Cookies and Eggs

On Tuesday we still had no fish. Chef didn't want us to start any deeply involved project, so we made cookies.

I was sitting with the Sushi Boys so I said I would work with them. Neither of them had ever made cookies before!!! Ever! "Well OK then, you guys pick. I don't care what we make, I'll just be assisting since you've never done this before." They picked peanut butter cookies.

I had them get all the equipment and ingredients ready while I filled the triple sink and assembled the dishwasher, because apparently I am the only one who does this. Now that I think about it, maybe next week I won't and see what happens.

Chef wanted 2-3 dozen cookies which is about what each recipe called for. I think we ended up with a little more than that though. I immediately fetched a balance to weigh up the flour, peanut butter and other dry ingredients. I had a little flush of joy when Chef reprimanded all of the other groups for using spring scales. Chef hates those scales. I paid attention in my first class and knew this so I always grab the balance. You know it really is not hard to do well and get a good grade if you just follow directions (this is to be a prophetic statement).

Something that really irks me about professional/institutional recipes, besides not being in metric, is that the amount types of ingredients are not specified. For example, 10 ounces of peanut butter. Is that fluid ounces or weight ounces? In my world, as an engineer, measurements are always, always specific, fl. oz. or wt. oz. There is no confusion. Chalk up another point to the metric system. You can't get grams and milliliters confused. I guess the rule is that free flowing liquids are measured out by volume and everything else is by weight. Do you know I have to constantly tell people that the first of four lines on the small measuring cup is a cup?

For our size recipe we could easily use a stand mixer, but just barely. I showed the boys little things like cracking the eggs into a separate container rather than straight into the bowl so as not to accidentally get any shells in the dough. In order to get the flour into the mixing bowl, I used a Silpat and made a funnel. It would have worked better if the Silpat was the same size as the one I have at home but it was twice as big. It worked though.

Ridges came over to see how we were doing. He cupped his hands and said they only had that much dough. What! How did that happen? He said he didn't know and just shook his head. I asked who we was working with and he said Red and RK and that RK wanted to halve the recipe. Ah. The rest of the day Chef gave RK a hard time for not making enough cookies. They were pretty cookies but they didn't even fill half a sheet pan. They were making spritz cookies piped with a pastry bag with half a maraschino cherry on top.

Since we were ready to start dropping cookies I took all of our dirty dishes into the dish washing area. MILF was in there doing dishes listening to her MP3 player. What are you doing in here, why aren't you cooking? I'm mad at my group. Really. who are you working with? She told me Hottie #2 and Mouth. I was surprised she was mad at Hottie since they often work together and have always gotten along. Not surprised about Mouth though. I've worked with Hottie #2 before and found her easy to get along with. From what I heard later, Mouth and Hottie wanted to make chocolate chip cookies and MILF didn't want to so she lost the vote 2-1 and stormed off.

The directions in our book prescribed splitting our dough into one pound halves, rolling each into a twelve inch long, slicing off one inch discs and then rolling each disk into a ball to be flattened with a fork on the baking sheet. Huh? I called Chef over. Why do we have to triple handle the dough to make dough balls when we could just scoop the balls directly from the mixing bowl. He was dumbfounded too and told us to just use an ice cream scoop. I told Sushi #2 where they were and sent him off to fetch one. He came back with two large ice cream scoops. I laughed. Dude, those will make twelve inch cookies! Weren't there any smaller scoops? He went back to look and found two tablespoon dishing scoops. They were right next to the ice cream scoops but he didn't see them.

We ended up with two and a half sheets of cookies. The guys were really impressed that they made actual cookies. I still can't believe it was there first time. Chef had us cook them at a lower temp than in the book. They came out great. I didn't try anybody else's cookies.

