CULA-confidential

Near perfect eggplant parmesan …

… even if the tomato mother sauce was strangely made. It was way different from making marinara. The tomato sauce we made in class started with sweating mirepoix (a vegetable mixture of 50 percent onion, 25 percent celery, and 25 percent carrot), then adding tomatoes, water, tomato paste, and a sachet of herbs. Although it only cooked for an hour, it had depth, body, and a solid tomato taste.
The baking class chef gave us an A. I hope our chef/instructor was listening. Way to go team Barbara-Pat-Mickey-Nancy-Melissa.

Seasoned salt

Mix salt to white pepper, 20:1, for an easy to use blend when a recipe calls for salt and pepper TT (to taste).

Lab Assignment for Wed. 3/3

1 quart demi glace Pg. 216
2 pork scallops (how to pound instructions on page 343) with
½ recipe Sauce Chasseur (French for hunter sauce as it’s usually used with game) that will use the mother sauce espagnole as a base.
1 recipe hollandaise (page 219-220 although Chef may want us to use his own recipe rather than the book version) with ¾ pound asparagus (blanch and shock instructions on page 651-652)

We’ll have had a whole week to work out the dichotomy between food in the danger zone of 40-140 degrees and hollandaise, an emulsified butter sauce that will break (become grainy or separate) if heated over 155 degrees. I’ll keep telling myself that I’ve eaten a million hollandaise sauces and never gotten sick.

Mother sauces

I will not forget the mother sauces: béchamel (milk), velouté (white), espagnole (brown), tomato, hollandaise (butter).
béchamel, velouté, espagnole, tomato, hollandaise.
béchamel, velouté, espagnole, tomato, hollandaise.
béchamel, velouté, espagnole, tomato, hollandaise.
béchamel, velouté, espagnole, tomato, hollandaise.
béchamel, velouté, espagnole, tomato, hollandaise.

How'd we do?

The lesson was … sauces. We’ve been working with mother, or leading, sauces, and roux’s. What’s the plural of roux? Tonight was béchamel which was turned rather handily into macaroni and cheese and velouté, which became a stupendous (good work Barbara and Melissa) cream of broccoli soup.

Slurry

A combination of cornstarch and water, arrowroot powder and water, or flour and water used to thicken.
Cornstarch thickens better than flour, but arrowroot is good if you don’t want to deaden or dilute the color of a sauce. Flour is, “not recommended,” according to chef, unless it’s a beurre manié.

Beurre manié

French for "make it thick in a hurry." Only kidding.
Equal parts softened butter and flour, mixed together to form a paste and added to a sauce right before serving. I tried it over the weekend and it turns gravy into paste in seconds flat.

Lab assignment for Thursday 2/26

Page 215 1 quart brown sauce (espagnole sauce, one of the mother sauces) Hi Mom.
Page 218 1 quart tomato sauce (another mother sauce)
Page 672 1 recipe eggplant with tomato sauce (I really hope this involves provolone cheese)

El Centro College

Here's a link El Centro Hospitality Institute

Aluminum discoloration

Don't cook white soups (or sauces) in aluminum, residue from the pot will give the soup a grayish tint.
We made corn chowder last week that turned a delicate shade of gray. Our solution? Adding turmeric. By the time we finished 'fixing' the chowder, it was the color of a fluorescent yellow highlighter. No, it didn't taste good either. As members of my lab group say, "we're here to learn not know ."