Chemical Reactions, Potatoes, Stock, Pimentoes, Clarified Butter, and Roux

This past week at school we learned a whirlwind of recipes and techniques. Our chef told us to brace ourselves, because after Sukkot, we are finally going to have full weeks of class - we've been in and out for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, fast days, and Sukkot. Here's a quick recap of what we did:

 The chef was demonstrating how veggies react different when placed in acids (vinegar) vs. bases (baking soda) for a few minutes

 Front: broccoli in acid   Middle: broccoli in plain, salted water   Back: Broccoli in baking soda water

 See what happened?

On the left: Acid broccoli lost color, turned brownish 
Middle: Control broccoli, no change
Right: Base broccoli turned vibrant green

Below, the same experiment with red cabbage.

 On the left, cabbage in acid water, and on the right, in base water. The base cabbage started turning an ugly green (like spinach) and foaming up over the sides of the pan.

 Here's what it looked like after a few minutes:

Below, what the cabbage in acid (vinegar) looked like after a few minutes:

 Here's what happened when we added sour salt (no color enhancement):

The sour salt turned the cabbage a bright pink.
Want to see another (food unrelated) chemical reaction? Click here for a cool science video.

Potatoes

Moving on to potato day, we attempted 5 recipes as a class (see a few below). These are fingerling and red potatoes.

 Below, a strawberry rhubarb apple sauce for potato pancakes (latkes). It was so sweet, we added very little sugar.

 My partner for the day and I made this arrangement of sweet potatoes with brown sugar glaze: (pre-bake)

 Post-bake

Next was Hasselback potatoes, for which you cut an Idaho potato most of the way through into slices (notice the chopsticks stop the knife from going all the way through to the cutting board).

 These potatoes would then be stuffed with fresh garlic between each slice and drizzled with olive oil and salt.

 Above, chef demonstrating the proper frying technique for alumette (shoestring-cut) potatoes. His tip: fry the first time at 325 degrees for a few minutes until there is just a hint of color, and then fry a second time at 500 degrees until golden brown.

 Classmate Eugenia with her potato pancakes

Chef demonstrating "fancy" plating. Brush a plate with olive or any other oil and then sprinkle with herbs, ground spices, actual sprinkles, etc. It's like in elementary school when you used all-purpose glitter: first you put glue down, then you dump the glitter! As an adult, we don't dump anymore, though, we carefully place.

 Above, chef's plate decoration and parisienne potatoes (potatoes shaped with a parisienne scoop (aka. melon baller)).

 Everyone's potatoes above.

 My Hasselback potatoes, finished with parsley.

 My Duchesse (twiced baked stuffed potatoes) potatoes, made with a combination of white and sweet potatoes, garnished with class-cut mushroom potatoes (baby red potatoes cut to look like mushrooms).

 Another pair of students' sauteed fingerling potatoes.

 Some more plated mushroom potatoes

Stock

On our final day this week, we started gallons of chicken stock that our class and others would use as the base for sauces, broth, and other dishes. We started with a base mirepoix (translation = 2 onions + 1 carrot + handful of celery) and scaled it up for the quantity of stock we were making. I was in charge of cutting the carrots:

Teammate Eugenia preparing the chicken bones.

 An example of a bouquet garni (little bag of herbs) made with cheesecloth, bay leaf, garlic, parsley stems, white peppercorns, and thyme)

 How to tie the bag

 Teammate Bonnie preparing the bouquet garni bags for our stock pot.

We made 40 quarts of stock:

Roasted Red Peppers (Pimento) and Clarified "Butter"

We were all assigned a red pepper to completely char and peel:

 After the pepper is completely charred, it's placed in a covered bowl for a few minutes to steam. Then the skin can be peeled off and the flesh is scraped so there are no traces of black char or seeds.

 

Trophy pimento, cleaned and skinned myself!

In the midst of all that, chef told us each to clarify a pound of "butter." In kosher school, we don't use dairy, so we clarified a pound of margarine. To clarify, we cooked the margarine on low heat for a few minutes, skimmed off the foam and poured it into a container. You can see how it's separated.

 We will end up only using the yellow bit in cooking. The other part is mostly water, which will be discarded.

Clarified "butter" is used in a lot of ways in the kitchen, since it has a high smoke point, meaning it will take longer to burn. We used a spoonful of this clarified margarine in a base roux (equal parts flour+fat). For this recipe, I used 1 oz. flour + 1 oz clarified margarine.

Mixed together on low heat, the two ingredients combine to make a thick paste.

 Then we used this roux to make a bechamel sauce, which incorporated "milk" (non-dairy creamer) and white pepper into the mix to make a white cream sauce

 This cream sauce was mixed with our pimento (red pepper) puree, julienned carrots, red pepper flakes and penne pasta for a quick and spicy lunch!

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Candied Sweet Potatoes
2 lbs sweet potatoes
washed and scrubbed
5 oz brown sugar
2 oz water
2 oz whole butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Place sweet potatoes in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.
Peel skin off potatoes (carefully, because they are hot right out of the oven) and slice into rounds (1" thick) or other fun shapes.
Grease a baking dish and arrange the slice or shapes in the pan in a single layer.
In a small pan, combine the water, butter, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Bring this pan to a boil and then quickly pour over the potatoes.
Bake the potatoes 20-30 minutes, basting with the sauce if necessary.

Strawberry Rhubarb Applesauce
1 cup rhubarb, cut into pieces
fresh or frozen, no leaves
 1 cup strawberries
 fresh or frozen
2 lbs sweet apples
 peeled and cut into small, even pieces
2 1/2 cups cold water
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
juice from 1 lemon 

Mix the apple pieces and lemon juice in a bowl to keep the apples from browning.
Lift apple pieces out of the bowl with a slotted spoon to drain the excess water. Place the apple pieces, rhubarb, strawberries, and cold water in a saucepan. 
Bring pan to a boil then reduce heat to simmer.
Cook on low heat for 30 minutes, stirring every few minutes.
Add sugar by tablespoon, if needed. Depending on the sweetness of the apples and strawberries, you may not need too much sugar.
Let cool and refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.
Enjoy with potato pancakes, fruit crepes, french toast, or anything else that needs a little sweetness!


 Happy eating!