After all the cookies were out, everyone was just standing around. I was putting some dishes away when I saw a few people clustered around the stove and Chef with a few flats of eggs on the table. Sushi #2 told me to get three eggs, we were making omelets. I did a few more dishes then asked Chef for instruction, better to not rely on hearsay. He told me crack three eggs into a bowl, we were making omelets. I asked him if I needed milk and he said no, some people like to use it, he doesn't, but if you whip your eggs enough you won't need it. So I cracked my three eggs and gently beat them with a whisk. MILF was running around looking for Cayenne pepper. Ridges was adding salt and pepper to his. Someone else was looking for broccoli to put in his. Mouth already had hers started at the stove on the other side.

STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the few times I have ever seen Chef outright mad. It might have been the first time for every one else. Time to get dressed down. Chef went on to say how many of us aren't good at following directions (see the prophecy from above). If he says crack three eggs, that doesn't mean add stuff to them, it doesn't mean make an omelet, it means crack three eggs. If any of you have added stuff to you eggs or started cooking, throw it out. I only want to see three eggs. Many of you are going to end up working for a chef and if he tells you to do something, you do it. You just can't do what you want or flavor things they way you'd like He then went on to explain, the classic speech I have heard so many times from so many people, you all are not always going to work with someone you like. You aren't always going to like your boss. That's why I always want you working with different people, so you can learn those skills in here before you go out there. You aren't always going to agree or get along with the others in your group but you have to learn how to (pretty sure this was a reference to MILF). It was a good and well deserved rah rah speech.

At first I was pretty excited about the omelet making because I really need to improve mine but after I saw Chef's demo I saw this was not the info I was looking for. All we were doing was frying an egg, flipping it in the pan and then sliding the egg out onto a plate, cheesing the top before we folded the egg over with the edge of the pan. I've seen this technique at so many cook to order hotel breakfast buffets. I like to have some of the ingredients mixed into the egg so I always try to fold the egg over in the pan and this is where I am struggling. Mine taste great but the looks aren't always there.

Chef very clearly said to get your pan hot, then add the butter so that it melts quickly without burning then add your eggs. RK was up first and he put a pan down on the stove with the butter already in it. I just don't get this guy. He was standing right next to Chef when the instructions were given! I watched Mouth come over with her second attempt. She had to dump her first one because she had started before Chef said to. She knows everything. Her eggs stuck to the pan badly. Why? Because she already had her eggs in the pan before she set it on the stove. Again, nobody in this class listens. How hard can it be?

Once I had a physics exam in high school. Our teacher told us to read all of the instructions before starting the exam. The first instruction was put your name on the exam. The second instruction was to go to the last problem on the exam. The last problem said "turn your exam in now. Any marks on your exam other than your name will result in an F for not following directions." More than half the class failed that exam. I've never forgotten that lesson.

I did piss Mouth off though because I quite loudly asked her if she ever smiled. Oh did she glare at me. But my point was made. Chef laughed and said he had seen her smile once when she was yelling at someone.

Both Sushi #2 and Hottie #2 were timid about flipping their eggs. I rooted them on saying the secret is that you have to believe that you can flip the egg. If you don't believe in yourself you won't be able to do. "I know you can do it so just do it." Both flipped their eggs perfectly. Me? I got impatient and flipped mine before my eggs had fully set. I lost half down the burner. I ended up with a small omelet but I did get an omelet.

After we had cleaned up we were instructed to pick out a fish dish to prepare. I immediately knew what I wanted to cook. I wanted to do fish in parchment paper, poissons en papillote. I got the thumbs up from Chef and went to check on ingredients. Meanwhile a HUGE order came in and Chef went to check on that. I helped a few others with finding ingredients, giving them ideas on fish or alternatives, trying to convince MILF that the recipe she picked would not be too hard, I'd have plenty of extra time to help her. Mouth announced she was leaving. We still had an official one hour to go before class was over. Chef came back in a few minutes, asked where she was and went into a rage when he found out she had left,. He called her cell phone about five times and got even angrier that she didn't answer.

