Q2: Lab 1

So, I started a new cooking lab class: American Regional.

In this class we explore the use of indigenous ingredients in the preparation of traditional and contemporary American specialties. Each of the following regions is considered: New England, the Mid-Atlantic, Florida, the Central Plains, the Southwest, the Rocky Mountains, California, the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii.

In a short quarter, we skipped the traditional admin stuff and we started right off the bat with cooking. We dove right into the New England menu.

This class assumes that we have mastered the basic techniques and kitchen etiquette that we learned in skills class. As we ended Skills, we started to prepare full meals; in American Regional, we start with a full 4 course menu every night. It's awesome. You really feel like you are preparing food for someone.

Day 1 Menu:

New England Clam Chowder
Marinated Tomato & Zucchini Salad
New England Boiled Corned Beef Dinner
Gingerbread Cake

We have a 1st year proffesor, Chef Alford, who already comes off as a seasoned vet. As in real kitchens he demands that each person on a team takes a role and does their job. He expects more of us from day 1 but also offers a lot of advice or suggestions/corrections as you go along with the preparation. Maybe the most important teaching technique is the preparation/service schedule. He laid out for us, a schedule on what items should be prepared early through what should be prepared just before service. In my opinion, and I'm not alone on this [my former roommate Johnny Boy and I have many discussions on this topic], preparation schedules and timing is the most difficult part of preparing a meal.

New England Clam Chowder, there are 3 different types:
New England: the most traditional
Manhattan: tomato based
Vermont: a clear chowder

For this class, we focused on the traditional, cream based New England Clam Chowder. As opposed to traditional soup preparations, this chowder is prepared in a single, large, flat saute pan and does not have to simmer for a long time. It only has to cook long enough until the potatoes become fork tender. The desired consistency should be of heavy cream. It should not be thick enough for a utensil to stand up. It should be a soup with chunks of the ingredients used to prepare it not mashed potatoes.

My teammate John took charge of the chowder turned out a great chowder. According to our chef instructor, it had a good body with well cooked bacon (crispy and appropriate garnish) and potatoes (tender but not falling apart in appropriate sized chunks) that had reduced to a good consistency. The only advice was that it should have been seasoned with a bit more salt to bring out more of the flavor.

Marinated Zucchini and Tomato Salad:
The importance of a good marinated salad is the knife cuts and timing. If the cuts are not uniform in size some pieces will be more marinated than others and just won't look as nice on the plate. Also, you want to cut your pieces so that they absorb as much of the marinade as possible. This means that tomatoes should be peeled because that skin will act as a shield. You want to seed the tomatoes as well becauase they are full of water and this water will dilute the marinade. The zucchini pieces should be cut into uniform juliennes. The reason for julienne is that the cut is small enough so that the vegetable will absorb a lot of the marinade and large enough that it won't get too soggy and fall apart. Also, if the pieces are too big they cannot easily be put on a fork in a single bite. As for the timing, you should marinate your vegetables for over an hour to ensure that the marinade has had time to get itself into your cuts, but should not be done overnight as it will cause your pieces to get soggy and gross.

I took the lead on the salad for our group. In general the cuts were good, consistent sizes throughout. However, I failed to season our lettuce. The marinade itself was good but it was not enough; I needed to also season the lettuce because the marinade meets the lettuce only moments before plating. All in all, it was a good salad but just needed a bit more punch.

New England Boiled Corned Beef Dinner:
Early European settlers in New England realized very quickly that they would need a way to preserve food through the tough winters and turned to the Native Americans who taught them how to salt cure their meats. This led to the pickling method of meat preservation and how beef becomes corned beef. Pickling spices in simmering water will leech the moisture out of the beef and adds flavor. The beef, traditionally brisket, is simmered for 2-3 hrs. About 30 mins before it is done, you add vegetables to be cooked in the broth as well. We included tourneed root vegetables (carrots, potatoes and turnips) and pearl onions. Once tender, remove the vegetables, the beef and the pickling spices. To the remaining broth we added some green cabbage for only a few mins until tender.

Bobby (yes the same Bobby from the beginning of last quarter) took the lead on our brisket. I am a huge corned beef fan and I must say Bobby did it right! Chef Alford agreed. He did say that we overcooked our potatoes a bit and that we needed to work on our presentation. The beef should be laid in a "shingle" and should be 3 consecutive slices.

To accompany our beef, we whipped up a horseradish sauce which was just grated horseradish, dijon mustard, lemon juice and cream. I love horseradish so this was a great addition to good dinner.

Gingerbread Cake:
Chef Alford has informed us that we will be doing a lot more baking in this class. On day 1, we made a cake! The most important part of making this cake is the creaming method. This is when sugar is added to butter and mixed until the sugar breaks down the butter to allow the cake to stay moist. When done properly, the sugar crystals actually break the butter into so many small bits that there becomes open space and more surface area to allow moisture throughout.

Carling (yes also the same one from last semester) took the lead on our cake. Somehow, and we're blaming our oven, our cake did not rise correctly. Whatever the mistake was I hope we can repeat it! Our cake was more dense, darker and shorter that it should have been but it tasted awesome. Chef Alford also could not explain why our cake came out the way it did.

I already appreciate the critique in this class more than in last quarter. I think that in Quarter 1, Chef Pierre is not too critical so as to keep intact some fragile esteems of new college students. In this class Chef Alford tastes everything and begins his critique. He provides more feedback on why things turned out as they did and how to correct them rather than just stating the problem. As he continues his critique he retastes things to refresh his mind and remember how it tasted along with the rest of the presentation. I love this class.

--Rees