S....is for Survival!

Well, you may think my absence since the dreaded fish post meant I didn't make it. Perhaps you thought the blood, guts, offal, and bones were just too much for me. Well you were wrong. I did it. Actually twice. Once a flat fish (yellowtail flounder) and then a round fish (hybrid striped sea bass). Not to mention the famed lobster.
I have to say, it probably is one of the grossest things I have ever done. Period. The smell alone. A flounder is a flat fish and actually has both of it's eyes on the same side of it's head...very creepy. I actually felt like it was watching me. Gross.
The roundfish I cut up with surprising efficiency and accuracy. Luckily this one came eviscerated (already gutted). Who knew? 2nd try and I did really well. But don't worry there is a not a career throwing fish at Pike Place anywhere in my future!! There will be a 4 week break before I have to touch a fish again......Do we think that is sufficient time for me to recover???
Oh and the lobster as always was excellent. We cooked them three ways and did a blind taste test of which was best: grilled, steamed, or boiled. Mine one the test (it was steamed over a court bouillon) so I felt proud. We also threw back some raw oysters on the half shell and clams. Shucking is sure fun!
Well I hope I didn't gross you out too much. My pregnant sister said reading the last one almost made her throw up so she had to stop reading. Just think, even grosser than reading about it is doing it. YUCK!

S...is for Stocks & Sauces

Week two was all about stocks and sauces. They say your knife skills combined with how well you make sauces is the measuring stick of a chef. If that's the criteria, so far so good!
Stocks were a piece of cake. Pretty nasty, but easy to make. Let's just say that cooking school isn't always glamorous. Rubbing down veal bones with your bare hands is just plain gross. And de-fatting chicken back isn't much better. Especially if your chicken backs still have some feathers in them like mine did. Although worse than either of those is getting out your bones from the 40 lb box. You've got to stick your bare hands into 4-6" of blood. Did you ever think I could be so brave??? I didn't.
Sauces on the other hand are much less gross. We used the stocks we already made, so there was no unnecessary carnage in sauce-making. There are 5 mother sauces: Espagnole (brown stock base), Volute' (white stock base), Bechamel (milk base), Hollandaise (butter base), and Tomato (I bet you can guess the base for that!). We turned each sauce into 2-3 secondary sauces, which made quite a few by the end of the week. I sailed right through most of them.
Hollandaise was my one rough moment. It is the perfect sauce. Mostly it's just butter and egg yolk. You've probably had it on a steak or eggs benedict. Hollandaise is a very tempermental sauce. If you get it too hot you scramble the eggs, if it's not whisked fast enough it doesn't emulsify and "breaks", and if it is not hot enough it won't thicken. So you've only got about a 10-15 degree range where it come together properly. I really didn't want to break my sauce, so I was VERY careful. I added 8oz of melted butter, literally one drop at a time and whisked in. I was so overcautious it took me 45 minutes to make my sauce. That's 45 minutes of straight, rapid whisking. I truly thought my arm might fall off. Give that one a try sometime.
Well, turns out I was trying to be so careful I ended up ruining my sauce. I whisked my stainless steel bowl so hard that I whisked little flecks of the metal right into the sauce and turned it gray. Which means that it is un-servable in a restaurant. Sometimes, being cautious in the kitchen bites you in the backside. Julia Child says, "No fear in the Kitchen". I guess I should have listened and not been so afraid to make a mistake.