Extra Credit

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to cook for the USO at the Atlanta airport for soldiers passing through the airport on the way home or way out.

Well, not exactly.

A year ago in my first class with the teenyboppers, Chef explained his expectations for the class. Besides the mundane like being there on time and every day and wearing your uniform, one of the expectations he mentioned was being involved in extracurricular activities. Chef said from time to time he will organize trips to ACF meetings or host ACF meetings. Also he will volunteer us to cook for various projects. We don't have to be involved in all of these activities but he does expect us to be involved to some extent and our participation is taken into consideration for our grade. A year ago he said that he had signed us up to cook for soldiers at the Atlanta airport, Labor Day 2009. But that was all the detail he knew at the time.

The original plan was to go down to Atlanta, cook in a real kitchen, and then serve the soldiers as they went through the line. That didn't happen. Instead we were going to prep the food in our kitchen and then Chef was going to deliver the food on Monday, Labor Day. Chef said it was strictly voluntary, I saw it as extra credit, so I showed up at 3:00pm on Sunday. No one else from my class showed. Another girl showed up about twenty minutes after me. Coincidentally she was in my first class. Another guy showed up about an hour later. He's finished the program and works for Chef at his restaurant. That was it.

Our menu was roast chicken, barbecue pork loin that Chef had smoked at his restaurant, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, roast potatoes, corn, and more of that key lime pie. I started in on the chicken. I think there were two cases worth, about 200 pieces. I filled five sheet pans. It took some time only because I had to wash the chicken, separate out the wings and pop out the bone in the thighs. I brushed the chicken with olive oil and seasoned the pieces with garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, salt, pepper, and tarragon. Chef reported back no complaints.

Pizza Girl worked on chopping up vegetables to jazz up the canned beans. All of the food that we were cooking was donated by Chef's vendors. He was pretty disappointed with his vendors' contributions. Apparently they don't donate any more. A sign of the economic times I suppose but but pretty sad given the cause. Just goes to show you where loyalties really lie.

Sous Chef sliced the pork loin on the big meat slicer. I think there were seven loins. I have a really hard time remember meat cuts. It would help to learn the why they have the names they do. One would assume that pork loin comes from the leg or thigh area of the pig but it comes from the back. The barbecue sauce was a combination of two sauces. One was Bulls Eye but I don't know what the other one was.

Imoved onto the potatoes. This was basically the same as what we had done on Tuesday, except I think I had sixty pounds of potatoes! I filled a huge roasting pan with about forty pounds and then Pizza Girl started a second roasting pan. I seasoned both pans just like we had on Tuesday. Again, no disgruntled eaters reported by Chef.

Meanwhile, Chef made the macaroni and cheese. It was canned cheese sauce. Chef put some other stuff in it but I'm not sure what.

The last dish was the corn. Pizza Girl set out three large aluminum foil pans and filled them with the cooked frozen corn. The corn was pretty tasteless. We hit it hard with salt and a pound of butter in each pan!

We were done around 6:30. It was hard work but it was fun. And there was a nice warm fuzzy feeling for doing something good for these soldiers. Chef's plan was to come back in at 3:00AM! and cook everything, load the van up and head to the airport at 7:00AM. Chef said it was a tiny kitchen when he got there. He was worried that he had too much food, only enough for 200 but was told that was great, they were expecting 300-350 soldiers passing through. I'm sure each one of them loaded their plates up too. They had USO volunteers serving but Chef, his wife and Sous Chef also served. Chef said they announced each of our names over the PA system thanking us. And each of us received a flag patch from Operation Chefs Unite that we are supposed to iron onto our jackets. How cool is that!

Cooking for 100

On Monday (the 31st) we had to cook for a travel club, about 100 people. The menu was pork loin, fried chicken, green beans, roast potatoes, broccoli casserole, coleslaw, a carrot salad, peach cobbler and the frozen key lime pie we unloaded from the previous week. There might have been another dish, I don't remember.

I told Red I wanted to work with her since I had not yet. Hottie # 2 was in our group also. We picked the potatoes. Chef wanted red potatoes cut in half, with onion, seasoned and roasted. I was late getting started with the others because I had to fill the triple sink and start up the dishwasher. When I got to our table Hottie and Red were slicing onions. I got a little uncomfortable because both of them kept deferring to me for instructions. It's not my show people. I appreciate the respect but you have to be able to think and act on your own.

