Thursday, September 9, 2010

Making Stock

The assignment from my Food and Wine Seminar last week was to make a stock of some sort, following the general stock-making guidelines demonstrated by the Chef. Seeing as how I had foolishly discarded the shells from the last few times we had shrimp (used in shrimp stock) I decided to make a chicken stock using one of the small organic chickens in my freezer. The first step in the stock was to roast the chicken, which I did after rubbing it with herbs, for about an hour. It was a small chicken, but it provided enough tender, delicious meat for that night's dinner of Pesto Chicken Pasta with Summer Vegetables (a recipe I invented on the fly) and for a very nice chicken salad wrap lunch the next day. I stored the carcass in the fridge overnight, for the next day's attentions.

Following the instructions on making a Mirepoix, (fancy word for basic stock vegetable combo) I chopped onions, carrots and celery (2 parts onion to 1 each of the other) into medium, uniform dice, put those along with the carcass in a large stock pot, and filled the pot with cold, not hot, water. Then I dangled a tea strainer filled with dried parsley, a bay leaf and whole peppercorns into the pot. This was a substitute for a real Sachet, which should have been a little bag made of cheesecloth, but since I was unable to find cheesecloth, the tea strainer sufficed. I let this simmer at a low temperature, uncovered, for several hours, until the vegetables were tender but not mushy. Then I strained it through a regular strainer lined with coffee filters (another stand-in for cheesecloth, per an internet article) and was rewarded with about a gallon of amber, fairly clear chicken stock. It tasted very nice, subtly chickeny. We had been cautioned against salting the stock, as salt would be added into whatever recipe the stock is used.

For the second class, Chef Dowie used the previous week's shrimp stock and demonstrated the making of a Shrimp Bisque,. This involved teaching us the whys and wherefores of Roux, in its three varieties: white, blond, brown. All three consist of equal parts butter and flour, cooked together till thick and bubbly. The color difference reflects cooking times, since the longer it cooks, the browner and more flavorful it gets. The bisque started with "sweating" onions and garlic in butter, adding spices and tomato paste, the stock, dry sherry, and cream. When that had cooked down a bit, he added the blond roux he had made and whisked it into the thin creamy liquid till it thickened. The bisque was smooth, spicy and very subtly shrimpy. The acidity in the Pinot Gris white wine we tasted (and expectorated) offset the creaminess of the fat in the bisque quite nicely.

Now lest this all seem very gourmet, let me add a few down-to-earth elements. 1) I have been making Roux for years, just not knowing what it was called. I didn't know the exacting proportions, and had no idea that color differentiation was acceptable. I just figured I was being negligent and burning the butter, changing a "white sauce" into too-brown glop. 2) "Bisque" is a fancy name for a cream soup made from stock, though turning my chicken stock into bisque doesn't sound as delicious as Shrimp Bisque. 3) My handy equipment substitutions worked just fine, though I do regret handing off the antique Chinois to my brother several years ago. I had been told it was for ricing potatoes, and figured we hardly ever ate potatoes so he could have it. Now I discover it is in fact a fancy kitchen tool, necessary and useful for all sorts of straining. Of course, it has to be lined with cheesecloth, which I finally found in the paint section of the chain hardware store. My coffee-filter lined strainer worked acceptably as a quick substitute.

And this brings me to a rambling conclusion. Cooking is definitely a skill and can become an art, but where I find satisfaction is in the elevation of the "know-how" I learned from my mother and grandmother, while watching them and helping them cook for the family. I was blessed with being allowed to mess around in the kitchen, and learned how to do amazing things through trial and error and reading cookbooks and watching others cook. This class is the "Aha!" for all those skills and nuggets of knowledge---as in "Aha! That's why that happens when you let it cook too long!" or "Aha! That's what that funny holey funnel is called and used for!" or "Aha! That's why people order white wine with cream pastas!"

Incidentally, Chef Dowie was demonstrating how to clarify stock into a consomme, which is an utterly clear liquid used as an elegant type of soup. At the end of class, he declared the consomme clarification process a failure and said it would have to be a "do-over." So even all the fancy knowledge still ends up with a bust once in awhile.

Friday, September 3, 2010

College Care Package

It was a good excuse to send a care package-- I found a small portable lamp that my college freshman daughter could use near her sink in her dorm. She wanted something she could turn on early in the morning which would not disturb her sleeping roommate. It seemed silly to mail such a minor thing all by itself, so I decided some baking was in order.

