Vegetables, Grains, and Legumes

As excited as I was to stop medium dicing potatoes for homework every night, being asked to tourné potatoes for homework was an even more daunting task. The tourné is a decorative cut used almost exclusively in really expensive French restaurants. It involves trying to carve a 7 sided football-ish shape with blunt ends from a root vegetable.

Glazed Root Vegetable Tournés

After a week of practicing, my tournés are about the right size and kind of close to the correct shape. Unfortunately, if I were to take a close-up picture you would see that my cuts are jagged and rough and I am not even close to having only seven sides. My friend was kind enough to remind me that learning to tourné isn't a complete waste for me because at least I am developing motor skills for dental school! Nevertheless, I don't plan on tournéing any more vegetables when culinary school is over.

In other news, now that we are done with both dry and moist heat cooking methods, we have three days to focus on vegetables, grains, and legumes. Although I think these ingredients deserve more than three days of attention, I'll take what I can get.

Vegetable Preparations:

"Fish and meat are kind of unidimensional in their texture and flavor, whereas I've always felt vegetables were the most interesting part of what's on a plate."

-Charlie Trotter as quoted in The United States of Arugula

The vegetable dishes that we learned in class were basic recipes that taught me to understand the purpose of each ingredient and each step in the process of preparing vegetables as side dishes. I generally prefer to think of vegetables as an integral part of the meal rather than a side dish, but nevertheless, I learned a lot.

Potato Gratin

Probably the most important thing I learned on vegetable day was the rule that root vegetables should always be cooked in cold liquid that is brought up to a boil. When we made potato gratin, the potato slices were started in cold milk that was slowly brought up to a boil and simmered until tender. The basic recipe for any gratin is to evenly slice the vegetables and then cook the slices until tender. Layer the vegetable slices in an oven proof dish and moisten them with a little bit of the cooking liquid. Cover the top of the gratin with grated cheese and/or breadcrumbs and bake it until the cheese melts and starts to brown.

Carrot Timbale

A timbale is a custardy mixture of vegetable purée, eggs, and milk/cream that is baked in a water bath. The finished product is smooth and creamy with a texture that is similar to that of a flan. I didn't particularly like the recipe we used in class, but I loved the method and have added it to my list of food related things to experiment with.

Broccoli Soufflé

Vegetable soufflés are also a mixture of vegetable purée, seasonings, and eggs. The difference between an soufflé and a timbale is the eggs are separated in a soufflé; the yolks are blended into the purée and the whites are whipped and folded into the purée right before it is placed into the oven. A soufflé rises because egg white have a lot of water in them. When they are whipped air pockets also get incorporated into their structure as well. When the soufflé is heated the water becomes a gas and causes the air pockets to expand which makes the soufflé rise.

Grains:

Wheatberry Salad

I had never cooked with wheatberries before our lesson on grains but I will definitely be using them more often because they are absolutely delicious. A wheatberry is exactly what it sounds like; the entire kernel of wheat with only the hull removed. Cooking them is really simple too. Just rinse them off and boil them in water until they become really tender and taste cooked.

A cooked wheatberry has an interesting contrast of textures because it's both soft and crunchy. Tossed with some vegetables and a light dressing the wheatberries make a great salad but I'm sure they would be a good addition to soups as well.

Quinoa Salad

Quinoa is another interesting grain (except that it isn't a true cereal). It has a high protein content and a balanced set of essential amino acids which makes it one of the few plant based foods that is considered a complete protein. Quinoa comes in three colors, white, red, and black, but in general, I think they all taste the same. The key to cooking quinoa is to rinse it really, really, well because the outside of the grain is coated with a bitter compounds called saponins. After rinsing the quinoa you can cook it just like rice. You could even use a rice cooker if you wanted. Just be sure to fluff the quinoa with a fork before adding other ingredients. In addition to eating quinoa in a salad, I think it would be a good addition to the breakfast table if you mix in some chopped nuts and berries.

Legumes:

Lima Bean Stew

When I was little my mom used to make an Indian dish with lima beans and I always hated them. I tried them in again after a really long time in class and it turns out I still don't like lima beans. So lets just move on to something else...

What I do like is falafel. Especially freshly fried falafel that are extra crispy on the outside and soft and creamy on the inside. I don't even need the sandwich. Just give me some tahini sauce for dipping and I'll be extremely happy.