They asked how to cut the onions. I said sliced into rings would be fine. Hottie was watching Red slice a large onion. She looked a little wide eyed and said Red was scaring her. I looked and could see how the onion wobbled as she tried to cut through it. It did indeed look like Red would cut herself at any moment. I agreed with Hottie and said if the onions were that large then go ahead and do half slices to be safe. Red got a little defensive and told me to make up my mind. Hey I don't need this shit. I told her I agreed with Hottie, it looked like she would cut herself at any moment and it didn't help that her knife was dull. She retorted, "fine, I've only been doing this for forty years." Sigh. I really, don't need this. "Fine," I said. "I'm just worried about your safety, If you've got big unstable unions like that then do it this way." I showed them how to take a sliver off the side of the onion so that you have a stable flat spot and the onion won't rock and wobble when you try to cut it.

Red had asked me earlier how many potatoes we needed. I had no idea. I haven't learned all those rules of thumb for X many pounds of something for Y many people. I'm hoping that comes in the Purchasing class. I told her to fill a hotel pan and use that many. Chef came by later and said we needed thirty pounds! I went to grab a balance and found we only had 15 pounds. So I took on weighing and cleaning the other half of the potatoes we needed. Hottie was flying through slicing the potatoes. To think that at the beginning of the quarter she was afraid of her knife!

While I was washing the potatoes they asked me if they they should cut the little ones in half. I said yes. Really? Damn it people! "Look I understand that the small ones are the same size as the cut halves but Chef said cut the potatoes in half so that is why I said yes cut the little ones in half. It REALLY does not matter to me." There was some muttering under their breath.

Meanwhile, The Kid was pestering me on how to cook the green beans. I don't know. I said I would do it with onions, maybe some peppers, maybe a meat of some kind. Like bacon? Sure. Well how much? I don't know! I said we were doing thirty pounds of potatoes so I bet thirty pounds of green beans. Ask Chef, dude. I don't know why so many people have such a hard time with going to Chef and asking for information or clarification. So many end up doing something wrong because they refuse to ask him. I never hesitate.

Sushi #2 asked me how to make broccoli casserole. Me? I'd make it the same way that we made squash casserole. Turns out I was wrong, but I think the concept was the same, at least in my eyes. They ended up using canned cheese sauce instead of making a cheese sauce, cheddar based instead of Swiss based. In the squash casserole we mixed the bread crumbs in the casserole, in the broccoli casserole they used rice in place of the bread crumbs. For the squash casserole we topped it with cheese, they topped the broccoli casserole with bread crumbs. Just proof as to why you ask Chef when you don't know what to do.

Back to the potatoes. I suggested tossing the potatoes in olive oil and seasoning with salt and pepper and rosemary. No one had any objections but Hottie said she doesn't cook with salt and couldn't recommended it. I said fine, but remember we aren't cooking for ourselves but for our customers. So we agreed on the salt. Hottie also wanted to add garlic. I said it sounded like a great idea and fetched the big jar of cloves for her. She mashed and minced it like a pro. We got everything mixed up and seasoned and into the oven the big roasting pan went.

While were were seasoning the potatoes, Hottie mentioned that no one was making fried chicken. You've got to be kidding me! Well, no reason why we couldn't do that too. Really rather simple. I got the case of chicken parts out to wash. Hottie made an egg wash and Red got the flour together. Chef wanted the flour seasoned, salt, pepper, onion powder. We were out of onion powder. Hottie wanted cayenne pepper in there too and I agreed but we were out of that also. We tried grinding up red pepper flakes but that was completely futile. Chef said no one in this area used red pepper in their fried chicken. What! When we lived in Bainbridge everybody used cayenne in their fried chicken. of course maybe the issue is there is no, and I mean no fried chicken in North Georgia. Not in Blarisville or anywhere nearby. When I asked where to get fried chicken around here I was told KFC. Gag. We ended up using a little bit of dried chipotle powder.

