The Last Station

The final station, Saucier, is usually the most intense and demanding. We are serving a Sautéed Breast and Braised Leg of Duck in a Spiced Broth and Lamb with a Cabbage Ragout. The realization that I only have four more nights in the restaurant is numbing.

Making the lamb dish is somewhat easy, the cabbage ragout needs some attention but the components of the plate are straight forward. One night I took charge of plating the lamb per order and the tricky part is cooking the lamb loin the way the patron requests it – medium rare, medium, well-done, etc. The finished plate has three quenelles of mashed potato, cabbage ragout, lamb sliced on a bias with a panko-crumb topping, sautéed seasonal mushrooms and a ladle of lamb sauce.

With one night on Saucier completed, I try to mentally note everything I’ve learned on each station. With my Final exam just a little over a week away I am trying to prepare myself for anything.

Chop, Chop!!

Our last night on Saucier and I’m a little sad because it has been a very good experience for us as a team. We were all a but apprehensive about the meat station having seen melt-downs, fights and chaos from other teams. Tonight, we are down one member from our usual three-person team so Chef assigned some students to help us with our prep work. We also had a Level VI student who needed to make up a class before graduation to work with all night. Ashley and I felt calm about the work we needed to get done, she and I would tick off the list of “to-dos” and assign them or do them ourselves. That’s one of the reasons my team rocks, we communicate with each other – and communication is key for my sanity and for everything to work properly. I want to make sure we are all on the same page, we are doing things by priority and we are watching the clock.

By this fourth night on Saucier, we know the score, we decided to take charge of one dish each. I am back to lamb chops and Ashley works the rabbit orders. Our Level VI student focuses on making the Pommes Anna & Darphin, something that can take an hour or longer to complete. The best advice on the meat station is to be organized and ready…when orders come in I begin by searing the chops in a extremely hot sauté pan with blended oil on both sides. I time them based on thickness and judge their doneness by touch. Usually the chops are ordered medium rare, some medium and a few well-done.

So orders begin to be called out, I sear my chops and get into my groove. Once the chops are seared they are set aside until the next step in the cooking process – a round of composed herb/hazelnut butter is placed on each chop and then placed under a salamander (broiler) to develop a golden color. Once the chops come out of the salamander and the order is fired then I can start plating. Here is the logistical problem – the salamander is not next to my station, so we’ve learned that having someone run the chops to the salamander back and forth was vital to keeping us on time and running smoothly – as simple as that. I ask our Level VI student to do this as part of her duties for the night.

Orders are coming in… 3 rabbit, 3 lamb medium,…then 2 lamb medium rare and rare, 1 rabbit, then 1 lamb well-done, 2 rabbit…and the orders stack up. Watching the order board helps us stay in tune with what is going out and when orders are ready to be fired. It is a simple system but one screw up and you can set yourself back quite easily.

My first set of chops sent to the salamander came back with the composed butter dark brown almost burned. I said to the student that she needs to continually check the chops under the broiler since they go from pale to golden brown quite quickly. She started to scrap off the charred part of the butter thinking we could serve it and I decided that it needed to be re-done. Note to self: screw up #1.

I sent her back with the chops with fresh herbed butter and as I was searing chops to order I look over and see her chatting with her classmates and NOT watching the chops under the salamander. Note to self: screw up #2 is not happening on my watch. So, from across the entire meat station I yelled, “Watch those chops, pay attention!” and proceeded to stamp my feet up an down like a crazy person to get her attention. I was pissed!! She was going to burn the second batch if I didn’t catch her. Luckily with my vocal intervention the chops came back to my satisfaction.

The orders continue, I pass the seared chops to her to be patted with the herb butter and run to the salamander and half the time I’m applying the butter myself and she’s oblivious. I don’t understand why this is so difficult to comprehend. I give you the chops, you place a tablespoon of butter on it, and you run it to the salamander. Note to self: annoyed and wonder if I don’t speak English?

At once, I have 6 lamb chops that need to go out at once. I start plating the chops in a line, first the Ratatouille is place in a ring mold on the plate and slight pressure helps it form into a perfect disk. Then the burning hot chops crisscross and lean on the Ratatouille, a wedge of Pommes Anna and finally napping the dish with a luscious sauce. I turn around and hand “our helper” the dish to start running them to the waiter station. The dish sits on the stainless steel table for another 30 seconds and as I turn around with my next plate and notice this dish just sitting here I belt out, “RUN THESE DISHES NOW!” Irritation and anger set in for both Ashley and myself but we hold it together. Note to self: Perhaps, deaf, dumb, blind? Maybe all of the above!