Falafel Sandwiches with Tahini Sauce

Moist Heat Cooking Methods

"Time slows down in the kitchen, offering up an entire universe of small satisfactions"

-Ruth Reichl*

No matter what I am doing, whether it's listening to the sound of something simmering away on the stove or feeling the texture of a pinch of salt while sprinkling it onto a dish, I love getting lost in the process of producing great food from simple ingredients. Every time I put on my apron and pull out my knives it's like starting with a blank canvas and having the opportunity to create anything I can imagine.

Braising and Stewing:

Osso Buco

Of all the cooking techniques I have learned so far I think braising and stewing are my favorite. Maybe its the cold weather persuading me to make a warm and hardy stew for dinner or maybe its the promise of tender pieces of meat which I can already feel melting into pure deliciousness in my mouth or it might even be the enticing smell that I know will engulf the entire floor. What ever it is, it is only helped by the fact that I know my dinner will taste even better the next day.

Chicken Tagine with Couscous

Braising is a long, slow, moist heat cooking technique in which items are partially submerged in a simmering liquid and cooked until tender. The difference between braising and stewing is very subtle. Stewing is also a long, slow, moist heat cooking technique, however, the meat is generally cut into smaller pieces and completely submerged in the simmering liquid.

Stewed Korean Short Ribs

Not only are braising and stewing incredibly easy, they are also very economical because they are best suited to less expensive, tougher cuts of meat. If you tried to braise a tender cut of meat it would become tough and dry. This is because lean protein becomes firm and expels moisture when heated.

In contrast, tougher cuts become tender during long, slow cooking processes because they tend to have a lot of connective tissue which breaks down into collagen when heated. As the collagen continues to cook in a moist environment it dissolves into gelatin which adds a deep flavor and full bodied, luxurious texture to the dish. While this is happening the muscle fibers in the meat contract and expel moisture (which seems counterintuitive) but as they continue to cook in gentle heat the fibers eventually relax and start to absorb the melted gelatin and other flavors in the braising or stewing liquid. A lot of care goes into preparing the braising liquid because there is a big flavor exchange between the two elements of the dish.

Coq au Vin

I used to be afraid of recipes that had a lot of ingredients and required a lot of time. It turns out all it takes is a little planning because by the time you have gathered all your ingredients more than 50% of the work is already done. Especially if you are using a crock pot, in which case all you have to do is toss in the ingredients, turn the crock pot on, and wait.

Blanquette of Veal

(A blanquette is any white stew that is finished with egg yolks and cream)

Of course braising and stewing can get more complicated as well. There are two main methods that can be used; brown braising and white braising. Items that are being brown braised are seared before being put into simmering liquid where as items that are being white braised are not seared. White braises and stews are more commonly associated with fish and vegetables, but the blanquette of veal we made in class was also a white braise.

Provençale Lamb Stew

Here is the basic method for brown braising a protein.

• Sear the protein in oil to develop color and flavor
• Remove the items from the pan and set them aside
• Add the vegetables and aromatics to the same pan and cook them until they are lightly caramelized
• Deglaze the pan with wine making sure to scraping up all the brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan
• Reduce the wine by half to cook off the alcohol
• Add enough stock to come half way up the sides of the protein when it gets put back into the pan
• Bring the liquid to a boil and then return it to a simmer
• Add the protein back to the pan
• Cover the pan with a tight fitting lid or with aluminum foil
• Place the pan into a 350-400°F oven
• After 15 minutes, check the braising liquid to make sure it is simmering and adjust the oven temperature if necessary
• Let the braise cook until the protein has become fork tender (the cooking time will depend on a lot of factors like the type of protein, the size of the pieces, and the temperature of the oven)
• Depending on the recipe, the braising liquid could be strained and reduced, thickened with a roux, finished with butter or any number of other things before it is served with the protein

Turkish Eggplant and Lentil Stew

Vegetables can also be braised and stewed. In general only tougher vegetables like fennel, cabbage, and endive will be braised, however, just about any vegetable can be made into a stew.

Ratatouille

Steaming:

When I think about steamed food the first words that usually come to mind are healthy and boring. Although its true that steaming can be an incredibly healthy cooking technique because little or no additional fat is required, steamed foods are not always boring.

Clams with Saffron and Tomatoes

Steaming is a moist heat cooking method in which items are cooked by being suspended above a boiling liquid. It is knows as the purest method of cooking because steamed foods maintain their intrinsic flavor and lose very few nutrients during the cooking process. In addition to making steamed shellfish in class, we also steamed a whole fish with vegetables and jasmine rice. The fish was moist and tender with a very clean flavor and the vegetables had just the right amount of bite.

