Apricot Custard

The three best things I've learned at the FCI so far ...

I've been so busy with attending cooking school, getting ready for each lesson (reading ahead, preparing notes), and work (wines sales - more on that again some time), and trying to squeeze in a little downtime with the missus and the kid that I've neglected my blog!

I've learned a tonne of things since starting at the French Culinary Institute a little under two months ago.  I went in with the attitude "if I'm not shown it here, I don't know it ...", meaning I don't want to bring all my bad habits (or even my good ones) into the training kitchen, I want to take full advantage of the expertise of my intructor(s) and learn how to do the the right (French/ FCI) way, because that's what I've decided to invest my money and time on ... I did know a fair bit going in, but I also didn't.  My interpretation of things was never for a production environment, and I never achieved as many efficiencies in my techniques and yield as I am now learning.

The great thing about taking these professional lessons, as opposed to reading about stuff in a book, or even watching a good detailed demo on TV, is seeing the chef prepare things in all their various stages, from raw, uncut, product through to a final dish (which you can then taste), ask any questions you need to, and then go off and do it yourself - and get feedback all along the way and and the end when you present your final dish.

Making stock of things

So, I had a funny flashback in the locker room before tonight's class: as I was putting on my chef's whites, I had a vivid memory of 30+ years ago when I was an altar boy (!), when I'd be in the sacristy putting on my cassock and surplice to get ready for serving mass.   Just something about the ritual of dressing in a uniform for work ...

Ok, so tonight's class.  Stocks are the foundation of French cooking - so many French dishes require a sauce based on a stock, or there'll be a soup or stew with a stock base.   The base of almost all stocks are animal bones, which give the stock flavor and body.   Various aromatics, including herbs and vegetables, are added to provide even more layers of flavor. For our third class made stock - several as a four-person team in smallish quantities, and a couple which we done by one of our chef instructors,  with some input by the class.

I'd made stocks at home a few times, usually chicken stock (I usually start with a full chicken at home, instead of bones, and then use the meat for sandwiches).   I'd also helped by mum when I was a kid - she'd taken a series of Cordon Bleu classes and one of the first things she started doing at home was making stocks:  I remember trays of bones going into the oven to be browned, and then we'd spend a couple of hours skimming the stock as it simmered.   But it is one of those things that is best done in a large quantity, because of the time commitment, and a professional kitchen is well-equipped for that. 

We start cooking!

Day two.  Most of today's class was about food safety.   The main hazards that we need to keep out of our food are biological (bacteria, toxins), chemical (pesticides, cleaning agents), and physical (glass, hair, staples).  We learned about our sanitizing solution that we need to keep at our stations for clean-up, and we calibrated our meat thermometers.   The lesson stressed how important it is to ensure that food is kept safe at every step in the "flow of food": the purchasing, receiving, storing, preparing, cooking, holding, cooling, reheating, and serving.

Today we were also shown two techniques for cooking vegetables.  First, we julienned some carrots and did a macedoine of turnip.   These were the same cuts we did on the first night, and ones I want to keep practicing at home.  The equipment I used was a peeler for the carrots, and my 9" chef's knife.  Before we begin prep we set our stations up with a cutting board, set on a damp paper towel to prevent it slipping, and a bowl for peelings and a bowl for trimmings (carrot trimmings are kept as aromatics for stock).  

My station

First Day of School

It was just a small nick - a little bubble of blood, didn't really hurt at all, but I still felt pretty stupid! A quick trip to the first aid kit took care of it - a band aid and a rubber finger guard - and I was back to my station and resumed practicing my knife skills.   First day at cooking school and we're learning all the basic knife cuts for using on vegetables.

Tronconner.

Emincer.

Ciseler.

Jardinere.

Macedoine.

Julienne.

After a tour of the kitchen and all the cooking equipment, we were presented with our knife kits (apart from cookware, most of our cooking equipment will be personally owned and maintained, such as our knives, our spoons, our spatulas, our whisks, and our pepper mill).  Our chef demonstrated various methods of cutting vegetables, or taillage, and we grab a bowl of carrots, turnips, and onions and start working on cutting our own vegetables.    We did emincer (thinly sliced) and ciseler (fine dice) on the onions, julienne (6-7cm x 1-2mm strips) and brunoise (1-2 mm x 1-2mm, cut from julienne) on the carrots, and jardinere (5cm x 5mm batons) and macedoine (5mm x 5mm cubes, cut from jardinere) on the turnips.   We also skinned tomatoes by scoring, blanching, shocking, then peeling them (process known as monter), and did a simple rough cut called concasser.

All set!

Three chef's hats.
Three chef's coats. 
Three pairs of black & white check pants. 
Three neckerchiefs.
Three aprons.
Three side towels.
One pair of Dansko clogs.
One water bottle.

Note to self:  pick up a small notebook, index cards, and some sharpies. And a lock for my locker.

Cooking school starts tonight.

Can't wait!!!