Days Three and Four

Stock and soup, stock and soup! That's all we've been up to the last two days. It started with the La Soupe a L'Oignon re-do, which went well, and ended today with veal stock. It didn't really end, as we Phase I students (aka newbies, peons and onion slicers) will make stock continuously (daily!) throughout our first three months - ugh.

I say ugh, because stock making is physical, tedious and gross. It all starts with bones. Practically any kind of bone can make a stock and the younger the bone the better. Younger animals have higher contents of collagen in their bones which yields more natural gelatin. A gelatinous stock is the goal. The best stocks can be kept on hand in the form of jigglers - so fun.

To start, fill a large pot halfway with bones. We did a batch of chicken stock and used bones from about 150 chickens - it was a big ass pot. Unfortunately we didn't get to debone beautiful whole chickens, but rather we cleaned the scum and fat off of leftovers from the factory. That's generally how it works; restaurants buy leftover bones from processing plants because the bones are an abundant by-product and therefore cheap. Next, cover your bones with cold water and bring to a simmer. Once simmering, skim off the floating fat and albumen (yucky animal stuff). Then, add your mire poix (50% onions, 25% carrots, 25% celery) and herbs. Simmer more, skim more, then strain the stock and chill immediately. There are many, many variations such as roasting the bones before simmering or adding tomatoes to the mire poix, but you've got the gist of it.

Three things about stocks I have been screwing up my whole life:
1) Trim and get out all the fat. There should be NO fat in a great stock.
2) Do not stir or boil a stock - it makes it cloudy.
3) Never add salt!

Who knew!?!

I'm starting to get to know my classmates better. All in all, good people. I'm slightly annoyed with some of the stupid questions people seem to continuously ask. "Uh chef, should we wash the cucumbers before we cut them?" Really? "Um chef, what kind of wine is this?" You are holding the bottle, read the label. One gal definitely doesn't like me. She was getting way too excited about the notion of breaking up frozen veal bones for stock and I told her to simmer down. Hehe.

The best people watching occurred during the knife honing lesson. Honing a knife is when you scrape the blade against a steel. Many think this is sharpening, but it isn't. Sharpening can only be done with a stone. Honing re-aligns the metal fibers on the edge of an already sharp blade and keeps it sharp. One poor woman was so uncoordinated - she looked like she was doing the robot. A few of the guys thought they were hotshots and started honing way to quickly and aggressively for beginners. Two of them lost control and sent their knives flying - can you say danger? The third nicked his knuckle with the tip of the knife. BTW-total cut count is up to five and I'm not one of them....yet.