What I Learned at Culinary School Today

[Manton]

Originally Posted by Thomas

So here's a question that comes to mind: What happens to your tastes when you learn to cook like Ducasse (or Boulud or whoever) and get used to that sort of precision?
I don't think this is a dilema that I will ever confront.

 

[itsstillmatt]

Originally Posted by Manton

I wasn't asserting that, just pointing out that my teacher brings up Ducasse all the time, reflexively.

I guess I find that odd because, as someone who has been in NY for a while, I know Ducasse mostly through the prism of his Essex House restaurant, which tanked. So here he is, if not a joke, at least an example of hubris. To hear him praised like that always makes me wonder if it is said seriously or with a twist of irony. I still don't know the answer, but I suspect it is the former.
Ducasse = Louis XV in Monte Carlo. IIRC, you went at one point. He started there, or at least gained his renown there, and then took over the Robuchon space in Paris after R retired. After that he moved, and opened a bunch of ****. I've eaten in the Paris branch, and it was great.

 

[Manton]

I went to Louis XV in (I believe) 1995. I knew nothing of who Ducasse was at that time. Though on that same trip I went to Bocuse's place outside Lyon and I knew who he was.

 

[kwilkinson]

Originally Posted by iammatt

Ducasse = Louis XV in Monte Carlo. IIRC, you went at one point. He started there, or at least gained his renown there, and then took over the Robuchon space in Paris after R retired. After that he moved, and opened a bunch of ****. I've eaten in the Paris branch, and it was great.
You've never been? I remember we took a day trip to Monte Carlo from Nice when I was there. I wish I would have known what was up then. I'd do anything to have a meal there.

Originally Posted by Manton

I went to Louis XV in (I believe) 1995. I knew nothing of who Ducasse was at that time. Though on that same trip I went to Bocuse's place outside Lyon and I knew who he was.

So, Louis quinze. What did you think?

 

[Manton]

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

So, Louis quinze. What did you think?

I thought it was amazing, but the experience is mostly remembered for my dad's horror at the bill, which I had misled him to believe would be a lot lower.

 

[itsstillmatt]

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

You've never been? I remember we took a day trip to Monte Carlo from Nice when I was there. I wish I would have known what was up then. I'd do anything to have a meal there.

Haven't been in years, and not to Ducasse.

 

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by Manton

I thought it was amazing, but the experience is mostly remembered for my dad's horror at the bill, which I had misled him to believe would be a lot lower.

 

[Manton]

Let's see if I can keep this one (relatively) short.

Today we continued the sauce lesion, and learned the other mother sauces - with the exception of veloutÃ

- and some derivatives.

I was early again, but there was less to do. One task was to open two enormous cans, one of tomato paste, the other of whole, peeled tomatoes. I looked around and could not find one. "Over there, by my case."

I spotted an odd looking thing mounted on the counter edge; it looked like a small steel girder with a hand crank inserted inside some sort of guide and holder. This, apparently, was it. I studied it every which way but could not figure out how it worked. Restaurant Guy saved me. You lift up the girder, put the can on the counter right up close, then ram the girder down - there is a little blade at the edge that should puncture the can right where you want it to. Then use the hand crank to remove the lid. Simple.

Three stocks were brought up from downstairs. Or at least I though there were three. One was clearly chicken, one was clearly brown veal, and the other was ... I didn't recognize it. It was a pale brown, too tan to be chicken stock, too light to be veal stock.

Chef dumped the veal and the mystery stock into the same rondeau. Both were the consistency of Jello. "Chef, what is that?"

"Veal stock."

"Why is it two different colors?"

"Because the light one is remouillage, you remember, the second moistening of the bones and mirepoix after you make your stock."

Interesting, I had never seen a finished remouillage before. The difference in color was striking - it was several shades lighter. A visible indication, no doubt, of its weaker flavor. The first moistening gets all the good stuff.

"Chef, if we mix those, won't our stock be weaker, and make our sauces weaker?"

"It's not really a problem because all the sauces we are gonna make today with this will have fresh mirepoix and that will intensify the flavor. Of course if we used only pure stock with no remouillage, the flavor would be even stronger but our sauces will still be good.

"You know, you should be proud we are using this. Because we were supposed to use the stock we made last week, but students for their Level 6 final found it and took it all. I told you the students here love my stock. So I had to go find this. By the way, the restaurant loved the fish stock, too."

