Class 7: French Pastry is not for Me

Class #7 was part 1 of our 2 part pastry series. The first session was all about pastry and pastry creams/custards (pates and cremes to the french). Personally, I am not a big fan of french pastries...alot of them tend to be a little too eggy for me (and after last week's egg overload, eggs are pretty much the last thing I want to eat). Call me a boring American, but I prefer cookies, cakes, and more carbohydrate heavy desserts.

We started with custards. There are three types of custards: baked (like flan), stirred (cooked fully on the stovetop like creme anglaise), and starch-based (like pastry cream - these are more similar to pudding than the other custards because of the starch). We prepared one of each type. The basic custard technique is a three part approach that starts with infusing a dairy product (milk, half & half, or cream) with a flavor agent (vanilla bean, lemon zest, lavender, etc) and bringing this to a boil. The next step is to whisk air into eggs and sugar until the mixture turns a whiter color. The eggs are then tempered with the heated milk. Our baked custard was a creme caramel. We started by making a caramel and pouring a few tablespoons of this into little ramekins. Then we made a vanilla custard and poured it on top. These were baked in a bain marie. Once these come out of the oven, they go directly into the fridge b/c apparently they do not taste good right away (although I don't think they taste awesome anyway). After they have sat in the fridge for while, they are turned out onto a plate and look like this. So, the creme caramels look very pretty, but they're not my type of dessert and texture. They taste like a flan with a caramel sauce on top.

Next up, we made pate a choux, which is cream puff dough that is used to make eclairs and profiteroles. Pate a choux is unique in that its cooked twice - once on the stove top and then once in the oven. You cook butter, sugar, water and salt over a low heat and once it boils you add flour. After that's dried out, eggs are added. I found out the hard way that you have to be careful about doing this in the same pan...I put my eggs in the pot immediately after I removed it from the heat and ended up with some fried eggs and a pasty mess! Well, I learned from my mistake and the second batch came out perfect (perhaps mostly thanks to the chef hoovering over inserting pointers as I made it). We took the pastry and piped it into eclairs, brushed them with an egg wash, and baked them. We filled these with the next custard we made, which was a starch-based pastry cream. The pastry cream was essentially the same preparation as the first custard with the addition of flour and cornstarch as thickeners. I dipped mine in a chocolate glaze. I tried one, but once again found that this style of dessert isn't really for me. The dough tastes eggy and the pastry cream is sort of a glorified pudding (ha I know not a bad thing at all...in fact I thought the filling was the best part).

Our final custard was a creme anglaise, which is used as a sauce for desserts or a base for ice cream. This is the most difficult of the custards we made or I should say the easiest to "f" up. Mine would have been lost, but luckily the chef came by our station and had me pull it off the heat in the knick of time. I flavored mine with a coffee syrup and took it home. I poured a little in my coffee each day for the rest of the week...yum!

So if my summary didn't make it clear, I didn't love the stuff we made in this class. I can imagine needing to make a creme anglaise, but the rest of the desserts don't have me running to my kitchen to recreate them.

Next up - Pastry part 2 - pie crusts.

I'm a Swooner for this Schooner

I've called NYC home for a while now. But, as a born and raised New Englander, theres still some part of "home" missing. And when I look out onto the East River, I realize what that void is. Okay, so I've never seen a lobster trap out on the river, but you know what I mean...Living so close to the ocean, I should be able to get a good lobster roll. I've tried a lot of places and some of them come close (Thank you Five Napkin Burger for your Lobster Roll Sliders). But I've never found a delicious authentic New England lobster roll. That is of course until you arrived Luke. I don't know you Luke, but I love you. I love your story of growing up on the coast of Maine. But most of all, I love that you felt the need to bring the people of Manhattan a GREAT lobster roll.

