Oops, We Hors-d'oeuvred Again!

Just when you think we're finally dunzo with the apps and hors-d'oeuvres and moving on to fruit, Chef says there's a few things we didn't get to complete last week, so we'll do them today. We originally had fruit for both class days this week, but he says we only need 1 day for fruit, so get back on the tray and pump out the apps, pump them out!

Here's what we got:

Rissoles
Broiled Shrimp w/Garlic
Calamari w/Spicy Tomato Sauce
Samosas with Tamarind Sauce
Corn Crepes with Asparagus & Smoked Salmon
Vitello Tonnato
Scallop Mousse on Toast Points
Risotto Croquettes

The Rissoles were interesting...a sort of little deep fried empanada thing covered in bread crumbs. The filling involved a sauteed mixture of onions, shrimp, apples, and curry powder. Then, you popped some of this filling into a little pie dough crust, dipped it in egg wash, rolled it in bread crumbs, and fried that puppy. It was odd, to say the least, texture-wise, but not bad tasting.

The Broiled Shrimp with Garlic were a disaster...and I hate to say it, but it was because of Dimmer. It's an easy dish--basically butterflied shrimp sauteed with garlic in butter, topped with a mixture of buttery garlicky breadcrumbs, which were quickly browned under the salamander. How hard is that? Actually, they get really hard and burned when you leave them under the salamander for more than 30 seconds.

A salamander is not a little amphibian that I fish out of the pool or a mythological fire-dwelling lizard, but rather an extremely high-heat broiler. A piece of equipment that we have discussed the uses of and how it works, etc. throughout several classes. The biggest lesson being "don't walk away from the damn salamander when you put something under it because it will burn into cinders if left unattended," and which she should have known. Nope. She pops the shrimp under the salamander and walks away...way away.

I'm busily screwing up samosa making when I hear the dreaded cry of "who's stuff is burning?", and I look up to see Big Stuff (who, by the way, has really turned himself around in the teamwork department and may need a new nickname) snatching a sheet pan out of the salamander with some rather toasty blackened bread crumbs on top. Dim was all "oh, that's mine," in a rather nonchalant voice and meandered over to the pan. I think there was a collective rattle down the line as all our eyeballs rolled completely to the back of our heads.

Then, she sticks them in the oven to keep warm, where they continued to cook. This dish was supposed to be done a la minute (i.e., basically at the last minute), and we're a good 20-30 minutes from plate up. A few minutes later, I see her wandering over to the line with another sheet pan in hand and asking whose stuff was on the work table (it was Big Stuff's sheet pan of the risotto croquettes) and announcing that it needed to be moved because she needed the space. Excuse me? Big is in the middle of frying his croquettes and needs that space himself. He just ignored her and kept on frying his stuff, and she just wandered away, pan still in hand. I don't know if she has a learning disability, if she's just so tunnel visioned that she can't see any sort of a big picture or what, but I'm thinking she could be very dangerous in the kitchen. It makes me wonder what a day spent shadowing her at her regular job would be like. Then again, I have a hard enough time sleeping lately that I think I'll forego that idea.

The Vitello Tonnato is a classic dish involving veal that is ruined by the addition of a sauce made with canned tuna. Granted, it is the leg of veal and not the most tender part, but still, I don't think it deserves the fate of being paired with canned tuna. Nothing deserves that fate. Big Stuff and the Omelet King were in charge of that, and they were very careful during plate up to barely drizzle the sauce on the meat so we could still salvage it and eat it. Chef is mildly amused by my, Big, and the King's aversion to all things involving canned tuna, and he tells us all to be sure and taste the sauce and looks pointedly at the 3 of us. Ha!

Big and the King also made some risotto croquettes, which basically involved making a nice thick rissoto, chilling it down, and then forming it into smallish balls, rolling the balls into breadcrumbs, and frying. Did I mention that there was a yummy cube of Fontina cheese in the middle? Oh, yeah! They were very filling, so I would only want 2, maybe 3 at the most in an appetizer portion, but very, very tasty.

