After mastering the art of braising and stewing, I moved onto my next class – New World Cuisine.  I’ve been really excited about the menu we create in this class – lots of different Latin-inspired dishes and lots of vegetables!  The cooking techniques we will focus on in New World are grilling, roasting, and deep-frying – oh boy!  I’ve already learned how to deep-fry chicken and potatoes, and I felt like I smelled like McDonalds the rest of the day after that.

Besides deep-frying though, we’re making all sorts of other interesting food.  On Wednesday, my team made Chicken Stuffed with Lemon & Herbs…

We started with whole chickens that we trimmed excess fat from and removed the wishbones.  Next we stuffed the cavities with lemon wedges and a chopped assortment of fresh herbs.

We were taught to truss the chickens, and tie them up in a specific way so that there is more even cooking and moisture retention.  We also roasted them on a bed of mirepoix so that the chickens were raised up from the pan, and didn’t roast in their own juices.

Our chickens went into the oven for an hour and fifteen minutes, and in the meantime I helped the other groups with their dishes, and made some garlic mashed potatoes.   Mylan and Jamie posed for the camera…

We also each had to fillet one fish that day – I believe it was flounder.  Weird as it may sound, I found that I really liked breaking down the fish.  There was something really satisfying about producing your own fillets, just as they would look if you bought them at a fish counter.  If I was still eating fish, I would definitely consider buying my fish whole and breaking it down myself. 

While we broke down the tiny flounders, Chef Brener did a demonstration on breaking down a gigantic salmon!  The picture does no justice to how big this fish was – so much beautiful salmon!

He cut the fish into the main center plate portion cuts, and the excess that would be used for other dishes.  He also showed us how to remove the pin bones – very important!

Skin removal was a little bit tricky, but I ended up doing okay with it (on my flounder).  Doesn’t this look just like a giant fillet of salmon you would buy at Fresh Market?

It’s really neat to see food go from such a raw, fresh form, to a market or grocery form in just a matter of minutes.  It makes me think about all the work that goes into some of our food before we head to the grocery store.  Just a few minutes before, those beautiful salmon fillets looked like this…

Okay, enough carcass shots – sorry!  After the demo, I finished my garlic mashed potatoes, and it was time to pull my chickens from the oven.  Look at all that beautiful browning!

I used the drippings in the pan to make jus lie pan sauce, and then broke the chickens down into edible portions – legs, thighs, and breasts.  Another group had made some grilled flank steaks, and Chef did a demo on cutting and tasting the different cuts of meat.  Everyone said it was delicious, but I thought it was looking a little rare for service…

Obviously a class focused on grilling and roasting is going to involve a lot of MEAT, but we’ve also been grilling and roasting tons of delicious vegetables!  Another group made this amazing grilled vegetable salad with balsamic dressing and goat cheese chunks.

Along with my absolute very favorite food of all time – EGGPLANT!  I was so excited when I saw this heading to the grill!  Served along with grilled rutabaga, and more goat cheese hunks.

My plate of delicious papaya and walnut salad, along with an assortment of grilled veggies.  After I ate this, I went back for second and thirds of the eggplant – sooo yummy!

Which brings me to my next point.  Recently a reader left me the following comment…

“Hi, I like your blog, but I don’t understand how you can not taste the food you are cooking. Isn’t part of learning to be a chef about learning how foods taste, and how different techniques and ingredients change that taste? How can you be an expert on food simply by "following directions and doing what’s assigned"? You have to understand what the end result is, don’t you? I’m amazed you don’t ever had to describe how your food tastes to the Chefs you work with. Just curious – don’t mean to be negative.”

First of all, you are not negative, and I really appreciate the question, so thank you!  To some extent you are right – being a chef is all about learning the flavors and combinations that work well together, not just following directions.  Every day at school, I make at least three dishes myself, and there are usually 20 to 25 dishes made in the classroom all together.  On the blog I tend to show some of the more exotic and fun things, like oxtails and fish carcasses!  While I love me some veggies, they aren’t as exciting to photograph or write about, but from now on I will start showing more of the dishes we do rather than just a few. 

Being a vegetarian in culinary school has had some tough points.  I have actually considered tasting some of the food that I’ve been graded on, because I do feel like it’s important to know the flavors, and know what I’m presenting.  I’ve tried to practice some of my meat dishes at home, with a vegetarian swap, so that I can still understand the flavor profiles and the purpose of the ingredients.  I can’t guarantee that I’ll make it through school without tasting meat at least once.  But for now, I’m trying to stay true to my principles and values, and do it my way.  As long as I can create similar vegetarian dishes with the same flavors and cooking techniques, I feel like I am still getting a good learning experience.

Thanks so much for your feedback!  I love reader comments, and welcome anyone else with questions – especially about school! – to please not hesitate to ask.

Off to work I go…