Lecture was, first, a paean to why sauces are the glory of French cooking, the hardest things to make in the kitchen, and the most prestigious task for any chef. The rest was mostly an explanation of how to thicken sauces. There are X principle "binding elements" or "liaisons":

"¢\tRoux: cooked butter and flour, 1:1 ratio, to the desired color. Blanc, no color; blonde, light color; brun, deep color
"¢\tBeurre maniÃ

: basically a cold roux; butter and flour simply mashed together with a fork.
"¢\tSlurry: cold liquid and some kind of finely powdered starch (arrowroot is best because it thickens well and does not distort the flavor), whipped, then added to the sauce.
"¢\tEgg yolks.
"¢\tReduced heavy cream.
"¢\tMustard.

The of course you can simply reduce. Water evaporates out and the remaining flavoring elements, which are naturally denser, make the sauce thicker.

Another option is to puree. That is, many sauces are strained. You cook them to draw flavor out of the mirepoix, then once you are convinced you are not going to get any more, strain and discard the mirepoix. But you could also run the sauce through a food mill, smashing the mirepoix into tiny particles that thicken the sauce.

I have been making roux-based sauces for years and years. I first learned from Julia Child, then moved on to Sokolov. The latter's book, The Saucier's Apprentice, is a delightful tour through the mother sauces and most of the famous derivatives, complete with recipes for what to cook with your sauce. But in more recent years I have moved away from roux and used either reduction, or else added reduced heavy cream. The latter is nearly foolproof and also adds a creamy taste to the sauce.

The problem with roux, and the reason why it is not in favor currently (apart from the fact that it is old fashioned) is that unless the flour is thoroughly cooked, you will taste it in the sauce. But cook too long and it will get bitter. You have a very narrow window, really.

Slurries are not so popular because the gluten is rather visible in the sauce and gives it what some consider to be a gluey texture. Chef X. blamed Chinese restaurants for this. "You know your corner takeout? That's how they make everything, oyster sauce, hoisin, everything, some soy sauce in the pan and bowl of slurry by their side all the time that they whisk in at the end. So people see it now and they think it is a cheap technique and they don't like it."

But we are learning the classical way, so we were to learn to use roux and slurries. Well, except that we departed from classic in one way. I noticed that our text binder also defines a demi-glace as espagnole plus stock or glaze, but then it goes on to say that no one does this anymore, and in the modern context, demi-glace = veal stock reduced by half. Well, I can tell you that I used to make demi- the old way quite often, though I admit that even I have fallen off.

Chef had written out in the dry erase board the recipe for six sauces:

"¢\tBechamel: milk and blonde roux
"¢\tEspagnol: basic brown sauce, brown roux and stock and mirepoix
"¢\tTomato: pureed
"¢\tFond de veau liÃ

: veal stock bound with a slurry.
"¢\tBordelaise: flavored wine and Espagnole
"¢\tChasseur (Hunter's): Fond de veau liÃ

, mushrooms, wine and tomato sauce.

"There are a million varieties and derivatives of all these. Do I know them all? No way. My boss at La Cote Basque, who was trained in the '30s, he did. But it's not so important to know them all. What's important is that you know how to make the basics. Once you know that, learning to make the derivatives is easy."

This is certainly true, as I have found from experience. Our text binder has lots of derivatives listed, plus I have several books that list them. Escoffier has 89 derivatives for warm sauces alone.

We began with the espagnol. Now, the classic way to do this - which is what Escoffier says and also what Sokolov teaches - is to make the roux separately, add it to the stock, and then pour all of that into host stock, and then pour all of that over browned mirepoix.

Child says to sautÃ

the mirepoix and some diced ham in clarified butter, and once it is deep golden, add the flour. That's closer to the way Chef X. had us do it. Except instead of ham we used bacon lardon (cut into little strips). Brown that first, then add the mirepoix, then the flour.

He said to start with a little oil, then add the butter. The oil would prevent the butter from burning, and also spare you the task of clarifying it. The mirepoix was "small" but still quite a bit bigger than a macedoine. Brown it, then add chopped tomatoes (tomato concasse) and cook them a little.

Flour is next. Chef called the act of sprinkling the flour over the bottom of the pot "singer". This is slightly different than a roux, which is nothing but flour and butter. Singer is when you add flour to other elements that are being browned. The purpose is the same. At one point later, Chef was quizzing us and asked what's the term for adding flower like this, and one guy said "Singer?" as in "Jazz singer."

"Singer is an English word. "˜Sahn-zhey.'"

