Culinary School First Week

Good morning! I have successfully made it through week 1 of culinary school with only one small burn... (As our chefstructor always says, "ASSUME EVERYTHING IS HOT!") We learned the history of food and restaurants, the brigade systems of kitchens all over the world, and knife skills and sharpening techniques.

 When given our set of knives (an 8" chef's knife, paring knife, boning knife, serrated slicing knife, thermometer, and peeler), we were told to make a mark on our set to distinguish it from the rest of the class's. I chose my initals, "AH":

 Our chefstructor, Avram Wiseman, was the executive sous chef of the United Nations for 4 years and continues to cater and work in kitchens in the New York area. Having trained in England and traveled to other countries, he is incredibly knowledgeable in all things food and teaches with enthusiasm and passion.

demonstrating the proper way to sharpen a knife on a stone

Our first knife skill lesson was learning to cut supremes, the fillet of the fruit. The knife-wielder using this technique trims away all the skin and pith of hard-skin fruit like grapefruit, oranges, lemons, and limes, and leaves only the "supreme" cut - a sliver of fruit that is ready to eat. Chef Wiseman helped me plate some of my supremes.

Then we learned the rondelle, small dice, medium dice, and large dice cuts. 

Finally, he showed us how to flute a mushroom. With deftness and a paring knife, he made the process look easy.

I gave it my best shot:

Next, we did julienne (1/8" x 1/8" x 2.5") and batonnet (1/4" x 1/4" x 2.5") cuts. Chef told us that our juliennes should fit exactly on the back of our knives:

On Wednesday, we started our first recipe: pico de gallo. He showed us how to concasse (blanch and shock) our tomatoes so the skins would peel right off.

 beginning the concasse

peeled tomatoes

Then we combined the tomatoes, scallions, cumin, salt, pepper, tomato juice, olive oil, and fresh garlic (I left out the cilantro, since the taste, and sometimes smell, makes me nauseated). It was delicious! We tried it with plain corn tortilla chips.

Thursday we cut onions. :,,) Despite our best efforts, we all cried. Chef told us that the only way to truly prevent tears when cutting onions is to use a fan to blow the onion schmutz away from you. Unluckily, I was facing the fan.

sad face

crying...

We cut these onions for a Sri Lankan rice that we whipped up in the second part of the class on Thursday. We used cardomom pods, cinnamon, turmeric, and the melted diced onions mixed with basmati rice for the most fragrant from-scratch rice I've eaten yet.

Determined to get the fluting technique down, I bought 2 lbs of mushrooms and practiced for an hour that night. 
This is how I did:

 I sauteed them in butter and cardamom, plated with wilted swiss chard and olive oil with cardamom sprinkle.

Not perfect, but I'll keep at it. :-)

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Pico de Gallo:

 2 tomatoes

(blanched for 20 seconds in boiling water), shocked in ice water and peeled

1 scallion

1-2 cloves of garlic

(finely minced)

 1/2 jalapeno

 (finely diced, seeds reserved. only use seeds if you want your tongue on fire)

 juice of 1/2 a lime

1/2 red onion

 (small dice, or cut into fancy shapes)

 1/2 tsp. or to taste of ground cumin

 1 TB olive oil

2 oz. (1/4 cup) tomato juice

(or more if you like your mixture a little wet)

 salt and pepper to taste

Seed and chop tomatoes to desired size. 

Add all ingredients and add more (or less) of any ingredient if you'd like more flavor!

P.S. some people add cilantro (ew) to their pico, so if you desire, add at least 1 tsp.

Have a Shana Tova! Happy New Year!