We fried all of the chicken in the deep fryer. It came out fairly good though I thought it was way under seasoned. I would have liked a little zip in it as Hottie #2 had suggested. Chef wanted the dishes caught up so I jumped on them while others served the food in one of the meeting rooms. I just chugged along on the dishes when Chef called me out. I sat down in our area and Chef briefly lectured us on not busing the dishes out of the meeting room. He sent everyone in to get them. When I got up he told me to sit down, I had done enough dishes.

After the dishes had been bused we were allowed to eat. All of the food was very good. Half the class was no where to be found. I joked with Chef that even when he tells them to stop working and eat they don't follow directions.

No class on Monday but Chef is working on a dinner on Sunday, anybody who wants to help can come in at 3:00pm. I know this means extra credit so I plan on being there.

Another Use for Leftover Mashed Potatoes

Last night while I was burning up my scale on my stove, I was baking four loaves of bread. Two were sourdough, two were mashed potato bread. All four loaves came out great. I'll freeze the sourdough to get me through the next two weeks.

According to my cookbook, you are supposed to use "freshly mashed potatoes" which seems to indicate using boiled potatoes fresh out of the water. I had left over mashed potatoes from dinner the other night when I made polenta crusted chicken. When I make mashed potatoes I add in milk and butter and sometimes salt while I whip them in my stand mixer. This was not quite what the recipe called for but I decided to use my leftovers anyway. I wonder if the content should be upped just a smidgen to 2/3 of a cup since part of that 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes is milk and butter. But then again, it probably wouldn't be a significant change anyway.

The recipe called for scalded milk. I really see no reason to scald milk but I couldn't remember why. I was pretty sure scalding milk hearkens back to days of unpasteurized milk. In her book Cookwise: The Secrets of Cooking Revealed, Shirley O. Corriher basically states the same thing. However she does reference a study at Michigan State in 1975 that identified a protein in milk that inhibits rising in bread. This protein I guess is destroyed in the scalding of milk. Ms. Corriher then hypothesizes that it is the quantity of the protein in the milk used for cooking that makes a difference and that maybe a 1/2 cup of milk is the threshold level, depending on how you read her paragraph. So to be safe, I thought I would scald my milk but I hate scalding milk on the stove. Scalding milk means to take it just below a full boil which I believe is around 190°F. Pasteurization of milk is around 163°F. This seems like a perfect application for a microwave. I chose to split the difference in temperature. Two minutes in the microwave heated the milk to 175°F. Of course I have nothing to compare to, so who knows if all that effort made a difference.

I used my stand mixer to make this bread because part of the directions call for beating the batter for 10 minutes by hand! Not! I think an electric mixer would have been fine for this stage as it is more of a batter than a dough.

The mashed potato bread was wonderfully soft and flavorful. The sugar addition made it just a tad sweeter than a regular bread but nothing like say Hawaiian bread rolls. Just something a little bit different.

Steak and Potatoes

On the weekends, while the rest of the house is napping, I like to watch cooking shows on PBS. Everyday Food is good. I really like(d) Primal Grill with Steven Raichlen. But my favorite is America's Test Kitchen and by extension Cook's Country. I can't really tell the difference between the two. I need to squeeze some coin out of the tight purse and make a donation to PBS/GPB in gratitude and maybe a subscription to Cook's Illustrated.

I like these shows better than many of the new shows now on Food Network which seems to have gotten a little campy trying to reach new audiences, read market. If you read on-line forums and reviews you find people have a love-hate following of the Cook's Illustrated family of shows and magazine and for that matter, Christopher Kimball. The things that people hate about them are exactly why I love the show; it's quirky, anal retentive and focuses too much on technique. I love it!

A week or so ago the show was about imitating a diner breakfast, fluffy omelet with home fries. I don't know what the potatoes' proper name is but they are the ones where the potatoes are cut into small 1/2 inch or so cubes and fried crispy brown. It was timely since I had just recently attempted the same meal for breakfast and my potatoes came out under cooked. The two big secrets I learned were to use yellow or white potatoes instead of baking potatoes and to microwave the potatoes before cutting and frying them. There was also a "hidden" secret in that some diners use a big heavy press when cooking their potatoes but on the show they did not have that luxury. Hmmm????

