Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Monday, 5/17/10 – Level 3 Day 14 (Patissier)

I'm sad to report, on this Tuesday, the 18th day of the 5th month of the year Twenty-Ten, that my right thumb lost a fight with a Microplane zester last night. That's right, you heard me correctly, my right thumb, the most powerful digit on my entire body, lost a 10-second brawl with a Microplane, the girliest and most useless of the kitchen gadgets. It was incredibly unfortunate, that a poorly placed lemon rind can somehow not protect human skin from hundreds of razor-sharp nodules. What's most unfortunate, however, is the resulting lemon juice mixing with a fresh layer of skin that is, ideally, not meant to be exposed to the elements nevertheless one of the most acidic liquids of the citrus fruits. Oh, kitchen injuries. I've realized lately how used to them I've gotten – a searing handle here or a chip out of the nail bed there. I must be earning some serious street cred, with the small scars and scabs forming on my hands. I mean, just last week a pop of hot oil jumped the pan, landed on my index finger and burned a small puncture wound straight through the top two layers of my skin. Not the worst injury ever to occur in a professional kitchen, but reputation-aiding nonetheless. I may not look like a badass, but my hands tell a different story.

We had a shortened class period last night because the second half would be filled with an introduction to sous vide by one of the Chefs in charge of technology. (More on that later.) Imagine our surprise when the fill-in Chef for the night posted our times on the board for each dish, and the last dish was due (8:18pm) before we usually start presenting the first dishes (8:30pm). As I was tasked with the lemon tart for the night, it meant that I needed to haul butt to get my dough made, rested in the refrigerator, rolled out, pressed into tart molds, browned in the oven, custard made, custard added and cooked and the entire thing cooled to room temperature. I had approximately an hour and forty five minutes to do all of the above tasks, so I was definitely watching the clock closely. Since our kitchen is eternally a steaming fire pit, our doughs were not cooperating and therefore had to be put back into the refrigerator every five minutes or so to keep it cold. More time wasted. Everyone knows I'm borderline OCD ('borderline' is up for personal interpretation), so I naturally took pride in making sure the dough was evenly molded into each of the crevices of the tart mold, and was evenly cut with no sign of crumble or break. It got beautifully browned in the oven, the custard poured in evenly and all was cooked to full deliciousness.

By this time I was about 20 minutes out from presentation, hardly enough time to cool down a tart straight from the oven. The first group to present was already being called up to the tasting table, yet they had just pulled their tart out of the oven too. Noting our situation, Chef acknowledged the fact that he hadn't given us enough time to complete everything so we were allowed to set our tarts aside, fully ready for presentation on the side table with each plate marked with our name and station number (4 – Jackie L. BABY!) and he would go around and taste each of them after the kitchen had been cleaned. It is a point of pride to have four perfect and presentable tarts, as one inevitably crumbles, gets stuck in the mold or simply doesn't make it. "We're sorry ma'am, we did everything we could…it didn't make it." I noticed other groups plating two and three tarts, with their burned or under-filled brothers and sisters meeting the fate of the compost bin, so I proudly put my four plates up on the sideboard. Imagine my surprise when, only five minutes later, I could only find three plates marked '4 – Jackie L.' "Omg, who took my fourth tart??" I shot an accusatory look at one of my teammates, who had recently mentioned she wanted to taste one of them. "Seriously, not cool. Where is the fourth tart??" I looked at Chef Laura, one of my favorite Assistant Chefs (I said one of my favorites!) and she had a sheepish look on her face… "Well, um, perhaps one of your Chefs was really hungry and they wanted to bring a lemon tart home to their deserving husband and they thought one of your tarts was the most beautiful tart ever and she simply couldn't resist and perhaps it's wrapped up in plastic wrap in the freezer right now ready to be taken home…" "Chef Laura!!" I exclaimed. "I have to present that!!" She immediately felt terrible and apologetic, and offered to put it right back on the plate so that I could present it with the other three. I couldn't bear to make her do that, and made it very clear how honored I was that she chose little Jackie's tart to take home. I actually thought it was hilarious, and can't imagine being mad at her for too long. It turned out just fine - Chef only wanted to taste one of our tarts; I just hope the Mr. Chef Laura appreciates the hard work and sweat from the brow of a young novice that went into making those 4" of deliciousness.

After a quick clean-up, we were joined by the Frenchiest French Chef I have ever met, who was there to teach us the beauties of sous vide, or cooking under pressure. It requires a huge thousand-dollar machine, some sealing bags and a lot of time to waste, but the benefits are really cool – flash pickling that takes under two minutes, crispy de-oxygenated fruits and vegetables and fresh meat that can be sealed and stored in the fridge for weeks. More importantly, I came to realize how good I've become at deciphering vague and enigmatic French accents, especially when the words are jumbled in the sentence and they sound like a Parisian Yoda. Exhibit #1: Try your hand at deciphering these common kitchen terms.

  1. "Ayle de-pom-mon"
  2. "Tawm-pertoo"
  3. "Toe-maht"

Another technique related to sous vide is low temperature cooking, which is done with a water bath and a temperature regulating machine. We were shown a really cool demo – 8 eggs all cooked at different temperatures for an hour, yet only one degree off from one another. The difference was astounding; for example, going from 61˚C to 62˚C will mean the difference between a runny egg white and a perfectly poached egg. Very cool to think about and potentially very beneficial when the need to poach 45 eggs all at once arises.

I was sad we didn't get to make our canapés in class, as that seems to be my only hope for some sort of variety outside of these 16 miserable and stale recipes. Oh, how I wish I could go back to the day when a lemon tart made my eyes wide and my stomach growl. But maybe my mind is a step ahead of my every-expanding waistline…

  1. Health Department (seriously)
  2. Temperature
  3. Tomato (or tuna, I haven't gotten that far yet)

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