Today
was our first class with Chef J.J. (who doesn’t want us to call him Chef). JJ
is grandpa-aged, funny, and makes a loud clicking noise for emphasis when he
talks. In the morning, he demonstrated how to make lamb curry, fisherman’s stew
(basically bouillabaisse), brisket, and ratatouille. Because of his age and
experience, he had a lot of good stories to share. He described how he first
came to meet Julia Child: He watched one of her televised cooking shows one day
and Julia’s theme was zucchini. She made zucchini bread and the like, and then
joked that she had made everything except zucchini ice cream. JJ, who was
working at a management/development level for Howard Johnson at the time, was
inspired to create a zucchini sherbet. He then looked up Julia in the phone
book and gave her a call to tell her about it. Julia promptly invited him to
dinner, and asked him to bring the sherbet. They went on to be familiars in the
culinary world and both had a hand in the creation of my grad program as it is
today. JJ said that the zucchini sherbet was nothing special.
After
a lunch of demo fisherman’s stew and lamb curry, we went in back and split into
teams to make all of the dishes. I took charge on most of the curry-making, and
also did a lot of the fisherman’s stew cooking process. After we had gotten a
good start, JJ had us all pause in our cooking and observe as he prepared
braised endive, which he cooked until fork tender, and then rolled up in ham
and gruyere. He browned the top and most of us then had our first ever taste of
cooked endive. It was pretty good, with the richness of the meat and cheese
tempered by a generous squeeze of lemon and the slight natural bitterness of
the endive.
We
went back to our assorted dishes. My team of three worked very well together
and we ended up finishing just in time to properly plate everything and get it
to the tasting table. Our only real errors were accidentally burning the bottom
of the reducing seafood broth base and our inability to poach eggs. My team
member Gab was the only one who managed a presentable egg. Coincidentally, he
was the only one who had ever made poached eggs before! He described a coworker
at a restaurant in Thailand who would make perfect poached eggs by literally
dipping his fingers into the simmering water as he gently dropped the egg in.
Rock stars of every talent have to sacrifice something to be great, I guess.
Who needs fingertips, anyway?
The
poached eggs were nestled on top of the ratatouille and sprinkled with cheddar
cheese, then cooked in the Salamander until brown and bubbly. The brisket was
sliced thin and piled on mustard-slathered rye bread, then softened with a
ladle of jus over the top. It was the best brisket I’ve ever tasted.
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