So, having recently been inspired to run out and buy a bag of potatoes, I set out to make these for dinner Saturday night. I over estimated and used six potatoes when three probably would have sufficed. That resulted in having to do two batches because once I nuked the potatoes I was committed to cooking them. I fried them in my large cast iron skillet in two tablespoons of bacon fat that I had clarified for some extra flavor. Unlike on America's Test Kitchen, I didn't have the patience or ambition to turn over each potato cube to ensure even browning. So I just flipped them with a spatula and hoped for the best. BUT, remembering that comment about the press I took another cast iron pan and put it down on top of the potatoes to act as a press. It worked very well. The only thing that might have been better is if I had heated up the second pan to cook the tops as I used it as a press. Now I'm wondering about one of those George Foreman Grills?

To go with the potatoes I pulled out the other half of a chuck roast I had used for pot roast a while back. When I was a kid we ate "steak" a lot. But steak in my family was not an expensive cut like rib eye, porterhouse, T-bone or even sirloin but a comparatively inexpensive flat two inch thick chuck roast that my Dad would cook on the grill and then serve us slices. My roast was far too thick to cook that way so I sliced it down into inch thick slabs. They looked like boneless T-bone steaks. It turned into a great meal of cheap steak and potatoes.

So don't think Food Network is where it's all at, PBS is still pretty good too. That said, I watched Chopped for the first time last night. I had very low expectations. I mean, how many Iron Chef shows do we need? Never a good sign when your network starts ripping off its own shows. But, I was pleasantly surprised. I haven't really warmed up to Ted Allen as a show host, but I actually enjoyed the show.

On Christmas Day, On Christmas Day

I am exhausted.

We had a wonderful Christmas. Rose being only 2 1/2 did not get up at o-dark-early but her usual time of 7:15. Rose was thrilled that Santa ate the cookies and drank the milk set out and that the reindeer ate the carrot. And she wanted more cookies. Our modest Christmas was done by 9:00. Rose wanted pancakes for breakfast so I whipped some up. Maybe this will be a Christmas tradition?

The rest of the day I spent cooking. While the pancakes were cooking I made homemade rolls for dinner and a loaf of white bread. They came out spectacular. One of the few times I use bleached flour but I wanted that vibrant white for the rolls.

Then I started the green beans. The beans were from by garden this summer. I froze quart bags as I picked them. I always loved my Grandmother's green beans growing up. Green Beans and Shellies (canned). She always made them with an onion and a ham hock and cooked them a-l-l day. I do the same except I have to leave out the shellies since Dinah is allergic to pinto beans, much to her dismay as they are one of her favorite foods. The beans were excellent but needed more salt.

I overdid it on the mashed potatoes. Probably making up for Thanksgiving. I bet I made enough for a dozen people, we had three and a half. I went old school and boiled the spuds with the skins on. I don't really know why but that's how my Grandmother did it. Then I pressed them through a potato ricer before beating them smooth in my stand mixer. I love and prefer homemade mashed potatoes but I hate lumps. The mashed potatoes were good but could have used more butter and salt but that is easily fixed at the dinner table.



My coup de grace though was my rôti de porc au lait, pork roast with a milk sauce. It was so, so good. Maybe a tad too much thyme, maybe. Twice as much as I needed to make but we've got good leftovers. I almost pulled it off without a hitch but as my wife said, if I had, I wouldn't have had anything to write about. My thermometer let me down. I don't know why but when I started slicing the pork, it was still rare in the middle. Bummer. So I had to finish it in the microwave. Oh well, at least I didn't loose my cool. Now I have a good excuse to get that super fancy thermometer I've had my eye on!

If it wasn't so late I'd take the bike for a spin. Fifty degrees here in the mountains, no snow, but a lovely Christmas day nonetheless. Might be about time for a sweet snack.

A Happy Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving this year since leading up to it no one could seem to decide what to do. I think it came off excellent.

Our dining room is a little undersized for seating more than six but we had eight adults and three kids. It worked out. I wouldn't want to do that every day though.

