day 56: chicken over celeriac puree, sauteed spinach and glazed baby carrots

Today was the last day before spring break, so we got to clear out the schoool pantry and fridge. I got to use celery root, which was pretty interesting, but not very tasty on its own. Next time, I'll do about half celery root to half potato, which should make it a bit less gritty. The baby carrots were too cute, and I liked making three little dishes that we did from our first intro class: pommes puree, sauteed spinach and glazed carrots. I also garnished with the tops of the carrots, which should be used more often...they smell and taste pretty unique.

day 55: fabricating offal and game; sweetbread and squab marsala, braised rabbit leg with rabbit stuffed ravioli, and asian style sweetbread stir-fry over egg noodles

Today's Iron Chef challenge was the most exciting thing we've done in school so far. In teams of five, we had to come up with three dishes that all incorporated sweetbreads, one that had to incorporate rabbit, one that had to incorporate squab, and one that had a rolled and filled pasta.

First, Chef Pastore introduces us to sweetbreads, which are prepared almost exactly the same way our liver was yesterday.

He fabricates a squab, which is just like a smaller chicken, and sears it pretty quickly to about medium.

He plates this over some fava beans and a delicious balsamic reduction sauce.

For one of our plates, I came up with an asian stir fry with the sweetbreads in place of tofu. I would have liked to have gotten a nice orange glaze over the sweetbreads, but the whole last half hour really flew by. James came up with the great idea to roll out some egg noodles when we couldn't find any rice. In the stir fry are leeks, onions, tomatoes, yellow peppers, garlic, ginger, and oranges. Juliana prepped all my veg and mise, and I could not not have done this without her.

Our next dish is a sweetbread and squab marsala. Jeremy made a great marsala sauce, but Chef's critique was that the marsala was too overpowering for delicate flavors like sweetbread and squab. I just thought it was natural since we dusted our sweetbreads with flour and pan fried them just like our chicken breast. I thought this was an excellent dish. Sohl made some really great garlic roasted potatoes for this plate, too.

Our last dish, I'm going to agree with Chef that it really had no direction. You've got a braised rabbit leg, some pan-fried sweetbreads, and some ravioli with a cheesy bechamel. It was nice that we diced and sauteed our rabbit for the ravioli, but the plate as a whole doesn't really come together in any way. Also, as much as our entire team loved Jeremy's cheesy sauce, the flavor was quite intense, and subtlety and balance really flew out the window on this one. Ah well, a hit and a miss. Fun day though!

day 54: fabricating salmon and liver; calf's liver lyonnaise, and grilled salmon with mustard beurre blanc and roasted broccoli

Today, we fabricated whole salmon, grilled it and made a mustard beurre blanc sauce. We also got our pick of vegetables and whatever preparation we wanted to do, so I pulled a Rachael Ray and roasted some broccoli, stems and all, tossed in the garlic olive oil I made on Friday, salt and pepper. First, Chef Shalchian demos fabricating a whole salmon, which is like any round fish we've done before, just bigger. In fact, I think the bigger actually made pulling the pin bones a lot easier than on our smaller fillets.

Next, Chef Pastore demos the liver. Here, he slides his finger under the outer membrane to remove it, sort of like silver skin.

After seasoning both sides with salt and pepper...

 

and a light dredge through some flour...

 

Chef Pastore sautees them to about medium in cast iron with clarified butter.

 

A little bit more butter just because.

 

The liver is served with onions, carmelized in bacon fat, bacon lardons and a lemon beurre blanc.

It was delicious, but took a lot of clever ingredients to mask the liver-y taste of liver, and you could only eat so much of this before the liver started creeping back in. Great flavors though.

For my dish today, I pan fried and basted my salmon in some clarified butter, roasted some whole broccoli tossed in some garlic olive oil, and attempted a lemon beurre blanc although the clock got ahead of me at the end of the day and the sauce hadn't quite come together yet. Chef Shalchian said my fish was cooked a very nice medium rare, but that she wasn't a fan of the whole broccoli stem being presented like that...she would have cut the stem. I don't think she tasted the broccoli, although I wish she had...roasted broccoli is awesome! The ends get all singed like burnt hair, and they had a nice crispness with the kosher salt still on them. I think it looks nice on the plate, but I like that I always get another perspective on how to present things.

day 52: filet mignon with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables

Steak was on the menu again today, and I didn't mind at all. I also roasted off some garlic for my red bliss mashed potatoes, and grilled some eggplant and peppers for my dish. A little bone marrow and bordelaise sauce for garnish, and I think I put together a pretty good plate of food. Chef Shalchian said my potatoes were really good and that she could eat a whole plate of it, but that I should probably have squeezed my garlic out and mashed them before adding the potatoes so that they wouldn't have browned so much. Also, my peppers could have used more time on the grill, but the eggplant was pretty good. My steak was cooked perfectly medium rare.  Forget thermometers...squeezing the meat is a much better and intuitive way to tell when your meat is done.  Best of all though, she commended my bordelaise sauce, which was a tough feat since she said our veal stock was pretty bad. She said it was one of the only bordelaise sauces that tasted like bordelaise sauce...I'll take that! Next week: pork, game and offal.

day 51: fabricating veal; veal meatballs with baby artichokes

Today, we broke down a sixty pound veal leg, ground the meat, and made delicious veal meatballs that we simmered in a broth of onions, fennel, garlic, tomatoes and olives. We served that with baby artichokes, and freshly rolled farfalle pasta.

