Day 17:
Today I was in charge of the lunch special. On the menu today was Roasted Chicken with a Sage Vermouth Sauce, roasted cauliflower and sour cream and chive mashed potatoes. I started off in a hurry to get everything prepped so when the time came I could get it all cooked off and in the cafeteria by 11. After I had everything prepped and ready to go, I was standing around waiting for cooking time. I had about 30 minutes to an hour to kill. I went to help get the salad bar ready. After that, I started cooking. I put my cauliflower in the convection oven, my potatoes were already coming to a boil and my chicken was rinsed (it was in a brine bath), trimmed to get all the fat off, seasoned with pepper and put into the convection oven to sear and seal in the juices. As soon as the chicken was ready, I was to start on my sauce with the chicken drippings...well the chicken came out of the oven, with no drippings...
I started my sauce without them and was doing really good, until I looked at the clock and realized I was late with the chicken. My cauliflower and potatoes were already out ready to go, but I was just waiting for my sauce. It didn't want to reduce down quickly enough and all I could do was wait. It started to get thicker and it tasted good so we poured it over the chicken, I topped it with a sage chiffonade and put it in the cafeteria. I walked back to my station to start cleaning up and saw that I forgot the butter in the sauce! That's a key ingredient in making sauces glossy, thick and it something else I honestly forgot. I was not very happy about it. I melted the butter and just poured it over the chicken in hopes that it would at least help a little. The sad thing was, that after that incident, I was annoyed with myself for being so prepared to get everything done that I forgot something sitting right in front of me. Oh well, I guess that's just life.
After that was over and I cleaned up I helped finish getting everything ready for a catered lunch for 50 that was in the second half of our classroom. It all looked really really good. I served everyone dessert (I don't think there was a single empty seat, and it was so squishy!) and then went back to help with whatever else I could help with. After that I became a partial waitress until Rex closed the seperator in our room so they could have their meeting. Everytime I checked to make sure everyone had a dessert someone would ask me for more water, etc... so I grabbed some pitchers and just left them on their table and left them alone. One guy tried to send me with his plate, but we weren't collecting plates until they were finished.
Everyone who was in the kitchen got to have some of whatever was leftover for our lunch. There was a creamy lime/chili/chicken something or other which looked really good, but I didn't eat. Alfredo, a mixed veggie, salad, marinated mushrooms and some homemade baguettes. It was all really good.
After that I was getting ready to head out and talked to Rex about the plan for tomorrow and he didn't have anyone helping him with lunch so I volunteered to help. We are making a composed shrimp salad. It just means a nice looking salad with shrimp as the meat. I need to come up with ingredients to go on it and what type of dressing to use. We are also still looking into the mozzarella, Rex was able to get fresh cows milk that we will use. If we have time, we will make that tomorrow, otherwise it will probably be on Monday.
Today I was in charge of the lunch special. On the menu today was Roasted Chicken with a Sage Vermouth Sauce, roasted cauliflower and sour cream and chive mashed potatoes. I started off in a hurry to get everything prepped so when the time came I could get it all cooked off and in the cafeteria by 11. After I had everything prepped and ready to go, I was standing around waiting for cooking time. I had about 30 minutes to an hour to kill. I went to help get the salad bar ready. After that, I started cooking. I put my cauliflower in the convection oven, my potatoes were already coming to a boil and my chicken was rinsed (it was in a brine bath), trimmed to get all the fat off, seasoned with pepper and put into the convection oven to sear and seal in the juices. As soon as the chicken was ready, I was to start on my sauce with the chicken drippings...well the chicken came out of the oven, with no drippings...
I started my sauce without them and was doing really good, until I looked at the clock and realized I was late with the chicken. My cauliflower and potatoes were already out ready to go, but I was just waiting for my sauce. It didn't want to reduce down quickly enough and all I could do was wait. It started to get thicker and it tasted good so we poured it over the chicken, I topped it with a sage chiffonade and put it in the cafeteria. I walked back to my station to start cleaning up and saw that I forgot the butter in the sauce! That's a key ingredient in making sauces glossy, thick and it something else I honestly forgot. I was not very happy about it. I melted the butter and just poured it over the chicken in hopes that it would at least help a little. The sad thing was, that after that incident, I was annoyed with myself for being so prepared to get everything done that I forgot something sitting right in front of me. Oh well, I guess that's just life.
After that was over and I cleaned up I helped finish getting everything ready for a catered lunch for 50 that was in the second half of our classroom. It all looked really really good. I served everyone dessert (I don't think there was a single empty seat, and it was so squishy!) and then went back to help with whatever else I could help with. After that I became a partial waitress until Rex closed the seperator in our room so they could have their meeting. Everytime I checked to make sure everyone had a dessert someone would ask me for more water, etc... so I grabbed some pitchers and just left them on their table and left them alone. One guy tried to send me with his plate, but we weren't collecting plates until they were finished.
Everyone who was in the kitchen got to have some of whatever was leftover for our lunch. There was a creamy lime/chili/chicken something or other which looked really good, but I didn't eat. Alfredo, a mixed veggie, salad, marinated mushrooms and some homemade baguettes. It was all really good.
After that I was getting ready to head out and talked to Rex about the plan for tomorrow and he didn't have anyone helping him with lunch so I volunteered to help. We are making a composed shrimp salad. It just means a nice looking salad with shrimp as the meat. I need to come up with ingredients to go on it and what type of dressing to use. We are also still looking into the mozzarella, Rex was able to get fresh cows milk that we will use. If we have time, we will make that tomorrow, otherwise it will probably be on Monday.
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