En croûte

I’m such a nerd when it comes to school, I missed one class to go up to Boston in September and I wanted to make up those missed hours so I could have perfect attendance when I graduate. I know, geeky, I just can’t stay away from the kitchen.

Having missed a Level V class, I had to work with the current Level V students whose rotation is Tues/Thurs/Sat nights. Luckily my head Chef is also their head Chef so I was much at ease coming in for the night and he put me on the Entremetier station.

Chef mentioned to me that he had tons of chanterelle mushrooms to use and immediately I wanted to make a soup. I brought up the possibility of using puff pastry and somehow do a play on French onion soup. He said go for it.

I slowly sautéed lots of onions, leeks and shallots to develop their rich flavor as the base of my soup. I had a stock pot of vegetable stock simmering and two bulbs of garlic in the oven roasting. I added the beautiful pale orange-hued mushrooms to the sauté pan and cooked everything until soft. I also had some oyster mushrooms that I sautéed to use as garnish for the soup under the puff pastry.

With my Vita-prep blender I pureed the mixture with some stock and the roasted garlic. A touch of cream and sherry were added to give the soup a little more richness. I balanced the seasonings and was ready to work on plating a prototype.

The puff pastry was somewhat deceivingly easy to work with, I cut square pieces to fit over the bowls and popped my creation into the convection oven. The pastry was slipping into the bowl so I had to figure out a way to make it stick with egg wash.

The soup emerged with a flaky golden crust that sagged in the middle since the bowl was very wide. Not exactly how I pictured it but I knew I’d have at least 15 orders that I could perfect it as I went along.

The orders started rolling in, we called it a mushroom soup en croûte. Bowl after bowl were popped into the convection oven and when the order was fired there were a few times that the expediting Chef had to wait 3 – 5 minutes for my dish (Chef Candy kept belting out, “I’m still waiting for the soup!” it’s not a great feeling when you are holding up orders – trust me). My puff pastry was fussy and decided to take on a life of its own. Sometimes it would puff up, sometimes it would sink in the soup, it took longer to turn golden brown than other times – a nightmare!

As the night wound down I was trying to get ahead of myself and start soups in the convection oven earlier – this was the winning solution and I finally got my puff pastry to do what I wanted it to – stick to the bowl and completely cover the soup. The photo I took was the last soup I made – and I enjoyed it from my dinner.

Fresh Roll

My foodie pal, Barbara, brought me these 2 x 2 inch square rice noodles that she uses on occasion. The opaque squares were unique, I was used to seeing rice vermicelli and round rice wrappers but never these. Inspired by the little noodle I knew I wanted to use something similar for canapés.

My team huddled around the canapé station and I expressed my interest in using the wrappers. Chef brought us a hunk of sushi grade tuna that Ashley marinated with a mix of soy, ginger, and rice wine. We soaked the rice wrappers and julienned carrots, and cucumbers. Spencer carefully cut the tuna and proceeded to wrap the mini fresh rolls.

I toasted black and blonde sesame seeds to decorate the roll and made a spicy aioli. The final little dish was a burst of color – a perfect introduction to a meal.

Smoke House

There’s a moment every day where I day dream about food, what to make, ingredients to buy, dinners to plan, recipes to look for…and working the canapé station only fuels that dialogue in my head. Making canapés at the restaurant allows us to create and experiment with food and flavors.

For part of the day, Ashley, my team partner and I were texting back and forth discussing what we would make for that evening. She wanted to bake apples then we talked about poaching them in port that then evolved into poaching melon-balled apples or pears in mulled wine then covering them in a goat cheese mixture and toasted spicy walnuts – like a truffle. Then I thought we could reduce the mulled wine to make a syrup. The creative back and forth is something I really enjoy and building on ideas makes the whole experience more interesting.

With an idea in my head I jaunted down to school. In the kitchen I spoke to Chef and wanted to check in about anything that needed to be used that evening. He immediately sent me upstairs to the fourth floor to fetch two very large sheet trays of trout that had brined for two days. I figured our apple truffle will have to wait for another day.