Chef Pastore fabricated the leg before class today. Less demo...more cooking!

Chef Shalchian grinds our veal through the buffalo grinder.

This was a great dish to make because you really can't go wrong with meatballs. Even a bad meatball is still pretty good. But I did pretty well with my meatballs. Chef Shalchian took one bite and proclaimed to the world, "That's a moist meatball!" She said I used just the right amount of egg to bind it, although it could have had a little more seasoning. I also took the extra step to lightly dredge my meatballs through some flour first, just as an extra insurance to keep it together and for nice even browning. I could have taken off another layer from the cute little baby artichokes, but being asian made it hard to do so. I over-reduced my broth a bit, which would have been a simple fix with just a bit more chicken stock, but I liked the heartier texture. I'm pretty happy with my dish, and I'm looking forward to dinner: leftovers!

day 50: fabricating lamb; shepherd's pie and prime rib

Today, we broke down an entire lamb, and made shepherd's pie. The pie was cool to make because all the layers were separate dishes that we had cooked previously: ground lamb, ratatouille, pommes puree and gruyere cheese for good measure.

Chef Pastore starts by separating the shoulder with his scimitar.

The first bone is taken off because there is virtually no meat on it.

The leg is separated from the shoulder through the joint, just like a chicken.

Chef Pastore grabs hold of the breast meat, and removes it to make the ribs easier to deal with.

He first takes off the riblets...

and cleans them up a bit.

He makes a cut between the third and fourth rib...

and does the same between the 12th and 13th rib...

to expose the eye.

The bones get trimmed evenly...

and the rack is rolled back from the spine, like removing a chicken breast.

Chef Pastore removes the fat cap to french the bones.

After trimming off most of the meat...

he uses a towel to pull off the remaining membrane and bits.

He goes in to remove the tenderloin...

which is quite puny, compared to the steer we worked on yesterday.

He flips it over to take off the sirloin.

He removes the leg along the pelvic bone.

The cap comes off with a good whack.

For the semi-boneless market form, we tunnel the thigh bone like a chicken, but the leg bone stays intact.

We can also bone the thigh meat completely...

for our BRT (boned, rolled and tied).

Our fabricated lamb, clockwise from top left: breast, whole leg, BRT leg, sirloin, shoulder, riblets, hind shank, fore shank, frenched rib rack, sirloin again, random artery and tenderloin.

This is my shepherd's pie, which first got a layer of ground lamb sauteed with finely diced celery, carrots and onion. Then, I added the ratatouille which I made with eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, red and yellow bell peppers, onions and tomatoes. On top was a layer of pommes puree, or creamy mashed potatoes, and grated gruyere. It was delicious, especially with a side of prime rib that Chef Pastore roasted with plenty of garlic and thyme.

day 49: fabricating beef rib primal; filet mignon with sauces bordelaise and bearnaise

Today, we broke down a whole rib primal, fabricated and cooked filet mignon, and prepared two sauces to go along with it. The rib was as big as a house, and tomorrow we're breaking down an entire lamb and cooking a secret dish with it. How Iron Chef of us.

Chef Pastore starts by hacking off the chine bone, or spine.

Removing the first muscle...

and trimming the fat...

gives us the flap meat, which looks and cooks very similar to flank steak with the same striations.

After trimming the fat off of our ribs...

And cutting a starter along the bones...

Chef Pastore takes to the saw to remove our short ribs.

A student does the heavy lifting.

Chef Pastore shows us a cool presentation on short ribs by first removing the meat from the bones.

He then cuts the meat about the same size as the bone.

He frenches the bone.

"Osso Buco!" Very creative.

Chef Pastore finishes frenching our rib rack, which we'll roast for prime rib tomorrow.

Chef Pastore's fabricated rib primal, clockwise from top left: rib rack, short ribs, supermarket short ribs and flap meat.

Today, bearnaise sauce was my ultimate downfall. Having never even made a proper hollandaise sauce, I didn't really have high hopes for my bearnaise but I had to give it a shot anyway. I made it three times today, and it broke three times. On top of that, my plate was scorching hot, which separated the sauce even more. Perfectly medium rare filet mignon, delicious bordelaise, and a big hot mess of bearnaise.