And We're Back...

So I am a horrible person, but I have been crazy busy this last month. To briefly recap: I volunteered for Lee Anne Wong (former Top Chef contender and all-around awesome lady), advanced to Level 2 (which means I'm 1/3 of the way through my program), and went to the career fair to get an internship but managed to get a job instead. Needless to say, lots going on.

The volunteer position was to help cater an event for The Women's Project held at The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Joan Osborne, Suzanne Vega, and Laurie Anderson were honored before the dinner, while we set up and got tacos. I hoped for some kind of serenading, maybe a verse or two of "One Of Us", but no such luck. So we had to sing to each other. A karaoke session is desperately needed.

Level two is a great deal more relaxing. Well, we work a lot harder (even through lunch), but the trade-off is that we have more freedom for creating our own schedule. As long as it's done at the end of the day, we're fine. I'm just happy we're done with boot camp. Although I do miss the slower pace every once and a while.

Our career fair is held twice a year at the school. Four floors of potential employers that you can run around to in just over an hour. A little hectic and crazy, especially in heels, but worth it. For those about to graduate, it's great for jobs, and for those of us still in school, it's perfect for finding that hard to get internship. Well, I ended up talking to a restaurant that I didn't even plan on talking to (mostly because I thought I had no shot) because their booth was next to one I was interested in. I did two trails and they ended up liking me so much, I'm now a part-time employee. I'm still trying to process how quickly all of this happened, but I'm definitely enjoying the ride.

Lesli, your recipe is coming. I should have it up shortly, so do not worry. Any other requests are always more than welcome. If I don't have one, I'll try to find one or make something up. And you will love it.

Work in the morning, but ready to go. Here's to slinging cookies and pies for a living!

Pot Luck

The other night, a bunch of girls from class got together and did a pot luck dinner. The idea was to study, but we ended up having a great time talking, so we just bonded. And I learned more than I ever thought I wanted to know about shampoo.

So in the spirit of that dinner, and because I'm tired of talking about myself, here are a bunch of my fallback safety dishes that I could make with my eyes closed. All well tested, all fairly simple, and all delicious. Much like the dinner (Thanks girls!).


Oven-Roasted Potatoes

2 lbs. small new potatoes, quartered
3 Tbsps. olive oil
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. rosemary

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. In a large roasting pan, toss the ingredients to coat the potatoes. Bake for 40 minutes, stirring once, until the potatoes are tender.

** Use a large enough pan so that the potatoes are in a single layer, to ensure that the potatoes brown evenly. Other fresh veggies can be roasted too, in any desired combination. **


Wild Rice Soup

2 cups chopped onion
2 cups chopped carrots
6-8 stalks celery, chopped
1 (15 oz.) can cream of chicken soup
1 (14.5 oz.) can chicken broth
1 (8 oz.) can golden mushroom soup
1 (4 oz.) can mushrooms, pieces and stems
2 cups cooked wild rice
Meat from one smoked pheasant or 1 1/2-2 cups smoked turkey

Sauté the onion, carrots, and celery in butter. Mix with other ingredients. Cook in a crockpot on low for about 5 hours.

** If you don't have a crockpot, it can be heated in the oven at 200 degrees F for an hour or two, to heat it through and allow flavors to blend. **


Golden Parmesan Chicken

1 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/3 cup butter, melted
3 lbs. chicken pieces, preferably legs and wings

Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Grease a glass baking pan. In a shallow bowl, mix parmesan and pepper. Dip the chicken pieces in melted butter, coat with the cheese mixture, and place (skin side down) in pan. Pour the remaining butter over the chicken. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Turn the chicken and bake uncovered for 20 minutes longer or until done.

** Reheats well and is good hot or cold. **


The ego trip and school report will return to normal next time, but until then, enjoy!

Emily And The Chocolate Factory

When I was figuring out what to write for my next blog, I had every intention of recapping the most awesome field trip I have ever been on (we went to a bar and learned about cocktails). Then on Friday, I found out about this incredible volunteer opportunity to work in a real kitchen. For Jacques Torres.

If anyone out there doesn't know who Jacques Torres is, he is a world renowned chocolatier, is the youngest recipient ever of the M.O.F. medal (from the Meilleur Ouvrier de France, awarded to the best craftsmen in the country), has worked with Julia Child, and was the pastry chef at Le Cirque (that restaurant I wrote about going to earlier) for 11 years. And he's the Dean of my program at the FCI.

