The 5 Mother Sauces

Our last week of Skills 1. Not terribly hard but a bit busy here and there. This week we focused on each of the 5 mother Sauces (Veloute, Bechamel, Hollandaise, Espagnole and Tomato).

Monday was Veloute. Basically just any white stock (non-roasted bones) that is thickened with Blond Roux (the second stage of roux cooking). We made Cream of Broccoli Soup and boiled broccoli to present to Chef. Turns out when making cream soups the exact same thing goes in to every single one but all you do is switch out the main ingredient. So the process in the same for Mushroom, Broccoli, Cauliflower or whatever other vegetable you can imagine which makes this so much easier. My soup was awesome but it seems like everyone in my class undercooked the broccoli (it is so hard to boil it without turning the florets to mush and the stems crunchy).

Tuesday was Bechamel Day. Also pretty easy, just milk thickened with white roux (first stage of roux cooking) and added to some aromatics and shallots. We then used this to make Sauce Mornay which is just the addition of shredded Gruyere cheese and Shredded Parmesan cheese making a tasty cheese sauce. We served this over-top of boiled Cauliflower which was much easier to cook then broccoli (add acid to any vegetable you boil that is white, it brightens the color).

Wednesday we had Hollandaise Day. I had never made this before although I knew what it was (egg yolks whisked into submission and then clarified butter is slowly added in making a creamy sauce). It is pretty easy but you need to whisk and whisk and whisk over a double-boiler and many people broke their sauces (separated them) and had to fixed. I did not. It came out really well and after that we made Mayonnaise. It's super easy, a little cider vinegar, lemon juice, an egg yolk, seasoning and then whisking in 1 cup vegetable oil. We ended up serving the Hollandaise over both Broccoli and Cauliflower but I liked it better over the Broccoli.

Today was an easy day, except for pots and pans because we had a million and of course I was on pots and pans today. We made Espagnole which is basically just Brown Sauce, brown stock thickened with brown roux and the usual mirepoix and aromatics. It was delicious and can be made into tons of other sauces.

As it turns out each of the Mother Sauces can be made into about 20-25 other kinds of sauces at least because of the versatility so if you want to be a Sauce Master, learn the 5 Mother Sauces and deviate from there. We took our written final today which was just like our midterm (89 on that) and it was again very easy.

Tomorrow is 0ur last day and we will be making our last Mother Sauce (a new mother sauce since traditionally there were only 4). Tomato Sauce! We are making pasta and tomato sauce which we get to eat so I'm pumped. Besides our Knife Test which is just a graded final of our knife skills in the morning tomorrow should be a fun-easy day as our last day there.

I'm very ready for Skills 2 and I think I might pull off an A- in Skills 1. That'd be excellent. Hopefully the weekend weather is a nice change from the current rain we are having.

Chef Werblin

ps. Basketball tryouts are coming up and I started getting in shape and ready with a friend. Here we go.

Fish Day, I Thought I Was Done With Fish Smell

Today was test day and Fish day. We started by making Brown Veal Stock again as well as a large pot of chicken stock like normal. Then before our knife tray cutting we made Fish Fumet.

Basically its fish stock. Water, fish bones, mirepoix (celery, leeks, onions, mushrooms), satchet (aromatics/herbs), lemon juice and a touch of white wine. Simmer for 45 minutes. Easy enough. Well it doesn't smell too great, bleh! Anyway, after that we used our fish fumet to make Fish Chowder. Also easy and not too bad even though I'm not really a fish person. Basically just bacon, mirepoix, potatoes, stock and roux (veloute aka a "Mother Sauce") all simmered to make a thick soup before cream and fish are added.

For those who don't know Roux is a mixture of half fat (usually clarified butter) and half flour. Here we use 60% flour and 40% butter but anyway you cook it until the desired type. Either white, blond or brown. The longer you cook, the more it thins out and the less thickening power it has. We used blond roux today. It creates a nice thick soup and any real "Cream Soup" is thickened with roux.

