To begin chicken, Chef Richard taught us how to truss a bird - using his best Julia Child voice. It was truly one of my most favorite moments of school so far.
After trussing our chicken, we then learned how to "break it down". Surprisingly, I really enjoyed this. By the time we finished, we had divided our whole bird into 8 different pieces, butterflied a chicken breast, and also "supreme" a chicken and make a cut for chicken "cote a'let". After butchering our chickens, we poached, boiled, grilled, baked, and fried for lots of different recipes.
Wednesday we tackled finfish. After a short demo, we all practiced filleting sea bass and cod. Though I wasn't perfect, I have learned to not be afraid of the knife and so I dug right in. This was a great task for me because I am so detailed-oriented - I slowly picked my way through each bone, carefully pulling the flesh from each part. In the end, I ended up with a beautiful, fresh fillet.
The structure of this class was different than normal classes - instead of following specific recipes, the goal was to master technique of cooking fish. To do this, each group had 4 whole fish and a slab of tuna to work with. After filleting each fish, we practiced several different ways to cook.
pan-fried fish with the skin on and a rosemary garlic tomato sauce
Almond crusted fish with dust of maple crystals
spice-rubbed seared tuna
On Thursday, our final protein to learn about were those of the shell-fish category. Now, I like shrimp and lobster, but raw oysters and mussels at 10 AM was just a bit nauseating.
The style of this class was similar to fin-fish - it's all about technique. We made stuffed mussles, fried calamari, seafood bouillabaisse, and many more. By the end of the day... I was shrimped out.
To finish the week, we had a grilling fiesta - we grilled veggies, fruit, chicken, bread, anything we could get our hands on! Once again, we were allowed to use our creative juices within the realms of what was provided.
Grilled apples and pineapples
grilled tofu and vegetable kabobs
Grilling Buffet
My favorite item of the day was actually a dish I made - grilled Rosemary potatoes.
First, you must make the rosemary oil - pour oil into a mason jar and add a few springs of rosemary. Seal and let infuse for at least a week.
Cut potatoes into cubes and parboil in salted water until tender. In a separate bowl, toss potatoes with rosemary oil, salt, and pepper. Grill until desired grill marks. Season and serve with a sprig of rosemary.
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