Chef instructed me to cold smoke the trout and use it for our canapé – he left us to think about how we would present it and we started to brainstorm about different ideas. I love a good food challenge – how can we make smoked trout presentable and more delicious? It’s something that was hard to get excited about – not my favorite thing.

I thought we could serve it on a potato gaufrette – a crisscrossed slice that would be deep fried and Spencer wanted to make an apple/radish slaw to top it. Chef buzzed around our station, he liked the gaufrette idea and suggested using sweet potato instead. With two whole sheet pans of trout to smoke I took charge of that task since we had SO much fish I had to smoke it in batches. Each time I would open the smoker I would be blasted with grey smoke that would fill part of the kitchen with a woodsy aroma of wood chips. My eyes would water and burn a bit from the blast.

We flaked the trout, placed a small amount on the sweet potato chip and added a bit of the tiny julienne of apple and radish – looking at it we knew it was missing something. I suggested making a lime aioli with fresh lime juice and garlic. Ashley liked the idea and she went ahead and started the mayonnaise. On the plate Spencer swirled the aioli with a decorative flare and we added some of the mixture to the trout. For an ingredient that none of us liked the canapé turned out to be an attractive little bite – and by the end of the night I could have passed as a smoked trout the way I smelled!

Doh!

Coming into the kitchen, I remembered Chef Phil asking me to use the pâte à choux dough he had from a previous class for that evening’s canapés. I searched the walk-in, found the containers of dough and decided that it was a little past its prime. I decided to whip up a new batch – this is the very same dough that you would use for éclairs, profiteroles, cream puffs, etc. At this point, I can make this type of dough in my sleep and I think I must have been sleeping when I gathered all the ingredients because it didn’t quite come out the way I expected.

The general recipe for pâte à choux is:
- 250 ml water
- 110 g butter
- 140 a.p. flour – sifted
- Pinch salt, pinch sugar
- 4 to 5 whole eggs

With 85 covers booked at the restaurant I planned to quadruple the recipe – giving me more than enough choux for the night. The procedure is very easy, water and butter (cut into small pieces) are placed on the stove heating the water and allowing all the butter to melt. Don’t boil away the water or it will mess with you flour proportion – this is why we cut the butter into small pieces – it melts quicker.

Take the pot off the stove and add all the flour all at once – return to low heat and stir with a wooden spoon to dry out the dough and remove some of the moisture. The dough should come together and be a smooth mixture.

I added my quadrupled amount of flour and started stirring to combine it – something was wrong because it wasn’t coming together and I thought to myself – why is this so watery?? Almost immediately I realized I must have been asleep when measuring the amount of water – in actuality I put 8 times the amount of water into the pot. Stupid me I was annoyed with myself, time was running out and I needed to get it piped and into the convection oven immediately. I ran around the kitchen like a fool and got 4x more flour and butter. I melted the butter in a sauce pan and sifted the flour into the watery mess of dough clumps. Once the butter melted I added it to the mix and prayed it would turn out alright.

I placed the now massive amount of dough into a stainless bowl and then started to add the eggs. So here is the deal with the eggs – one is added at a time and incorporated fully before you add the next. I quickly did the math…8x the recipe equals 32 to 40 eggs!! I laughed to myself and just worked with half the dough to bring it back to a reasonable portion, and 15 to 20 eggs later, my dough combined to a perfect consistency.

I piped the dough into mini-sized balls of dough, brushed them with a mixture of egg wash and cream and rushed two giant sheet pans into the convection oven for about 20 minutes. The little mounds of dough puffed up and turned from pale to golden brown.

While all of this was going on, I left Ashley to create a wild mushroom filling and a cranberry compote which were both equally delicious. We were ready in time for service and cranked out plate after small plate. At the end of the night, with so many little puffs left over, I made some Crème Chantilly and plated mini-sized cream puffs that were shared with Level V and VI students throughout the kitchen. A little something sweet to end the busy night.

