He's alive!
...and blogging! Three days into school and things are going well. I've been taking notes (not class notes, mind you, though I've been doing that too) and will have a full report soon. Unfortunately, we won't have Internet access at home until Friday (long story finally coming to an end), at which point I'll be on here regularly.
Real quick, though, this is an amazing place for more reasons than I can get into right now... needless to say, I'm sure I'm in the right place. No doubt about it. I anticipate learning tons, working hard, getting my ass kicked almost daily, but having a wonderful time as well.
OK, homework time. More soon, most likely this weekend.
Oh, and for you "Making of a Chef" fans, I've already seen Corky Clark (fish kitchen), Michael Pardus (was Skills I in the book, now teaches Cuisine of Asia) and the legedary Chef Cheng, who reportely can break down a chicken with a cleaver in 16 seconds. President Tim Ryan seems like a great guy, too. Harold McGee, he of "On Food and Cooking," was on campus last week for a talk so I just missed him. Bummer. I'm sure he'll be back, though.
Real quick, though, this is an amazing place for more reasons than I can get into right now... needless to say, I'm sure I'm in the right place. No doubt about it. I anticipate learning tons, working hard, getting my ass kicked almost daily, but having a wonderful time as well.
OK, homework time. More soon, most likely this weekend.
Oh, and for you "Making of a Chef" fans, I've already seen Corky Clark (fish kitchen), Michael Pardus (was Skills I in the book, now teaches Cuisine of Asia) and the legedary Chef Cheng, who reportely can break down a chicken with a cleaver in 16 seconds. President Tim Ryan seems like a great guy, too. Harold McGee, he of "On Food and Cooking," was on campus last week for a talk so I just missed him. Bummer. I'm sure he'll be back, though.
posted by JMB at
6:05 PM
4 Comments:
Are we going to get a vicarious cooking education here (ie one without the trauma of complete upheaval of life?). Cause I would sure love CIA tips on, say, making a really nice demi-glace, something to do whilst watching the M's play.
By
Anonymous, at 8:28 PM
I've only made demi-glace the "real" way once... and I gotta say, I think it's a bit overrated. Not that the results weren't good, but that's quite a bit of work for something you can approximate without nearly as much work.
Next time you make chicken or veal stock, reuse the bones to make another stock (generally called a remi, short for remioullage and meaning "re-wetting"). Old bones, but use new mirepoix and aromatics. This stock will be weaker than the first stock, but that's OK, because you're just going to reduce it 80-90%, until it's all thick and syrupy. Use a TB of that each time you need to jazz up a sauce, and you're golden. Keep in the freezer pretty much indefinitely.
If you want to get fancy, you could also flour and roast a couple of chicken carcasses and throw those in there during the reduction. Last time I did this, I made my remi, wound up with about five quarts, then tossed in the carcasses and reduced the entire thing down to about two cups. The roasting adds great flavor, and by flouring the bones you get some extra thickening power (sort of approximating the brown roux you'd use to made real-deal demi-glace.
jason
By
JMB, at 12:38 PM
Okay, I'll give that a try. I was going to make stock next weekend, so I will be able to make what I will call Seattle Faux-Demi
By
Anonymous, at 9:45 PM
I'm going to try to make stock this weekend as well. But first, I have to find a place that'll sell me 40# of chicken bones; I'd rather make five gallons at once than mess around with just a gallon or two.
jason
By
JMB, at 10:38 AM
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