Luke's Lobster is a little storefront sandwiched between the ever bustling Caracas restaurants. Theres room enough for maybe 8 people to sit/stand and eat the rolls there. We were lucky to get ourselves a prime window seat. The menu is nice and basic - Lobster, shrimp, and crab rolls and then some combo plates. We opted for the Schooner, which includes a lobster roll, chips, pickle, and a Maine soda. Chowders are promised in the future, and I can only hope that they arrive in time to be enjoyed on a cold winters night.

The orders come up pretty quickly...I suppose thats the beauty of having one specialty. My first look at the roll brought a sense of awe...this lobster meat looked too perfect and such a beautiful color to be real. It honestly looked like it was straight from the claw and fresh from the ocean - no strange minced "lobster meat" this meat was chunks of actual lobster claw. The first bite was heaven. I find that typically restaurants forget that this is a LOBSTER roll and tend to make it more ROLL or mayo and butter then lobster. But not my Luke. There had to be at least 3-4 claws worth of lobster meat on this unassuming roll. Thats not to say that the roll itself wasn't delicious, just that it didn't take any of the glory away from the lobster. Furthermore, it was not doused in mayo or butter. There was a subtle smear of mayo over the bottom of the soft roll that was ever so slightly toasted and buttered. The lobster meat was largely left to speak for itself and sprinkled with a magic seasoning blend that if I had to guess included celery salt, pepper, and garlic powder. It was just phenomenal. The lobster was tender and perfectly cooked, not chewy like you often find in amateur lobster rolls. A place that has you plotting your next visit before you even finish your meal is a definite winner...at Luke's I was planning my next visit after my first bite.

Class 8: The Apple of My Pie

Our second session on pastry was pie doughs. Each team made two doughs, one pate brisee and one pate sucree. Sweet little me made the sucree...the two doughs are virtually the same. The pate brisee has flour, butter, water and a pinch of salt, and the pate sucree is the same with the addition of a little sugar and some egg. My dough came together nicely. The chef had us mix the dough together more versus previous classes I've taken in pastry. I have to say that this did help the dough stay together more. The class made 4 different recipes - 2 different ones on the pate brisee and 2 different sweet pies on the pate sucree. Our team made an onion and bacon tart and an almond pear tart. The other teams made a quiche lorraine and an apple pie. The class had a lot of down time. I didn't love either the onion tart and the pear tart was pretty looking but not too delicious.

Since we had so much down time, the chef taught us how to make pasta dough. I always forget how easy it is to make a homemade pasta dough. Its basically just flour, olive oil, eggs, and a pinch of salt. Unlike the pie dough that you want to only knead until it comes together, you knead the pasta dough for about 10 minutes. I took mine home and made some fettucini that was delicious.

Next week we're back to regular cooking...I think its all about potatoes next class.

I'd bet the farm - Review of La Masseria

I don't get that excited to go out for Italian food. Don't get me wrong...I love good Italian food, but I feel like there are just too many places in Manhattan (especially midtown west)that serve Italian food that is mediocre at best. So when some friends and I planned an outing for a birthday dinner for a more plain palated bunch, it was with much trepidation that I recommended La Masseria. I had heard some wonderful things about this place, so I felt cautiously hopeful that this restaurant might fill the void of great italian restaurants in midtown. And, after eating there, I am very happy to report that I have found my go-to Italian restaurant in not just midtown, but the city.

Walking into La Masseria, you instantly feel the vibe the owners were going for...a vacation from the hustle and bustle of midtown to a peaceful farmhouse. The decor is so quaint you barely realize the busy dining room. (Nota Bene - La Masseria means farmhouse in Italian so it didn't exactly take a genius to figure out what they were going for).

Our waiter was a friendly Italian guy, who as soon as we asked his feelings on dishes, rhapsodically chimed in with his opinions (which by the way all turned out to be very justified opinions!). We selected a Ravenswood Cabernet for our wine of the evening and started with the Burrata special as our appetizer. While we awaited our appetizer, they brought over a beautiful bread basket with three choices - foccacia, italian bread, and a cheesy breadstick that didn't taste unlike a delicious cheezit. The burrata arrived and with great fanfare the waiter cut open this beautiful homemade cheese that was surrounded by melt in your mouth tomatoes. It oozed onto the plate slowly and he poured some olive oil on this wonderfully creamy mozzarella. This was gone in no time and whetted my appetite for the pastas that were to arrive.