Moules Marinière

The next method of steaming we learned seems easier and far more convenient to execute at home. Cooking en papillote is a method of steaming in which the ingredients are sealed in a parchment paper package and cooking in the steam produced by their own juices. We made salmon in class, but you could really use any combination of fish and vegetables if you are willing to experiment with the cooking time a little.

Salmon en Papillote

Yield: 1 serving

Canola oil, as needed for brushing

1 salmon fillet, 6-8 oz

Salt and pepper, to taste

1/2 oz shallot, minced

1/2 oz red pepper, julienne

1/2 oz leek, julienne

1 oz snow peas, julienne

1 oz carrot, julienne

1 sprig thyme

1 tsp olive oil

1 tbs white wine

• Get a piece of parchment paper that will be big enough to form a pocket for the fish
• Fold the parchment in half and brush the inside with a little canola oil to prevent it from burning
• Place the vegetables and fish onto one half of the parchment paper
• Season the fish with salt, pepper, and a sprig of thyme
• Drizzle olive oil and wine over the fish and then fold the other half of the parchment paper over it
• Seal the papillote by making small folds inwards around the circumference of the packet, making sure that each fold overlaps the previous fold (I'm sorry if those directions aren't clear enough. The goal is to create a sealed package that doesn't allow any steam to escape. Play around with it and I'm sure you will figure something out.)
• Bake papillote on a sheet tray for 10-12 minutes at 400°F or until the papillote has puffed and the salmon is cooked through (The cooking time depends on the thickness of the fillet. As a general rule, fish cooks in about 10 minutes per inch of thickness.)

Poaching:

Paupiettes of Sole

Poaching is our last moist heat cooking method. It involves cooking items in a flavorful liquid that is just below a simmer. In a traditional deep poach the items are completely submerged in the cooking liquid. A shallow poach is more like a combination of braising and steaming because the items are only partially submerged in the cooking liquid and covered before going into the oven to finish cooking.

Whole Poached Fish with White Wine Sauce

The key to poaching is to maintain the cooking liquid just below a simmer. I think the best way to do this is to bring the liquid to a simmer and then turn the heat down right before adding the item.

I personally didn't care for this method of cooking. Although it resulted in extremely tender food, I thought there was a lack of flavor in comparison to the other methods we learned.

Poached Salmon with Saffron Aioli

*I just finished reading Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in food. It's a light and easy read about her life as a food critic for the New York Times and it literally made me hungry listening to her talk about the incredible meals that she ate.

Dry Heat Cooking Methods

I am about to write the two longest posts in the history of the world in an attempt to make up for the last month in which I have successfully avoided updating this blog. As I was saying back in early December, before Christmas and New Years festivities took over my life, the beginning of module two was all about dry heat cooking methods. This includes sautéing, pan-frying, deep frying, grilling, and roasting.

Although we follow recipes in class, every recipe is designed to teach techniques and methods so the focus of each class is not really on the recipes. After three days of sautéing, where the exact same steps are followed in the exact same order every time, the recipe becomes more like a list of ingredients than a set of directions. In keeping with the same model, I plan to share the methodology of each technique rather than give you a giant list of recipes (and if you really want the recipe for a particular dish just ask and I will be more than happy to provide it).

Sautéing

Sauté is a dry heat cooking method in which you are trying to create a golden brown, caramelized exterior and a moist, juicy interior. Only naturally tender foods should be sautéed and the goal is to maintain that tenderness throughout the cooking process. In order to get caramelization to occur, the food must be dry and the oil must be hot. It is best to use an oil such as canola because it has a high smoke point and the heat required for a good sauté will not cause it to break down.

Step one: dry off your meat with a paper towel. I can't over-emphasize how important this is because without a dry surface the food won't be sautéing, it will be steaming. Season the meat generously with salt and pepper. If you are trying to limit your salt intake, this would still be the time to season your food (although probably not generously) because salt and pepper added at the beginning of cooking will bring out the inherent flavors of the food where as added at the end they will simply taste like salt and pepper.

NY Strip Steak

Heat just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan over a medium-high flame. The purpose of the oil is to evenly conduct heat from the pan to your food. Without enough oil the food will stick to the pan, cook unevenly, and it might even burn. The majority of the oil will be left in the pan after sautéing, so you don't have to worry about ingesting it if you don't want to. As a general rule of thumb, a medium sized sauté pan will require about 1 tbs of oil.

