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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Thursday, October 4, 2012

To cap off our busiest of weeks, we spent all day Thursday on pastry part two with Janine Sciarrapa. For the morning demo, Chef made crepes and had each of us come up and try a few ourselves. She brought in her own crepe pans. One was fairly large and the rest were maybe 4” across. To my surprise, I did very well at the whole crepe-making process. I am adding a crepe pan to my birthday/Christmas wish list! Chef took a few of the first crepes and filled them with chestnut puree, then she filled a few more with Nutella. To fill them without damaging the crepe, she folded them over once before spreading on the filling. Then she did a second fold and that was it—delicious little quarters of, well, deliciousness. The rest of the crepes were turned into a pretty little apple cake using a recipe that Chef learned from watching Julia Child on television. Chef recounted her childhood spent watching Julia’s show, and vividly remembers watching her make the apple crepe cake and being determined to make it someday. She now makes it for every semester she teaches at B.U. And it’s a super simple dessert. All you do is layer crepes with sweetened applesauce and crushed nuts and continue until the cake is as high as desired. She then sprinkled a liberal amount of sugar on top and baked it until caramelized. After morning demo, a few of us went back into the kitchen and heated up leftovers from yesterday and the day before. We had a good lunch of the remaining chowder, gnocchi, and Chef Ming’s duck.

In the afternoon, we split into the same teams as the previous day, with each group making a batch of profiteroles, éclairs, and gougeres. My teammate and I divided things up so we would each be responsible for one of the first two items and then we collaborated on the gougeres. I made the éclairs, which consisted of a chocolate pastry cream, pate au choux dough, and ganache. My teammate, Gab, made a vanilla pastry cream and a separate batch of pate au choux for the profiteroles. It was really fun to pipe out the dough into rectangles and see the magic of the oven and the ingredients as they baked into vaguely éclair-shaped pieces. It was even more fun to fill them! I decided to try the “chopstick” approach; I gently poked a chopstick through both ends of the éclair to make small holes. I then used another pastry bag to squeeze chocolate pastry cream gently through both sides. It was kind of messy, but all of the éclairs I tried were filled evenly and tasted delicious.

The gougeres we made were savory and blended with minced bacon and chives. We piped them out in smallish star shapes and they maintained the nice shape throughout the baking process. The finished product was a bit too spicy for my tastes—I’m not sure if my partner put in the amount of cayenne in the recipe or if he did it to taste.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Today we had another morning field trip, this time to Island Creek Oyster Farm in Duxbury, MA. It was a gray day and the sky kept misting over, but the trip was still wonderful. The farm is in a giant older home on the shore and the hatchery is in a large barn behind it. We started with a tour of the latter, led by one of the workers and his adorable, friendly dog, who insisted on going everywhere we went. We were led through darkened, rambling rooms until we reached the starting point of the hatchery. It was a large-ish room with two massive plastic buckets in which the oyster seeds are initially placed. Next stop, the algae room, where the oysters’ food is grown. Clear plastic tanks around the room were meant to hold different types of algae. The owner special-orders the algae from the government, and feeds the oysters a blend of many in the hopes that it heightens the flavor of the oysters. After leaving the two giant tubs, the oyster seeds are moved into slightly smaller rounds of calcium carbonate (i.e. oyster shell), where they can attach to the side and continue to grow. The oysters spend several week in the hatchery before being transplanted out into the bay when they are only about the size of a speck of black pepper. Our guide explained that this is the most risky part of the process, as many will die off before taking to the real-life ocean environment. He brought us down to the docks to show us one spot where the oysters were boxed into place just under the surface. They were about the size of petite peas.

Finally, the class split up into two small motor boats and we were whisked through the fog and over to a different part of the bay where the final oyster-growing phase happens. All we could see were large, black plastic tubes/barrels floating on the surface. The oysters grew to full size attached to the underside of the barrels. We then motored a bit further and came to a small floating cabin where three workers were busily harvesting and packaging the oysters for sale. They were picture-perfect New England seafood workers with ruddy faces, Fair Isle sweaters, and rubber boots. When we docked alongside them, they were blasting a particularly crude Prince song on their tiny boombox. We got a quick look at the equipment used, including the 3”-diameter ring they use to determine whether or not the oysters are large enough to be harvested for use in Boston. Due to an antiquated city law that was meant to preserve dwindling wild oyster populations in the area, these farmers can only sell and serve oysters 3” or larger in diameter to local purveyors. Smaller ones are sent all over the country. The French Laundry is a one of the larger accounts Island Oyster Farm holds, and they have one menu item that uses a very specific farmed oyster—small ones with large, bulbous bottoms that yield a good-sized portion of oyster meat.

After we docked back at shore, some of the class (including myself) stopped at the nearby French Memories bakery, which is clearly a downtown Duxbury fixture. I tried a regular croissant and a sweetened almond one. They were both divine. The almond one had been split and spread with almond paste and a little almond-infused liquid. I regret nothing.

We got back to campus in time to munch on the leftover arctic char rolls and tiger prawns before we began our afternoon cooking session. Chef Jeremy Sewall came back and led us through a local-themed class using some very excellent ingredients—Great Barrington foraged chicken- and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, clams, oysters (yes, from the farm), craft beer, and lively lobsters that had been harvested earlier in the day in MAINE by Chef’s brother (who, conveniently, is a lobster farmer and provides all the lobster Chef uses in his restaurants).

