Day 9

So after throwing out half my fridge in fear of contracting one of the many foodborne illnesses that I learned about yesterday...Today I made sauce all day. It was fantastic. We made tomato concasse to start. This is just tomatoes and shallots with a pinch of tomato paste, sugar, bouquet garni, and salt and pepper.

Do not be tricked by the simplicity of this sauce. It is more than tasty and I will show you what I learned you can do with it. You just simmer these little ingredients up until pretty much all the water is evaporated. The test, as chef said, is to part the tomatoes with your spoon like Moses did the red sea. No liquid should scoot into the cleared walkway.

Let my people go! The mixture then can be adjusted for seasoning and used for garnishing and plating as well as in other sauces.

Look at that cuteness. Precious.

This one is ready for action, right? A piece of grilled swordfish and hey aren't I fancy? I love this stuff. Not for the plating but I liked how it tasted. I hadn't eaten breakfast this morning so I had to eat like half of mine before packing the rest up to freeze. Next we made beurre blanc 4 different ways. I don't really like beurre blanc. It doesn't do anything for me. I like the tang of the reduction but otherwise, meh. The basics are this: reduce, whisk in butter, strain. See, you can do it too!. I reduced equal parts wine and wine vinegar with shallots, peppercorns, and thyme until it was a syrup. Then pull it partially off heat and whisk in lots of butter, bit by bit, until it is smooth and shiny and then strain if desired. Maybe I just need the right protein to enjoy it with. This is one of the reductions before the butter was added.

This was the version from the CIA cookbook (culinary institute of America). It varied from the classic version with the addition of lemon juice and zest. After the butter orgy we started the hollandaise derivatives: Bearnaise (tarragon reduction), Choron (bearnaise + tomato concasse), Paloise (mint reduction), Foyot (bearnaise + beef glace), and mousseline (lemon + whipped cream). I have never seen so much saturated fat in one kitchen in my life. They were all delicious. I was assigned the original bearnaise and I have to say it rocked pretty hard. I love the shallots that taste like wine and the tarragon and the fluffy butter hollandaise base. You should make bearnaise, too. I had never heard of some of the other variations (like choron) but they were all really good. One of the highlights of the day (other than tasting all of these buttery sauces) was when a smug classmate (a dude) couldn't whip the cream to medium peaks for the mousseline cause his wittle arm got tired. Chef asked me to take over for him. He made some lame sounding excuses for his pussyness and I whipped that shit up. It was awesome especially because he worked for a very high end hotel around here and reminds us quite often of how they do things there. Why do I get so much satisfaction from kicking his ass in matters of whipping heavy cream?

Big wine day tomorrow! I can't wait to see everyone start to get tipsy.