Lisa Shock

Croquembouche can be time consuming, depending on how fast and accurate you are with assembly. You can make the nougatine base, the marzipan flowers, puffs and filling the day before. The sugar has to be done that day and you need to juggle it on and off the heat to keep it in a dippable consistency. -All the while keeping in mid that once filled, the puffs are getting soggy. Once the main tower is assembled on the base, you'll need a spun sugar setup to make the decoration. It should be served as quickly as possible. We allow 5 hours for students to make their first one in class. Do you have 5 hours to dedicate to this right before serving your meal? An option that many brides choose is to have a decorative Croquembouche with no filling in the puffs. This can be made and held in a dry environment for a day or two. (you may wish to run tests to how long it takes for spun caramel sugar to crystallize in your environment) For the dessert, sugar is spun, puffs are filled, dipped in hot caramel sugar, and plated with a little spun sugar just before being served. If I were cooking a big meal like this and a dessert, I'd make a cake or something complete the day before so that I could be free to cook the main meal.

I don't know about the UK, but, in America, culinary schools and regular universities offer hotel/restaurant management degrees which essentially are FoH programs. Students learn about managing people, purchasing, bookkeeping, costing out menus, POS systems, inventory control, etc. -plus a little bit about cooking. Yes, there will be classes on wine and high-end service in general, but, that's part of FoH. Without, say, some wine knowledge, it would be difficult to supervise a sommelier.

Not acceptable. Everyone needs to able to hear what's going on, including 'hot behind', 'knife behind', 'quemo', etc. He's also at a huge disadvantage if there's some type of accident, he won't hear glass break, etc. Then there's just the normal flow of orders being placed, dishes being 86'ed, calls to make things on the fly, complaints -there's a lot you absorb in a kitchen, even if the talk isn't directed to your station.

Same here, the heat kills bacteria in the eggs and the milk/cream.

I forgot to mention the humble cost card, which you will be forced to learn about in school, but, may not be taught at work. Whole television shows (Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible) have been constructed to display unschooled restaurateurs' inability to create a cost card. It can mean the difference between profit and bankruptcy. Sanitation is also an area where a school environment may excel over a real-world application. School will probably offer (the good ones do) an advanced sanitation course like ServSafe, whereas to work in most counties you just need a food handler card which can be gotten by answering 20 really basic questions. School will also drill you on cleaning schedules and equipment cleaning procedures.

One big difference between culinary school and on the job training is depth of knowledge. Working, you'll learn your restaurant's menu and style and what your head chef likes, and not much more. So, you'll wind up with an in-depth knowledge of, say, Portuguese food but with no grounding in pastry fundamentals. Even with a bunch of books, and a good knowledge of French, you're missing the hands-on instruction you'll get at school. -Whether it's help fluting mushrooms, boning a whole chicken intact, or learning the feel of underdeveloped gluten in bread dough, there's a lot of hands-on education in school. Also, as time goes by, you will be at a big disadvantage without a degree. Most chefs have them now, if not master's degrees, and, twenty years from now I expect that having at least a bachelor's degree will be absolutely necessary. Most people I know now, at mid-life, are returning to school to get the master's to be able to progress at work.

Lisa - can you describe the differences between Tahitian and Mexican vanilla beans and do you have a preference? I have Tahitian vanilla beans that are wonderful but have never used the Mexican variety. I know this is going to sound stereotypical, but, Mexican beans are kind of spicy. The flavors are bolder, with an edge sort of like how cinnamon is hot, without being really hot -or cinnamony. Mexican is a good choice when you're using vanilla along with other spice flavors, it stands out more. Tahitian is a different species, and is more subtle and floral. Tahitian also tends to have a bit more of the red liquorice notes to it -at least when starting a batch of extract. It's good in dishes where it's the only spice, like pots de creme or pastry cream. The nice thing about the B-grade beans on eBay is that they are cheap enough to try several and maybe share with friends. Or, make big batches of extract to give as gifts for the holidays. The homemade stuff is remarkably better than store-bought.

Don't overwork, make sure the fat stays in fairly large, pea-sized chunks, don't over-moisten. You can sub out half the ice water for cold vodka to lessen gluten development.