I found black bananas in the freezer, ready to be thawed and smashed for banana bread. It didn't take long to mix up a batch of our favorite chocolate chip banana bread. I put the batter into a few mini loaf pans to make shipping and sharing easier. Then I made a batch of peanut butter cookies to accompany the lamp and bread. One upside of making cookies for a care package is that invariably there are too many in the batch to ship, so my husband and I were happy to eat the excess.

I bagged the mini loaves and cookies, wrapped them in bubble wrap, and put them in a priority mail box along with the cute little lamp, then sent them off to my daughter. I included a note instructing her to share some with her sister, who is also on campus.

The package arrived a couple of days later, to positive reviews. Our older daughter happened to be in younger daughter's dorm when she opened the package, so they shared the bread and cookies together. I've had several text messages since then about how delicious the bread was and that the cookies are gone.

I still haven't heard for sure if the little lamp will suitably serve its purpose.

Back in School

I am back in school.

That sounds grander than it really is. I've only signed up to take one class, and that at our local community college. But it is for credit, it meets weekly for an entire semester, and there are EXAMS!
The class I signed up to take is called Food and Wine Seminar, and is designed especially for the food and wine hobbyist. It is taught by faculty of the Iowa Culinary Institute, but does not apply toward a degree from that well-respected institution. It was advertised in our newspaper this summer, and my daughters encouraged me to sign up for it. They were concerned that after they both went off to college, I would be at a loss for what to do with myself and an empty nest.

So I had to apply for admission and be accepted as a part time student at the college, which I thought was kind of funny. At least I didn't have to take any entrance exams! I was assigned a student ID and a campus email, which I much remind myself to check occasionally.

The first class met this past week, for 3 hours on Wednesday evening. As I expected, most of the 60 other students are of my age and station in life, with some variation on both sides in the age area. It is not a hands-on class, as we do not have the kitchen safety and sanitation prerequisites completed for actual cooking. So we sit at tables and watch the chef do his thing; this is projected onto various big screen TVs which zoom in on his hands and utensils.

Chef Robert Dowie demonstrated how to make a shrimp stock, imparting knowledge and techniques offhandedly as he went along. He talked about knives (high carbon stainless steel are best), sharpening knives, color coding your cutting boards by type of food to limit contamination (such a great idea!), and the concept of Stocks. I learned about Mirepoix, which is the base of every type of stock, consisting of half onion, and one quarter each celery and carrots. He demonstrated making a sachet for herbs and peppercorns out of cheesecloth, which will simmer with the veggies and whatever bones you decide to use. In this case, he used shrimp shells he had frozen from past shrimp recipes (how many times have I thrown those stinky things away?!) for the flavoring. Because it takes only about 30 minutes to extract the flavor from the shells, he chopped the vegetables very finely, demonstrating various types of dice, mince, julienne and other knife techniques. For a poultry or beef stock, the vegetables can stay in larger pieces because they have to simmer longer. He said sometimes they will let beef bones simmer for about 24 hours.

While the stock was simmering, another instructor, Paul Gospodarczyk, demonstrated the proper method for tasting and describing red wine. He is a Sommelier and wine scientist and directs the eonology (wine science) program at the culinary institute. His role in the class is to teach us how to pair different kinds of wine with food, based on flavor and texture. We were instructed to taste the unidentified red wine given to us, then spit it out in the accompanying "spit cup." He even showed us how to properly spit so as not to embarrass ourselves or gross out our classmates. Then he called on some of the other students who are in the wine science program to describe what they were tasting. It was impressive to listen to all the dimensions they describe when looking at and tasting a small amount of wine. Incidentally, we were tasting a 2007 Pinot Noir from Oregon.

After that flavorful venture, we were given samples of the shrimp stock, which was smelling so good by then. The chef had strained it through a cheesecloth-lined funnel shaped strainer called a chinois, which resulted in it being clear and smooth. It was fragrant, silky and subtly shrimpy.

Our homework for the first week is to write a letter to the instructors about what we want to get out of the class, to taste a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc white wine and describe what we taste, and to make a stock of some sort. We were advised to freeze some of the stock to use for future homework assignments. That's the most fun homework I've ever had assigned to me!

I'm off to roast one of the organic chickens in my freezer, in order to acquire a carcass to use for a chicken stock. Looks like we'll be having a chicken dish for dinner, along with some of the New Zealand wine I'm supposed to try. Sounds pretty good for a Friday night dinner!