It was pretty good and of course I did an excellent job cause I am a soup pro. My knife tray was pretty solid and after lunch we had a big midterm, test type deal. It was super easy and I got 2-3 wrong at most out of a lot. A decently busy day but successful none-the-less.

The weekend is here and I'm excited. Supposed to be nice out so I plan on taking full advantage of that. When you wake up at 5:30-6:00am everyday and work/go to class/ cook for 8-9 hours you realize how precious the weekends are. Use them to make your life a bit easier. That's my advice for the week.

Chef Werblin

ps. I miss ultimate.

I am a Soup Master!

A week of soup... again. The kitchen is a busy, busy place and it is only going to get busier.

Tuesday was Consomme day. Consomme is stock or broth that has been clarified to a crystal clear and very flavorful liquid. Unfortunately the way to make it is a touch gross. Basically you mix eggs, some vegetables, aromatics, tomato and ground meat (chicken or beef depending on what type you want) and put it into a pot with stock. Then you stir... and stir and stir and stir. When it hits about 120 degrees you stop and then all that stuff that contains protein (egg and meat) coagulates with everything else and forms a "raft" on top. It kinda looks like gross meat loaf but then you wait. And in about 30 minutes you carefully strain it and you have a perfectly clear liquid that is beyond delicious. We did the usual chicken stock in large quantities and that was about it.

Wednesday was a decently fun day... Mashed Potatoes as well as Potato and Leek Soup. Pretty easy stuff, just boiling potatoes and adding milk and butter and seasoning for mashed potatoes. A fun hint, if you make mashed potatoes, heat the cream, milk and/or butter first before adding and it won't get too sticky. The soup is just everything simmered in a pot until it is pureed and cream is added. I was done first and super early (cause I'm awesome) and Chef loved it, "beautifully done" as he said. Good day.

Finally today, Thursday, we did another puree soup and legumes. Puree of Lentil Soup and Black Beans as well as a new stock, Brown Veal Stock. We'll start with that, to make the stock you put the bones in a 500 degree oven until the are deliciously brown and then put them in water into a stock pot and begin to cook. Unlike other stocks that are flavored with plain mirepoix (onion, celery, carrot) and aromatics, this is done by deglazing the roast pans the bones were in and browning the mirepoix before adding tomato paste and reducing it until its full of flavor. That is then added lastly before being strained.

Then we made black beans which is literally beans, a piece of pork or ham, and some aromatics simmered in water until they are done... and they take FOREVER, literally like 45-50 minutes. Easy but a pain. Lastly we did the soup. Just basically bacon and mirepoix sweated until the lentils and stock are added and simmered. We run it through a food mill once it is done to puree it and then season and serve. Again... "On the Money," which means I'm a good soup maker.

If I don't get an A in this class I'll be upset since I kill it everyday. My knife trays are getting better too and yesterday he had no complaints and today I was just slightly off on one thing. We only have 50 minutes now but I'm down to about 40-45 minutes. Love it here and everyday is exciting.

Tomorrow we do Fish Fumet (Fish Stock) which will be used for Fish Chowder. Pretty easy but it will be a busy day for sure. By now it is clearly defined who the best 3-4 people in the class are ( me being one), who the few decent people are, and the 6-7 AWFUL people who will apparently are in every class and will clearly struggle when we get to the big time.

One more day before the weekend. Get pumped.

Chef Werblin

ps. Literally ate the best dessert I've ever eaten here yesterday. Like a fancy churro with chocolate and caramel finished with caramelized bananas and candied walnuts. INCREDIBLE!!

Stocks, Soups and Sauces.... and so many Knife Cuts

So days 2-4 of Skills were interesting to say the least. Day 2 was mainly a day of some simple knife cuts again and learning how to make stock. The actual definition of stock is a flavorful liquid that has been cooked from aromatics (veg, spices etc) and bones from an animal. We make stock every single day. Usually 2 kettles of Chicken and 1 of something else, lately White Beef Stock but eventually Fish Stock, Veg Stock and Brown Veal Stock.

