Playing with Sugar and chocolate

First the sugar was melted with water past the hard crack stage. Then the fun begins!

Pouring out the sugar on the sil pat

Getting rid of all the air bubbles with a blow torch

when forming the tray, the sugar must be held up in shape until it is completely hard otherwise it may collapse!

chef Kai making the bird's nest

The finished tray!


We also made truffles on Monday. The red ones are Oscar and my take on gourmet chocolate- spicy cayenne pepper chocolate with a port wine reduction. The almond rocca looking ones are famboise liquor. We started the process by steeping flavors in cream for about 10 minutes. We tempered bittersweet chocolate and carfully incorporated the steeped cream into the chocolate to form a ganache. We then refrigerated the ganache on half sheet trays until firm. We then gloved up and attempted to make ball shapes out of the ganache. This had to be done quickly as the ganache has a very low melting point. We then covered the truffles with coating chocolate and dusted them with cayenne pepper!

We combined both the sugar tray and the truffles that we made for a presentation tray.

Stiff Peaks

We have had to beat egg whites to stiff peaks numerous times in the last two weeks. In case any of you had any questions what stiff peaks are, they should look like this:

A nice little tip we learned in class is to whip the egg whites until soft peaks before adding sugar in. One needs to be careful not to overbeat the egg whites as it will cause the resulting product to be grainy.

stiff peaks should be stiff enough to stick into oscars nose

More Milk Eggs and Sugar

In continuation of Baking and Pastry, the multitude of items that can be made with milk, sugar and eggs continues. Here are some more pictures of items that we made in class.

Flan with chocolate curl

Crepe Suzette

Giant Lemon Souffle~ yes it was a success!!!

Rum marinated fruit beignets

oscar's tiramisu

Creme Brulee

Raspberry Charlotte


Tiramisu with white chocolate and dark chocolate coulis. Garnished with caramel sauce, chocolate sauce and creme anglais.

Michelin Ratings

What does the Michelin Star rating mean? The oldest restaurant rating system was originally created for hotel restaurants as a guide for travelers . 3 stars represents a restaurant that has exceptional cuisine and worth a detour, 2 stars represents a restaurant that has excellent cuisine and worth a detour and 1 star a restaurant that is interesting. After some research, I found it really hard to find the criteria in which the ratings are determined.
Based on the rating system, the assumption would be that a two star restaurant would have superior food to a one star restaurant. I had the opportunity to eat at restaurant Michael Mina in San Francisco ( 2 michelin stars).
Although the food was good (we had the taster menu) I can't say that the food was "excellent in cuisine". Although the food was seasoned well, nothing about the food screamed in my mouth.
One of the dishes that we had was a soft shell crab with heirloom tomatoes. Although the food was seasoned (a little too salty)for my liking- compared to Benares( one michelin star) in London's soft shell crab dish- Michael Mina's could not stand up. Course after course, the food was cooked well and seasoned well but there was nothing spectacular about the food. When paying that much for a meal, I expect the food to dance on my tongue and play with my senses.

The decor of the restaurant was wonderful. Soft sea foam green colors with circle patterns being subtly repeated in the carpeting, napkins, table settings etc. The service was impeccable (I even got a 30 second tour of the kitchen during dinner rush). The most impressive thing about the restaurant was that they did two full turns on a Sunday night! Deep did remind me that the 2008 Michelin star rating did just come out which always helps with reservations!
So how is it that Michael Mina's restaurant gets two stars and Benares gets one if the food in my opinion at Benares was just as good if not better (the service definitely was not.. in my opinion, the maitre d' at Benares should not be in his position that he was in)? Is it the difference in service and decor? If so, then the criteria by which michelin rates should be adjusted to note this. Has Michelin ratings become a money making machine? One must remember ultimately that the michelin star rating guide is some one's opinion and merely that- an opinion.

things that annoy me

People who put music on their voicemails. I dont need to waste 3 of my airtime minutes to listen to a song I don't even like or can barely make out in order to leave you a message. Don't do it people.

Eggs and Milk and Sugar

We have been working on making Tiramisu for the last two days. Its amazing the multitude of food that can be made from eggs, water, flour and sugar and cream. We started with making lady fingers. Lady fingers are simply egg yolks whipped to double volume, egg whites to stiff peaks, flour and cornstarch

The batter is then piped and baked. For the tiramisu filling, it is again a simple mixture of egg yolks, sugar ( cooked to 240F or soft ball stage), cream whipped to medium stiffness and gelatin dissolved in flavorings.
The lady finger discs are soaked in a coffee syrup flavored with marsala wine and alternating layers of the custard and lady fingers are put together to form the tiramisu.

Stay tuned for a multitude of other desserts made from eggs, milk and sugar!

Teamwork

It's amazing how teamwork can always be a catalyst for success in every job. After spending my first two weekends in a kitchen ever- it was very evident that with teamwork, the kitchen runs a lot smoother. It was amazing to see the Saturday dinner rush with no yelling, screaming and very few f* bombs being dropped.
The dynamic was amazing.
Here is a little idea of what happens: The ticket comes in and the order is requested to be picked up- the expediter calls it out the order. The grill guy gets the meats out of his reach in below his station- seasons and passes the meats that the saute guy needs to saute and starts grilling whatever needs to be grilled. The 3rd position saute guy gets the plates under the salamander to heat up- starts sauteing whatever he needs as well (often the veg or starch on the plate). Within 3-4 minutes a symphony of foods come streaming down on the 8-9 plates in front of them with each person contributing their part of the plate onto each plate. Mind you, another three orders in the same fashion have been called out in the 3-4 minutes it takes to finish cooking the food from the first order. No one bumps into each other- no one says " where's the sauce" or " can you put garnish on that" or " what the hell are you doing???". It's all unspoken and automatic. The amount of cooperation that goes into running the line is more impressive then the amount of cooperation that is required to fund a mortgage loan.
If only home loans could run like the kitchen line... I may not need to be on prilosec and nalprexone!
I have to give mad props to those guys working the line. It's non stop grinding for at least 4 hours. I understand why they say now- if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen!!!

Eclairs and Napoleans

On thursday, we concluded our first week of baking and pastry. This event cumulated to us making chocolate glazed eclairs, cream puff swans and napoleans.

Although I love making pastries, my OCD tendencies leads me to think that I can not deal with my hands constantly being sticky. I think I washed my hands 5-6 times in a 10 minute window... or pretty much anytime my hand touched the custard filling. Plating desserts is easier in my opinion then plating savory foods as you get to bend the plating rules ever so slightly- you can have more sauce, you can have lines on the rim, you don't have to follow 10-4 and back around rules. There is more artistic room with the pastries then slices of meat.

My favorite task of the night was all the chocolate work that we got to play with. Who knew that a piece of acetate could do so much! Gotta practice those chocolate cigars...