The real deal breaker came mid-way through the height of service, Ashley and I are working our tails off and we turn around to see “her” shoveling down a huge plate of food from family meal and shooting the shit with the Entremetier station. Here Ashley and I are hungry and busy, we haven’t eaten since lunch and lazy-girl is stuffing herself with food – clueless to what we are doing. That was really the final straw, she was practically useless to us all night and we put her on menial prep tasks after she finished her hefty plate of food – we needed to keep her away from us and get her out of the way. Note to self: Am I being punished or tested?

Now, I can understand why British Chef/Restaurateur Gordon Ramsey is such a freak of nature in the kitchen and expletives run from his mouth like water from a faucet. To quote him, “I have a very assertive way. It's wake up, move your ass, or piss off home.” – my sentiments exactly!

TGIF! (Thank God It’s Friday)

I used to love going to dinner on a Friday night, the end of the work week, a cold martini, fantastic food that I didn’t have to cook and the best part – being served, oh, and no dishes to wash! Those evenings are a distant memory because since February every Friday has been (happily) spent at The French Culinary Institute.

Being on the opposite side of that equation has its perks too. After a long day at my 9 to 5 job, I head down to SoHo, put on my Chef clothes and start the second half of my day. Walking into the kitchen, my first stop is the coffee maker – no matter how full the carafe is I always make a fresh pot and then proceed to my assigned station for the evening.

I try to get into the kitchen as early as possible so I can access the amount of prep needed and get ahead of the curve. I’ll to talk to Chef Phil and he’ll alert me to what we are running low on and what I should start first.

On Friday, I immediately tackled the somewhat labor/time intensive Ratatouille served with our lamb chops. The peppers (red and green), eggplant, onions, zucchini must be chopped macédoine and the tomatoes emondé (blanched, skin/seeds/pulp removed, chopped coarsely) and concassé – all prepared and sautéed separately then combined to marry the flavors.

At that point, the laundry list of “to-dos” is almost never-ending. About a dozen potatoes are washed, peeled and placed in cold water in preparation for their date with the French mandoline. Half the potatoes are julienned (for Pommes Darphin) and the other half sliced into very thin rounds (for Pommes Anna). Working quickly (oxidation happens quickly), the julienne potatoes are seasoned with salt and pepper, the excess moisture is gently squeezed out and await a hot sauté pan with some blended oil. The julienne potatoes sizzle in the hot oil and form a nice crust with the addition of unsalted butter. The same application for the Pommes Anna, however the potatoes are laid out into a spiral design and take a little more time to put together. Both preparations done properly yield a crisp, round potato cake that is sliced into six servings for service. We generally prep for 40 – 45 covers on the Saucier station, our lamb and rabbit dish have been very popular.

And the list goes on…pears are cut into perfect cocottes (football shapes) then sautéed and caramelized. Cipollini onions are soaked in warm water to ease the removal of the outer skin and they are cooked glacé à brun (glazed to a brown caramelization – cooked in some water, butter, salt and pepper and a pinch of sugar to boost their sweetness). Bok choy is washed, trimmed, cut and blanched in salted boiling water, then shocked to preserve its bright green color. Bacon is cut into small lardons and gently sautéed. Herbed-compound butter is prepared for the lamb and chilled. Most nights we start the rabbit and lamb stock as the base of our two sauces and those simmer for a few hours to extract all the rich flavor from the bones, mirepoix and bouquet garni.

Finishing the final two sauces, isn't that why French cuisine is so revered – those complex, rich and flavorful sauces that have an unparalleled depth – and that Madames et Messieurs is a whole other story.

Saucy!

The first night on the Saucier station the team got right down to work. Lots of prep needs to occur before the first plate goes out. For the meat course Level V students prepare two dishes – Lamb chops with an herb/hazelnut pesto crust, ratatouille, potatoes Darphin and a lamb reduction sauce that is dark, rich and packed with flavor – secondly a braised and grilled rabbit with bok choy, potatoes Anna, cocotte of caramelized pear, bacon and a cipollini onion all finished with a rich rabbit reduction.

My teammates and I decide on a plan of action as we knock out all the prep. We decide Tim will handle the rabbit orders, Ashley will be a runner and help plate, I will handle the lamb. As orders come in I sear off lamb chops to obtain a nice caramelization and when the order is fired I blast it under the salamander with a mound of pesto crust that melts into the chop and flash it in the oven to finish.

Our sauces stay hot in a bain marie on top of the stove, sides are heated to order and we carefully plate each dish artistically. We had a fair amount of orders and our station was hoping with activity. The adrenaline rush is addictive and you run on a high through dinner service. Keeping up with orders and working rhythmically puts me into a work trance. I’ve always said cooking for me is very Zen – a way for me to relax at the end of a normal work day. My mind clears, I focus on the tasks at hand and I’m very centered. It’s a good place to be mentally when you are physically challenging yourself over hot stoves, running plates up to the waiter station and standing on your feet all night.