I vacuum seal mine. I am still using ones I bought 4 years ago on ebay, they are still moist. I've got Tahitian and Mexican, paid about $10/lb at the time.

It may or may not be helpful to prick them a few times with a fork.

Try rolling it out very thin, cutting into diamonds, sprinkle with kosher salt and maybe some dry herbs and bake to make crackers. Docking may or may not help them.

Meat dries out when it is cooked at too high of a temperature. Grilling doesn't ordinarily dry any meat out unless one's grill happens to ordinarily be at an incorrect temperature. Sous vide doesn't keep chicken moist because the bag is sealing things in. Sous vide CAN keep chicken moist IF the correct temperature is used. But, then again, any technique can keep meat moist as long as the temperature is regulated and correct. You can have tough dry chicken in a soup, if it's cooked at the wrong temperature.

I am reminded of the Chicken Tikka Masala episode of Heston Blumenthal's In Search of Perfection. He marinated chicken in yogurt and spices, and a control with just a spice rub. He then ran an MRI scan and found that the yogurt helped the spices penetrate the meat much further than the spices alone were able to move. I believe that buttermilk may be similar enough to have the same effect. But, you need to add a flavoring agent to it see the effect.

Exactly! I worked for a month at a mom & pop place on the east coast that the locals loved. We used the same Dawn mixes as the chain place a couple blocks away, but, we changed our oil religiously. We also didn't water down the fillings.

Do you have access to an electrical outlet? I try to bring my slow cooker if I can. I make the item in advance and just re-heat on site. Some ideas: NM style flat enchiladas, green chile stew, a hearty soup, coq-au-vin, bœuf bourguignon, stew, etc.

Yes, you are correct, many places buy dough/batter mixes from one big manufacturer. The stuff is cheap, and it's super-simple to handle, so, untrained staff can get consistent results.

I like ones similar to what Kerry has linked to. Some of them have temperature alarms built in so you can walk away, knowing the alarm will sound when it gets to a where you want it to be.

I like to use my wok to make them. The shape of the pan means that less oil is used, and I get a wide surface area.

What kind of cake is this? Seventy minutes is a really, really long time to bake a cake.

Stock contains plenty of food and water for microbes and a pleasant environment for certain spores (which are not killed by boiling) to germinate. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/dining/bending-the-rules-on-bacteria-and-food-safety.html?ref=dining&_r=0 You want to get it to 40°F as quickly as possible. In a restaurant setting, the health code allows 4 hours for that process, after that amount of time the quantity of bacteria growing may be at unsafe levels and, they may be releasing larger and larger quantities of toxic chemicals. -However, a really large stockpot represents a large thermal mass. If left out untouched, it can take much more than 4 hours to cool down just to room temperature. And, most home fridges cannot handle a giant mass of almost boiling liquid -you wind up heating up everything in the fridge making it all unsafe. An ice wand is SOP for cooling pots of liquid because it works well,

I have been meaning to get a copy of How to Cook a Wolf by M.K. Fisher. I only hesitate to really recommend it because I have not read it.

Beans, I cook up a large pot then use them all week or freeze some. I think that canned beans are slimy and don't like them. But, I do have several kinds of cooked beans in my freezer. I also use mine to make flat enchiladas.

I got one of these: San Jamar Ice Paddle. You can fill it with regular ice and you use it like an ice wand, but, unlike a regular ice wand, you can easily empty it and put more ice in and keep going. I freeze mine in square or rectangular containers either various steam table type pans or Camwear squares. Once frozen, I pop the stock out and vacuum seal it in bags-essentially forming bricks that stack in the freezer. If you don't have enough containers to do it all at once, refrigerate some of the stock overnight until the first batch is vacuum sealed, and keep going.

It works just fine. I made them for an exam in school, and have served them on catering gigs. Just remember to not fill them until the last minute so they don't get soggy.

The supermarket stuff uses a special type of yeast that is more resilient and tolerant of freezing. Check the ingredients, there are probably also cryoprotectants, and, some frozen doughs also have chemical leaveners (baking powder.)