Diary: August 18, 2002

[Malawry]

Thursday, August 15

I made my first chicken stock today. When we broke into teams for lunch, Chef Peter said that one person from each team should start cleaning chicken backs immediately, and that he wanted stock on the stove well before 12:30 lunch service. I decided to go ahead and clean backs for my team. I started washing the last few bowls of backs out and realized that I’d never actually made chicken stock…and everybody else who had helped with the backs was already with their team, working on lunch. So I decided to make it myself. There was vegetable mirepoix already cut in the walk-in. I made two big bouquets garni, one for each pot. And then I filled the pots with water and had Chris G. help me heft them to the stove.

I didn’t cook anything at the stove for lunch service, but I visited periodically to check on my stock and skim any scum off the top. Almost every time I came by after the stock came to a boil, each of the two pots was working its ass off, boiling madly. I’d cut back the heat, skim, and walk away. Ten minutes later, I’d check and it’d be boiling again. I have no idea who kept returning the heat to high, but I’m fairly angry about it. Stock should be brought to a boil and then cut back to a simmer so that the slow motion of the heat brings impurities to the top. A stock at a hard boil forces impurities back into the body of the liquid through its rapid action, creating a cloudy stock. Argh! At the end of the school day, a few students (including me) strained the stock and set it aside to chill. It looks cloudy, but I hope that it clears up some after it chills and I can defat the surface.

After lunch service and break, we had our next round of spice and herb presentations. I happened to be the first on today’s docket. I’d come in early this morning and cut and crisped my biscotti in the oven, so I was mostly set. I gave each student an almond-black pepper biscotti and a strawberry, and I passed around a tray with the various types and grinds of peppercorns labeled in little cups. My chat was short and sweet; I talked a little about the differences between the types of peppercorns on the market, what the plant is like and where it grows, and I described a little of the spice’s history. Most people seemed to be paying attention, which was all I really wanted from my classmates. Later, several people came up to me to tell me how surprised they were at how good the biscotti were. (Not everybody had heard of black pepper ice cream, or strawberries with black pepper and balsamic vinegar.)

After class let out and I dealt with the chicken stock, I offered Christian, Chef Mark, his assistant Chef Theresa, and various staff members and pastry students the remaining biscotti. They went over quite well with those I spoke with, though I haven’t heard from Mark and Theresa what they thought yet. (I’m a little nervous about their opinion, even though I’m not a pastry student.)

Friday, August 16

I am a media darling. Last night, I appeared on Nightline, as did Amy, Kristin and Marta. Nightline was recording footage for a story on Julia Child at the dinner we worked at recently. Marta’s hands are apparently featured (she was making caviar quenelles) and everybody else’s face can be seen. (Marta understandably seemed a little rueful about only having her hands on the air.) I have not seen the footage yet; Marta captured it with her TiVo, and I hope she brings in a tape next week so we can see it together in the school library.

Lunch service today was especially obnoxious because I somehow ended up being one of the lucky folks who worked on chicken stock again. I trimmed chicken backs with a few other people and then yet again I ended up washing them all out in the sink. By the time I finished with the stock, I only had about 45 minutes before lunch service, so I ended up running myself ragged trying to assemble a Thai cucumber salad, a remoulade sauce, and so on. I tried to help out with everybody else’s work as much as I could, including the sensual job of gently wiping marinade off of cod with my fingers and then dredging it in flour. Lunch was a big hit: chicken satay with cucumber salad and peanut sauce, cod fried orly style with pont neuf potatoes and remoulade, and brownies with ice cream. I joked that it was an east to west meal theme.

The afternoon was taken up with the last of the reports from my fellow classmates on spices and herbs. The reports and the foods got even more complicated and outrageous, including a Persian rice dish with saffron and that yummy rice crust and some freshly made mojitos. I’m impressed with how well my classmates teach, and look forward to the next set of reports.

On my way out of school, I bumped into Chef Mark from the pastry program. I nervously asked him how the biscotti were. “I got a hit of pepper that wasn’t properly blended in. Other than that, well, they’re biscotti.” He shrugged and went on with whatever he was doing. Can’t please everybody.

Saturday, August 17

I went to school today to check out the pastry buffet. I arrived around 1:15pm; the celebration started at noon, but I wasn’t able to make it there any earlier. The buffet was set out in the main kitchen, and there were scads of people everywhere, so some of the goodies were starting to melt a little in the warm heat. I walked around checking the treats out, and I asked the pastry students I saw to show me what they made and tell me about how they made it. Some of the cooler things included:

A croquemboche, which still had crisp caramel despite the humidity

A spring-themed buche type cake with chocolate buttercream frosting and filling

Sweet brioche “peaches” with almond patisserie cream “pits” and marzipan leaves. They had been glazed with apricot and rolled in sugar so they looked very peachlike.

A wedding cake, a birthday cake, and a graduation cake

Christian showed off his individual savarins, and gave me a slice of his rich chocolate tart. The brown pastillage platter he worked on earlier in the week while I was baking my biscotti didn’t work out, so he ended up going with a plain white pastillage plate, which he decorated with royal icing and coffee beans. His comment: “Unfortunately, the coffee beans led people to believe my tart had a mocha filling rather than plain chocolate.”

