Week 8 at San Francisco Cooking School

We went whole, well half, hog this week!  Thomas McEntee, from 4505 Meats, came to our class to show us how to break down a pig.  As with the lamb, I enjoyed it immensely.  This is a Berkshire Pig, this breed of pig is known for all its awesome marbling which helps give it extra flavor.  This pig was around 200lbs and we got half of it.

A size comparison of the piggy, for your pleasure.  Wilbur was an excellent model, he stayed still the whole time.

I was lucky enough to be the first one to work on the pig, I got to cut off the front quarter of the pig.

As you can see, I'm quite pleased with myself.

We spent the entire morning breaking down the pig into various cuts that we could then cook.  Some things cooked fast, while others (braises and roasts) took longer.  There was pork for pretty much all this week.  And if that wasn't enough, we also worked with beef!  I was a little disappointed to find out we would not be breaking down a cow, or even part of a cow.  I suppose a cow is way too large for us to handle and cook quickly. (The following pictures were taken by my classmate Mandy.)

 Braised pork shank, sauerkraut, cider braised pork belly, and sautéed apple

 Pork shoulder braised in stout

 Pork scallopini with a lemon butter sauce and fried capers

 Pork chops a la charcutiere

As you can see, we were not starving this week.  By the end we all just wanted a salad and a nap.

We started some charcuterie projects this week and got to play with the meat grinder as well as the sausage stuffer.  My teammate Julia, and I made Rabbit Terrine.  I don't know that I'm a fan of terrines mostly because I'm not a fan of cold wet meat, but I guess we'll see.  Other teams made sausages - boubin blanc, and chorizo.  Some teams made crepinettes which are ground meat patty things rolled up in caul fat.  Caul fat has the most vile scent ever.  It's the fat the holds the pig's intestines together, like a little bag.  The end result was delicious but the small while they're being made is horrid.

And finally, we started baking!  We made muffins - orange ginger, bran, oatmeal, etc, as well as some donuts!  We talked about gluten and different kinds of flour and why some flour is better for baking bread, and some is better for pastries.  We talked about how gluten effects your baking and the difference between whole wheat and white flour.  I'm pretty pumped about all the baking we're going to be doing this upcoming week.

Molasses Donuts! (Picture taken by my classmate Harriet.)

It was a wild and busy week.  I came home with about twice as many recipes as usual but it was fun, fast paced, and delicious.  I expect that we'll be getting crazier and crazier from here on out. 

Oh yeh, this week marked the half way point!  I'm half way done with the class room portion of culinary school!


:)M

Week 6 of/at San Francisco Cooking School

I still have all my fingers, and I've managed not to burn myself.

OMG, this week has been amazing.  It's been the week of "FISH!"  I fileted, gutted, dismantled and pureed fish and other fishy sea creatures this week.  I loved every single minute.  I mostly think I enjoyed it because unlike other animals I don't really care about fish so I don't mind ripping them apart.  I fileted rock cod and petrale sole, and I was honestly pretty awesome at it.  Now when I tell people, "Imma gut you like a fish," I actually know how.

I was really pumped on Thursday when we had Thai Squid Salad.  I specifically request that my teammate, Jeff, and I get to make the squid salad because I really really wanted to dismantle the squid.  I was pleasantly surprise when I told Chef that I wanted that recipe and she gave it to us!  Did you know that squid have a spine piece called a quill?  It's amazing, it's like a piece of plastic in the squid.  Check out this video that shows you how to clean a squid, and imagine me doing it and loving it:

Then on Friday Jeff and I made Shrimp Quenelles, which are essentially shrimp balls.  We pureed shrimp and petrale sole with egg whites, cream, butter and some spices and then poached them in salty water to create these light fluffy shrimp ball things.  It was weird, but pretty delicious.

The sexy squid salad.

We cooked a whole octopus too!  My classmate, Harriet, and I asked Chef Catherine if it was "Paul" the World Cup octopus, and then we got to inform Chef about the famous Paul.  (If you don't know Paul, check him out here.)

My classmate, Mandy, found a stowaway in the mussels we made this week!