Canapé [kan-uh-pey]

1. a thin piece of bread or toast or a cracker spread or topped with cheese, caviar, anchovies, or other savory food.

Moving to a new station is like waking up in a house you just moved to. You fumble around looking for familiar things in a new environment and slowly you become comfortable in your surroundings.

The canapé station is a place for Level VI students to practice skills, show creativity and demonstrate resourcefulness. Chef Phil will come to the canapé station and say, “I have such and such in the walk-in, what can you guys make with that?” and that ingredient must become a part of our planning.

Our first night, the weather in New York City had turned colder than normal so I felt like it was a soup night. Having arrived in the kitchen a bit early, I asked Chef if there was anything we needed to use up and he said that we had a clean slate to start. So, I tossed the idea of a purée of butternut squash soup served in little white ceramic shot glasses. He liked the idea and said go for it.

When Ashley came into the kitchen, I had told her what my plan was and she complemented the soup with her ideas. Ashley baked off small phyllo pillows, we made a goat cheese/crème fraîche topping and prosciutto straws.

Chef Phil gave us this great idea to take thin strips of prosciutto and wrap them around skewers. The skewers are baked in the oven for about 10 minutes, then allowed to cool. The prosciutto straws slip off the skewers and hold their cylindrical shape.

Our canapés need to be ready to plate slightly before 8:00 pm. We usually figure out the plating design close to this time and make a few samples for the Chefs in the kitchen to munch on and give their opinions.

With thumbs up from the Chefs we are ready for service and ready to knock out anywhere from 50 to 75 small plates in the span of an hour or so. The canapé is the first impression our patrons receive at the beginning of their meal – so we need to hit it out of the ballpark.

Party Season

Monday night, the restaurant was closed again for a private party. Many fellow students were annoyed that their time in the kitchen behind certain stations was being interrupted by yet another private party.

With my last night in the pastry kitchen I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to make one of the desserts that may be on my final exam. Around 5:30 pm it was clear that Chef only had 6 students to help out to make the night successful and he was very upset. I headed back to pastry after he called attendance and was the only Level 6 student doing pastry that night.

I consulted with the pastry Chef and got to work making the chocolate brioche bread pudding so I could serve at least 50 portions. I got to work making maple ice cream, chocolate custard, and candied orange peel for garnish. I have to admit it was a slow night, once I got everything prepped and ready there was a long lag time until we actually had to plate desserts. While some protested and decided to skip the night, I was happy to be there to make the dessert practically by myself. Sometimes it’s nice to be a one-man show.

VIP Dining

Ending the busy work week in a bustling, chaotic, time sensitive professional kitchen may be too much for some people. I find it exhilarating and I always look forward to my nights behind the scenes at L’Ecole.

That very evening I had three guests dining at the restaurant – friends that have supported my new venture and have been wonderful followers of my blog. I alerted the expediting Chef that a VIP table was coming in for dinner and to please ensure they have a wonderful dining experience. Ret, Mimi and Andy arrived for their reservation and in between the appetizer and fish course I was able to sneak out and see how everything was going. Moving from the brightly lit kitchen to the dim lights of the dining room – it took me a couple of seconds to be able to focus. The waiter pointed me in the right direction and I arrived at Table 22 to find my VIPs.

My guests all seemed excited and ready for the evening’s dining excursion. I was so happy and proud to be a part of their experience. I had to know what everyone ordered and was thrilled that each one of them ordered something different off the prix fixe menu. After chatting for a few minutes I had to excuse myself to get back into the pastry kitchen to finish my work.

That night, I prepared the dough for the tangerine tarts, the cream cheese/goat cheese filling, I worked on part of the chocolate custard for the brioche bread pudding and worked on putting it together with Chef Alain and Ashley.

Nearing the end of the night, I saw the dessert order for Table 22 come in and noticed Ret & company ordered three different desserts – well with four desserts on the menu, I had to make sure they also received our toffee pudding so I marched it right out to the table to surprise them.

Again, I was met with faces of delight and compliments and I thought, what a wonderful way to end the work week.