Being in the baking lab for the past three weeks feels like a fantastical dream that never even really happened. I mean, really...cookies and pies and cakes? I could have used a big ass cake today, we were all so on edge at the start of class. "What is this big pointy thing? A knife, you say? Is this some new invention?" But being with these two chefs again knocked the sense into us fast. Overall, it was a pretty good day, and now that we get to re-make a bunch of the dishes we made in 110 and 130, I feel I'm going to cook more with my instincts than with my recipes. I did today by adding a ton of garlic to herb roasted chicken and pan gravy, and it came out great.
First up, Chef Pastore wants us to play with our chicken. Get to know our chicken. Give our chicken a full body massage. Just don't choke it. Here, he demonstrates how a nice, relaxed chicken should look drunk.
Chef Pastore demonstrates his trussing technique by tying up the legs, as usual...
but then going around the side instead of between the thigh and around the breast. This will prevent the ugly lines the twine may leave.
Before we do the classic cuts, we separate the breast/wing and leg/thigh first. Chef Pastore starts by cutting that stretched skin between the leg and the thigh. This will aid in removing the breast.
Next, he goes in through the neck and snaps the wishbone to remove it. Hope he gets is wish! This will also aid in removing the breast. I did this on my other whole chicken I roasted to help remove the breast after cooking too, and it really did make it easier.
Finally, to remove the breast, Chef Pastore places his boning knife right against the side of the keel bone and puts pressure against the bone to keep his yield as much as possible.
Cutting the breast to where the leg and thigh met was easy because he'd already separated the skin there. On the neck end, Chef Pastore separated the meat until a single, thin film of skin was left, and then removed it. I was never able to get to that point on my own bird.
It is important when removing the leg and thigh that the oyster remain intact as it is the juiciest, most succulent bite on the entire chicken. Here, Chef Pastore shows us where to find them by pushing the back into buttcheeks. He's also sliding his fingers under the oyster to separate it from the bone.
Here, he's sliced around the oyster and will continue down the thigh until...
he separates the thigh completely from the carcass, perfectly preserving the oyster. Now that we have all of our meat separated, we can do our classic cuts.
For the airline cut, Chef Pastore starts by splitting the wing from the drumette. All the cuts that we have made so far have gone through the joint, not through any actual bone itself.
Next, he frenches the drumette by scoring around the end of the bone and scraping off all the meat to the tip of the bone.
For the supreme, he just separates the joint between the drumette and the breast.
He did trim off some of the excess fat for our skin-on today, and the fat should be trimmed meticulously if we did skinless.
Here, Chef Pastore demonstrates feeling for the joint between the leg and thigh...
and then he goes for it.
Perfectly clean separation of the leg and thigh.
The thigh also gets both ends of its bone hacked off, leaving a narrow strip of bone in the center. Why? I don't know.
Here is the half bone-in thigh, or simply, thigh.
Chef Pastore frenches the leg...
because leaving it alone is never enough.
For our other leg/thigh, we do something called a tunnel bone.
Chef Pastore cuts the meat along the thigh bone...
to expose it.
Then he cuts the bone off cleanly, right between the joint.
He repeats the cut along the leg bone to expose it.
But insead of removing the entire bone, he chops through the bone leaving the tip.
Voila! Boneless leg quarter.
Here is my attempt to fabricate a chicken. That Pastore...one day, the student will become the teacher! Disclaimer: not anyday soon.
Next up, Chef Shalchian cleans and guts a fish. I wonder if they did a coin toss this morning. If so, she lost. She starts by removing all the fins, save the tail.
Over a scaling station, she uses the fish scaler, or horse comb, to scale the fish. The scales go a flying anyway.
She rinses the fish under cold water, feeling for any remaining scales. Common problem areas she mentioned are the belly, and the collar.
She exposes the gills, and then pulls them out. Nasty! Those thing look/feel like alien teeth.
She gently makes an incision between the anal fin and what she calls "the poopy trap" and reaches in...
to pull out all this deliciousness.
After rinsing the cavity until the water runs clear, we store the snappers on ice in this swimming position, as they are a round fish. Flat fish lay on their side. Chef Shalchian says this is to preserve the filet.
Here is my beautifully cleaned fish.
And for ha-has, we roasted a chicken and made a pan gravy. For the first time since I started school, I feel I really cooked without thinking. Like I said earlier, instincts over recipes. Everything came out great. Chef Shalchian appreciated the height I put on my dish. She should...she's the one that taught me that. I served her with the bones facing away like Chef Brown taught us. And knowing she was a big fan of garlic, as am I, I loaded it up under the skin of that chicken so it wouldn't burn. I also used a good amount when making my pan sauce. She said the chicken was delicious, but that I may have gone a little bit heavy on the herbs, and I agree. There was no subtlety in my cooking at all today, not that that's completely bad. Also, she said my sauce tasted great!...but that it was cold. I should have warmed my plate a bit more to hold the temperature. Overall, I think it was a pretty good day, considering we were getting back into the swing of things after our baking bonanza.
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