Vegetable and Starch Cookery

Day Six of Culinary Skills for Bakers was a preliminary look at what is to come starting Day Eight (my birthday!) when we produce our own dinners and eat family style. We'll be using these types of cookery with those meals, as well as new techniques we cover that day.

We first had a long demo by Chef where he demonstrated several dishes and had us do tastings. We then prepared all these types of cooker/dishes, minus the hard boiled eggs (which I don't have pics of anyway).

We started with Harvard beets which are glazed beets made with orange juice. Beets and orange go good together tastewise. With red vegetables you need something acidic to help retain that bright, vibrant red color. Somehow our flame went out during cooking so it threw our timing off on everything and in the end the beets were cooked to the right consistency but we didn't get enough time to get our glaze reduced enough...they still were tasty though.


Next up was white rice pilaf. Pilaf actually refers to the cooking method and can be done with any grain. It basically means you start by coating the grains in a hot fat and it is typical to use onion in the dish. Depending on the size of the grain the cooking time and amount of cooking liquid will vary. After the rice came to a boil we actually then stuck the covered pot in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes to finish rather than keep it on low heat (which is fine to do as well, but this freed up the range).


The next demonstration was dry pasta. For every pound of pasta you want to use one gallon of salted water. There is no reason to add oil to the water, it just floats to the surface and Chef said, "its just a waste of good oil." You also never want to rinse your pasta in cold water after draining. It will cause it to stick together and lose flavor. After draining we spread the pasta out in a pan to cool away from heat so it wouldn't dry out. We just made the pasta and then did nothing with it...somehow forgot a pic...

We then moved onto the mashed potatoes. The best type to use are a low moisture/high starch potato like russets which are good for dry heat cooking and...yes, you start by boiling them but after draining we then put them in the oven for a few minutes to dry out. The best method for actually producing the mashed potatoes is with a ricer or food mill which are warm. This is because as potatoes cool down the starches gelatinize and get sticky so you don't get fluffy mashed potatoes (also why you want to do them towards the end, they don't hold up long). We directly processed our potatoes into a mixture of warm milk and butter, seasoned with salt, white pepper, and six grates of fresh nutmeg and whisked it all together.


Next was green beans with a shitake and onion garnish. The green beans were cooked in boiling water, shocked, and steamed to reheat when close to service. You do not want anything acidic in the water with green vegetables. There is a reaction with chlorophyll which will cause them to turn brown-green if you use acid. You also want to boil them uncovered so the acid the veg is producing can escape. These also don't hold up long so you want to do them towards the end (or cook, shock, then reheat at service).

The final dish was cauliflower in a polognese (spelling?) or polish sauce which is made with browned butter, bread crumbs, chopped hard boiled egg, parsley, salt and black pepper. It didn't sound good at all at first but was awesome. I took care of the sauce for this one.


All the dishes together (minus the pasta)

It was a bit crazy and our timing wasn't the best but we know what to work on and somewhat expect for Thursday. I'm excited to start baking classes but I'm loving this culinary crash course!

Random food fact of the day: The best way to cook hard boiled eggs is to place them in a pot, cover with water, and bring to a boil with some vinegar (this helps egg whites coagulate if a shell cracks). Once boiling, cover, and remove from heat. Let those eggs sit for 12 minutes then shock them. This should give you hard boiled eggs that don't have those yellow-gray yolks.