Once the flour is browned, you add the tomato paste - cook thoroughly! Add your stock. First add just a little and turn the heat up high and make sure you scrape up all the suc on the bottom of the pan. Then the rest. Whisk vigorously. You need to beat all that roux into the liquid to avoid lumps. Then add the bouquet garni. Interestingly, chef had us use tarragon rather than thyme. Otherwise, bay leaf, smashed garlic clove, parsley and some peppercorns.

Bring to a near boil, then set on the flat-top. In this case, we were using our flat top in the classical French way, as a simmer plate. It maintains a very steady low simmer, better than a burner can, and in any case we needed the burners for other things.

Meanwhile, we had the fond de veau liÃ

going on another burner. This was, at this stage, just a lot of stock, some mushroom trimmings, and chervil stems. Once again, chef had us pluck the leaves off for use somewhere else. No point in wasting good herb leaves on a bouquet garni. This mixture was then boiled until reduced by about a third, or maybe slightly more.

Tomato sauce. In all my years of sauce making - and it is my favorite thing to do in the kitchen by far - I had never made a classical French tomato sauce. I have made any number of Italian tomato sauces, but never this. The Italian versions are all quite dodgy - that is, there seems to be no codified definition of anything. Of course, as I have seen, French recipes vary too. Just look at the way the espagnol recipes that I have used vary. But the variances are small. Go and look at six different Italian cookbooks and how they say to do a Bolognese, and you will find six radically different recipes. French cooking is not like that.

Anyway, for tomato sauce you use a fine mirepoix, which is basically the same size as macedoine, but you don't have to trim the edges first to make it look pretty. Unfortunately, I charged a head and cut mine the same was the mirepoix for espagnol before chef made the demonstration. Had to do it over. The reason they have to be so small is that they need to really get soft because they are going to be pureed through the food mill later.

Otherwise, the procedure is very similar. On difference is that you add crushed canned tomatoes and you use chicken stock. Your bouquet garni - the traditional one this time - needs to be tied in a cheesecloth so you can easily fish it out later. Once it reaches a near boil, onto the flat top.

Now we had to degrease the professional way - that is, with a ladle. This is hard. It's not hard to get out the fat. It's hard to get out ONLY the fat and leave the good liquid. You try to capture just the fat with the ladle, but some liquid always gets in. Chef X.'s sauces of course never had any fat on the surface, and the liquid in the square boys where he deposited the fat was always low. "How do you lose so little sauce? My square boys are full of liquid."

"I've been doing this for 31 years. Maybe after 31 years - if I'm not dead - I'll come find you and see if you are just as good. Also, for my first two years in the kitchen, that was virtually all I did."

Two years skimming fat. Not as exciting as Two Years Before the Mast.

Anyway, for a while there, I just skimmed and skimmed. Whenever I looked at Chef X's sauces, I saw no fat. My own, on the other hand, kept throwing up a lot, and no matter how much I skimmed there seemed to be more. The espagnol finally seemed to be done with it. This had an incredible aroma - much more flavorful - and also darker - than Julia's, which always came out orange. The only difference in ingredients is the bacon rather than ham. Otherwise, it must be the quality of the stock. Also, we cooked ours for a lot less time. Chef said 45 minutes to an hour was plenty.

Then strain. I noticed everyone else pressing their solids in the chinois. MISTAKE! I did not do this, hence I ended up with a clearer sauce - nor did I get a verbal spanking from Chef X.

When the fond was boiled down, it was time for the slurry. Arrowroot and Madeira, whipped hard. (A slurry does not have to be this. The liquid could be water, wine, or stock; the starch could be flour or cornstarch.) Then another trick. Most chefs would just start streaming it into the stock. Chef X said to do something he called tempere. Ladle some of the hot liquid into the slurry bowl, and whip again. This gently cooks the slurry and makes its incorporation into the stock more certain and thorough. You don't have to do this with arrowroot or cornstarch, he said, but with flour it is a necessity, otherwise the flour will never cook and you will taste in the sauce.

Once the slurry was in, the sauce gets simmered and skimmed some more until finally strained. Fond de veau liÃ

does not go through the chinois easily, I can tell you. It takes forever. There are two ways to get it out. Swirl the chinois and let centrifugal force speed it up. Or tap the edge of the chinois with the butt of a knife. This is effective, but makes an annoyingly loud noise.

Then we got ready for the bÃ

chamel. We made a blonde roux - very simple, just cook the butter and flour together for a few minutes, tops, then set aside. After that it was time for lunch. All throughout that brief break I kept stopping eating to go and degrease my sauces. I was not as successful as Chef X, but I hope I was at least as obsessive, or nearly so.