The Chiclet and I were in charge of making samosas, which are popular in South Asia, primarily in India and Pakistan. I frequently got them at the international farmer's market near where we used to live, and The Man always referred to them as "mashed potato hot pockets." I liked the vegetarian ones best, which were mostly a curried mashed potato mixture : ), but the real star of the dish to me was the tamarind dipping sauce. Love that stuff. As far as I was concerned, the samosa was merely a conveyance for the dipping sauce.

The samosa recipe we had called for a shrimp filling, and since we were using shrimp in 2 other dishes, Chef said we needed to come up with something else. I piped up with the potato idea, which he liked, and to which the Chiclet looked at me like I was nuts. Trust me, I told her, this will work. Then, I noticed there was no dipping sauce, tamarind, or otherwise, with the dish. I mentioned this to Chef, who said we needed to come up with one. He's musing aloud about how to do it, and mentions something about seeing "Bobby Flay do one the other day." Hee--Chef watches the Food Network! He did a little surfing and came back with a simple one that involved a little tamarind paste, brown sugar, water, garlic, and ginger cooked to a syrupy state and finished with a little garam masala...which we were out of the pre-mixed version, so I had to concoct some out of a melange of spices. A little cinnamon, ground coriander, ground cloves, and ground cardamom did the trick, and we had a fabulous sauce.

The samosas? Well, the technique was not so fabulous, but we managed to make some passable little football triangles. That was a funny thing, too. Chiclet was trying to figure out how to fill and fold the dough, and Chef says "fold it like a football." She, not being from this country orignally, says "soccer or American?", which cracks up me and Chef. He tells her no, like the footballs you played with in class--paper football. She's drawing a blank still and reminds him that she's "not from around here." He looks at me and says, "I know *you* know what a paper football is," and I confess that I do, having been made to stand in the hall in my 7th grade math class for playing paper football instead of doing fractions.

My favorite thing of the day was the calamari. Love the little squid rings. Mother Hen made those, and she did 2 different styles of breading. One was the standard breading of flour, egg, and bread crumbs, which made a heavier breading. The best was the seasoned flour one. She dredged the calmari in seasoned flour, shook off the excess, and fried them, and they were so light and crispy. And, you got more of the calamari flavor. The heavier breaded ones tasted more like well, breading. She did a lovely spicy tomato sauce to go with them, and they were the first things to go. Even Head Chef and some other chefs who were there for a meeting came out and devoured them. They ate a couple of other things, but they were all over the calamari.

Wednesday is the fruit day, and Chef promises that I will be able to properly segment an orange after that class. I told him that if I could do it without screwing it up and tearing it to pieces, I would consider it well worth whatever money I've paid out for school so far. He grinned a little evil grin and said that I would be sick of peeling oranges after he got done with me. Can't wait!

Bon Appetizer

Hot Apps! Get your hot apps here!

Party food is some of my favorite food in all the world...high end or low end. I really do love little bites of yummy goodness, and I could probably eat that Super Bowl staple, Ro-Tel Dip with the little scoop Tostitos, until I throw up. (There's a lovely image, no?) Give me little meatballs, some funky dip and a cracker, and I'm happy.

So, we moved on to appetizers, which are just more elaborate, sometimes larger portioned hors-d'oeuvres (I will be glad when we're done with this stuff, because I'm getting tired of typing "hors-d'oeuvres"...tired, I tell you.), and this bunch is all hot/cooked items.

