Hell has not frozen over....but

Anyone who knows me or has spent more than 5 minutes in my presence KNOWS that I am a devout carnivore. Like Homer Simpson, I rever the Pig as a magical creature who has given us many gifts, not least of which is Bacon, Canadian Bacon and Ribs. But I don't just love the meat trifecta of poultry, beef and pork, I love all forms of food. While I am no Anthony Bourdain, I do relish trying new and adventurous dishes, from roasted guinea pig to deep fried cockroaches.

However, recently we had a lecture by Chef Tim discussing food safety and sustainable food and my carefree life as an ignorant consumer came to an end. It occurred to me for the first time that as a chef, it is part of my responsibility to know where my food is coming from, how it is feed and handled from the farm until it comes into my hands. As a normal consumer, I was perfectly content to ignore the farm to table movement and relished my 0.99/lb chicken specials. Alas, as a chef, knowing if your beef is fed grass or grain will affect the taste, texture and cooking method that you apply, so you really do need to know.

At FCI, all of the teachers are extremely passionate and Chef Tim, was certainly no exception. Perhaps it was his heartfelt belief in the subject matter or matter of fact lecture style, but somehow he managed to do what I thought was impossible, compel me to join the sustainable food movement. I think it was his discussion on Salmenella and Chicken that I found particularly disturbing. To paraphrase Chef Tim:

"Salmonella is a naturally occurring bacteria which in small quantities may not make you ill. But due to extremely unsanitary conditions at industrial farms, and the large doses of antibiotics and steroids given to the animals, the levels of salmonella in the United States Chicken supply have skyrocketed. In the early 1990's only 20% of the United States chicken had toxic levels of salmonella. A study in 2000, found 91% of chickens tested in the Unites States had levels of salmonella, which could make you sick if not cooked and handled correctly."

I don't know about you but that terrified me. I couldn't eat chicken for days. For perhaps the first time I understood that our insatiable demand for meat, no....that my insatiable appetite for meat and willingness to ignore how food was farmed and handled has contributed to current state of industrial raised meat. Now I am not saying that I will stop any of my friends while walking on the street and tell them that I am becoming vegan, but I do think that I owe it to myself, to learn more about how the food I love is handled.

Well it is dinner time, so I am off to practice my habillage ("dressing" or preparing poultry) skills on an organic grain fed chicken and make a roasted chicken dinner.

Bon Appétit

Cooking is a craft, and like any craft, in order to be great you need practice, practice and more practice. The heart of culinary technique lies in knife skills. Someone once told me that a knife is the extension of a chef's arm, whose movements are deliberate and effortless at the same time. Anyone who has observed a professional chef at work, knows that this is true. Conversely anyone who has observed culinary students in their first days of class, is aware of the gaping difference in knife skills.

In Level 1, we learned the traditional taillage (basic cuts) we can make:

Jardinière - thin sticks, 5 mm square by and 4-5 cm long
Julienne - very thin sticks 1-2 mm square and 5-7 cm long
Macédoine - small cubes 5 mm square, cut from jardinièred strips
Brunoise - very small cubes, 1-2 mm square cut from julienned strips
Emincer - thin slices, usually cut from an onion
Ciseler - fine dice, usually from onion, shallot or garlic

Here's a picture of my taillage plate that I submitted for examination in class

Ciseler (top left), emincer (top right), jardinière (bottom right)
julienne (bottom left), bruinoise (center)

Learning to be comfortable with your knife and executing the same exact cut each time takes practice, so I bought a large bag of carrots and practiced and practiced until my hands were orange.

Julienne (left) and jardinière (right)

Taking the plunge

On our first official day of class, we were told to arrive at 8:30 am at the latest. It has been awhile since I had a first day of school, so naturally I did not sleep well. My mind was racing as it did a mental checklist of all of the items I needed to bring to class....apron check, chef coat and pants check, index cards check etc. As I was terrified that some sort of NYC metro construction would delay my train, I opted to walk. The city street are so peaceful in the morning, no tourists, many of the shops are still closed and you feel, just for a minute, like you are the only person in Manhattan. It was a peaceful 40 minute walk and helped mentally prepare myself.