When the meat goes into the pan it should immediately start sizzling. In addition to sounding delicious, this sizzle is important because it is the sound of moisture evaporating from the surface of the meat. To test if the oil is hot enough, just touch the corner of the meat to the pan and listen for sizzling. If the meat sticks to the pan at all than the oil still isn't hot enough.

Once the meat is in the pan, all you need to do is maintain the temperature so you can turn down the flame a little to prevent your food from burning. To develop good caramelization, peek once or twice to see when the food is ready to turn, but turn it only once. Chicken and fish should be a nice golden brown color like in the picture below while red meat should develop a deep mahogany brown color before being turned.

Sautéed Chicken Breast

At this point the method changes depending on the thickness of the cut and the type of meat being cooked. You can see from the picture above that my chicken is still raw on the inside after being seared. To cook it through, I only partially caramelized it on the stove and then put the whole pan into a 400°F oven to let it finish cooking. Chicken needs to be cooked to an internal temperature of 165°F, but you should take it out of the oven when it reaches about 160°F because the chicken will continue to cook as it rests; this is called carryover cooking The best way to be sure the chicken has reached the correct temperature is to measure it with a thermometer. But after measuring a couple times, you should be able to tell if the chicken is done just by pressing on it.

When cooking a thinner cut of meat or something that will be served rare or medium-rare, like the lamb below, there is no need to finish cooking in the oven. Searing on the stove and resting for the appropriate amount of time should be enough.

Sautéed Loin of Lamb with Pan Sauce

I never realized how important it is to allow meat to rest after cooking. When the meat is cooking, the proteins coagulate (lose their structure) and squeeze moisture both towards the center of the meat and towards the surface of meat. Letting the meat rest allows the moist to redistribute itself throughout the meat so that when you cut into your beautiful steak the juices don't leek all over your plate. You should generally let meat rest for half the amount of its cooking time. So, if it took me 6 minutes to cook my strip steak I would let it rest for about 3 minutes before serving it. If you need more evidence, check out this experiment on the importance of resting meat.

Sautéed Strip Steak with Pan Sauce

In traditional French cooking, meat is served with a pan sauce built around any of the flavors left in the pan after the meat is finished being sautéed. I thought the pan sauces we made in class tasted delicious but unless you take the time to make really good quality veal stock and chicken stock at home, your pan sauce won't thicken properly. A better alternate for home cooking would be to make a sauce on the side. When we sautéed salmon, rather than making a pan sauce, we prepared a salsa verde. It tasted very green and its acid offset the fattiness of the salmon very nicely.

Sautéed Tranche of Salmon with Salsa Verde

(Tranche is a French word which means slice or portion of; in this case, a piece of a fillet)

Pan-Frying

I always assumed that pan-frying and sautéing were essentially the same thing. It turns out that even though they use similar pans and pan-frying only uses a little bit more oil, the two methods are completely different.

Pan-Fried Suprême of Chicken

Pan-fried foods are generally passed through what is known as standard breading procedure. This involves seasoning the food well, lightly dredging it in flour, dipping it into an egg wash or buttermilk, and coating it with breadcrumbs. Other ingredient such as nuts, seeds, ground spices, garlic paste, or chopped herbs could be used instead of breadcrumbs. The goal is to produce a crust that will seal the surface of the food and prevent it from releasing its juices. This causes the food on the inside of the crust to be steamed which creates a moist flavorful interior. The crust is also important because it produces that crispy texture people find so satisfying when they eat fried foods.

Crab Cakes with Avocado Sauce

When selecting a pan for frying, make sure it is big enough to comfortably hold the food in a single layer without crowding. If the items are too close together when placed in the pan, the oil temperature will drop to quickly and the food will not develop a good crust.

Before the food goes into the pan, the oil needs to be heated to the point where it has a slight shimmer. There should be enough oil in the pan to come about half way up the sides of the item. When you add the food, tilt the pan away from you to prevent any hot oil that sizzles up to splatter you. Especially thick items may not cook though in the time it take the crust to brown so they can also be finished in the oven. Before serving any fried food, drain the excess oil on paper towels.

Tostones with Cuban Mojo Sauce

Deep Frying

Welcome to deep fried day! This was probably the most unhealthy day of the entire program, but I survived and I even managed to eat some broccoli (deep fried of course).