Le Menu for your perusal:

Beef Carpaccio
Clams Casino
Deviled Crab Cakes
Gorgonzola Custards
Oysters Diamond Jim Brady
Chicken Satay with peanut sauce
Paper Wrapped Chicken
Spring Rolls
Stuffed Shrimp (with crabmeat dressing)
Sushi
Spinach Crepes with Seafood filling

The Chiclet and I were in charge of the beef carpaccio and the gorgonzola custards. I know it's raw meat, but it was really, really, really good raw meat. We took one of those prime NY strips from that high-end meat company demo and seared it on all sides to get some color. Then, we mixed some fresh herbs, a little garlic, salt and freshly ground black pepper with a little extra virgin olive oil and slathered it on the seared steak. Popped that baby into the freezer for about 2 hours, and then sliced it, or rather shaved it thinly and served it with olives, capers, and grated Parmesan reggiano. It was like butter. I figure I'm more likely to have a poodle trip me on the basement stairs and break my neck than get mad cow disease, so I'm just not going to think about it. I make no apologies for liking my steak medium-rare and sometimes eating raw meat. I was proud that everyone in our class tried it, even people who seemed a bit leery about the "raw" part. (Although, I must confess that I am having to learn/force myself at times to eat pork "medium." After a bajillion years of hearing that we need to cook it to shoe leather, it's hard to try anything else, but I'm giving the pink a whirl.)

According to Italian Food Forever, beef carpaccio was invented at Harry's Bar in Venice, which I believe gave us the Bellini. And, what goes better with party food than party cocktails?! Party cocktails = good, very good! (BTW, this Italian Food Forever website looks like a real find. I could waste many hours looking around at all the yummy recipes.)

The key to the carpaccio is to get the best piece of meat possible. Pay that extra buck for prime--you'll be glad you did.

We all took our turn at making California rolls, which turned out pretty good. It was very interesting to see the folks who'd never had wasabi before as they tasted it...kinda like that scene in that dumb Whoopi-Ted Danson movie where he takes the whole plug in his mouth at once.

And, why is it we can never get anything to unmold properly? I did most of the work on the custards. I thoroughly buttered the ramekins, and we followed the procedure of putting them in a water bath and not over cooking them. But, when we tried to unmold them, the bottoms kept getting stuck. Out of the 10 we had, we got 1 that unmolded perfectly onto a plate for our presentation, which was what we really needed, but still! The others sort of half-assed came out and we just piled them together on a plate and stuck a little parsley around them to dress them up. This happens every time we have to do a custard, and we're totally at a loss as to what goes wrong.

This class is still fairly large...we've lost a couple of people, but there's still 12 of us, so I don't have a lot of interaction with Dimmer, since she's on the other side of the room. However, I still get to see her food and sometimes see her in action...like yesterday, with the jalapenos she was chopping WITHOUT GLOVES! Call me a wimp about this, and I'll call you goofy, because cutting hot peppers without gloves is just nuts. Trust me...been down that road before. You will have to stick your finger in your eye at some point before the capsaicin wears off your hands...like right before you go to bed and have to remove your contacts...yeah. And, she should know better than to not wear gloves. I mentioned to her that she might want to be wearing them, and she was like "oh? okay," in a unsure of why I was telling her to do that tone of voice, and then says "we do have to do that at work." Duuuh! And, then, what happens when I get back to my station, and there's the Chiclet about to do the same thing. Gloves, people! We have a ton, and that's what part of your lab fee goes toward!
(And, while I was doublechecking my spelling of capsaicin, I found this interesting article about its uses in fighting prostate cancer. Yes, it is ingested rather than rubbed on.)

Continuing with the appetizer theme, we actually got homework. (shakes head) The assignment is to write about diffferent appetizers or hors-d'oeuvres (last time!) from 5 different cultures and write up 5 or so of each. Personally, I'd prefer to go out to 5 different restaurants and try 5 or so apps each, but that's probably not going to happen...darn it.

Hors-d'oeuvres from Hell

Well, not really from Hell, but it makes a nice title, don't ya think?

Actually, it was more like I was in hell, or rather my feet were. Damned plantar crap is popping up again. It was so bad this weekend, that I put my feet in the pool as soon as I got home...in the 40-degree pool. Hey--I figured they were inflammed, and cold sometimes takes out inflammation, and it was easier than making an ice foot bath. I lasted all of 2 minutes. Polar bear girl I am not. And, it came back with a new development--shooting heel pain in my right heel. Loverly.