I just don't understand this crap. I wonder if we will see Mouth on Monday, though my bet is yes, she seems to have some type of in with Chef to get away with her daily behaviour.

Soup Again

On Monday we were supposed to fabricate fish, meaning butcher and prepare. I was cautiously excited about this. Most of my life I have been fishing, though not for the past ten years. Growing up my Grandpa would take me out on Lake Erie by the Crib and we would fish for perch. Strangely, I never caught any perch, I always caught Sheepshead. No complaints here, they are a much bigger fish and more fun to catch. I loved collecting the luck stones from their heads. We'd be out all day and catch hundreds of perch. I was never involved in the cleaning but the adults would fill the freezers full of fish, never filleted mind you, always pan fried.

My Grandpa would also take us trout fishing at a duck and trout club he belonged to. Every year there was a fishing derby for kids that was a madhouse but often we went on quiet weekends. Since it was a stocked pond I would often catch my limit of trout.

And my family still maintains a cottage in Angola IN where I did most of my fishing growing up. Most of what we caught in Crooked Lake were blue gills(our place is just on the other side of the point, left of the X). We had the wire baskets that we would hang off the side of the dock to keep the fish alive that we caught. I would lay face down hanging over the side of the dock and clean my catch in the lake, scaling the fish right in the water with a spoon. Friends of ours two doors down taught me how to clean my own fish.

I did a lot of fishing in South Carolina. My friends and I mostly poached on farm ponds. I always thought we had permission, but in hindsight I'm not so sure. Often when we would fish with Clarence and he would haul a flat bottom jon boat in the back of his truck that the three of us would put around the pond with an electric trolling motor. It was in SC that I learned to fillet fish. I'm sad to say that I haven't fished since I left SC. Lack of access I guess. I need to do something about that since I need to get off my butt and take my daughter fishing.

In planning for fabricating fish I took my awesome Glestain salmon slicer with me to class. Unfortunately I don't have a fillet knife. But when I got to class I learned that the fish didn't come in. Instead we would be revisiting knife skills. Chef felt walking around the past few weeks that we really needed a refresher. I could not agree more. My skills aren't the best but at least I don't stand two feet away from the table with the knife held like a hammer hacking away at my vegetables. I'm just a slow slicer.

For once I worked by myself. Which was good. I saw no reason to crowd a table with knives slinging about. I'd walk around trying to figure where to put my cuts with people who had made similar cuts. It was kind of scary to see what people were doing. Amazingly every time I told a table that cut potatoes go in water I'd get the evil eye. I joked with Ridges that his table mates had nice brown potatoes.

Chef told us that one side of the class was going to make a cream soup and the other side was to make a stock based soup. Then each side was to divide in two groups. I aligned myself with Ridges' table which included Hottie #3 and Baby Face, who I find to be a prick and a half. He did not change my opinion of him.

Ridges suggested corn chowder. Sounded good to me. I was not in the mood to be a leader that day. Since we had been chopping up onion, celery and carrots we automatically had some mirepoix. Ridges and I agreed that we would get it cooked down and then strain it out like we did with the Mulligatawny soup. Baby Face and Hottie #3 were very anti-social, which I found unusual for Hottie since she is normally quite social with me. But BF is her best friend and I suppose that was his influence upon her. Somewhere our soup morphed as they both began dicing up potatoes to go into the soup. Ridges seemed perplexed but I went along with it.

I checked on the other side. RK had a couple gallons of frozen beef stock in a large brazier that he was chipping at with a chef's knife. Dude! I told him to knock the top of the ice block off and went to fetch a lid. After he had enough of the top chipped off I put the lid on and explained the ice would melt much faster with the lid on because you create a steam bath. Come on man! He seemed perplexed but later we were washing dishes and I had to stop him from taking the dishes out of the dish washer before they went through the rinse cycle. He said the washer had stopped. I said yes but it does a rinse cycle next, pointing to the digital readout that said "RINSING." You have to wait for it to finish rinsing off the soap and sanitizer before you take them out. I'm not sure he understood me so it's no surprise he didn't understand why I put the lid on.