Anyway at the end of Day 2 we get our Vegetable Beef Soup recipe and notes. We turned our stock into broth by cooking it with the beef meat and doing everything all over again with meat and an aromatic blend. We walked into class on Day 3 and immediately the kitchen was bustling, everyone is running around trying to get mirepoix (for those who don't remember a combo of onion/leek, celery, and carrot/parsnip for stock flavoring) done for the day. 240 pounds of bones = 30 pounds of mirepoix, so 15 pounds of onions and 7.5 pounds of celery and carrot. Each day, each team is responsible for one of them. So we had celery which needed to be cleaned, peeled and chopped as well as the excess cleaned and bagged. All this is done while getting the things for our knife trays set-up (3 potatoes, 4 onions, 4 garlic cloves, 2 tomatoes, 1 shallot, a bunch of parsley and the stuff for a satchet). Finally, setting up our water bath's (basically a large pan with water to hold stock and butter and what not to keep it warm). A lot of running around.

Now the fun starts, at 7:30 whether your team is done or not, knife trays begin... 60 minutes. 2 onions sliced 1/8 in, 2 onions small diced, 1 shallot minced, 3 garlic cloves minced, 1 bunch parsley minced, 2 tomato concasse (peeled, seeded and rough chopped), 1 potato medium diced (1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 in cubes), 1 potato batonnets (1/4 x 1/4 x 2 in sticks), and 1 potato half julienne (1/8 x 1/8 x 1 in sticks), half brunoise ( 1/8 x 1/8 x 1/8 in cubes). Let me tell you that cutting something to 1/8 of an inch is hard. All this must be done in 60 minutes with increasing speed so by the final we have 45 min. You go up, show Chef your tray and he tells you and if they look off will take out a ruler or his model of cuts and compare. So far I've done great on everything except the potatoes. My battonets and medium dice are pretty good but my brunoise and julienne need work, that 1/8 in is getting me.

After knife trays, it's on to demo time. Chef prepares Veg Beef Soup for us as we watch, he gives us a sample of his to compare for seasoning and says... GO! We run away and begin. 1 oz Clarified Butter heated to sweat the onions, carrots, turnips, celery, leeks, parsnip all that had to be medium dice before we could begin. After that, add the garlic for about 1 minute. Add 1 quart of beef broth and the satchet (parsley stem, thyme, cracked peppercorn, 1 garlic clove and a bay leaf or 2 all wrapped in cheesecloth). Simmer 25 minutes. When its ready, add the tomato, beef, and cabbage for 5 more minutes and then remove satchet and season. When I brought it for tasting he said veg were cooked perfectly, seasoned very well, the only complaint was a bit less butter next time. Not bad. Clean-up, lunch, lecture and then we were free.

Friday... Day 4. What Chef calls, "the easiest day of the class." It was. We went in and did stocks and knife trays until about 8:30-9. Then it was time for us to make Onion Soup! Easily my favorite soup of all time and decently easy to make. We took 1 oz of butter and heated over med-high heat and then dropped in 1 pound of onions and just let them sit and caramelize. After a few minutes, that brown stuff starts to form at the bottom (we call that "fond") and you take it off the heat and stir so that the steam from the onions deglaze's the pan the onions scoop up that brown, sugary delicious. After you do this a few times and your onions and nice and brown we add the chicken broth, and satchet and then wait. 30 minutes. Add 2 oz sherry wine and simmer 5 more minutes before removing the satchet and seasoning. Oh and we also toasted sliced french bread with butter and cheese to make croutons as a garnish. Well let me say Chef loved mine. "Excellent color, seasoned perfectly... Right on." Exact words so I certainly felt accomplished. And then for the last time that week, clean-up, lunch and lecture.

