Fancy Pants Foodie

Foodie news, reviews and how-tos from Arkansas and beyond.

The Little Chicken that Could (A Finals Story)

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My final dish: Roasted chicken breast, mushroom risotto, steamed carrots and broccoli, with mushroom and fried parsley garnish and cream pan sauce.

Some of the most demanding classes we take at Pulaski Technical College’s Arkansas Culinary School are the Food Production classes, which we presumably take each semester (hence FP1, 2, 3 and 4). These classes develop all the basic techniques needed to cook and present professional-quality food.

I just completed Food Production 2, which was terribly exhausting (especially at 8:30 a.m., 30 minutes from where I live) but equally rewarding. The practical final was like a little capsule of the whole experience: terrifying and exciting.

Did I mention I made an A in the course? By some combination of miracle and loving a challenge, I pulled it off!

For our practical final (as opposed to the written final, which was a week later), we were going to have a “black box,” kinda like what you see on Chopped. (Turns out it wasn’t nearly that glamourous, as the ingredients were just hidden in the fridge, but same difference.) We’d get a few minutes to plan a menu after hearing the ingredients, which had to demonstrate at least two different cooking techniques (i.e. roasting, boiling, steaming).

The ingredients:

  • A whole chicken
  • Arborio rice
  • Carrots
  • Broccoli

All the other students in the class proceeded to cut up their chicken to use the quick-cooking breast or other smaller pieces. As I am severely deficient in butchering (that’s a class next semester) and I rather like whole roasted chicken anyway, that’s what I went for. Risky, considering we only had a little over an hour. But doable.

We had roasted whole chickens just a week or two earlier, and you’d think none of us had ever cooked before. We took nearly an hour just to get our birds prepped, trussed and in the ovens. This time, I had it down in under 10 minutes, stuffed with rosemary, garlic and onion and drizzled with oil, S&P. And it was bee-u-ti-ful.

Of course, the arborio rice had to become risotto for all of us. But I may have had a slight edge because I scoped out the dry storage the day before and found dried mushrooms. (Hey, the chef said we could go look!) I reconstituted these in some hot water, used that water while cooking the rice, then added the mushrooms at the end. I have to say this was the best risotto I’ve ever made!

For the veggies, I wanted to do a simple steam, but with finesse. So I cut the carrots down into large dice (something we haven’t had to do since “boot camp” Food Production I) and trimmed the broccoli down into small florets.

The chicken came out just before the done temp of 165, letting it catch up with carryover cooking. I cut out a small (6 oz-ish) breast portion, trying to not load up a big, heavy plate. But then I got worried it wasn’t enough, so I cut two!

We also had to make a sauce for the chicken. Although I chose a simple cream pan sauce, it took too long and put me past my assigned presentation time! Ughhh.

But when my next time came up, I had it together. Frazzled, not sure the chicken was really done, but still fairly proud of what I had done, I turned in my plate.

Usually, we get immediate feedback, but this time we had to wait until the next class (a whole week!) for a response. Mine: The sauce was runny. The chicken was fine. Top marks on veg and rice. Yay!

I was supposed to take Food Production 3 next semester, but as much as I loved this class, I need a break. My kids need some attention, and my poor body needs some rest! I’m prone to illness if I get stretched too thin, and I’ve gone there too much lately. But I’m sure I’ll love my other classes just as much. More later on my next schedule and the *surprise twist*!

Fancy Pants Learns to Cook an Egg (And Rocks at Supreming Oranges)

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Yes, folks, it’s true…I have trouble with eggs.

Same goes for toast and cheese dip. If it’s really simple, I am apt to burn, break or otherwise screw it up.

Chocolate soufflé with a raspberry balsamic reduction and homemade spiced whipping cream, no problem. It’s a curse.

So when our Food Production I instructor told us early on in the semester that we’d be cooking eggs soon, I was nervous. I knew we’d get to this sort of thing, but really, now? Can’t we start with sushi or baked alaska or something like that?

In class, we had our standard weekly test (I think I did OK; it included lots of math for recipe conversions, so we’ll see) and a lecture on kitchen equipment.  I tried not to look too much like a know-it-all, but I actually had several of the items at home. I also found some useful info on cooking on the Internet. My mandoline could rip your fingers into tiny little ribbons. Pretty ones.

Then we went into the kitchen for our lab activities. Again, per standard routine, we spent quite a bit of time on knife skills, but a few different applications this time. We were to cut a potato and some celery into large dice (that’s 3/4″), chiffonade some cabbage for the Finish Line Café to make slaw (kind of a 1/8″ shred), batonnet some carrots (1/2″ x 1/2″ x 3″) and do an angled, 1/4″ cut on another carrot.