I’ve come to realize the professional kitchen is really not for everyone – the stark, sterilized environment is not at all glamorous, or comfortable. It is a hard place to work and demanding on your body and mind. When some colleagues dined at the restaurant I was able to go out into the dining room and chat with them to see how they enjoyed everything. As I left the kitchen and proceeded to the dining room in my Chef-whites I emerged into a dimly lit space with tables full of patrons and I found my friends. Seeing all those people made me feel kind of special – some how in some little way I was a part of their evening. I walked proudly through the sea of tables knowing that not everyone can do what I do and I felt grateful and humbled as I returned to my place in the professional kitchen.

A School of Fish

One important lesson to learn in the kitchen is to be flexible and ready for anything. Whether you’re slammed with orders, run out hot plates or need to improvise on a recipe, it’s all about going with the flow and making things work – like swimming with the current. Monday night, lots of classmates were MIA and we were understaffed for some of the stations. The Entremetier station only had one person on it and Chef asked for volunteers to step up to the plate and fill other roles. Having made both fish dishes I was happy to help my buddy Marcella out on vegetarian dishes.

Marcella and I had some immediate thoughts about what we’d like to prepare, seared polenta, with sautéed wild mushrooms flambéed with sherry, a quenelle of mascarpone cheese, candied walnuts and freshly chopped herbs. Our second dish was harder to imagine so I went to the kitchen’s storeroom and asked the stewards for whatever vegetable they had an overabundance of…and out came broccoli rabe.

Now broccoli rabe is not my favorite vegetable, but I was open to raising the bar and making it delicious. We decided to blanch the rabe and then shock it in ice water to preserve the color. Upon ordering, I would sauté the broccoli rabe with some blended oil, salt and pepper, then plate the crisp vegetable in a nest with a dressed salad of grape tomatoes, shaved fennel, thinly sliced red onion and roasted garlic. Finished with a drizzle of garlic-infused oil and 8 year old balsamic the dish looked vibrant. That night the vegetarian dishes were quite popular and the orders kept us busy for most of the night. I guess there’s a healthy market for broccoli rabe – a surprise!

With trepidation, I watched the team on the Saucier station, probably the busiest and fastest-paced position in the kitchen. Starting Wednesday it’s my turn to get behind the grill and sear up some of the meat courses featured on L’Ecole’s prix fixe menu. I’m sweating just thinking about it.

Leading the Pack

From now until our real Mid-term in mid July the game plan has changed – Chef Nicolay has put us into groups of four to train as a mini kitchen set-up covering the four main stations: Garde Manger, Poissonnier, Saucier and Pâtissier.

Our group of four students must execute one dish from each station and after each class we will rotate into the next station. Our first night I started on Garde Manger and had to make our Consommé Printanier. I have a good group to work with – all very focused students and I’ve had the enjoyment of working with each of them individually in the past.

The very first night as we were assigned to our group and stations we realized that the student on the Pâtissier station was absent. Chef told us to cover the station just as we would have to in a normal restaurant. Since the Consommé is relatively a low maintenance dish, I jumped on the Pâtissier station to make the Génoise and Crème Anglaise since my station mates had more involved dishes.

The main objectives are timing, quality, and cooperation. If your teammate is in the proverbial “weeds” it is the collective job of the team to pull them out and get the dishes out on time and perfect. I was wearing my communications hat that night and was belting out reassurances and posing questions to the team to ensure we were where we needed to be in the process. I think I might have been a little bossy but I wanted us to do well and we need to rely on each other and felt we needed a leader for the evening’s flow of progress.

When it comes to seasoning the final dish – we do this collectively so different palates can gauge saltiness, flavor and body – we each contribute thoughts, ideas and recommendations.

We plated the Consommé Printanier on time, Chef said it was very well done. Next few dishes are presented in 15 minute intervals. So if the Consommé is due by 8:30 pm then the skate a la Grenobloise must be ready at 8:45 then the roasted chicken is plated for a 9:00 pm slot and finally the Genoise at 9:15 pm. We all need to be on our game to get these dishes out on time. The night was successful, we received the usual amount of critique but nothing was off the mark.

Part of the hysteria is to also make an Amuse Bouche to compliment the dishes and is presented to Chef between 7:30 and 8:30 pm. That night Michal’s idea won us over, Ashley roasted some red peppers, and Michal cut them spread on some goat cheese and rolled them into spirals with some mushroom duxelles in the center. Very pretty and an appealing “little bite” to awaken the senses. Chef liked it very much.

The Amuse Bouche has become more and more popular at finer & trendy restaurants. Before a diner settles in on what to have for dinner, the Chef sends out a little something delicious from the kitchen to surprise you and stir up your senses. The French term literally translates to "mouth amuser" (bouche = mouth; amuser = to amuse, or to please). We take our Amuse Bouche very seriously – and we’ve decided each of us will have the opportunity to take the lead each night and prepare our own bite-size creation to please Chef.