Our most recent cooking class, was all potatoes. We started with your standard potato chip and french fries. There are 3 types of fried potatoes: single fry, double fry, and triple fry. We did single and double fry. The single fry is for small cuts like the shoestring fries or potato chip. The single fry potatoes are cooked in 350 degree oil until they're brown (literally only takes a minute or so). I opted to do potato chips as my single fry (a no brainer I think), and marinated the potatoes in vinegar, dried them, and fried them. Of course, as soon as these were done I drained them on paper towels, salted them, and dove in! These were hot, crispy salt and vinegar potato chips like none I've ever had from a bag. I was flabbergasted when my partner offered the last few to the group next to us who burnt their single fry potatoes. Lucky for me (and her), there were some more potatoes destined for our fryer...
For the two fry method, we cut regular size french fries and first poached them in oil that was 250-275 for about 5-7 minutes. Then, we fried these in 350 oil until brown and salted them when done. At that point, I decided it's time I buy a fry daddy for my apartment.
Okay, so now heres where things started getting dicey. Out came the mandolines (no the ones we used did not come with the safety grips). Now, I have always wanted one, but at the same time, I have always been afraid of them. Growing up a klutz made me fear pretty much anything that involves using sharp blades near my fingers...call me crazy. We used the mandolines to julienne 2 potatoes for Pomme Darphin. This is a gigantic pancake of potato. Once the potatoes, and luckily not my fingers, were julienned, we heavily seasoned them with salt & pepper. These went into a nonstick pan that we had heated up with clarified butter. As these cooked, we pushed the potato together with a spatula so that it formed a cake. Once the first side was cooked, I used my expert skills and with a simple flick of the wrist flipped the pancake over...on the second try (the first try was more of a fold then a flip). Once the second side browned slighlty, it went in the oven to finish cooking. The outside gets this buttery crunchy crust with a thin inside layer of smooth potato. I was such a huge fan that I have actually already made it at home twice since class (I blame my farm share for including 4 lbs of potatoes this week). One of the ones I made at home I stuffed with some roasted garlic and smoked gouda...this could get dangerous.
Our next potato dish was far less exciting...Potato Dauphinois, which is really just a fancy name for potato au gratin. This was okay, but I've made better potato au gratin with other recipes with half the cream and butter that we used.
They really front-loaded the class with the good stuff. Our next preparation was mashed potatoes using a food mill. I was actually a little shocked that they wasted our time with mashed potatoes...I'd equate it to teaching us to make mac and cheese from a box. With some of this mash we added egg yolks and piped it with a star tip and baked these. Basically, this assured that all of us were capable of working weddings (if you've been to enough, you've seen these piped potatoes on your plate and wondered why they taste sort of like mashed potatoes but not quite right).
At this point, it was virtually impossible to concentrate. The school was having a party in the room that looks into our kitchen. In that room were some of NYC's top chefs - Chef Jaques Pepin, Chef Pollinger (of Oceana), Chef Craig Koketsu (Quality Meats), Chef Anne Burrell (from Food Network's Secrets of a Restaurant Chef), etc, etc. In fear that one of us might cut our fingers off with a mandoline as we stared at our heroes, they let us out early!
Next up is cooking chicken, including breaking down a whole chicken.
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