Keeping It Cool in Culinary School

I am thrilled to share that I will be attending the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts this upcoming fall! There, I will be learning the basis principles of food preparation, how to plate and serve many types of traditional and global cuisines, and become certified in food safety and storage. I decided to start this journey with the encouragement from my parents who urged me to research the opportunity since I was unhappy with my job situation. I was constantly throwing parties, hosting meals, etc., and creating beautiful dishes or finger food for my guests.

Over the past almost two years of living in a one-bedroom apartment by myself, I've enjoyed having friends over for theme parties, girl's night, or just a Friday night meal. It gives me such pleasure to feed people: to learn what they like, to get creative around food sensitivities and allergies, and to surprise someone with their favorite dish.

* * *

I was dating a guy whose mother had passed away many years ago, and in commemoration, her family collected her recipes and posted them on a blog. That blog is referred to on special occasions and for routine Shabbat dessert prep (mandelbrot). For his birthday, I invited 20 of his (and my) closest friends to dinner at my apartment to share his favorite dish, fettuccine alfredo, with us. After motzi on homemade french bread, we dug in, and while everyone was taking food, I went back in the kitchen to get the recipe I'd used. When he saw that the half-sheet of butter-spattered computer paper had his mother's recipe on it, he almost broke down, which in turn made me tear up as well. It was an honor for me to make that recipe, unadulterated with spices or vegetables (just a simple recipe using cream, butter and fettuccine noodles), and to serve it to him as a reminder of his mother on his birthday.

* * *

Getting uncharacteristically "spiritual" for a minute, I'd like to make these here declarations:

I start my journey into the world of food as a constant reminder to be selfless. 

I am thankful to be given these skills and this opportunity to share what I have.

I will stick to tradition while pushing the boundaries of kosher cuisine.

Using my knowledge, I will teach others how to prepare food, learn the rules of kashrut, and how to respect the kitchen.

Here are some of my favorite food snaps from experimenting with recipes over the past year:

starts with a snack: apple and peanut butter sandwiches

 roasted chicken with lemon, salt, and pepper

 hosting a shabbat meal requires giant challahs and several rolls

 hand-rolled vegetable sushi at a neighbor's all-girls sushi night

 lemon bars (pareve)

creamy roasted tomato, onion, and garlic soup with fresh scallions

 breakfast: flaked salmon, fresh cubed zucchini, and kiwi salsa with a hint of vinegar

 best appetizer winner! at the DC JCC's Top Nosh competition: 

olive oil crostini with honey-cinnamon-cream cheese spread, roasted sweet potato chunks and pomegranate seeds

that time when I made sweet potato mini doughnuts 

vanilla meringues

veal soup with noodles

 chocolate-dipped and drizzled pretzel rods

 Pinterest edible pinecones for a lumberjack theme party

 Pinterest fruit palm trees for tu b'shvat

 dried figs stuffed with pecans, rolled in sugar and sprinkled with sea salt

 first attempt at homemade pickles and carrots

 cauliflower with curry and cayenne

hamentaschen

 for pi day on 3/14/15: Berry pie: Whipped cream spiked with lime juice, fresh blackberries, and a surprise raspberry cream layer

breakfast smoothie: peanut butter, strawberries, banana, and milk in a mason jar

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Endless Deliciousness

Happy Monday!

Two artists from Russia, Daria Khoroshavina and Olga Kolesnikov, have created tiny scenes of endless deliciousness in the form of cinemagraphs. The lovechild of two forms of beautiful image making, video and photography, a cinemagraph is a mesh of a video clip and still photo in the form of a subtle gif. These are mesmerizing because since only a small portion of the still image is animated, it looks like the motion can go on forever in such an abnormally still, serene environment. To achieve this effect, a video clip is separated into frames/layers and then manipulated. See the list of tutoritals at the bottom of this site.

See more of their work at Kitchen Ghosts.

Below are some more cinemagraphs, found on Trip Wire Magazine:

"Kitchen Ghosts" via thisiscolossal.com

Kosher-Style Korean Kimchi

India and me (on the left)

My best friend, India, married a wonderful man who is half-Korean, and she's been learning how to prepare traditional recipes. One of the dishes she's got down pat is kimchi - a side dish or condiment eaten with rice, on burgers, or on its own. We made a less-spicy and kosher-style version so that I could try some. I started by gathering the ingredients: fine sea salt, asian cabbage, scallions, ginger, garlic, and red pepper powder.

I cut each head in 1.5" slices. She had me transfer the cabbage into a clean sink, that she filled up with water and rinsed the cabbage and scallions three times. 

We took the largest and thickest pieces of cabbage and laid them in the strainer. I sprinkled the layer with the sea salt, and repeated this process until we got to the layer of the smallest pieces. Topped off with another sprinkle of salt, the bowl would rest for 1-2 hours to cure. We tested the cabbage every half an hour until the largest pieces only bent when tested, and did not snap. I cut off the root ends of the scallions (for regrowing), and then cut them in half.

Then, we prepared three heads of garlic and put them in her Skinnygirl blender. Using a little less ginger than she normally uses, she scraped off most of the skin with a spoon (we left some on for nutrients).  Next into the blender went the korean pear, cored, skinned, and sliced:

When we checked the cabbage, my friend gave it a little toss to mix the salt around.

We added a 1/4 cup of fish sauce to the blender. Then we used the vegetable peeler to shave the carrots and I sliced those into thin strips.

She rinsed off the salted cabbage three times until we could barely taste the salt.

Will it blend? We blended the chopped items and combined the paste, scallions and carrots, and rinsed cabbage into a larger bowl.

She had me pour in the crushed red pepper until it looked "red enough." We kept adding red pepper until it tasted right, and then we jarred it up! I brought an old pickle jar.

I had so much fun! The whole process took about 3 1/2 hours, so we hung out while the cabbage was sweating. 

Here is the original recipe if you'd like to make it yourself!

http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/easy-kimchi
To modify the above recipe for a kosher home, obviously eliminate the squid, and use a certified kosher fish sauce. Otherwise, follow my instructions from above. Happy eating!

All photos shot with a Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM lens & Canon 40D body.
©Amy Hefter Photography

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