I'm a huge food sharer, so I love going out to eat with a group because it means you get to try more dishes! The only downside with this is that it often leads to the highly disappointing "order envy". I loved my dish, but I certainly had order envy...for pretty much half of my friend's orders. Going around the table clockwise, there was a tagliatelle bolognese, a gnocchi with taleggio cheese and radicchio, linguine with white clam sauce, orchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage, and my dish of thick fettucine with eggplant and smoked mozzarella. I know you're thinking "Jen didn't order a meat sauce" but the truth is I'm a sucker for smoked cheese.

Okay, so the best place to start is with the pastas themselves. I love homemade pasta and was happy to find that all were homemade. I would have to say my favorite dish was the gnocchi, which just melted in your mouth and were covered in a slightly sweet cheese sauce. Honestly, these were addictive, so for my friend's sake it was good that I was separated by a seat from these little bites of heaven. My fettuccine was wonderful. The texture of the fettuccine was perfectly al dente but still managed to have this silky soft texture. The eggplant was cut into the ideal size pieces and cooked until tender, the tomato sauce on the pasta was a bright fresh-tasting sauce, and the mozzarella was sprinkled throughout giving a nice smokey hint to the dish. The linguine with clam sauce and the bolognese were both dishes I would contemplate ordering WHEN I return to La Masseria. They were seasoned and cooked to perfection. The only dish that I was not overwhelmed with was the Orchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage. My sample bite was very strong on the broccoli and just a little too bitter tasting because of that. But the pasta and sauce still had a very nice flavor.

Well, since we were celebrating birthdays, we had to order dessert! We went with the special chocolate lava cake, although the hostess was trying to sway us towards the her favorite cheesecake from the sidelines.

Our dessert arrived and came with on the house shots of limoncello (yum!) and a slice of cheesecake and a wink from the hostess. The chocolate lava cake was pretty good, but I have to say, I am beyond glad that they sent over the cheesecake. I am personally not a huge cheesecake fan, but this wasn't your typical cheesecake. If you've ever wondered what would happen if you crossed vanilla jello pudding with a NY cheesecake, look no further just go to La Masseria and order this. I could not get enough of this airy, pudding-like version of cheesecake.

Overall, the food was fantastic. Whats more, you can't ignore the fantastic service at La Masseria. For my friends and I, they made us feel like cherished regulars and provided that perfect balance between too much and not enough presence. And come on people, how can you not love a place that brings you free drinks and dessert!

What a wonderful restaurant! I will no longer worry about where to eat before a show...I'll instantly make a reservation at La Masseria.

Class 6: Dozens of Incredible Edible Eggs

Class 6 was devoted to cooking eggs in almost every way possible. Eggs are sold by grade, size, and how the chicken is raised. We scrambled eggs - the key is to not whip these up too much and to heat pan first. Our next egg prep was poached. The trick to the perfect poached eggs starts with a couple of dashes of vinegar in the water, which is then brought to a a simmer just below a boil. Before you put the egg into the water, you swirl the water to create a vortex so the egg stays together in the center of the pot. Poached eggs cook in a matter of 2-3 minutes. I was ecstatic that mine came out perfectly, because I love poached eggs but have always shied away from making them at home.

We moved onto omelets - the first we made was just a folded omelet. Again when prepping the eggs for the omelet, you don't want to mix up the eggs too much because you add too much air and end up with a souffled omelet. This one came out really well for me. Unfortunately, the rolled omelet didn't work out so well. Mine had tears all over it, stuck to the pan, and looked like a mess! I didn't want to see another omelet after this travesty, but chef had us step up our next omelets with a sauteed vegetable mix of tomatoes, peppers, onion, and garlic added in the eggs before cooking. I'm not a huge omelet fan so at this point my heart just wasn't in it. I was more then ready to move on to the next thing.

