Tuesday, March 2, 2010

2nd Week of Culinary School & Some Thoughts

So this week we have been busy! We are still practicing our knife cuts, julienne, brunoise, baton, small dice, chiffonade, minced. We have a practice test tomorrow! OMG, tomorrow?! Our Chef instructor gave us his grade sheet so we can see how he will judge. I am nervous. I mean, chopping, how hard can it be? But julienne, baton, brunoise?? These are precise cuts people. We're talking 1/4" and 1/8" slices that have to be SQUARE or you will not get a perfect square brunoise or small dice! I better practice. Good thing I am making Baked Potato Soup tonight. :) I will be practicing on my potatoes! I'll let you know how that goes...
We also dropped a beef stock. No we didn't drop it on the floor LOL...but we poured it out from the stock pot into a china cap (sieve). Then we skimmed it, brought it to 70 degrees F in an ice bath and then refrigerated it. I did not realize that there were so many steps to stock making!
Today we watched our Chef instructor make Brown Sauce or Espagnole, White Sauce and Veloute. We only tasted, but he said in our next 6 weeks it will be on! We'll be stock making on the first day of school! I can't wait! There are so many sauces that are made from the "mother" sauces. I hope that I'll be able to learn them all and be able to make them!
So right now I'm wondering what I will do with my training and knowledge from culinary school. I pretty much have no idea. But I do know that I've wanted to do it for so long and it's fun. I'm enjoying it immensely. I will post pictures soon, and maybe a recipe for the Baked Potato Soup!

Off to practice knife cuts!!

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