I arrived at 7:30 am armed with my backpack loaded with a bizarre assortment of 'culinary school supplies': chef uniform (chef coat, chef pants, neckerchief, apron, kitchen towel, hat and kitchen shoes); large water bottle; first aid kit (band-aids, neosporin, gauze, aspirin, Tylenol); deodorant; granola/nutrition bars; index cards and pen/sharpie. Despite the calming walk I was still nervous and had some time to kill, so opted to have a coffee at the nearby Starbucks.

After my coffee I made my way to the corner of Broadway and Grand where L'Ecole restaurant sits, the walk sign changed to walk, but I just stood there and let the crowd of people brush past me. I look appraising at the building that was to be my new home for the next 7 months and I remembered the first time I discovered FCI.

It was 5 years ago, and I was on a girls trip to New York and came to L'Ecole to dine for dinner. My friends and I loved the food and they mentioned to the waitor that I was an aspiring chef, so the hostess arranged a tour of the school after dinner. I fell in love with the student kitchens lined with industrial grade ovens, stoves and fridges; the cookbook library with floor to ceiling cookbooks and magazines; and french curriculum. At the end of the tour, they gave me a fake chef hat, business card for admission and a box of matches bearing the name L'Ecole, at the end of the tour.

So at the corner of Broadway and Grand, the same corner where I rushed out of a cab 5 years ago with 3 of my closest girlfriends, I took a deep breath, fiddled with a very worn box of matches and crossed the street to begin my life in the kitchen.

Food regret...how I loathe thee

New York City is food lover's dream, in the city that never sleeps there is a seemingly endless number of restaurants, bakeries, cafes and foodie destinations and there are new places opening up every hour. So here's the problem, where should you eat?

Last Friday, as I wandered home from lower Manhattan, I had my first sub-par food experience. It was on Prince street, and the aroma of chicken, lamb and gyro grilled on a flat top cart was simply too much to resist. So, I decided to try my first NYC street food cart....and I am still suffering from food regret from the oily, gristle filled, slight dry gyro. Food regret is a terrible thing, after all there are 3 maybe 4 meals (if you really push it) in a day and the idea of wasting one of these precious meals on some sub standard meal, well it fills me with disdain.

The whole debacle on Friday left me wondering, how am I going to prevent food regret? Also, I don't want to just prevent food regret but I want to make sure I do not leave NYC without eating my way through the city's finest and most delicious hidden gems. As a borderline obsessive compulsive list maker, clearly the answer was to make my own list of must eats.

So that is what I am going to do, research the city's various food blogs, recent restaurant awards and get recommendations from NYC veterans and compile a list of the best places and things to eat. Feel free to send me some recommendations if you have any and stay tuned as I compile a list of must-eats in NYC.....

My food network-esq challenge

Cooking at home is usually is a relaxing affair, where I will carry on a conversation on the phone, leisurely read the recipe as I cook and realize that I have forgotten a key ingredient in the recipe and need to run to the store. Meanwhile professionally cooking is an exercise in focus and multi-tasking and requires a dramatically different skill set, as I am quickly coming to realize.

Luckily, before starting school my dear friends, who have been watching far too much of the food network, devised a little torture tactic, no pre-school assignment to help me prepare for the time pressured rigor of professional cooking, here was the challenge:

Challenge: to make 15 appetizers with mystery ingredients, selected by my close friends
Mystery Ingredients: Shrimp, Corn, Apricot
Shop Time – 20 minutes
Shop Budget - $40
Cook Time – 60 minutes

Now, since I love Top Chef, I decided to take this challenge up a notch and do a duo of appetizers to showcase the mystery ingredients in two very different appetizers and styles. This was a fantastic challenge as I had never had an apricot before and it was the first time that I was really forced to come up with my own recipe without any reference material. So here’s what I came up with.