Back to the food, because that's what we're all here for, anyway. Monday's Pantry class was all about (mostly) cold hors-d'oeuvres and appetizers, and what the difference between an app and a hors-d'oeuvre (which is hands down the hardest word on the planet to spell consistently...even worse that the fear of the number 13...that triske--whatever.) According to our text, the translation from the French is "outside the meal," because hors-d'oeuvres are literally served before you sit down for the meal. If it's part of the meal, then it's an appetizer and is usually a bit larger portion than the 1-2 bite hors-doeuvre. Both serve basically the same function--to perk up your appetite for the meal to come.

Here's our menu:

Blue Cheese Mousse piped into Belgian Endive leaves
Clam Fritters with cocktail sauce
Guacamole
Hummus
Curried Onion Relish
Red Pepper Mousse
Salsa Fresca/Salsa Verde
Spiced Mango Chutney
Olive Tapenade
Wild Mushroom and Goat Cheese Strudel with Madeira sauce

The strudel was the best thing we did. The sauce was out of this world, and I could have just drank it...which, at one point, several of my classmates and I were doing. It was like "want a little strudel with your sauce?"

The blue cheese and red pepper mousses were okay...the blue cheese one got a little salty, but it looked very good. And it was incredibly easy to do. Mousse is French for "froth" or "foam," and it should be light and smooth. We were quizzing Chef on the difference between mousse and mousseline, and the nearest definition we could come to was, for our purposes, mousseline usually involved ground/pureed meat that is cooked and chilled and then put into something else.

Blue Cheese Mousse in Endive leaves (makes 1 pound of mousse)

Ingredients

10 oz Blue cheese (If you don't like blue cheese, you can substitute the same amount of goat cheese...you could use herbed goat cheese as well)

6 oz Cream cheese

1 tsp Kosher salt

.25 tsp Ground black pepper

6 fl oz Heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks

Small endive leaves (or you could use toasted baguette rounds, etc.)

Procedure

1. Purée blue cheese and cream cheese until very smooth. Season with S&P.

2. Fold whipped cream into the mousse until well blended, without lumps. Chill for 15 minutes or so--don't let it get too hard, because you want to put it in a piping bag.

3. Use a piping bag with a smallish tip--not too small, but not a giant one, either, or you can spoon it into a plastic bag and cut the corner off. Pipe a nice line down the endive leave, sort of squiggle it to make it look pretty. Chef Pantry says he sometimes garnishes these with a candied walnut or pecan, which would give it added flavor, texture, and color. Or, you can use it as a dip.

The key when making this type of hors-d'oeuvre is to take into account the climate of the area you are going to serve it in...i.e., not at an outdoor wedding reception in July at 95 degrees, because it would just melt and wilt and look damned ugly. (Although, anyone who has an outdoor wedding reception in the South in the summer deserves whatever might melt and wilt and look damned ugly. Then, they truly would be the hors-d'ouvres from hell. I can see having your guests wilt for the 15 minutes it should take for the ceremony in the lovely botanical garden or in Great Uncle Willie's hay field where you had so many memories as a child, but for the love of Pete, get the guests inside soon! And, double the amount of liquids (punch, water, tea), nay triple! the amount of liquid you plan to serve, or you'll be sorry!)

The red pepper mousse involved gelatin, which can be tricky to work with, and to be honest, it was pretty bland. It looked pretty, because the team that made it piped it onto chilled spoons, which gave it some visual interest. I think the spoonful type hors-d'ouvres are kinda neat, but I always think about the poor schmoe who will have to wash all those spoons...some poor schmoe like a culinary student who has to slave away for hours at some volunteer gig.

On today's schedule is the written part of our mid-term and some hot appetizers. From the recipes we were given, there was a lot of seafood--crab cakes, Clams Casino, Oysters Diamond Jim Brady--so, I hope we get to do all the good stuff.