Up until that point, I had been ahead of the game. But after lunch I started to get behind. I have read the phrase "in the weeds" a million times in foodie books, especially Ruhlman, but never really experienced it until that day. No matter how fast I moved, I could not keep up. I'd like to attribute this to the fact that I was working alone, whereas others were in teams, and I'm sure that was part of it, but probably not all of it. I tried to do what Chef said, which was get things on the burner, and then do prep when you are waiting for it to cook. But that caused some problems.

First we finished the bÃ

chamel. Near boil some milk. "When a skin forms, it is done." Meanwhile I was cutting prep for the bordelaise, which I saw other people already had on their flat top. I looked at the milk. Seemed like there was a skin there. "Chef, is that done?"

"It's about to boil!" he said, and darted over to the burner and turned it down. "Yes, it's done," he said dryly. "Milk will boil very fast. You won't even notice. One second it is all calm, and then - poof! - it is over the side. You had the heat on too high."

After that, you pour a little of the milk into the roux off heat and whisk hard. Once it blends, stream in the rest. The sauce should be creamy, but pourable. Season with salt, white pepper and nutmeg.

VeloutÃ

, by the way, is made basically the same way but with stock rather than milk. Also, nutmeg is not a typical veloutÃ

seasoning. VeloutÃ

is a classic fish or chicken sauce. "VeloutÃ

with cream and mushroom is called sauce supreme. What else is called supreme?"

"Citrus segments."

"Right. What else?"

"Chicken breasts"

"Right. Same name for all these things. You gotta know what I mean. When later on we make chicken and I ask for sauce supreme, I don't want you to give me oranges."

Chef left out a grinder with white pepper for all of use to use. Stupidly, I forgot and used my own, landing a big slag of black pepper in there. But I went and got his and used it and whisked it all in. You couldn't really see the black. Maybe I would get away with it.

I tasted the sauce several times and adjusted seasoning. This is an important skill to learn, and one that can only be learned by trial and error. Basically, you want just a little bite from the pepper, but not much. With salt, you don't want to taste it at all. (That is a good principle for seasoning anything.) Salt wakes up inherent flavors but should not be a flavor itself. One thing chef stressed over and over: NEVER add salt at the beginning. Never! Sauces reduce, and their flavor profile changes. Once salt goes in, it can never come out. Add salt only at the end, and taste to make sure you have the right amount.

Another thing he said was, "If you over-season your bÃ

chamel - with nutmeg, with pepper, with salt, anything - the only way to correct it is to dilute with more bÃ

chamel. The only way. So add a little, taste, add some more. Don't just dump a bunch in there and hope."

Anyway, I got it right. "Beautiful consistency ... flavor is perfect."

"One of the things the school teaches is tamponner. That is, you rub some butter on the surface to prevent a skin. I don't like that because it makes the sauce greasy. If you want to preserve your bÃ

chamel, if you are not going to serve it immediately, just get some plastic wrap and press than onto the surface."

I got the bordelaise ready. Emancer of shallots, mignonette, bay leaf, one smashed garlic clove, and about a cup of wine. Near boil, then simmer on the flat top. Simmer for a long time. The wine should be almost gone. When you get to that point, add the espagnole and whisk. Simmer until you get a nappÃ

consistency. That is, it coats the back of a spoon and when you draw your finger through it, it makes a clear line, parting the sauce.

As an aside, the one thing that all bordelaise recipes have in common is wine, shallots, pepper, and some sort of brown enrichment, whether stock, espagnole, glace or whatever. The recipe I have been using the most lately is Keller's. He uses many more aromatics in the wine than just shallots - he adds carrots, mushrooms and many more herbs. Then only stock, not a roux-bound sauce (which do not appear in any of Keller's books). The result is tasty, but runny. I always need to thicken with heavy cream.

Anyway, I think this was where everything started to go wrong for me. I did not hear Chef X say how far to reduce the wine. But I should have known, because I make bordelaise at home. However, I did not want to assume. So I kept asking, "Is this done yet?" And of course it never was. The other thing that threw me was how far behind mine was. Shouldn't I have been done by now? But I wasn't. Maybe everyone boiled theirs faster.

While I waited for it, I pureed my tomato sauce. At one point, I said, "Does anyone have a food mill, I need to strain my tomato sauce."

That drew a rebuke from Chef X. "We do not strain with a food mill, and we don't strain tomato sauce. Puree, puree, puree."

So I pureed, pureed, pureed. The consistency was good. I brought it forward for inspection. "Did you season this?"

Crap. No, I hadn't. How did he know by just looking? No pepper visible? Anyway, I took it back and seasoned it, tasted, corrected, etc. The seasoned sauce earned a "Very good!"