Chef needed some volunteers to come and help finish a wholesale order for Easter that they were behind on. I figured it would be the same old, same old kind of internship opportunity. Billed as a chance to work in his factory, I thought we'd be packing up chocolates into boxes. More grunt work than anything else. And certainly not making anything.

Well, I started the day making chocolate and I finished the day making chocolate.

Granted, I didn't temper or pour any of the chocolate, but I did pretty much everything else. Once the molds were prepped, we vibrated them to make sure they covered every side of the mold, cooled them down on a rotating machine called the spider, put them in the freezer, unmolded them, placed them on sheet trays to finish setting, and packaged them. For nine hours.

I can't remember the last time I felt so tired. Everything ached and I could barely walk when I went home. I think I shuffled home. I wanted to crawl. I loved every second of it.

Really hoping all this chocolate comes out of my uniform.

The best part for me was the chance to work for such a great group of people and see how much they loved and cared about what they did. Chef would interact with the people who would walk by outside and look into the factory, handing out chocolates, and goofing around with everyone working. He bounced parchment paper off my head into a garbage can. I was so nervous I didn't know what to say half the time. But he asked us if it would be okay if they called us to come back again, so I guess I did something right.

Chef also pays well. In chocolate.

My paycheck.

I love my life.

On Fire And Eating Boldly

Since we're in a student kitchen in New York, space is at a premium. Needless to say, it can get a little crowded in there and it can be a little tough to find counter space. So today, someone left a plastic wrap box on top of a pilot light. It caught on fire. Guess who got to put it out? I wasn't the one who noticed it or was the first one on the scene, but I did get the water. Made for an exciting day and was much more cool than when I decided to set my towel on fire during the practical exam yesterday. Whoops.

So my friend, David, and I have been trying out a series of restaurants around Manhattan. Usually we just do brunch on the weekends, but we decided to branch out and do dinner tonight. We settled on Co., a pizza place started by Jim Lahey, the man behind Sullivan Street Bakery (yet another place I have to go try). They imported a wood-burning oven from Modena that bakes the pizzas at 700 degrees F. I want one.

Still fairly new, the place was packed on a Wednesday night at 8:30. I figured this was a great indicator as to quality, but it would have been nice if I could have been able to hold a conversation with my friend. Although our neighbors on either side were REALLY interesting.

To be greedy and try as many things as possible, we ended up ordering two pizzas and a bowl of soup. The Ribolitta soup was delicious with all the veggies and gave the illusion of me being healthy. Our Popeye pizza did the same (lots of spinach). But we also had another pizza, which I ended up being the most jazzed about, was the Fennel and Coppa pizza. You could barely taste the fennel, but the coppa (aka "gabagool") and lemon zest (yes, it really had it on there) and the blends of cheeses were really great. Not exactly the most immediate choices in pizza toppings, but I can't wait to eat the leftovers.

We also stopped off at Billy's Bakery. David bought me a vanilla daisy cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting. And sprinkles. It was great, but a little rich for my blood. I think the eating dessert all the time thing is starting to get to me.

On the way back to the subway, we saw the Empire State Building. No matter where you look at in the city, it always looks different. Maybe someday I'll climb it and battle airplanes.

The chameleon itself peaks out amongst the buildings on 23rd and 8th.

If The Choux Fits, Fill It With Pastry Cream

Hello and welcome to part two of this Choux/Eclair extravaganza. Pastry Cream and Eclair recipes to follow.

Not much to say except yum!

So there were two somethings I forgot to mention yesterday in my studying-induced delirium. Something number one: Don't dry out the choux paste too long, otherwise you will give your dough a reddish tinge. Does not look good and can mess with the quality of the end product. Something number two: The ovens we use at school are convection ovens, which means they're fancy and have fans and all that jazz. Normally, I adjust the temperatures for you all like I do with the measurement conversions (we work in metric, I give you U.S. standard). I forgot to do that.

Generally speaking, the rule is to add 25 degrees F to all convection oven temps (makes up for the lack of fan). All previous recipes have done this, I just forgot to do it yesterday.

HOWEVER, with a conventional oven, you can put the choux in at 450 degrees F and bake until browned (fixed in today's recipe). The reason we turn the oven off in a convection oven is because the fan could collapse the choux dough. Plus this way you don't have to mess with temperatures and all that nonsense like I do. Hooray for simplicity.


