Mid Atlantic

From New York and Pennsylvania south to the Virginias this region, is known for its extensive coastline and abundance of river valleys producing rich soil perfect for orchards and farming. New York is the original melting pot where different cultures mixed and shared their food. We get a lot of new creation in New York. New Jersey, the Garden State, became known for its soil and is a top producer of blueberries, peaches, lettuce, tomatoes and apples. Maryland and Delaware are home to 40 rivers that dump into the Chesapeake Bay, meaning "Great Shellfish Bay" was home to a wide array of seafood including oysters and blue crabs. The Virginias were the first states to use truck-farming (mechanical farming), allowing them to produce larger volumes of produce.

Day 1 Menu:

Vichyssoise
Waldorf salad
Braised Short Ribs
Rice Pilaf
Swiss Chard/Spinach Sauté
Glazed Carrots

The Waldorf Salad is classic salad invented at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in NYC. This salad has stood the test of time and comes with certain expectations. Unlike a lot of foods you see these days, when making this salad you don't want to add your own personal twist. The other important element is the presentation. A good waldorf salad will have consistent sized matchstick-like cuts of apples and celery. These should cling together with mayonnaise and be piled up over lettuce and topped with chopped walnuts. Give it some height. The apple and celery sticks are sturdy.

Vichyssoise is another classic dish created in early 1900's NYC at the Ritz-Carlton. Similar to the Waldorf salad, you don't want to mess with the production of this soup because of its tradition. It is a cold potato and leek soup. This soup is thickened with potatoes and again at the end with cream. 2 things to remember about this soup is that after the soup chills, the seasoning will be muted and it will get thicker. Remember to re-taste and re-season after it has cooled. As you cook the soup, keep in the back of your mind that it will thicken up in the cooler. Pull it off before you reach your desired thickness. If it is too thick, you can thin it out before service.

I took ownership of the Swiss chard and spinach sauté. Unfortunately, our class was on a shortage on Swiss chard, so instead of getting the 6 cups of chard, I got maybe 1/3rd of a cup. Even still, chard has a strong enough flavor that just a small presence added a lot of flavor to the sauté (I love that bitter taste of greens). Most important when working with greens is to ensure that they are clean. Chard and spinach in particular tend to be very dirty and the last thing you want to taste is dirt in your dinner! This was a very quick preparation. After cleaning the leaves, they are quickly blanched in boiling water. The leaves should be well dried before sautéing them. Just before plating the meal, sweat your onion and garlic and add the greens for maybe 5 min. Season and plate. Done!

Braising is a great cooking technique for some of the less tender cuts of meat. Cooking low and slow in a liquid helps to pull flavor out of the meat into the sauce and make the meat more tender. Here, we browned the meat on all side to send the meats moisture to the center. The meat is then removed from the pan and the veg is caramelized in the same pan to utilize the fond (the good stuff left behind from the meat). The meat is then added back over the caramelized veg and then half covered with red wine and stock. The caramelized veg acts as a bed for the meat to lay on because braising is a convection cooking method. We want to heat the meat with the liquid and the steam, not direct contact with the pan. This is then covered and cooked until the meat is tender enough for the bones to slide out (the connective tissue is broken down) about 90 min. Remove the meat and cover to let it rest. The remaining liquid in the pan should be reduced until nappé (coat the back of a spoon) consistency and should have some shine. If it doesn't have the shine, you can mount the sauce with butter just at the end.

Because we learned all of the basic cooking techniques in our last quarter, we now focus our effort onto seasoning and presentation. It's amazing the jump in the level of sophistication when you don't have to focus on the cooking technique.

--Rees