I'm excited for Tuesday (we have off Monday), because it's Consomme day which is basically the clearest and most flavorful soup you'll ever eat. But more to come on that.

This weekend I finally got to play frisbee at a tournament with a pick-up team about 45 minutes from here so even though my body hurts, it was great. The rest of the weekend is just me being lazy.

Chef Werblin

ps. I'd venture to say that in the last 4 days, I have said "Yes Chef" and "No Chef" at least 500 times... at least.

I'm Developing My Skills

First day of Skill Development 1. Obviously like any other first day, we spent a solid hour going over everything in the kitchen and getting acquainted with our home for the next 6 weeks (this is the same kitchen and people we have Skills 1 and 2 with). Then we started our normal production, Chicken Stock and White Beef Stock. Neither is terribly hard but we used 120 lbs of Chicken Bones and 60 lbs of Beef Bones for stock. We broke into the team we will have for the next 3 weeks and cut mirepoix (for those who don't know, mirepoix is a 2:1:1 ratio of onions, celery and carrots added to the stock in the last hour for flavor).

Of course each of the first 3 groups have the normal 4 people per group but since there are only 14 people in the class, my group has 2 people meaning we do double the work for the next 3 weeks... fun. Anyways, after that we each had to do our daily production which today was simply; mincing 1 shallot, mincing 3 cloves of garlic, mincing a bunch of parsley, 1 tomato concasse (a tomato that is peeled, seeded and roughly chopped) and 1 satchet d'epice (a herb mixture containing a garlic clove, some parsley stems, a spring of thyme, cracked peppercorns and bay leaves wrapped in cheesecloth). It wasn't hard at all. Then we just skimmed our stock (took off all the crap that comes out off of the bones) and went to lunch for an hour).

After lunch we finished our stock, bagged it up, cooled it down and then stored it. After an hour of lecture we were done.

Tomorrow is the when it gets for realsies. Walk in and start stock production right away and then make, broth as a team, clarified butter as a team, and our knife trays for the day each. Knife trays starting tomorrow consist of 2 onions sliced 1/8 in, 2 onions minced, 3 shallots minced, 4 cloves garlic minced, 2 tomatoes concasse, 1 potato into batonetts, 1 potato into julienne, and 1 potato into brunoise. Basically a ton of cutting that we end with a knife practical of all the same cuts.

Try some of these cuts yourself and then imagine doing all that in 1 hour.

Chef Werblin

Meat, Meat, Meat...

Excuse my long absence but between lots of work, moving my room down the hall, starting an ultimate team and just kind of forgetting a little I haven't updated this in about a week so this will be a long entry (giving fair warning). Well now that I am done with Meat ID and Fabrication, I'll give you the play by play of all the crazy things I did.

The first day of class was pretty relaxed but since we only have 7 days we still had to jump right into cutting. In class at 6:15am and cutting until about 9:30 until clean-up and then lecture at 10:30am till noon. So the first thing was do a little ID on Beef or Bovine. Then he demoed how to take apart a giant Shoulder Clod which was pretty easy, and then trim and separate a Beef Top Round and finally, de-bone a Beef Shank. None of it was super tough but since it was the first day and was all new, nobody's was really good.

For reference, the left is the Shoulder Clod, the middle are 2 Beef Shanks and the right is the Beef Top Round (easy to ID because of the spot of meat in the fat on top). Taking apart those bad boys is a ton of work and takes more finesse than you would think. Anyway, the parts of the Shoulder Clod include the "Heart" of the Clod and the Top Blade (this is has a thin layer of collagen right through the middle). The Top Blade is sometimes separated into two little steaks from the collagen and we know them as Flat Iron's. Basically everything here is best cooked braised or stewed except the Top Round which can be roasted (typical deli roast beef comes from here).