I really loved fish week.  While I'm not a big fish eater I really enjoyed learning about how to identify a "good" fish, as well as how to filet and cook fish and other sea creatures.  We also had a great field trip to Monterey Fish Company.  We met up at 5:30am to watch the fish being sorted so that they could be delivered or picked up.  

 

Me and some rock cod at Monterey Fish Market.

I had my first meeting with Chef Catherine to talk about how I was doing in class and it went great.  She told me she liked that I could be so loud/excited/energized but could focus as soon as I needed to.  I told Bob what Chef said and he asked," Did you tell her you don't have A.D.D.?" 

We finished off week 6 with a visit from Courtney from Bar Tartine.  We learned all about fermentation.  Jeff and I pickled Kimchi, preserved lemons, and beets.   We made kimchi with cucumbers, I can hardly wait to try it out!

Next week we're going to butcher a lamb!

:)M

Week 4 at San Francisco Cooking School

Week 4 went pretty smoothly.  I still have all my fingers and I didn't burn myself.  My poor teammate Tracy, unfortunately burnt herself on that same scary convection oven - it's a beast.  She currently has about a 3 inch long scab on her right wrist.  It's nasty and looks horribly painful.  Hopefully it healed up nicely over the weekend.

This week brought about the revelation that I loath making stock.  Yes, I know it's straight forward, but something about it makes me fume with rage.  I can't put my finger on why, I just know that every day that involves my team making stock I go home disgruntled.  I'm working on making stock be less unpleasant for myself.

We had a couple of awesome visitors this week.  First we had Gonzalo Guzman, of Nopa/Nopalito, come to class and tell us about how he chose the food for the menus, and how certain items are made.  We help grind up corn for masa which was then turned into sopas, and corn tortillas.  He made a couple of really awesome hot sauces and showed us how to pickle onions just using lime juice.  It was a really awesome demo, and we all enjoyed awesome food at the end.

And to finish up the week, on Friday Eugenio Jardim taught us about wine tasting.  We learned about how every wine tells a story before you even taste it.  Soon I'll be able to sound like I know what I'm talking about.  I will of course have to drink more wine. 

We made a lot of vinaigrettes and mayo/aioli this week.  Infused our own oil with herbs, and just generally emulsified our food. 

And of course, we had a lovely plated meal day, here is my sauteed chicken with a mushroom pan sauce and veggies. 

We have a practical exam, and a written exam this week so wish me luck!

:)M

Week 3 at San Francisco Cooking School!

As many of you know this was the week that I finally got burned.  So, I still have all my fingers, but I can no longer say I didn't get burnt.  The good news is it was the tiniest of tiny, miniscule some might say, burn.  I burnt myself on a gigantic roasting pan while browning chicken bones for stock.  I was a super trooper and didn't even make a noise when it happened.  I kicked that pans ass by remaining calm and collected.

So, what did we do this week you ask?  EGGS!  We played with eggs.  I feel like I excelled awesomely this week with all our great recipes, mostly because I bake so much at home.  We kicked off the week by poaching eggs.  I'm pleased to say I can poach a mean egg.  And of course we whipped up hollandaise sauce because as everyone knows you can't eat a poached egg with out a sexy egg sauce on top.

 Our amazing lunch on Friday. (Grilled veggies, tempura shrimp, fried scallops, garlic custard, goat cheese souffle, spinach souffle, and salmon souffle.)

We also made custards, and souffles!  I'd never made a souffle before, but it was easier than I had anticipated.  We made a salmon souffle, a spinach souffle, and a goat cheese souffle.  We made spinach custard, mushroom custard and garlic custard - garlic was obviously my favorite.

On Thursday Barb Stuckey came in and taught us about taste.  That's right, I said taste.  The whole presentation blew my mind!  For instance, did you know that butter doesn't have a taste?  It has a a smell that leads us to believe it's a taste.  If you plug your nose and eat unsalted butter all you get is the texture of butter in your mouth, there's no actual taste!  It's crazy!  You can read all about the awesome things I learned in Barb's book: Taste What You're Missing: The Passionate Eater's Guide to Why Good Food Tastes Good  I highly recommend it.

I've also made excellent headway with the Curiosity Crawl by visiting:

 

 Saigon Sandwich with Sam, Tracy and Mandy! (Thanks Jen for taking the picture!)