I baked two pumpkin pies (pungkin as Rose says) the night before. I have made the real deal before with real cooked pumpkin but the can really is the way to go if you want to be sure that the pumpkin itself is going to taste good. But you have to buy the canned pumpkin not the canned pumpkin pie, big difference. I used store bought pie crust too. I wasn't in the mood to go homemade on that. I still got rave reviews. My secret? Mace and nutmeg.

I picked up the smoked turkey on Wednesday. This worked out great. We just needed to reheat the bird for two hours in the oven. Since our target was 11:00AM, this sure beat getting up at 4:00AM to pop it in the oven, not to mention the labor saved in not having to prep and season the turkey. It came out perfect. I let it rest for about 30 minutes before cutting into it and the legs just tore off. I barely had to use a knife. We got a 13 pound turkey and I carved half for serving and the other half for leftovers for people to take home.

Our bread was a combination of yeast rolls I picked up when I got the turkey and frozen biscuits I got when my coffee shop closed. The yeast rolls went over better than the biscuits but I preferred the biscuits.

Dinah's mom brought the traditional squash casserole and baked sweet potatoes. I don't like yellow squash but this casserole is quite good. I attribute it to the crushed crackers. Rose normally likes it but not yesterday. I'm not a sweet potato fan, especially the traditional pan with marshmallow on top. I was grateful that Dinah's mom's version has brown sugar and pecans instead of marshmallow. It was very good. Rose had three helpings. I thought it was adorable that she spit out a "seed." I had missed a pecan in serving her. Good girl.

Dinah's dad brought scalloped potatoes. They were out of a box and I LOVED them. Always have. The funny thing was he had never made them before and bought a bag of potatoes with the two boxes. Apparently Debra teased him about the potatoes already being in the box. And they were!

Deana brought the dressing and gravy. I grew up with stuffing, My Mom makes a traditional oyster stuffing with wild rice and croutons. She leaves out the oysters though. Every year half was stuffed in the turkey and half was cooked in a casserole. And every year we sobbed when the stuffing from the bird was gone because is always tasted better than that made in the casserole. Don't let anyone tell you they are the same. I LOVE stuffing. I'm still not up on the dressing thing which is made in a pan and cut and served like brownies. It's dry and needs gravy (graby as Rose says). I know this was an old family recipe. I like it but it just isn't the same. There was very little left though.

Rose didn't seem to care for any turkey at the beginning of the meal. I think the sweet potatoes preoccupied her. But near the end she asked me for "chicken." She had two helpings of white meat. Good girl. The turkey really was excellent. I think because it was smoked and only reheated it was much juicer than any I've had before. It barely had any smoke flavor and they must have brined it because every now and then you'd get a taste of something sweet or a bit of spice. And best of all was the crispy skin because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE turkey skin and I'm the only one who eats it. It was mine, mine, mine.

So who knows what's missing?

MASHED POTATOES!

WTF? Apparently there was a communication break down and we ended up with none. I had planned on making them in my super-duper-can't-live without-anymore stand mixer, even looking forward to it, but I pulled off since I was told they were being brought. If there is anything close to being sacrilegious with Thanksgiving it is no mashed potatoes. I sobbed but we all survived fine.

And the best part? Aside form the food and family, we got to leave Rose with Grandma and the two of us went to the movies! Four Christmases was HYSTERICAL!

PS

I forgot about the cranberry issue. I grew up with real cranberry dressing. A bag of cranberries cooked down with sugar and spices until the berries start to pop. My wife's family eats the cranberry equivalent of spam. I'm not sure what this gelatinous red bile in a can is but there is no way I can eat. I've tried, it's not happening. It was nice to know that Debra was equally revolted, so I was not alone for once.

Hash Brown Secrets

I've been making a lot of hash browns this week. Why? Well number one is because I'm broke and have half a bag of potatoes laying on the counter. Ordinarily I would forget about a bag of potatoes until they started to rot and then throw the bag away. Almost like a government subsidizing program. But since I am penniless I thought I should do a better job of utilizing what I have. Not the best way to feed a family but it works for two meals a day for just me.

I LOVE hash browns. Especially extra crispy with cheese and onions. But homemade hash browns are amazingly difficult to make. I suspect that restaurants use frozen shredded potatoes to make theirs which is significant. I suppose I could do the same thing but then I lose out on the challenge, the reward and have to pay extra for it.