Crème Pâtissière (Pastry Cream)

474 mL milk (2 cups)
125 grams granulated sugar (3/5 cup
1 egg
2 egg yolks
50 grams pastry cream powder (1/4 cup)

* This is for a half recipe and makes 1 pint. To make the full 1 quart recipe, double everything.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the milk and half the sugar. Place over high heat and bring to a boil. Mix the egg, egg yolks, pastry cream powder, and the remaining sugar together in a seperate bowl and whisk smooth. When the milk misture has boiled, temper the egg mixture by adding at least 1/3 of the boiling milk to the egg mixture and whisk to combine (brings up the temp of the egg mixture so the eggs do not cook when added to the milk). Add the tempered mix to the rest of the milk in the saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly (read: whisk like mad until your arm is about to fall off, this indicates the cream is done). Boil while stirring for two minutes constantly. Remove from heat and allow to cool (ideally poured into a bowl over an ice bath). Cover with plastic wrap pressed directly on its surface to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate once the cream has reached room temperature if not being used right away (can last for 3-4 days if refrigerated).

Éclairs

Pâte à choux
150 mL heavy cream (3/5 cup)
Crème pâtissière (1/2 recipe)
Fondant, pâte à glacer, caramel, or powdered sugar, for finishing

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Pipe the choux, using a #5 plain tube, into 1-inch wide and 4-inch long pieces onto a parchment-lined sheet pan. Try to make them evenly and in straight lines, leaving plenty of space between each (they puff up about 2-3x their piped size when baked). Brush the tops of the éclairs with an egg wash and score the tops of the éclairs with a fork (cracking happens on the sides instead of the top and makes them easier to glaze). Place the pan into the oven and let it bake until thoroughly browned (even in the cracks). Do not open the oven doors for at least 30 minutes, otherwise the choux will collapse. Pull the éclairs when done and set aside to cool.

Poke two holes in the bottom of each éclair, large enough to pipe filling into (a #0 plain tube works great). Prepare a crème fouettée with the heavy cream (whisk the cream in a mixer to soft peak). Lighten the crème pâtissière with the crème fouettée to make a crème légère. Pipe the lightened cream into the éclairs, completely filling the inside (pipe until cream comes out of both ends and you can feel the weight of the filled éclair in your hand), with a #3 plain tube. Scrape off excess cream with a small spatula. Glaze the tops of the éclairs with fondant, pâte à glacer, caramel, or dust with powdered sugar.

You can flavor your creams (add flavoring to pastry cream before mixing with the crème fouettée) and icings (add coffee to fondant and mix well), if you want. The plain Jane vanilla ones taste amazing too.


That's all for tonight. This week promises plenty of fun with a cocktail tasting field trip, more dinner out, and I will absolutely recap the Jacques Torres lecture I went to at school today.

Aww Choux-t

I screwed up on Friday. In a big way. I forgot to make an entire part of one of my projects. And I'm okay with it.

If this had happened to me a week ago, I think I would have had a complete meltdown and run screaming from the building. But I've finally wrapped my head around the idea that it's just a pastry. I'll live.

And so once again my groove is found, hopefully here to stay this time. Plus my sainted classmates saved my bacon and gave me their extras so my partner and I could finish ours. For that, I owe each and every one that helped my undying gratitude. And a drink.

Part of the problem I think comes from the fact that, before this last week, I had never piped a single thing in my life. My background in decorating is knife + frosting = finished. It's taken a lot of practice, but I can finally do better detail work. This stuff is deceptively easy.

Check out the decoration work on the Croquembouche! All me, baby.

It just goes to show that Mom was right: practice does make perfect. Just don't let it go to your head, lady.

So you all can start practicing your piping like me, here's the recipe for the dough. Tomorrow, we'll give it some purpose and I'll give you the recipe for eclairs. I would do it all tonight, but I've got a test to study for! Details and drooling tomorrow.

Pâte à Choux (Cream Puff Dough)

473 mL (1 pint) water (2 cups)

250 grams butter, cubed (just over 1 cup)

3/4 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. granulated sugar

350 grams bread flour, sifted (about 3 cups)

10 to 12 eggs

Put the water, butter, salt, and sugar into a saucepan and place over high heat. When it comes to a boil, remove from the fire and stir in the flour (use a wooden spoon). Put the pan back on the fire and cook the paste to dry it out (there'll be a thin layer of film; takes about a minute). Pour the paste into a mixer and paddle at a low speed to cool the mixture (steam will escape, you want this).