 Craftsman & Wolves - Eating "The Rebel Within."

Four Barrel Coffee - Eating a "laminated" pastry. (aka chocolate croissant)

You'll all also be happy to know that my awesome nurse friend, Hazel, gave me great tips on keeping my hands from turning into little husks and keeping them hydrated.  I now own a pair of white cotton gloves that I wear to bed.  But wait, the fun doesn't end there!  First I slather on really thick awesome hand cream.  Next think you know I'll be wearing curlers and cold cream.  

 My sexy gloves.

It was a great week, as you can tell, but man am I happy it's the weekend!

:)M

 

Week 2 of SFCooking School!

Good news, week two is over and I still have all my fingers!  (I also managed not to burn my face off.)

Week two saw my classmates and me delirious and forgetful.  We've been cooking so much we can barely remember what we're cooking.  We made vegetarian onion soup (made with vegetable stock, in place of chicken stock) on Monday, and when we completed it on Wednesday no one could remember when we'd made it - thank goodness we label everything.

On Tuesday Galen Garretson who owns TownCutler came to class for a knife sharpening demo.  We learned about wet stones and how to properly sharpen our knives so we can take better care of them.  A sharp knife is a good knife!  I ended up buying a stone so I can sharpen all my knives at home and take care of my knife kit for school.

 My awesome new sharpening and polishing stones from TownCutler.

My class also got an awesome surprise on Thursday.  There's a friendly little competition going on with our class, the part-time culinary class, and the pastry class.  The instructors are calling it the Curiosity Crawl.  It's a list of restaurants in the Bay Area with specific dishes to try, as well as a list of places to visit, and a little recipe scavenger hunt.  So if you see pictures on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram tagged #CuriosityCrawl you'll know I'm taking names and kicking ass!  Check out the list:

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Where	What
Locanda	Fried Artichoke
Terzo	Hummus
Zuni Cafe	Bloody Mary
Saigon Sandwich	Bahn Mi
Roli Roti	Porchetta Sandwich
Camino	Brunch
Nopalita	Carnitas
Mission Bowl	Burger
Spices II	Fried Fish in Chile Pepper
Old Mandarin Islamic	Onion Pancake
Marlowe	Brussel sprout chips
La Ciccia	Octopus Stew
b. patisserie	Kougin Amann
Craftsman & Wolves	Rebel Within
Z & Y	Chicken w/ Explosive Chili Pepper
Bi-Rite	Ice cream
Turtle Tower	Pho
4505 Meats	Burger
Plow	Breakfast Potatoes
Tacolicious	Tuna Tostadas
Delfina	Spaghetti
Golden Boy	Pizza slice
Primavera	Chilaquiles
Swan Oyster Depot	Oysters
Fatted Calf	Charcuterie
Insalata's	Fattoush Salad
Liguria Bakery	Focaccia
Shanghai Dumpling King	Lion's Head
Acme at the Ferry Building	Baguette
Four Barrel Coffee	Laminated pastry
20th Century Cafe	Honey Cake
Mandalay	Tea Salad
Bake Sale Betty's	Fried Chicken Sandwich

We finished up the week with a plated and coursed meal.  Everyone in the class made braised artichokes, sautéd chicken with a velouté sauce served with glazed carrots and chateau potatoes, and we ended with a blood orange, date, and pistachios in an orange flower, and honey syrup.  My team was also tasked with putting together a veal stock.  It was a hectic but fun end to the week.

I've cut so many carrots, and my hands are so dry from constantly washing them that the carrot juice has soaked into my hands.  I constantly look like my hands are filthy and my nail beds are atrocious.  Oh well, I wasn't going to be a hand model anyway.

:)Margaret

San Francisco Cooking School

Eeeeeek!  On Monday, January 6th, I start culinary school with the San Francisco Cooking School!  I'm ridiculously excited about it and have been waiting for months for my program to start.  I was accepted back in July but opted not to start until now because Bob and I had so many plans already set up for the Autumn of 2013.  But now the time has come!

My hope is that I will be able to bring you all along on my culinary adventure. 

I will continue to work on my personal cooking challenge, but I'll also be intermittently letting you know what I'm up to at school.

Let the journey begin!!!

:)M