The Culinary Tales Week 3: Potayto, Potahto

May 8, 2014

If I heard the word “push” one more time, I thought I would vomit.

 

Every time Chef Bad Cop uttered the phrase, I wanted to crawl under a rock and cry. I began missing the days when “push” meant that the blackjack dealer didn’t take my money away.

 

It was the halfway point of our first term (seven more to go) and we got a mid-term check. I aced tests and homework but my actual cooking performance wasn’t that great. I didn’t finish everything we were supposed to make and not everything that I turned in was stellar, though they were usually cooked well and the flavor was right.

 

It definitely made a difference when I got to school an hour earlier (though I was at the mercy of LA traffic, which could be brutal on any given day.) But whenever I had time to collect myself and get my ingredients together before class started, I had a great night.

 

At the end of the week, I finally got to everything on the menu (for once). Not that they all turned out: Pommes Lyonnaise, Pommes Anna, pasta Bolognese, a true French egg omelet, and consommé.

 

The consommé was a disaster written in the stars. About halfway through pouring in the stock (we needed about five cups of it), I realized I poured in veal stock instead of chicken. You’d think that wouldn’t be a big deal, except I had already mixed in the mirepoix (classic French combo of carrots, onion and celery) cut julienne (1/8″ x 1/8″ x 2-3″ strips), two egg whites and three ounces of ground chicken (all kept cold). The stock needed to be cold as well, so I had it chilling for about an hour at that point. Chef allowed me to continue with the veal – the flavor was shot, but I could at least practice for the consistency.

 

Consommé is a tricky deal. You mix all these ingredients, then you simmer it. A “raft” will form (that’s when the egg whites begin to coagulate and form a foamy ceiling at the top of the water.) After a while, you’re supposed to make a hole in the raft (if it doesn’t form naturally), then spoon out the clear broth underneath into a cold, clean chinois lined with a coffee filter. Then you reheat and serve. The liquid should be absolutely clear; like water, but with a little color like a light ginger ale.

 

Needless to say, it was the lowlight of the night.

 

 

 

 

Pommes Lyonnaise is just a fancy way to call home fries: sliced potatoes with onions but with a lot more technique than I’d ever expected.

 

First, a peeled potato had to be cooked about halfway (placed in cold water and brought to a boil), then cut into 1/4″ rounds, then fried with onions that are cut the same width. It was important to understand than when cutting ingredients, they should be cut as uniformly as possible for even cooking.

 

And then Pommes Anna was another tricky treat. The potatoes had to be sliced paper thin. PAPER THIN. Then arranged in layers that is technically described as a rosette pattern (about three to five layers in a circular pattern.) It gets fried a bit, then placed in the oven to finish.

 

I didn’t even try too hard on the slicing, ably cutting up two large potatoes in fewer than five minutes. (That said a lot about the improvement of my cutting skills.) The tricky part was that when cut this thin, the potatoes can easily curl up like potato chips and we didn’t want that, we wanted it flat. I almost said F-it, but finals was approaching and I had to make everything at least once. While the flip side burned a little, it turned out well enough to get good feedback.

 

We also made more soups (my clam chowder was pretty decent) and got to learn egg techniques. I cooked my first perfect poached egg (actually, two of them!), and I finally got the hang of omelets (never could get them right before.) Fluffy, light, yummy omelet and scrambled eggs. WITHOUT MILK.

 

I previously thought milk was necessary to get eggs fluffy but it’s all in the cooking (alternating high and low heat and avoiding color, because that means that your egg is overcooking.)

 

I was getting better at knife skills too. Everyone was: our cuts were getting more precise, and, more importantly, we weren’t bleeding as much.

 

If there was anything I was proving competent in, it was pasta. My pasta bolognese was terrific, not overcooked and the sauce was great (this sauce was two days in the making: we made the tomato sauce – the fifth of the mother sauces – one night and then added the meat to finish another night.

 

I started to rethink my plans for doing my externship in France, and seriously considered trying for London’s River Cafe, a famous (and good) Italian joint in Chelsea where Jamie Oliver got his start. Or even Italy. France would be an awesome training opportunity (not to mention cheaper to live in. The downside is that it is *France*. Meh.) Of course, this all  depended on winning the lottery. Or having my stocks pay off, whichever comes first.

 

It was an up and down week and I was a little too tired to have a breakdown.

 

I was getting used to the routine though unfortunately, my long day didn’t end when I get home (anytime between 11:30 – 12:30). I still had to clean my knives and utensils for the next day and do homework.

 

I was finally done moving but unpacking was another story (many of those boxes would still be unpacked a few years later). My weekends were slated for practicing the recipes, doing laundry (VERY hard to keep those jackets and aprons clean when they’re WHITE) and getting more homework done. Things would definitely have been easier if I didn’t have to bother with this little thing called work. It felt almost impossible to do both, but then again, America was built on people who worked hard through adversity; I wasn’t the first person to work and go to school at the same time. I didn’t even have a family to tend to, y’know?

 

In all honesty, it was rough going but strangely thrilling. I was hell bent on working out the whole life/work/play/make-the-dream-a-reality thing… who needed sleep anyway?

 

I did ask myself over and over why I was putting myself through this. In some part, because I’m a little nuts. And because, we should all realize, nothing worth having is easy.

 

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