Day 2 was still a Beef day since there is so much beef. This time we did the more obvious cuts that everyone knows, the Beef Tenderloin (filet mignon) and the Strip Loin (NY Strips and tender roasts). We had to trim and clean the Tenderloin which really easy but just takes some time removing fat and connective tissue. Then was the Strip Loin which was a bit more challenging. You can leave the bone-in but for our purposes we de-boned it (kinda tough) and then cut one part into Strip Steaks and one part we tied into a roast.






The left is a package of Flank Steaks on top and a Beef Tenderloin on the bottom. Then on the right is a Boneless StripLoin that can be cut into steaks.

And right below is nearly every cut of Beef from a whole cow carcass broken down into the parts of the 4 main primal cuts of Beef (Chuck, Rib, Loin and Round from head to tail). The left is the Loin (top 4 pieces of meat) and the Round (bottom 2 pieces). The round is missing a few cuts but the Loin is basically there. On the right is the Chucke which is also basically all there (top 4 cuts) and then the Rib which is missing some cuts as well (bottom 3).














Day 3 was badass... although we only cut veal cutlets (Day 3 was Veal Day), we watched our chef break down an entire veal carcass. It was very cool and I wish I had a video to show you. But regardless we cut lots of veal cutlets out of the Top Round and Shoulder Clod (veal has the same cuts as Beef seeing as it is just a baby cow). Turns out I'm pretty good at doing this since Chef said my cutlets were excellent.

Day 4.

So the left is a whole side half of a pork carcass and the right is a Grass-Fed Cow (we got a local one in to compare with the normal Grain-Fed).

So Day 4 was Pork. It was a tough day, definitely. We took a center cut pork loin de-boned, cleaned and fabricated the whole thing into a piece of meat that could be rolled and tied into a BRT (boned, rolled, tied) Roast. I did pretty well but it was challenging. The rest of the day wasn't so hard but it was a day full of a lot of cutting in general. Then we took a Pork Boston Butt (pork shoulder) and boned it and separated it into pieces to try and cut it into cubes. This is difficult because there is so much fat running through the meat that you only get about 40% of the meat to be usable cubes but luckily for us, all trim from pork is basically usable for sausage. I don't have any pork pictures unfortunately but a Boston Butt is a large, square piece and a center cut rack is a large, long rack with the rib bones in.

Days 5 and 6 were both easy days too. Day 5 was lamb day and the only thing we did was tie a little lamb roast and French a Rack of Lamb (clean the bone that sticks out to give a nice clean presentation). Then again we cut pork cubes cause apparently they needed a whole lot of these for the last few days to some lovely Meat Music provided b our chef, which made it fun.

Day 6 was poultry and again we didn't do anything too hard. We trussed a pretty small chicken (trussed is tying it) and we broke apart the entire thing into bone-in breasts, boneless legs and wings. Once you get the hang its really easy and I did 4 of them in about 15-20 minutes. So if you ever want to know how to completely break down a turkey or chicken, just ask me.

Our last day was a freebie, sausage day. We just ground pork trim with seasoning and ice and then pumped it into casing to make sausages which we tasted, Italian and Breakfast, both good. Then we made pork cubes... again... I'm really good at making pork cubes.

So that was my week of meat class. I really enjoyed it and it was a pretty easy class. The weekend is boring. I really have nothing planned except for a frisbee practice on Monday (we have off). So starting Tuesday I enter Skill Development 1: Basic Stock and Sauces (and Knife Cuts). I'm super pumped for this class since this is the beginning of actually learning how to cook and prepare food.

Other than that, life has been pretty good here. Extremely tiring, but good. Oh and I got A-'s in both Meat and Fish which is pretty good since I'm the only one in my class who did that in Fish and I think 1 of 2 that did in Meat. Its funny how well you do in something when you really enjoy it. Hopefully everyone is enjoying the fantastic weekend weather as much as me.

Chef Werblin

ps. I moved my room to down the hall with a friend of mine cause my old room was awful. Pretty much the best move ever... and I'm no longer on the bottom bunk