Roasted Root Vegetables

What's a good fall side dish? Roasted root veggies. In this class, we learned how to make new roasted vegetables, ratatouille, sweet and sour cabbage, and glazed butternut squash.

Chef demonstrating cutting veggies into the same size for roasting

beet, turnip, and carrot

a split butternut squash, ready to be de-seeded and roasted

We roasted the squash seeds with a little salt at about 350 degrees for 20 minutes. They were a delicious snack! These toasted seeds can be used as a garnish for anything squash or pumpkin.

Sliced and roasted butternut squash

Little 10 commandment shapes!  
A happy accident from when I cut half-heart shapes out of the butternut squash. The squash baked as a half, then sliced and glazed with a honey/sugar mixture, and baked again.

Above: our veggies cut into shapes of the same thickness. You'll notice that we left the skins on... This was intentional, and all the root veggies were thoroughly washed and scrubbed. the skin gives the dish color and a little extra fiber. Finally, it adds an earthy flavor when paired with the caraway seeds.
Below, sweet and sour cabbage made with vinegar, sugar, and pastrami (or bacon).

  Below, my small plates of veggies:

Glazed butternut squash with nutmeg, white raisins and cranberries

 
 Roasted veggies (with the skins on!) and caraway seeds

Ratatouille (zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, onion, and tomato)

My roasted veg stack :-) (carrots and parsnip)

The table of everyone's plates. 

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Roasted Vegetables
equal amounts of:
parsnip
carrot
kohlrabi
beet (if you like that sort of thing)
turnips

caraway seeds
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 and wash and scrub the root veggies.
Leaving the skins on, cut each vegetable into the same size chunks, shapes, or sticks.
Drizzle olive oil onto the vegetables and sprinkle, from very high up, caraway seeds, salt and pepper to taste.
Roast for at least 40 minutes.
If some vegetables are getting soft, remove them from the pan and let the more dense vegetables cook for longer. 
Stack like Lincoln Logs or fan on a plate and serve!

Enjoy!

Chicken Cacciatore, Spaetzle, and Duck

Another day of chicken! This time, we focused on chicken cacciatore, an Italian recipe for braised chicken in a tomato-based sauce. There are multiple steps and combination cooking involved in this recipe, in order to execute it properly:

1. season and bread the chicken (prep step)
2. pan-fry the chicken for a few minutes on each side (cooking #1)
3. add veggies to the same pan that had the chicken, which is now removed (cooking #2)
4. use brandy to flambé the veggies in the pan and add demi-glace (meat stock reduction) and wine (cooking #3)
5. put chicken back in pan and place in oven (cooking #4)

 This method of combination cooking works for several reasons. Pan-searing the chicken seals in the natural juices and puts a brown crust on the meat. Adding the veggies to the same pan as the chicken juices infuses the veggies with the poultry flavor. Then, flambé-ing the veggies with brandy adds the alcohol flavor to the veggies while burning off the actual booze. Then, we add demi-glace (a beef or veal stock reduction) and a white wine for additional flavor depth in the sauce. The chicken is finished in the oven so that it can cook all the way through while sitting in the meat/wine/brandy/veg sauce and absorb the flavors.

Flambé!

Since the sauce is rich, it is served with a mild side dish, like pasta, gnocchi, or spaetzle (see below). If served on the same plate, the pasta soaks up the gravy and becomes extra yummy.

Below, my first plate of cacciatore with slices of raw mushroom, but chef didn't care for it, so I fluted and sauteed a different mushroom instead.

Below, classmate Bracha mixing spaetzle with her hands.

After mixing, the batter is placed in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to solidify. Then, the batter is pushed through a spaetzle maker or colander into a pot of boiling water. The spaetzle pieces boil until they float to the top of the water and then are removed from the water with a slotted spoon or skimmer.

Finished spaetzle! Typically, the pieces are sauteed in oil or butter, or placed in the oven to crisp up. I sauteed mine in herbed olive oil with sage and thyme.

While the cacciatore was roasting in the oven and the spaetzle was chilling in the fridge, I worked on a duck confit with classmate Sheva. The first step was to break down the ducks, just like we did with the chickens - into quarters and breasts. The quarters were braised in their own fat for about 2 hours until they about fell off the bone. These pieces will be shredded and packed in fat to be used later in the semester. The breasts will be used for duck l'orange, which is sliced duck breast served with an orange sauce.

Below, duck fat and skins rendering down.

Crispy duck skin:

Below, duck l'orange with supremes of orange. The duck breasts are considered dark meat, so they were nice and juicy!