And so glad we did! Our next egg preparation was a spanish style tortilla with potatoes and onions. We started by cooking the onions in a lot of oil and then cooked potatoes in the same pan until they were very brown. We then mixed four eggs together and then added to the veggies. This is then added to a hot pan. Now the tricky part - flipping the tortilla! I didn't want to mess it up because mu partner and I were planning on having ours for dinner, so I took the easy flipping method by flipping it onto the plate then sliding it back into the pan to cook the other side. This tortilla was amazing. I am definitely going to make this at home. We made a fantastic tomato sauce to serve with this - We grated two plum tomatoes (which has the effect of peeling the tomato), then added sherry vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a torn up basil leaf. This sauce was unbelievably good. I certainly will make this and the tortilla at home.

Our final eggs of the evening were amped up deviled eggs. We made mushroom duxelles with shallots, then mixed in a bechamel we made, and some hard boiled egg yolks. We then stuffed the egg white shells with the filliing and topped with a little gruyere and put them under the salamander (professional kitchen-speak for a broiler). I really wanted to try one of these because they looked wonderful. But after cooking about 2 dozen eggs, I just couldn't do it. I did get it on good authority from a nearby student that these were excellent. So, I'll have to make these on a less eggy day!

I liked this class. I think it is important to know how to cook eggs the right way, because they are easy to mess up and that can't be masked. I left class feeling eggsellent about the program so far. And when I read ahead to what was on the agenda next, I felt even better. Next up is pastry!

Class 5: Throwing food a life Preserver

The mantra "Waste not, want not" is one that I believe should be embraced by everyone in this world. So, I was glad to see that one of our classes at culinary school was all about how to preserve food and how to cook with foods that have been preserved. The class was very light on the cooking and heavy on the lecture and demonstration front. I was very exhausted from last week's classes, so I was pretty thankful for this brief reprieve.

My partner and I have become excellent at prepping our station and getting mise en place at the beginning of class. We had all our ingredients for the split pea soup and the Nicoise Salad we were going to make before the chef even began his first demo...Not that we're teacher's pets or anything, but its just easier to get all the stuff we need before people start lining up.

Chef began his first demo with an explanation of salads and the three different types (simple, mixed, and composed). In this class, we made a homemade vinaigrette and a Nicoise Salad, which has tuna, potatoes, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, green beans, and peppers. All the components are mixed in with a little bit of the vinaigrette before its plated. Its an extremely beautiful salad when plated with all the different colors. We then moved on to Pea Soup using dried split peas.

The Pea Soup started with browning bacon lardons then adding mirepoix, broth, and dried split peas that had been rinsed and picked through. We also made homemade croutons, which were the best croutons I had ever had. You take bread that you chilled in the freezer for a while and then cut into small croutons. Instead of baking the croutons, you saute them in a good deal of butter. Yum! We used the vitaprep to puree our soup. This machine is amazing not to mention about $500! You can puree anything with this anywhere from a very slow rate to extremely fast. It took about 15 seconds for my soup to be completely pureed without any lumps. In comparison, my blender at home takes about 2 minutes.

The rest of the class was demonstration. The chef pulled out a beautiful piece of salmon and showed us how to cure it, which is always done with the skin on. You mix salt, sugar, a little bit of alcohol becuase of the antibacterial properties, and some herbs and spread it all over the top of the fish and use something to weigh it down. The salmon was left in the fridge until our next class, when the chef pulled it out from the fridge, rinsed it, and showed us how to slice it very thin for an appetizer at a party. This was an excellent bite of fish that just melted in your mouth. The next demo we had was a salt cod dip that turned out wonderfully. You rinse off the salt cod, poach the fish, then fry the fish in olive oil, add mashed potatoes, garlic, and cream. When it was finished, we all tasted it on bits of bread. This is definitely going to be an appetizer over the christmas holiday. It was a simple, delicious dip.