About the time the steam stops, the temperature should reach about 140 degrees F, and you can begin to add the eggs (ONE AT A TIME). ** The temperature of the dough needs to drop so that the added eggs don't cook. You don't want scrambled eggs, unless you want to be weird and have a breakfast eclair. ** The dough has been hydrated correctly when a spatula lifted from the bowl forms a ribbon connected to the batter, a dollop of the batter curls over on itself to form a hook, and the all important finger test through the dough leaves a channel that fills in slowly but still holds an edge. ** The finger test is the most accurate. **

From here, you can pipe the dough into whatever shape or size you would like. You can also flavor the dough (like adding cheese to make Gougéres, aka Cheesy Poofs!) Brush the dough with an egg wash (not optional) and score the choux (optional). Put the dough into a preheated 500 degree F oven, turn the oven off, and bake for 15 minutes. Turn the oven back on to 350 degrees F. ** DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN TO CHECK THE CHOUX FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER 15 MINUTES, OR 30 MINUTES TOTAL FROM START TIME. ** Bake until well browned and baked through. The dough is done when the areas inside the cracks are browned as well as the outside.

A quick note: Do not keep adding eggs if you don't need to. If the mixture only needs eight to be properly hydrated and can pass the tests, don't add more.

Running The (FCI) New York City Marathon

Hooray, the first test is over! By the end of the six hour marathon yesterday, I could barely move. I was still feeling it this morning. I can't remember the last time I worked that hard. Painful, but a good pain.

So here's the way this all works. We have one entire class period where we do a written test as well as a practical one. There is a 45 minute window for the written portion, where we answer questions on conversions, recipes, and techniques. During the practical, we have to replicate products that we studied during the unit, drawn at random.

For some reason, I decided to move at a snail's pace and not finish the written portion, confuse a Tarte Bourdaloue (poached pears and almonds over a cream) for a Tarte Alsacienne (flambéed apples in a custard), and just plain forget basic, basic things. A mini freakout where I was screaming inside my head and floated outside of my body didn't help either. But once I took a deep breath and decided to not let a tart get the better of me, I did much better. Although I'm definitely getting the feeling that I've been out of school for just a bit too long.

So with the mental torture portion of the exam out of the way, we moved on to the practical. There were four groups of products. Three were filled with all of the eye-catching, beautifully finished tarts and cookies. One was filled with the plain tarts that are served as-is. Guess which one I got.

Gingersnaps, Classic Apple Tart, and Clafoutis, and they were mine, all mine. The gingersnaps were perfectly chewy, my pâte brisée was nice and flaky, but the apples pulled away from the edge and clafoutis has become my new curseword.

Clafoutis Aux Cerises Limousin is proof that not all things made in a pastry kitchen taste great. Floating cherries in an egg custard. That's what this tart is. Cherries and eggs.

Clafoutis, and the Spritskakor Cookie I wished I could have made.

If you want to know what this actually tastes like, here's the recipe. Make it if you dare. But keep this in mind: I would rather jump out of a plane again than eat this tart.

Clafoutis Aux Cerises Limousin

240 grams pastry dough (about 8.5 oz) -> see the recipes from the February 4th blog
125 mL milk (1/2 cup)
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
50 mL heavy cream (about 1/5 cup, can round up to 1/4 cup)
2 eggs
100 grams granulated sugar (1/2 cup)
150 grams cherries, can substitute blueberries (3/4 cup)

Roll out the dough into a circle about 10 inches wide and 1/8 inch thick. Line a tart pan or a flan ring with the dough and chill (at least 30 minutes). Blind bake the shell until the crust is lightly browned, but DO NOT DOCK IT. ** Docking is when you use a fork to create air holes in the bottom of the crust that allows air to escape. This is normally done when doing a two-step tart, like this one, but because the filling is a custard the holes would let it leak out. **

Mix together the milk, scraped vanilla bean, cream, eggs, and sugar. Strain the custard mixture. Arrange the cherries (or blueberries) in the baked tart shell. Cover the fruit with the custard. ** Fill up the tart as much as possible, but be careful when putting it in the oven! ** Bake at 250 degrees F for 25 to 35 minutes, or until the custard is set (can slightly jiggle in center). Lightly dust the edge of the cooled tart with powdered sugar.

Makes one 8-inch/9-inch tart or four 4-inch tartlets.

Yuck.

In the end, everything turned out fine and I actually managed to snag a B for the unit (A for the practical!). Not the best performance ever, but all things considered I will take it. Gladly.