Thursday, November 4, 2010

Cooking Lab-Poultry

OK today we did poultry in class. What we did was take the breasts off of the breast bone (the rest was already cut away) and use one for Chicken Cordon Bleu and one for Chicken Stuffed with Goats Cheese and Sun-dried Tomatoes.

For the first one, we basically pounded the breast until it was the size and thickness that we wanted, then we rolled it up around a piece of Swiss cheese and black forest ham. After a little trip to the blast chiller to firm up the flesh we breaded it, pan fried it and finished it in the oven. We served it with a Merlot sauce made with the ribcage, mirepoix and some herbs and spices. My sauce actually tasted burned because there was some burnt bits left in the pan from the bones. Lesson learned.
To make the sauce all we did was brown the bones in the oven, sauteed the mirepoix in the same pan (after placing the bones in a pot), added some tomato paste (which I forgot!!!!!!), flour and Merlot wine (making sure the flour is completely cooked out first). All this went into the pot with the bones (after scraping the BROWN,not black!!! bits from the bottom of the pan with the Merlot) and was covered with water and left to reduce over low heat.

For the other chicken breast, we stuffed it with a mixture of crumbled goats cheese, sun dried tomatoes and chives. Then we seared the skin side and baked in the oven and served by cutting in 3-4 slices.

Sorry but no pics today, way over-browned the Cordon Bleu and ended up eating it before taking a picture. Oh well.

Baking Lab-Pies!

\o/
Its time for PIE!!!!!!

This class we made both vanilla and banana cream pies as well as a pecan pie (which i have yet to try because its now frozen :P)

To begin, we made the basic pie dough and let it chill. Then we rolled it out into three pie crusts, two for the cream pies and one for the pecan. We prebaked the pie doughs for the cream pies by placing another pie tin inside the shell and baking upside down till it was brown, then cooled.

To make the cream pie fillings, we made a basic custard by scalding milk and sugar and pouring it slowly over egg yolks, whole eggs, cornstarch, vanilla and more sugar (some is added to the egg yolks to help stabilize them against curdling). after its all mixed in its put back on the heat and boiled to cook the starchy taste out of the cornstarch and to thicken it. This custard is then placed in the cooled, prebaked shells and put in the fridge to cool.

To make the pecan pie we melted the butter, brown sugar and corn syrup together and again pour slowly into a mixture of eggs and vanilla (no sugar or cornstarch though). After this is thoroughly mixed it is poured into the raw shell (with a decorative border) which has pecans in it. Then it is baked until the filling is set around the edges but still a little jiggly in the center (the heat from the pie will continue to cook it),


To make the banana cream pie simply add banana slices to the top of one of the cream pies and cover with apricot glaze or melted apricot jam (strained) using a pastry brush. This helps keep the bananas from going brown and adds a nice sheen to the pie. You can also do a border of whipped cream if you are good at piping (I am not but I had to do the border for class, it was bad).
Vanilla Cream Pie

Decorated with Whipped cream rosettes and chocolate drizzle
Pecan Pie

Banana Cream Pie


With crappy crust...

Cooking Labs- Sauces!!!!!

Hooray! Time for some sauce making, and butchery! No not butchery of sauces (well that happens too but anyways) but we got to take apart a whole chicken in class. First we started out by taking off the legs at the hip (with much cracking of the joints, bringing squirms to some of the girls in the class). then we removed the breasts by following the ribcage with our knives. we kept the wings on but cut the tips off, making what is called a supreme. After taking the skin off the breasts we diced them for use in the Blanquette (below).

To make the Blanquette we poached our chicken breasts in a seasoned chicken broth. we then made a veloute with that broth by adding roux to it. we combined the veloute and chicken and filled the puff pastry vol-au-vents with  it, garnished with some blanched asperagus.

Finished dishes
(Blanquette de Vollaile en Feuilletee
and Braised Chicken Chausseur(Hunter) Style





To make the Chausseur chicken, we first browned the bones left over from the butchery of the chicken and saved them for later. In the same pan we browned our mirepoix and mushrooms with the leftover chicken fat and added our flour to make an aromatic roux. After browning the roux a bit we added beef stock, making an espangole sauce. Then we browned the chicken thighs and drumsticks in a bit of oil and cooking in the oven, we deglazed with red wine, scraping up all the little bits called fond, and added our espangole sauce. After the sauce reduced a bit we plated, with a bit of the mushroom/sauce mixture on the bottom andth chicken on top (see below).
If you need the recipes, just ask!

Close up of a drumstick
From Left to Right: Drumsticks, wings, supremes, thighs