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Spaetzle

6 eggs
2 cups of water
1.5 lbs of flour
1 tsp salt
pinch of nutmeg
4 oz. butter or fat
pinch salt and pepper
1/4 cup chopped parsley or other fresh herbs

Whisk eggs in a bowl. Add water, flour, salt, nutmeg, and herbs. 
Mix by hand until you have a gooey paste and place in fridge for 20-30 minutes to chill.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.
Remove from fridge and push through a spaetzle maker or colander into the pot of boiling water. Let the dumplings cook for 3-4 minutes until they float to the top, and remove with a skimmer. Heat a saucepan and melt butter. Place the dumplings in the saucepan and saute until they  have a golden crust.
Serve with chicken and gravy, tomato sauce, or just eat plain!

Enjoy! 

Break It Down - Chicken Style

Ever been face to face with a box of 30 raw chickens? Think it's smelly? Wrong! Actually, fresh meat, even freshly defrosted meat or poultry should not smell when you are ready to use it. If it smells, that means that it's started growing bacteria and it may not be safe to eat.

Our box of chickens was not smelly and even still had a little ice still in it from the freezer.

Chickens that you buy from the store should come dressed: no, not in a full suit and wingtips... Dressed means that the bird has been cleaned, plucked (no more feathers), eviscerated (no more organs), and drawn (no head or feet).

A handy trick about buying chicken for a group of people is to figure 1lb of chicken per person, bone-in. One person might not eat a whole pound of chicken, but if you buy a 3 lb chicken, there is a good chance that three people can finish it.

Esther handed out a whole chicken to each person so we could practice trussing. Trussing is a technique where you use a string and tie up a chicken or a piece of meat into a more compact and visually appealing package. This also keeps chicken legs and wings from flopping out to the side.

 Demonstrating the "dos equis" (double "X") technique, in which the string is tied in 2 "X" shapes to hold the chicken together.

 Ready to go in the oven!

Classmate Eugenia holding up her chicken
The song this reminds me of: click here

 Classmate Dvasha with her truss

 Classmate Avi holding his chicken:

 Chef preparing to split a chicken in half...

 ...and he's done it!

My split chicken

 Then we cut the half into a breast piece and a leg:

 When you cut through chicken, it is important to cut through cartilage and not bone. You'll know that you did it right if you see this:

 White means you cut through cartilage, and if you see red (bone marrow) you cut through the bone and you run the risk of damaging your knife in the future.
Here, the trussed chickens are roasted with some mirepoix (carrotsonioncelery)

 Below, chef trimming some chickens, and chicken parts laid out on trays.

We used fat trimmings and chicken skin to render for schmaltz (chicken fat).
A fun chicken song: Chicken Fat

 Above and below: using a blowtorch to burn off remaining feathers or surface impurities.

 Classmate Menachem working on a batch of honey soy glazed chicken wings

 Finished chicken wings:

 So juicy!
Below is my ingredient setup for an arugula salad with muddled strawberry vinaigrette.

Chef begins to demonstrate how to make chicken Milanese, a butterflied, pounded chicken breast dredged in flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs, and fried for a few minutes. This is a quick dish once you have your oven preheated and everything laid out.

Dredging in flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs.

The cutlet is fried on a skillet for about 3 minutes and then finished in the oven for 6 minutes.

 Below, chef's plate.

 Below, my plate:
The table of everyone's Milanese plates:

 One little recipe chef threw in at the end are chicken lollipops:

 This cut of the chicken is made from the drummette and the bone is shaved down to make a little handle. It is finished cooking in the oven with some bbq sauce for an excellent appetizer.

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Chicken Milanese (Schnitzel)

2 chicken breasts, boneless skinless
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
3/4 c all-purpose flour
3 large eggs
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp fresh chopped parsley or 1/2 tsp dried
1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs
5 oz olive oil for frying

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine salt, flour, pepper, ginger powder, garlic powder in a shallow pan.
Combine eggs and same amount of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and ginger powder in a second shallow pan.
Combine panko, parsley, same amount of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and ginger powder in a third shallow pan.

Take the chicken breasts, cut through the thickest parts to make a single, even cutlet.
Place the cutlet on a piece of plastic wrap. 
Cover with another sheet of plastic wrap and pound with a tenderizer on the flat side to flatten the breast to about 1/2" to 3/4" thick.

Heat a saucepan with the olive oil.
Place the cutlet into the flour with one hand, flip with the same hand, and pat any excess flour mixture off.
With your other hand, place the cutlet into the egg and turn to coat. Then pick up the cutlet with the same hand and place in the breadcrumbs.
With the hand you used first, turn the cutlet to coat and place directly into a hot skillet with olive oil. 
Brown the cutlet on one side until golden brown.
Flip, and place the pan directly into a 350 oven to finish for 6 minutes.
Remove from oven, slice, and serve with salad.

Enjoy!