My team of two (most were three) was assigned to make the clams and mushrooms. Without the aid of recipes, Chef thought up some very basic dishes and helped us through the process of making a New England clam chowder, clams steamed in beer with chorizo, and beautifully-sauteed mushrooms. It was both challenging and meaningful to cook a dish that I associate so strongly with my grandmother. I took the advice of our TA, however, and did exactly as Chef asked, even it was antithetical to my family recipe. The outcome? A chowder more delicious than my Grandma’s, but without the happy memory attachment. For one, we used fresh, whole clams for it. The diced potatoes were also par-cooked separately and added to the pot later on. Finally, Chef squeezed some lemon juice and jalapeno Tabasco before tasting. Both gave a really excellent counterpoint to the richness of the dish. After tasting, I suggested that it needed more black pepper. Chef agreed (love when that happens!).

The other standout was the mushrooms. Even simply sautéed in canola oil and sprinkled with salt, they were absolutely delicious. Not to be a tool, but they sure did taste like chicken…but better. Or maybe it was just that I was eating something that came from Western MA? The rest of the groups made: ricotta gnocchi tossed with lobster chunks and a Long Island cheese squash sauce, baked oysters, fried oysters, and lobster ravioli. Everything came out well and tasted good. I wish that we had been using recipes because I would totally steal the lobster, gnocchi, and squash sauce one!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

 

Today was the much-anticipated 1^st Julia Child dinner. We didn’t go into class until 1pm to compensate for how late we’d be getting out. I found myself paired with Ihsan Gurdal of Formaggio. Because he was only preparing cheese tasting plates, I spent the beginning of the afternoon assisting JJ on his arctic char prep. We spooned sauce into little bowls, chopped lettuce, and assembled plates. When Ihsan finally arrived, he led us through a demo of how he wanted each cheese and their accompaniments displayed. Accompaniments included Italian hazelnut honey, plum jam, and red pepper jelly. I didn’t like it as much as the cheese and wine tasting Chef John assembled for us last month, but everything still worked together and looked nice on the platters. It didn’t take long to finish that work, too, so I soon found myself floating around the large kitchen and alternating between curious observation and stepping in to help as needed. I got to see how each dish was made, assembled, plated, and expedited. It was a truly unbelievable experience to observe each chef in action. Once thing I loved was that many of the chefs stepped in to help other chefs when they needed it. At one point, two chefs were assisting the chef creating the tarte tatin while three or four more chefs observed. Coincidentally, my favorite chef station was the tarte tatin because Chef Jacky Robert used a red-hot branding iron to caramelize the tops of the tarte tatin. He kept the large, round irons on the stove for quite a while before using them. The gas was cranked up high and we could tell that the next step would be very exciting! When it was finally time for the dessert courses, he began branding each individual apple top, before passing it along to another chef, who plated the caramelized apple and pastry round and dolloped on crème fraiche. A large portion of the room became hazy with a wonderful burnt sugar smoke. And I thought the only thing pastry chefs had to worry about was White Lung (from long-term inhalation of flour).

By the end of the evening, we were able to taste virtually everything that went out into the dining room, including the massive tiger prawns and oysters on the half shell (from Island Creek Oysters). The two shellfish were served on ice in a real wooden boat which was set up on the demonstration table in the dining area. It was AMAZING. The prawns were so big they could have made mock lobster rolls. My favorite savory dish was the monkfish sautéed with roasted cherry tomatoes and olives. I scared a classmate by doing a Google image search for monkfish while we were tasting it. At some point, someone pointed to a large, metal stool hanging out in the kitchen and told us it was “Julia’s stool.” Apparently it was her favorite back in the days when she actually taught students in the program. Awestruck, we all clamored to take pictures of ourselves while enthroned on the very famous stool.

The official menu from the night:

First

 

Omble-Chevalier Mousseline (Arctic Char) by Jean-Jacques Paimblanc

Monkfish pillard Nicoise Olives with a Cabernet Franc Sauce by Richard Vellante

Foie Gras with Oxtail Potato Cake by Stan Frankenthaler

Second

Rabbit Ravioli by Jody Adams

Roasted Lemon Chicken with Garlic and Parsley by Gordon Hamersley

Ginger-Orange Duck “Cassoulet” by Ming Tsai

Pithivier with Candy Striped Beets, Mission Figs, and Roquefort by Susan Regis

 

Third

Cheeses by Ihsan Gurdal

Tarte Tatin by Jacky Robert

Dacquoise and Chocolate by Jim Dodge

Monday, October 1, 2012

Monday, October 1, 2012

Today Chef Jim Dodge demo’d and cooked with us all day working on the Dacquoise for tomorrow’s Julia Child event. It felt very high pressure as we were actually making something that would represent Chef and BU. The Dacquoise consisted of two parts—a mocha buttercream and thin rectangles of hazelnut meringue. The two were layered and cut to create narrow slices of “cake.” Finally, we made several batches of ganache and a simpler chocolate sauce, made without a fat of any kind. I inherited two quarts of the sauce, so I hope it’s good!