I was up until 2am cleaning my house. It was a disaster and driving me crazy. Needless to say, 6am came really early. If John would have been the only one there today, I probably would have went back to bed no problem, but Rex was supposed to be back so I got myself up and headed to school.
I have never been more happy to see an instructor come back to school, seriously!
I can honestly say I was busy from the minute I got to school until an hour after I was supposed to get off. It was awesome!
I started off the day by making a mixed wild rice, white rice and brown rice pilaf. I also learned today that a pilaf is just the cooking method. Rex commented on restaurants that put on the menu "rice pilaf" because it just shows that they don't really know what they are talking about.
I did equal parts wild rice (which I found out isn't actually rice, it's just a grain), white rice and brown rice. Wild rice is a black long grain, that is really good mixed with other rices.
Wild rice takes twice as long to cook and more water so it needs to cook separately from the white and brown. The white and brown can be cooked together.
Wild rice is a 1 to 3 ratio. I did 2 cups of each type of rice to serve about 25 people. I put 2 cups wild rice and 6 cups water to simmer on the stove. I also added a mirepoix (meer-pwah = celery, carrots and onion) base to the water to flavor the rice while it was cooking. The white and brown rice was rinsed and soaked in cold water for 10 minutes. After it was finished soaking, you saute it with butter and either a small diced onion or pine nuts or something like that (that's what makes it a pilaf). I chose to use an onion with mine. The butter is what keeps your rice from turning into sticky rice and leave the grains seperate. That is what a pilaf is...not some fancy flavored rice. Just the method. After they were sauteed I put the 4 cups rice in with 8 cups water and some more mirepoix base and brought them to a boil. When they were boiling, the wild rice had started to blossom and become soft so it was ready to take off the stove. I combined all the rice and all the water that hadn't absorbed yet (which was quite a lot) in a pan, covered it with plastic wrap and then tin foil over the plastic and put it in the oven to finish. The plastic wrap keeps the water in and keeps the rice moist while the foil protects the plastic from melting and traps the heat in. I didn't know that, I had never cooked rice in the oven before.
After my rice was finished, I moved onto my whole 20 pound turkey that I needed to roast for lunch on wednesday. I was in charge of Turkey Tetrazzini. I pulled out my thawed turkey (I pulled it out of the freezer and left it in the walk in fridge on Friday), removed all the inside stuff and Rex showed me how to cook it way faster than a traditional turkey. We cut out the spine (but saved it, I'm going to make a stock with it) so the turkey would lay flat instead of rounded up taking longer. If the turkey lays flat, the heat can reach more areas of the turkey and in turn cook it faster. I seasoned it with some thyme under the skin (the tetrazzini recipe has thyme in it) and just some chicken and poultry seasoning. I put it in the convection oven on a cooking rack (similar to a cooling rack) with two drip pans beneath it containing a mirepoix for flavor. I also roasted the spine and all the insides for my stock at the same time.
My turkey took a whopping ... 2 - 2 1/2 hours for a 20 pound turkey! That normally takes anywhere from 8-10 hours in a conventional oven. It was awesome. Poultry needs to be cooked to 180 degrees, but you pull it out at 170 and let it rest for a minimum of 15 minutes to let the juices redistribute and continue cooking. That will bring it up to temperature. Rex tasted it and said it was pretty good. We let it rest and I started on some Herb Rolls to serve with it on Wednesday.
My herb rolls smelled amazing! We won't cook them off until Wednesday but the dough looked really really good. Here is the recipe:
(Everything we make is measured by weight and volume, and not by cups...so I will try and convert my recipe so it can be made at home without a scale. Also, it's a huge batch and can easily be cut in half)
Conversions:
1 lb=16oz
8 oz=1 cup
1 oz=2 Tablespoons
Herb Rolls
5 lbs 2 oz flour = 10 1/2 cups
1 oz dry yeast (double if using fresh yeast) = 2 Tbs dry yeast
3 lbs warm water = 48oz = 6 cups
8 oz sugar = 1 cup
1 1/4 oz salt = 2 1/2 Tbs
4 oz powdered milk = 1/2 cup
8 oz room temp butter (or shortening) = 1 cup
3 Tbs dried basil leaves
2 Tbs dried oregano leaves
1 Tbs dried thyme
1 Tbs garlic powder
Add water to yeast to let it activate
Combine the flour, dry ingredients and butter. Mix well. Add yeast to dry ingredient mixture then mix until it forms a smooth dough. Let rise until it doubles in size. Knead and form into 2 oz rolls (a small golf ball size). Let rise again utnil doubled in size. Bake for approximately 10 minutes at 350.
Yield 5 1/2 dozen.
I didn't bake mine off today, they are in the walk in chilling so they don't rise until Wednesday. When I bake them off, I will add pictures.
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