The chefs also showed us some other things that classes had preserved or made to not waste food - a 2 month old kimchi, scrapple, and a terrine made of pork face. The chef cut up the pork terrine for us to try and it tasted like a salami but richer. They fried up the scrapple, which is made of pork scraps/trimmings and buckwheat.

Next up, eggs!

Class 4 - Dangerous Liaisons

So class 4 was all about Liaisons. Sorry kids...Its not as exciting as it sounds. Its just what those crazy french chefs call a binding agent (ha ha okay that sounds rather exciting too but it means thickener you sick-minded fools) for a sauce. Many different things can be used as thickeners for sauces, such as a slurry, roux, or vegetable puree. But, the most important thing to remember is that you must boil the sauce after the thickener is added to activate its full binding power.

In total, we made 5 sauces, but there was also a lot of demo time where the chef discussed how mother sauces can beget hundreds of other sauces. The two main sauces we started with were the Espagnole and Tomato. Both sauces started with rendering bacon lardons...I was instantly sold and hungry! The tomato sauce was rather strange and I doubt I would ever make it again. It used chicken stock as its base and although it was thickened with flour, I feel like it was thinner than I like and had too much of a smokey bacon flavor and not enough tomato. The Espagnole sauce used veal stock, which by the way looks like jello. Now this sauce was very tasty and rich.

After we finished these sauces, it was time to mix up the bechamel. According to chef, a really good mac and cheese starts with a really good bechamel. So you can only imagine how copiously I took notes on this. It was actually relatively easy and began with a butter and flour roux. Then you just add milk and onion and cook down until thickened and add the spices you want. If you want mac and cheese you add your cheese of choice and voila. I have to say mine came out excellent and I wouldn't be surprised if I add homemade mac and cheese to my bag of tricks for easy weeknight meals.

Before the break, chef demo'd a beurre blanc sauce, which is a sauce that's almost exclusively served with fish. It has shallots, lemon, peppercorns, wine, herbs, butter, and sometimes a touch of cream. The touch of cream stabilizes the sauce and prevents it from breaking, which happens easily on a beurre blanc and has the effect of a greasy sauce on your fish. Not good. In fact, if you were watching top chef this week, the exact thing happened to poor Jennifer. Anyway, this might be a good quick sauce to fire up for an easy fish dish some night.

Okay, so back to the kitchen and time to make the two main event sauces from our tomato and espagnole mother sauces. The two sauces we made were Sauce Chasseur ("Hunter Sauce"), which uses wine, mushrooms, espagnole, tomato sauce, and brandy. And here was my first test in kitchen safety and I chickened out. This sauce is flambed with the brandy and I was responsible for this one. I sheepishly asked my partner to handle the flambe part and she willingly obliged. It went off without a hitch and now I regret my decision. You want to know why? Well, this may just be the best darn sauce I have ever tried in my entire life. It was amazing...the mushrooms, the wine, the mother sauces, the herbs, and the cooking down until Nappant (until it coats the back of a spoon) just created this amazing sauce with the most velvety smooth texture. My mouth is watering right now just thinking of this sauce. Just wonderful. I quickly called dibs on taking the leftovers home!

The second sauce was my partners responsibility and it was a Bordelaise, which is a rich sauce made so with the addition of chopped bone marrow. You reduce shallots, red wine, thyme, and crushed black pepper until syrupy then add the sauce espagnole cook it down until nappant and then melt in the bone marrow. The outcome? A very delicious, peppery sauce suited for a juicy med-rare steak.

All in all, a good class. I liked making the sauces but the more difficult ones really seem more suited for restaurant cooking only. I can't imagine making homemade veal stock then making the sauce espagnole then making the Chasseur. But I also can't imagine never having that sauce again. Shoot...looks like I'm going to be scouring the grocery stores of NYC in a desperate search for veal bones.

Also happy to report it seems that my partner has returned to her normal pleasant self so I won't have to worry about searching for somebody new!