Roasted Shrimp and Corn Chowder with Honey Apricot Cornbread

Jalapeno Lime Shrimp and Roasted Corn & Apricot Salsa

Roasted Shrimp and Corn Chowder with Honey Apricot Cornbread

Shrimp Broth
1 lb uncooked medium black tiger shrimp
3 stalks celery
1 small carrot
1 medium onion
2 bay leaves

Chowder
2 ears of fresh corn, brushed with vegetable oil
4 thick strips of applewood smoked bacon, diced
1 Yukon potato, peeled and diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1lb cleaned shrimp
1 jalapeno Pepper, trimmed and deseeded
1 tbsp smoked paprika
2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp chili Powder
1 lime
cilantro
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
500 ml of half and half

Cornbread
1 cup flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
¼ cup of butter
¼ cup honey
½ cup of dried apricots
2 large eggs

Shrimp Broth
1. Clean, devein and remove the shell from shrimp. Place cleaned shrimp in a bowl and place in fridge.
2. Place shrimp shells on a roasting pan and place in a 400°F degree oven. Toast until skins are a deep orange colour, about 10 minutes
3. Fill a medium stock pot with cold water and set aside.
4. Wash and trim celery and carrot. Chop vegetables coarsely into 1 cm chunks. Cut onion into a medium dice. Put all celery, carrot, onion bay leaf into stockpot.
5. Remove toasted shrimp skins and let cool for 5 minutes before adding to the stock pot.
6. Once shrimp skins have been added, cook at medium – high heat until the stock simmers. Skim stock often and simmer for a minimum of 20 minutes or up to 1 hour.
7. Strain stock and keep warm.

Chowder
1. Heat barbeque to high, once heated place prepared corn on grill. Turn corn while cooking to ensure nice even barbequing on all sides. Corn will take about 15 to cook.
2. Mix olive oil, jalapeno, 1/2 of the lime juice and shrimp in a bowl. Cover and let marinate in the fridge.
3. In a stockpot, on medium heat melt butter. Once butter is melted add diced bacon and brown. 4. Add onion, celery, garlic, potato and sauté.
5. To remove the roasted corn from the cob, take each ear of corn and slice of a bit of the top of the corn, to make a flat edge, this will give you a level surface to work with. Hold the corn by the stem, with the flattened top of the corn on a cutting board, slice the corn niblets off.
6. Add smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, chili powder, roasted corn niblets, half and half and shrimp stock (prepared above) to stockpot. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes.
7. When chowder has thickened and is almost ready to serve, remove shrimp from marinade and add to simmering chowder. Add chopped cilantro, remaining lime juice and salt to taste and serve immediately with cornbread.

Cornbread
1. Preheat oven to 350°F degrees
2. Combine, flour, cornmeal, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. Mix until combined.
3. In another bowl, whisk eggs. Add buttermilk, melted butter and honey and whisk together.
4. Pour buttermilk mixture in stages into flour mixtures, stirring with a rubber spatula to ensure liquid is evenly incorporated.
5. Dice dried apricot and mix into cornbread batter.
6. Butter a 9 x 13” brownie pan. Pour batter into pan and spread evenly.
7. Bake for 25 minutes or until cornbread is golden. Cool for 15 minutes and cut into desired size and shape.



Jalapeno Lime Chile with a Roasted Corn and Apricot Salsa
1 lb cleaned shrimp
2 ears of fresh corn, brushed with vegetable oil
10 apricots, cut in half and deseeded, brushed with vegetable oil
2 tsp diced red onion (about ½ red onion)
1 red pepper, deseeded and diced
1 jalapeno, deseeded and diced
1 lime
1 tsp chili pepper
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper
¼ tsp cumin
1 tsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
Cilantro
Lime Tortilla Chips

1. Mix olive oil, jalapeno, 1/2 of the lime juice and shrimp in a bowl. Cover and let marinate in the fridge.
2. Preheat barbecue to high. Once heated place prepared corn and apricots on grill. Turn corn while cooking to ensure nice even barbecuing on all sides. Corn and apricots will take about 15 to cook.

Note – ideally you would put the corn and apricots in a barbecue vegetable basket, to prevent the apricot from sticking to the grill, if you don’t have a basket just place the apricot on a sheet of aluminum foil.

3. Remove niblets from cob, as described above. Chop apricots gently. Combine, niblets, apricots, red onion, red pepper and chopped cilantro in a glass mixing bowl or non-reactive bowl.
4. Combine lime juice, white wine vinegar, olive oil, chili pepper, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper and cumin. Whisk together and add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Pour liquid into bowl of corn, apricots and onions. Mix well and let flavor marinate in fridge for 20 minutes.
6. Remove and drain shrimp and season with salt and pepper. Saute shrimp in butter on medium high heat.
7. Pour 1 tbsp of salsa into a martini glass, top with 1 shrimp and 2 tortilla chips. Serve immediately.




Bon Appétit