Here’s a photo of my angle-cut carrots. The instructor started measuring today, so I put my two best pieces invitingly out to the side. It didn’t work. The ones he grabbed were a little shy of 1/4″. Blech.

Although a lot of my knife work wasn’t so great this week, I have to say, I was proud of my orange segments. We were to “supreme” the orange, a nifty technique detailed here on Coconut & Lime (although we didn’t take off so much of the orange when peeling it). It’s basically how you get the really super-pretty citrus segments without the pith.

Everyone lined up for inspection. The instructor picked at the oranges ahead of me with a shaking head. Uh oh. He gets to mine and turns them over on the cutting board. He opens his mouth. Gulp…

“I can’t find anything bad to say about these.”

You have to understand…for this instructor, he might as well have sung you the Hallelujah Chorus. I went back to my station, cutting board in hand, a little taller. Too bad I don’t really care for oranges.

I know, I know….this may be more detail than you wanted. Let me fast-forward.

The egg.

After knife skills practice, I was to hard-boil an egg, then poach one. Hardly ever succeeded at the former, never even tried the latter.

Instructions: Find the appropriate kind of pot for the induction cooktops (only iron or stainless steel works). Put in cold water and one egg. Bring to boil. Turn off. Cover. Wait 10 minutes. Peel said egg and present to instructor for inspection.

For some reason, I ended up with a massive pot that took a while to boil, so I got behind. Meanwhile, I saw that several folks’ eggs were turning out underdone, even at the given 10 minutes. I left mine in an extra couple minutes and….miracle of miracles….it was perfect! Sometimes it pays to be late.

By the time I was poaching, most everyone else was cleaning up and getting ready to leave. Bah! This isn’t like me. I was embarrassed. Thankfully, the instructor was gracious and waited for me to finish. He even suggested I try again when the first poached egg stuck to my pot. (It wasn’t ruined, just not as pretty as it could be.)

My results: Delicious.

More photos:

My cabbage chiffonade. It was too wide.

My neighbor working away.

Fabulous co-student boiling her egg. She got the coveted smaller pot. Grrr.

And now, tasting and judgement!

Our instructor inspects boiled eggs.

I Gots Knife Skillz (Or, Finally in the Kitchen in Food Production I)

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My Food Production I instructor made me cry last week. Big, slobbery, wet-face cry.

OK, so it was the onions, not the instructor who had us cut them into a 1/4 inch dice. I decided to not be a whiner and avoid telling him about my slight allergy to onion, which should really only be a problem if I have to consume said vegetable in an undercooked state. But I do get a slightly over-the-top version of the standard gushing eye ducts.

That being said, I totally rocked my first day in the kitchens in this class.

We had our standard two-hour lecture session, which this instructor takes quite seriously. I’ve already learned a lot. So far, we’ve covered some culinary history (Careme, Escoffier, Point), some volume conversion (3 tsp. = 1 T, etc.), and some sanitation and safety info. We had our first test last week, too, which I totally rocked. I think. At least I was the first to turn it in. That could either be really good or really bad.

Anywho, we finally got into the kitchens after that test and reviewing for the next (which we may not have, if the Snowpocalypse continues). He said that today we’d be doing a 1/4 inch dice on carrots, celery, and onion, making a mirepoix, and then taking the onion to a mince just for grins.

I was curious how one would take a conical object, like a carrot, and turn it into perfectly square dice. The instructor showed us how in the kitchen demo. You carefully trim the sides of the carrot to get a somewhat square shape, then cut what’s left into 1/4 inch batons, then squares. The scraps don’t go to waste, but can be used for flavoring stocks or another non-plated use.

Other than looking like a blubbering fool during the onion bit (we used the fan cut), I totally rocked the knife skills portion. (I seem to be saying that a lot this post. But still true – though one person knew so much about the things they would probably have no issues with the santoku vs chef knife debates often found in kitchens.) The instructor, generally unemotive, even complimented my tri-color zest garnish (lime, orange and lemon peels, minced finely with parsley).

In this week’s lecture, the instructor gave a quick, random rundown of food TV personalities and what he thought of them. Julia Chlid: Favorite. Bobby Flay: Talented but arrogant. Emeril: Cool on TV, conceited in person. Gordon Ramsay: Jerk on TV, delightful in person. And Alton Brown: “I like that he explains in depth how things work, but he spends too much time goofing around.” But this is precisely why I like him!

It is for this reason, dear reader, that I close this entry with a link to the knife skills episode of Good Eats, found on Food 2’s website. I’m still a little intimidated by this instructor, so I didn’t whip out the old iPhone and take a photo of my worktable. So you’ll just have to learn from goofy ol’ Alton. Enjoy!