Next thing I knew BF and Hottie were chopping up Italian sausage. WTF? This is like no corn chowder I've every heard of. Then they wanted to roast it in beer. Huh? Roast it in beer? I have never heard of roasting sausage in beer. Boiling in beer, yes. I went to Wisconsin. We eat brats and drink Miller at 8:00 AM waiting for kickoff, but roasting? Of course they all treated me like I was the dumb ass. Of course roasting! Whatever. Oh to be 20 again.

Looking at the mirepoix, there was nothing to drain the vegetables out of. I suggested to Ridges that we add a quart of cream to the vegetables and let it simmer awhile for flavor and then we would have something to strain. So the soup came together like this: we strained the mirepoix out, added the strained cream to the 2 quarts we had simmering on the back burner, added the potatoes, added the sausage sans beer (who thinks beer and milk go together?), seasoned it all and let it simmer until the potatoes were tender.

I guess we ended up with potato and sausage soup. It was really good, though I'm not sure that the sage in the sausage really went well. I'm not sure why Hottie #3 picked that sausage. There were three other sausages in the freezer but I don't think she looked that hard. Mouth and the Sushi Boys made some kind of cream of chicken with bacon. It was pretty good too, as good as ours I would say. On the other side, Bar Code and his lap dogs made something like minestrone which I did not care for. MILF and Hottie #2's group made a vegetable beef soup that was good but the meat was too tough. They needed to braise the meat longer or better yet use a pressure cooker. MILF said that was exactly what the book called for. Good prediction on my part!

An Asian Style Dinner

I've still got some things to cover, the garden, Rose's birthday, maybe even Sticky Fingers. But right now I need to cover last night's dinner.

Last night's menu:

• Asian Style Noodles
• Asian Style Salmon
• Glazed Lemon Yogurt Cake with Blueberry Sauce

I watch a lot of Food Network. Though all of the shows aren't as good as they used to be but there are still a few really good ones. I'm actually a big fan of Barefoot Contessa. I think Ina Garten is one of the most natural personalities on the network. She really seems like she could be the cook next door. On a certain level I think she's even sexy. Her stuff is actually pretty simple though I have learned that she has steps and ingredients on her show that she doesn't include in her written recipes. Good to know. It's rare that I ever see a show where I want to copy the entire meal presented but this time her meal looked like a perfect combination.

Why is it that my garlic never looks as good as the garlic they get on TV?

This turned out to be a great meal. I would say the dishes are Thai inspired without the heat. That was a little disappointing, I'd have preferred it if the noodles were spicy but that can be fixed next time. I would definitely be willing to serve this to company, especially for my more persnickety friends who don't eat beef or pork. Bah!

All of the ingredients were easy for me to find here in the sticks so you shouldn't have a problem. I was not in the mood to multitask so I took the whole day to make the entire meal, but if you multitask you can whip all of this up fairly quickly, especially the noodles and salmon. Just remember to plan on the 15 minutes for the salmon to marinate and the 15 minutes for the salmon to rest after cooking. Oh yeah, this can all be served room temperature or even cold. That could come in handy.

On the noodles, I guess if you can buy toasted sesame seeds, go that route. I was able to easily toast mine in our new toaster oven. It was quick and easy, just be sure to watch them as you can quickly burn them. I had used up the fresh ginger I had on the salmon marinade so I substituted an 1/8 teaspoon of ground ginger. It probably wasn't as strong as using fresh ginger but it didn't hurt. Not being a fan of bell peppers, I left them out. Your choice. At the grocery I hesitated when buying the sugar snap peas almost buying snow peas instead. I like snow peas more and besides, they are "more" Asian. Then I thought about buying an eight ounce package of each. In the end I went with the snap peas. The peas I buy you can microwave in the bag so that's the cooking method I used. The snap peas were tasty.

