OK so I'm a bit behind in my movie watching, but last night I finally sat down and watched "Ratatouille". I was absolutely floored, what a great movie! I can't believe that I hadn't see the movie before this. But with the food connection, it was pretty darn good. It was also interesting to find out that none other than Thomas Keller of French Laundry, Per Se, etc. etc. was the Executive Chef for the movie and I guess he had a minor voice role in the movie as well.
I'm not sure what or when his voice was used, but hey I'm a geek that way and found it highly interesting. On another note, they just posted our grades for the Second Cycle, and I'm proud to say I'm still carrying a 4.0!!! Now this might not be all that exciting, but for a kid who squeaked through High School and never ever even sniffed a 4.0 this is pretty big thing for me.
I didn't doubt myself, though I though that I choked on a couple of the written tests, which is always a sticking point. I may take the most anal retentive notes of anyone I know - but I can digest all that information but as soon as that piece of paper is set down in front of me - I have a tendency to go blank. It's something that I really need to work on. I'll take some snap shots of what my notes look like, I take them in class and then type them out that night.
My son will be arriving from Spokane in a few hours, and I can't be more excited. Hopefully I'll get him to help me out in the kitchen, I think at some point before he goes home we're going to make Mt. Dew Cupcakes. Yes, you read that right Mt. Dew Cupcakes. I found a recipe a year or so ago and haven't tried it, and honestly I drink enough Mt. Dew that I should be a share holder. Oh, and I'm not a baker so anytime I take on a project like this - it'll prove to be interesting.
Chef Achatz is amazing, the things he does with food. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to post this. He's been in kitchens his entire life, worked at the French Laundry and Trio. He now has his own 'baby' Alinea.
Lately all I can think about is food, really this is nothing out of the normal realm of things with me. But when you write about baseball on a regular basis, that usually takes up most of my 'brain' space. With the off season in full swing, my thoughts have drifted to food, school, layering of flavors and such.
Maybe it's all the reading I've been doing, but what ever it is - it's taking over my very soul. This is fine by me, but let me give you an example. I'm readying "The Reach of a Chef" by who else, Michael Ruhlman. In it he describes a rub he used at American Bounty (a CIA restaurant), all he gave was the ingredients - not measurements. And I'm setting out to work my own rub off that list. Why? Because it's intriguing to me and I gave my last bit of rub to Chef Matt who in turn raved to Chef Wendy (our VP of Academics) which was a very proud moment.
Anyways the rub calls for 'sugar', so I shot off a email to Ruhlman to ask him what sugar was used and he replied with "Regulah. But that all three would work, and by that I had asked "white sugar, brown sugar, or turbronego?" so my thought process kicks into gear. I'm going to make at least two versions, one the way it's written the book - though I've never tasted the rub but I'll give it a go. The second one, I'm going to use all three - by weight because you need to pack brown sugar.
Just to take a couple steps back, all summer I worked on rubs and BBQ sauces. And came up with a kick butt (if I do say so myself) BBQ sauce, but in "Soul of a Chef" Michael included the one they use at Michael Symon's "Lola" - I'm going to give that one a shot too - the only thing is I don't have veal stock. I do have beef stock and remouillage - so I may use that and reduce it. The recipe calls for 4 oz of veal stock, I'll take 8 oz of remy and reduce it by half.
See what I mean? This is the shit I think about at all hours of the day. Not to mention I've completely mapped out the Aps I'm going to do for New Years Eve. Every NYE the fam puts together aps for grazing all day and what not. So I've picked up some slack and I'm going to do some Aps including Wings with 3 sauces, one of those being the Lola sauce. Though honestly I think I'm driving my mother nuts, being in the kitchen so much now. I need two more sauces for the wings, I'm think maybe a traditional sauce and a Asian inspired sauce (we have a bottle of hoisin sitting in the spice cabinet and need to do something with it.)
And feel free if you have a suggestion, leave it in the comments.
As I mentioned in a previous post I start Charcuterie after Christmas break, then after that I just learned that I'll be in Intro to Baking. Baking is by far one of my weakest area's for sure. I've always said that my mother is the baker in the family, and she's done it professionally - I'm the cook.
I had kinda hoped I get it this next rotation just to get it out of the way. I'm not going to try and wind myself up to much about it, but I know that's one class I'll have to be just as anal retentive on my notes as I was in Skills II.
As I promised here are a few pic's from the last two days. Mind you, I'm a bit new to photographing food.
I'm sure I'll post more pic's, just didn't want to go overboard. You can also check out my photo stream at the top left which has more pictures from this adventure in home stock making.
Michael is becoming far and away my favorite food author at the moment, I've even traded a couple emails with him - and he's always pretty quick to respond which blew me away especially after I sent him a long rambling email on my situation and how I became enrolled in Culinary School.
Anyways, I found this on myspace of all places and thought I'd pass it on here. He talks about "ratios" and if you know those - recipes don't matter really. It's short sweet and to the point.
The remy is now venting and should be ready for the refrigerator and freezer by the time I go to bed. Two day process that netted 2+ gallons of Stock/Remy, and shouldn't have to by store stock for a while. If you can make your own stock I highly recommend it, because you can control what's in it.
Here's what was in my beef stock.
Mire Poix
Beef Bones
Tomato puree (it was brushed on the bones during roasting)
Sachet (w/ bay leaf, parsley stems, and pepper corns)
That's it.The main stock simmered for 24 hours, the remy only went 4 hours. I'll have pictures tomorrow once I pull them off the camera and what not.
The weather here in the Pacific Northwest has been horrible, I have visual evidence to this that I'll share in a later post. Yesterday I set about making Beef Stock (I have visual evidence of this as well).
I had about two pounds of beef bones and followed my procedure - now given I'm at home before roasting a pound of the bones were uncooked - another we had at Thanksgiving (a really nice roast).
So 24 hours later I'm blessed with a gallon of beef stock, now I'm headed back into the kitchen and taking those bones and making a remouillage.
Definition of a remouillage:
A second stock, usually made in restaurant kitchens from bones that have been used once for primary stock in order to make complete use of the bones.
The definition is from Micheal Ruhlman's "The Elements of Cooking". While I'm thinking about it, I've moved on to Rulman's third book "The Reach of the Chef".
Ok, where was I? Oh, that's right...
I'll use the remy where I would normally use water or even reduce it for sauces. Can't afford Veal bones so I'll use whatever I can get my hands on. Like I said I've got visual evidence of all of this process, though I didn't snap any shots while I spent at least once an hour skimming the top of the stock.
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