pork, as I now know I am not a fan of blue cheese. I wasn’t going to try the foie gras, but a classmate called me out on it, so I took a bite. Notice I didn’t say I swallowed a bite. It was so heavy, chewy, and buttery that I literally felt nauseous. I spit it out in the trash, but at least I can say I’ve tried foie gras now.
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