Day 12

So I have to say that I am slightly disappointed in my knife wielding carcass splitting experience. Only because the closest we got to a carcass today was a rack of lamb. That's like barely a carcass. Like barbie goes to cooking school sized carcass. Everything else we worked with was cryovac packaged. So the lamb part went like this: Chef opened a package of two racks of lamb from New Zealand. For the first one he cut the meat off the bones (like a tenderloin, but not) and sliced noisettes from half and left the rest whole (like a tenderloin). For the 2nd rack he cut off two double chops (meaning 2 bones sticking out) and left the rest of the rack whole. So then he heated up 4 saute pans on super high heat with a little oil in all of the pans. He seasoned the lamb very well with kosher salt and finely ground white pepper. In to the pans went the four cuts. Once seared he pulled the noisettes off heat. The tenderloin, chops and rack all went in to the oven at about 425 to finish to medium rare. He checked them all and one by one pulled them out to rest (the rack took longest). He carved them up and had us taste them to see how the difference the amount of surface area seared had affected the flavor.

Why my picture is sideways I have no fucking clue. Please cran your neck accordingly.

So on to pork. We took pork tenderloins out of a plastic package and trimmed them of silver skin and excess fat (not much) We then portioned them into 3 oz medallions for searing.

This special picture is rotated too. Fun with technology. So to sear these little piggy parts we seasoned them, browned them and finished them in the oven. Not difficult. I enjoyed it as I enjoy cooking in general but I wanted more today. Lets crust and deglaze and make pan sauce. But instead we had pork tenderloin medallions.

Lucky you, this picture is not jacked up. Okay so I don't mind pork tenderloin but I don't like medium well meat. Which when all your class doesn't quite seem to be concerned with temperature makes for a mediocre lunch. We ate them with Dijon mustard. I can at least say that mine were not overcooked. After lunch we moved on to the beef tenderloin. Once again in plastic with big usda stamps on it. Like the usda has any cred with me. I read food politics by Marion Nestle and am now completely cynical and totally over the usda. Do your research, and vote with your dollars. Okay back to the beef. I didn't like the feel of mine. It weighed 7 pounds before any trimming or cleaning. The fat was grainy and stiff and the meat was almost watery. Maybe all tenderloins vary, I don't know. So our job was to take off the chain (a fatty, sinewy piece on the side of the tenderloin) and then take off the silver skin and then scrape of the excess outside fat. I started with 114 oz of meat and once cleaned and trimmed had about 84 oz of "sellable" fillet. I did get about 8 oz of usable trimmings though. I might make tacos. What else do you do with small fillet scraps. Once done the tenderloins were packed up and refrigerated for later use. I think we are using them or some of them tomorrow.

Hopefully tomorrow we will be deboning something and not just scraping down grisly plastic packaged meat. Is all restaurant meat this gnarly? I am beginning to suspect so.