In general, deep fried foods have many similar characteristics to pan-fried foods; a crispy, browned crust and a moist interior. Differences in the technique between the two methods seem to be a matter of convenience more than anything else. Deep frying requires a large amount of oil and is good for cooking voluminous amounts of food because the oil can be reused several times. But can you imagine heating up a gallon of oil just to fry up a piece of chicken for dinner?That would be a huge waste of time, energy, and resources, which is why I would pan-fry my chicken instead. However, if I was cooking for a crowd I would much rather dump everything into the deep fryer instead of standing at the stove flipping each piece of food individually.

Southern Fried Chicken

Deep fried foods can either be breaded or coated in a batter. Foods should be battered immediately before frying where as breading can be done a couple hours in advance. Certain foods, like fries, are usually double fried. The first time at a lower temperature to cook the potato through and the second time at a higher temperature to brown and crisp the outside. Something like fried chicken could also be double fried to produce a crispier texture.

Fried Oysters

I guess I lied when I said I wasn't going to share any recipes while talking about techniques. The tempura that we made was so delicious that I ended up eating two heads of broccoli for breakfast. I personally didn't like the dipping sauce because it make the tempura soggy, but other people in my class like it so I"ll share that recipe too. At some point I would like to experiment with adding wasabi powder to the tempura batter but until I develop my own recipe here is the one we used in class.

Broccoli Tempura with Wasabi-Soy Dipping Sauce

Yield: 2 servings

10 broccoli spears, trimmed

2 1/2 oz corn starch

2 1/2 oz rice flour

1 oz all purpose flour

1 egg yolk

1 tsp salt

Cold seltzer, as needed

Canola oil for deep frying, as needed

4 fl oz water

2 fl oz soy sauce

1 fl oz mirin (type of rice wine for cooking)

1 tsp fresh ginger, minced

1 tsp wasabi paste

• Heat canola oil to 375 degrees
• Combine the ingredients for the dipping sauce and let flavors blend for at least 30 minutes
• Whisk corn starch, rice flour, all purpose flour, egg yolk, and salt with enough cold seltzer to form a thin batter
• Dip the broccoli spears into the tempura batter and fry until lightly golden and crisp
• Drain on paper towels
• Serve with dipping sauce

Grilling

Grilled Vegetables

The high temperature associated with grilling both produces very intense flavors and makes cooking difficult. In class we only had two days of grilling and I didn't quite get the hang of it. We were using cast iron grill pans on top of the stove and I had a really hard time maintaining the correct temperature on the grill. Either my food would cook too quickly and be completely charred on the outside before it cooked though or it would cook too slowly and never develop good grill marks.

Grilled Salmon Tranche

Both grilling and broiling cook food with radiant heat. In grilling the heat source is below the food while in broiling the heat source is above the food. In both techniques very little flavor is lost because some of the juices will get reduced directly on the food. In addition, before grilling food is often marinated which also adds a lot of flavor.

Grilled Pork Chops with Roasted Poblano and Cactus Salad

I'm not going to tell you much more about grilling because like I said before, I never quite figured out the technique. But as with all techniques, it is important to take into account carryover cooking and rest meat for the appropriate amount of time before it is served.

Grilled Shrimp Brochette

Roasting

Roasted Rack of Lamb Persillade

This is the last of our dry heat cooking methods. In roasting, food is cooked by heat conducted through the air. The outer layers of the food cook first while the inner layers are cooked by steam produced from the foods natural juices.

Roasted Chicken

The chicken that we roasted in class was stuffed with lemon slices, onions, cloves of garlic, and bay leaves. We spread butter and rosemary under the skin and seasoned it with salt and pepper. It was roasted on a bed of mirepoix (onions, carrots, and celery) instead of on a roasting rack. This allowed the chicken to roast more evenly and prevented it from sitting in its own drippings. It was rotated every 15 minutes and took just under an hour to roast at 400°F. The only way to be sure the chicken was cooked through was to measure its internal temperature with an instant read thermometer. The magic number for chicken is always 165°F. While the chicken was resting we used the pan drippings to make a gravy that was served on the side.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Orange and Sage

I sadly missed the second day of roasting because I was in a rush to get home and start my Christmas break. Luckily roasting is one of the easiest techniques we learned and almost everything I made for Christmas dinner was roasted so got a lot of practice anyways.