While my bordelaise simmered, I got to work prepping the Hunter's sauce. This is a true classic, one that shows up in all the books, like Poivrade. For this one, we would use the fond de veau liÃ

as a base.

A word on that. Basically, the traditional way was to use demi-glace as a base. But in fact you have other options. Any of the brown sauce derivatives can also be made from espagnole (as we did the bordelaise), from fond de veau liÃ

(as we did chasseur), or from reduced stock. They are interchangeable. Espagnole probably has more depth of flavor. Fond is easier to do and since it has fewer aromatics, is better able to take on complex flavors later. Also, the color is lighter. This made it good for the chasseur sauce.

For the chasseur, we had to peel mushrooms - something that I had never done before - then slice, then ciseler shallots. Sweat in butter, no color. At this point, I realized that the sauce would be finished with some chopped tarragon, which I did not have. So I ran to get some. When I got back, there was some brown suc in my sautoir. Damn. "Chef, do I have to start this over?"

"Let me see. No, it's OK, the vegetables have no color. But you don't want to deglaze that suc. So get a new sautoir and continue cooking in the clean one."

"Chef," someone else asked, "how long do I cook this?"

"Until the shallots are translucent."

"How long will that be?"

Chef got an impatient look on his face. "Look, I can't say, you know? I could say two minutes or three minutes, or whatever, but that's not what matters. What matters is, is it done? You need to know when it's done. You can't know that just by timing. You know it by sight. You need to learn that."

When they are cooked, you add a little shot of cognac and flambÃ

. That is fun. You just tip the pan over the burner, and the cognac will ignite. At first it will be a huge column of flame, then it will get lower and lower. It takes a minute or so for the flame to go out. Then add white wine and boil. Then, finally, the fond de veau liÃ

and a little bit of tomato sauce. Whisk and simmer to nappÃ

consistency.

While that simmered, I checked my bordelaise. "Chef, does this look done to you?" he came over and dipped his spoon.

"No. NappÃ

. NappÃ

. That is too thin.

OK, more simmer. "What about now?"

He checked again. "No. Do you know what nappÃ

is? Were you listening?" He went and got his demo bordelaise and showed me. "Like that."

Got it. This was embarrassing. I really should have known that. And, in fact, I did know it. I was just so flustered with the rush of work that it would not stay in my brain.

I finally got it down to nappÃ

, seasoned it and presented it. "Too spicy. You used too many peppercorns." He was right, that I had not measured out my peppercorns all that carefully. Which was an unusual departure for me that day, as I had otherwise spent a lot of time rather obsessively measuring mis en place cups on one of the many kitchen scales.

"Only ways to fix this are to add more stock, but we don't have any more, or add lots of butter, which will smooth out the pepper but weaken the flavor."

"Could I add more espagnol?"

"If you have it, yes, that would be the best way."

I did, and I did. Simmer to nappÃ

, taste, correct seasoning, re-present. "Did you add the montÃ

au beurre?" This is a pat of butter swirled in at the end to add a little flavor and a little creaminess to the texture. Of course, he had mentioned it before, and of course I knew about it from books - and, of course, I forgot it. I went back and added it. "That," he said smacking his lips, "is perfect." Long journey, but at least I got to the right destination.

The chasseur sauce was now done, I could tell. NappÃ

, no doubt about it. I added the chopped herbs and seasoned. As Chef was passing by I asked him to taste it. "The consistency is perfect," he said, continuing on.

"What about the flavor?"

"That's good too!"

We were allowed to take our sauces home. I took my bordelaise, fond de veau liÃ

and tomato. Not sure what I am going to do with any of them but I will think of something.

 

[SField]

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

I'd do anything to have a meal there.

A reservation can take a long time to get unless you're a VIP and it will easily cost you over 300 Euros.

 

[grimslade]

I'm not surprised you felt overwhelmed. I felt overwhelmed just trying to keep track in the reading. Makes me want to play with sauces though.

 

[kaxixi]

Chef X sounds cool as hell.

 

[kwilkinson]

Awesome recap Manton.

Originally Posted by SField

A reservation can take a long time to get unless you're a VIP and it will easily cost you over 300 Euros.

So, you'll take me there on my spring break?

 

[GQgeek]

I love Manton's idea of relatively short.

 

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by GQgeek

I love Manton's idea of relatively short.

Me too.

Of course, I'll read it no matter how much he shovels in, so long as he sticks to his normal economy with words.

 

[grimslade]

Yo. What up?