Okay, so I have to apologize in advance...I forgot my camera in the shellfish class so there are no photos from it. Believe me, I'm very angry with myself for this oversight, because there were a ton of great photo ops. If I get some photos from a classmate, I'll be sure to add them later. In the meantime, my vivid descriptions of the class will have to suffice.
We got to try our hand at most varieties of shellfish. Shellfish are seafood that, as the name suggests, have a shell. They fall into the following categories: Univalves (mollusks with one shell like conch), Bivalves (mollusks with two shells like oysters, clams, and scallops), crustaceans (have exterior skeletons like lobster and crabs), and cephalopods (tentacles - like squid). Class began with a brief overview of how to buy, store, and clean shellfish. Mussels, oysters, and clams have to be stored cold on ice (not in water or they'll drown). These all have to be rinsed in three changes of cold water because they have a lot of sand and grit on them. We each got to shuck clams and oysters. I actually was able to do both without too much trouble and without cutting myself! I was rewarded with some oysters topped with some delicious mignonette. The mussels were cleaned and their beards removed. The scallops we had were already shelled so we only need to remove the white muscle from each and rinse them.
Chef explained that female lobsters have sweeter meat, but there's not an easy way to tell the difference between female and male lobsters. Typically, male lobsters have narrow tails, while female lobsters have wider hips/tails. This difference is not always noticeable and quite honestly I couldn't see any difference in any of them. We each had to kill a lobster by putting a knife in the back of its head and pushing down. I decided quick was the way to go here and was happy to find that was the right choice. This being the fourth lobster I've killed, I feel like I'm getting the hang of it and am less afraid of it. I'll still never get used to the fact that lobsters keep moving for a while after they're killed (yes its super creepy when you grab the tail and it snaps up around your hand). We removed the claws and the tail and cooked them in stock until they were bright red. Once they cooled, we took out the meat and saved it for the chowder. I must confess that a claw of my lobster's meat didn't make it to that chowder pot! We peeled the shrimp and deveined it to prep for the stew. We infused the fish stock we were using as our chowder base with the shrimp shells and lobster bodies. Apparently, one should never throw away shrimp shells, because they make the best stock.
The most fascinating of the shellfish to me were the squids. We cut the tentacles from the hood (top) of the squid. In the top of the squid there is this clear quill that has to be removed. This quill is very strange. It looks like a long thin piece of plastic. We peeled and then cut the squid into bit sized pieces ready for our shellfish chowder.
The end of class we added cream to our fish stock and brought this up to a simmer. Then we added all our shellfish to cook it (everything but the lobster needed to cook in the soup). Chef sprinkled the chowder with some thyme. The chowder was absolutely delicious and chock-a-block full of fresh shellfish.
Next night's class was the poultry class. We began the class like most with some knife skills practice, ie cutting vegetables into various sized julienne or dice. This night, we did potatoes in a medium dice, which means we get to make these amazing homefries. We begin by putting the diced potatoes in cold, heavily salted water and bringing them to a boil. Then we strained and put them aside to be pan-fried later.
Our knife skill practice potatoes frying up in clarified butter
Crispy, buttery potatoes that make knife skills practice worth it!
After we prepped the vegetables, we had a lecture on poultry. Then we trussed a chicken, because when roasting a chicken whole its important to keep its shape and hold in the juices.
Trussed Chicken
After we trussed the chicken, we untied it and fabricated the chicken. The method we were taught for quartering the chicken was different from how I've been taught in the past. But, I have to say that it was the easiest method I've ever used. We started with the tail pointing towards us and cut down each side of the backbone and removed it. Then we cut through the other side of the chicken so that we had two chicken halves. With each, we split the breast from the thigh without having to cut through the bone. Viola...quartered chicken. After this, we split the leg from the thigh and cut the breast into two portions. With our next chicken we skinned and boned the breast and used these pieces to make pan-fried chicken for our dinner.
My fabricated Chicken
We cleaned our boards and then fabricated a duck each. We were sent home with the duck breast, which was beyond exciting. Duck is one of my favorite meats, but one that I've never made at home. Since the fat is so much thicker on the duck, it was much harder to quarter then the chicken. We also removed a portion of the fat from the breast so it would fry easier and render less fat. This worked really well when I fried it at home for dinner...delicious!
Duck!
Now that we're cooking a bit more, I'm loving class more and more. I can't wait until next week, which is chicken stock and beef.
Who doesn't love cooking with class?
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