The buffet had many beautiful and interesting things on it, and I learned a lot by coming by and checking it out. I look forward to learning some of the skills I saw used that we’ll cover in future months, such as working with chocolate and pulling sugar. At the same time, the pastry program at L’academie is quite French in focus, and I’m not too interested in classic things like savarins and Paris-Brest rings. I don’t think of these as particularly tasty or interesting desserts. I’m more interested in powerful, creative flavor combinations in pastry. Still, some of those recipes and techniques are the foundations of the desserts I would be interested in learning about, and it’s good experience to work with them.

[Fat Guy]

I decided to go ahead and clean backs for my team.

This is good.

[Dana]

You've written of chicken back cleaning in other posts. What all is involved in this process? Removing the skin? or just the excess fat and those little kidneys(or whatever they are) from the inside? I have always left the skin on for my stock as I have assumed there is a lot of flavor in it. What about the tail?

These entries are terrific. Thanks so much

[Malawry]

Chicken backs come to us frozen from our meat purveyor and cost the school about $40 a case (if my memory is accurate). One case makes one quite large vat of stock. To prepare the backs, I cut off all the skin and fat I can. I cut off the triangular part above the breastbone first. Then I slice off the large globs of fat on each side...they fold underneath usually, just unfold and cut off. Leave as much meat as possible attached to the bone. Then I cut off the large sheet of fat and skin that's over the top of the breastbone. Then I turn the back over and scrape all the dark and red bits clinging to the underside of the bone with the tip of my knife. If I can, I remove the stringy bits as well, but I don't worry about them too much since they come off more easily when rinsed. I use the knife to trim off the larger globules of fat from the meat remaining on the underside, and then I pitch the back into a bowl which later gets dumped into a colander for rinsing and manual cleaning. At this point, the backs are ready to go into a stock.

Skin and fat are removed because cooking a stock with them just makes for more fat in the stock which you'll just have to remove later. The dark bits we scrape out because they're full of impurities and blood, which can darken down a stock and which need to be filtered off the top as the stock simmers. It's much easier to remove impurities with a knife than it is to skim them off the top; every time you skim you remove a little bit of the good stuff, after all.

Chicken backs are a fact of life. They're okay, but I definitely disliked doing them twice in a row. Ick.

[Degustation]

I watched the Julia spot on Nightline and I wondered to myself, "Is that Malawry!?"when I saw the footage of the dinner preparation. Girl, you is a star.

Thanks for your entertaining reports.

[Dana]

I'm convinced - no more skin in the stock for me. Isn't that grey foam just disgusting?

[katbalou]

dear malawry,

sounds like you're doing well. keep up the good work. by the way, do we get a recipe for the biscotti? :)

kat

[Malawry]

Black Pepper-Almond Biscotti

4 eggs

1.5 cups sugar

About ½ tbsp coarsely ground black pepper

1 ½ tbsp amaretto

Splash of vanilla extract

3.5 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1.5 cups almond slivers, toasted without fat in a pan until light golden

Beat eggs and sugar with paddle attachment in mixer on high speed until smooth. Shake pepper over bowl while running mixer on high. Scrape the sides and mix more to disperse evenly. Add the amaretto and the vanilla while running mixer. Set speed to low. Sift flour, baking soda and salt together and run in slowly with mixer on low. Set speed back to medium and run in the almonds. You may want to taste for black pepper at this point, and decide whether or not the dough needs more. (I was using very fresh pepper, but if you don't grind it yourself it may need more.) Turn off mixer when well-mixed.

Flour hands and pull out half of the dough onto a floured board. Form into a log about 12” long by 3” wide. (This makes for long biscotti; make a longer, narrower log for short biscotti.) Set on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Form second half of dough into an identical log and set well apart from the first log onto the sheet pan. They will grow significantly, so don't set them on a half-sheet pan, use a full-sheet or bake them on two pans. Bake at 300 degrees until dough springs back and feels firm when touched, 30-35 minutes. Cool at least until cool enough that you are able to handle them, or let cool entirely. Cut logs into 1” thick cookies.

Place cookies on parchment-lined baking sheets with their cut edges on the sides (don’t lay them on the cut edge, in other words) with plenty of space in between. Crisp at 300 degrees until firm, about 30 more minutes. They’ll get harder as they cool.

Serve with strawberries, and perhaps a mug of chai tea.

This recipe is adapted from one appearing in Caprial's Desserts, by Caprial Pence and Melissa Carey. I do know better than to use volume based measurements, but I ran out of time to find a trustworthy recipe that relies on more accurate measures such as ounces.

Dana, to me the worst part is how that gray foam sticks to the vegetables at the top of the stock. Ewwwww!

[ShawtyCat]

Hmmmm , I wonder why skimming scum does not bother me in the least but peeling shrimp does. (((Shudder))) Must be those all those legs. Reminds me of bugs.

[katbalou]

dear malawry,

thanks, i"ll have to try the recipe, maybe this weekend if it's not too hot!

kat