The salmon came out great. I have very few fish dishes so it was good to add one to the repertoire. Again the ingredients were easy to find. I was surprised that my grocery didn't carry the ubiquitous squeeze bottle of Sriracha which I was going to buy for the chile paste. I think I remember that was what Ina Garten used on the show and I remember my friend's crazy half Asian-something ex-wife cooking with it so it seemed like the right stuff to get. Instead I found some Sriracha sauce from Ka-Me. The panko bread crumbs were supposed to form a crusty crispy layer. Mine did not so I suppose if you don't have any panko on hand, just use regular bread crumbs.

The lemon cake is very lemony, very good. I'm sure that is from using real lemons. It is so good that you don't need to make the blueberry sauce but blueberries and lemons go so well together it's a nice added touch. This is the first time I have used yogurt as a cooking ingredient I think. The recipe called for whole-milk yogurt. Try to find some. We've brainwashed ourselves over time that we can only have low-fat or fat-free yogurt or somehow we are going to die of clogged arteries. Do you realize how much yogurt you would have to eat for that to be an issue? And the truth is the whole-milk yogurt is actually probably healthier for you. Since I have some plain yogurt left over, maybe this is my excuse for finally getting around to making some homemade yogurt. It was the covered on Alton Brown a few nights ago. An omen? I did not have any vanilla sugar on hand. Since it takes several weeks for the vanilla beans to permeate through the sugar it wasn't something I could just whip up. But this was a wet application for the vanilla sugar so I used a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract to one cup of sugar and I think that was fine. My blueberry sauce was not thick like it was on TV but it still tasted good. I put it in a squeeze bottle for Dinah to take to work with the left overs.

Eat More Broccoli, and Some Fish Too

Yes more broccoli. I must be on a broccoli kick. My parents would be shocked. I especially enjoyed last night when Rose told me she didn't want any broccoli, even saying the word and pointing to it. It's funny because she has never had it before.

Last night we had Broccoli-Parmesan Gratin, a tuned up Italian casserole and Cilantro-Chipotle Tilapia, a spicy Latin inspired dish . Two dishes that really don't pair together well, but I didn't care, it's what I wanted.

Both of these dishes are quick and easy. I even got lucky in my lack of planning because I made the gratin first which finishes under the broiler which I then used to cook the fish while the gratin rested. Sometimes you just get lucky.

If you put steamed broccoli on my plate, I'll look at it, chop the stalks off, salt it and eat the florets happily. You make it into a casserole, especially with CHEESE, and I'll devour it. This one was no exception. If I had any complaint it was that there wasn't enough of the cheese sauce, maybe next time I'd double it. And maybe because it seemed under-cheesed it seemed like too much bread crumb. But really I'm nit picking, it was delicious.

But the star of the meal was the fish. I love fish even if I rarely eat it. I ate a lot as a kid. I'll go out of my way for smelt, perch or pan fried bluegills, but I find most restaurants' fish choices to be ho-hum and stuffings and breadings on top do nothing for me. But I really dislike cooking fish. I find it messy and it stinks the house up.

Not so with this dish!

To me this was the kind of dish that you would be served in a restaurant. It tasted like I had hit a home run out of the park. I know I blew Dinah's socks off. But there are a couple caveats. I have learned there are two types of people in the world, those that love cilantro and those that hate cilantro. We LOVE it, can't have enough. This dish is packed with it, especially since I made a cilantro rice to serve the tilapia on. Also, we love hot and spicy food. This dish did pack a punch, it was WARM. Man it was good. The only reason I didn't have seconds was that I wanted to send leftovers with Dinah to work in hopes of getting another opinion.

If you want to give either of these recipes a shot, and they are worth it, especially if you are entertaining or need to bring a dish, here is my version of the Broccoli Parmesan Gratin and my version of the Cilantro Chipotle Tilapia.

Enjoy.