If you just shred your potatoes and then fry them you'll either end up with a soggy mess or burnt potatoes and pan if you're going for that extra crispy style. Believe me I know. Try to add more oil to prevent the burning, it only gets worse and oddly, sometimes your hash browns smell or taste like fish.

I think I have found three keys, the potato, the pan and the fat.

On the potato it isn't which potato you use but how you use it. I've made great hash browns with Idaho baking potatoes, Yukon Golds, even blue potatoes. The problem with potatoes is that as soon as you cut them, they begin to oxidize. They go brown very quickly. Therefore you need to shred your potatoes and then put them in a bowl of water so that they avoid air contact. Even better is to shred them directly into water. If I'm not up to using my box grater, I use my food processor with a grating disc but fill the bowl half way or more with water. That way the potatoes shred directly into the water. If you want the whitest potatoes, add a dash of white vinegar. You won't be able to taste it but the vinegar will prevent the potatoes from browning once you take them out of the water. Good if you aren't moving fast.

There's one more key to the potato. As I said, I suspect restaurants use frozen potato shreds. Why is this significant? Because in order to get any crispiness to your hash browns you need to have DRY potato shreds. This is doubly important after you've had your potato shreds soaking in a bowl of water. At the minimum, spread your potato shreds out onto paper towels and press them dry. But if you really want to do this right, you need a potato ricer. The difference is night and day. Save your money and skip that cheap aluminum one at the store. I busted one of those on my first press. Get a nice stainless steel one that you can run through the dish washer. I have this one. And please don't make the mistake of many a moron and try to press a whole potato through your ricer. You will break it for sure. Ricers are for pressing boiled potatoes into fine mush before whipping into mashed potatoes. This ensures no lumps. But they are also great for squeezing the moisture out of some foods. After you've pressed the water out of your potato shreds, spread them out on a paper towel and pat out any remaining surface moisture.

Now the pan. I've tried every pan I own and I think I've got it now. The pan does make a difference. Stainless steel and anodized aluminum (Calphalon) will give you nice crisping of your potatoes but they will also stick to your pan, no matter what temperature you use or what you fry in, oil, butter, Crisco, lard, doesn't matter. They'll taste good, but you'll be frustrated. A non-stick pan removes the frustration of your hash browns sticking but you'll have a hard time browning them. That's the nasty secret no one tells you about non-stick cookware, it doesn't brown. The only way you can get any browning with non-stick is to use butter. But you have to be careful of not burning the butter. So if you must use non-stick, use a 1:1 combo of butter and oil. Just remember by the time you get the butter to brown your hash browns, they'll most likely be burnt.

So which pan works? Good ol' seasoned cast iron. I fried up my hash browns in my 12 inch cast iron skillet this morning and not even the first shred of potato stuck. It was beautiful. I found it works best to spread the potatoes over the full surface of the pan (scattered a la Waffle House) and then after they have begun to brown, scrape then back to the center into a patty just bigger than your spatula. Let them continue to get brown and crispy on the bottom and then flip the patty over to brown on the other side. Ideally you only want to flip once. This method gives a crispy outside with tender cooked hash browns in the center.

Last but not least, the fat that you use for frying is important. Forget spray, it won't work. Butter has two problems. One it burns at a low temperature and two, part of butter is water. Remember, you need dry potatoes. Adding oil to the butter helps, but the results are disappointing. Oil is an option but then you end up with your potatoes floating in oil and my experience is they soak up the oil by the time it's time to flip and then the potatoes burn after you flipped them.

So today I used my recently rendered lard. Cool, huh? Just a tablespoon. And at $2.38 to make my tub, it was far less expensive than oil or butter. And using only a tablespoon, it's probably better heath-wise than either the oil or the butter. But the result was amazing. The hash browns were perfectly crispy but lighter than any hash browns I've made before. WOW!

So to recap, to make great home made hash browns:

1. Prevent your potatoes from browning by plunging under water.
2. Press your potatoes shreds dry with a potato ricer.
3. Use a large cast iron skillet.
4. Fry in a tablespoon of lard.
5. Only flip them once.