Day 13 - October 9, 2009

Day 13:

Today I started off by finishing the 50 pounds of Au Gratin potatoes that needed to be done for Saturday's event. We peeled and diced the potatoes. Chopped 5 more pounds of onions and mixed them all up.

After that, I helped Rex finish up what he needed to get done for a lunch we were catering. We just covered everything in plastic wrap and filled up containers of ranch, etc.

When that was all finished, I went to work on a turkey noodle soup with my leftover turkey stock and turkey chunks from my tetrazzini.

It turned out pretty good (so I heard). I also learned that sage and thyme go well with turkey and oregano goes better with chicken so to jazz the soup up a little I added some ground sage and thyme leaves to the soup.

I also took all of our onion, carrot and celery scraps and made a vegetable stock. I added a sachet to the stock to give it a little more flavor. Normally you use cheese cloth with a bunch of herbs and/or spices in it, and tie it up with butcher twine and just let it steep in the liquid, but at school we just use coffee filters instead. In my sachet I used parsley stems, a few bay leaves and some whole white and black peppercorns.

I also learned that for vegetable stock, you don't want to over cook your vegetables or the sulfur will start to come out. You only need to simmer for about an hour and a half. (Don't stir, it will make the stock cloudy).

After it was finished, we took everything out and strained it. My stock was bright orange! We had way too many carrot scraps and it just dyed the whole thing. Also when we tasted it, it tasted like carrots. I'll have to try it again, with less carrots.

When everything was finished, I just cleaned for a little bit and that was about it for the day.

Day 11 - October 7, 2009

Day 11:

Today I got to school and finished prepping and assembling my turkey tetrazzini. I had to make the sauce and saute my mushrooms and infuse them with lemon zest and just mix it all together and bake it.

I had some major issues with my sauce that needed correcting. I found my recipe on the internet and changed it based on several reviews about the recipe itself. I ended up with too much roux for my sauce and it was basically gravy instead. We had to thin it out with water, turkey and mirepoix base to keep the flavor. After several minutes, we finally got it to the right consistency. I mixed it all together, sprinkled my fresh breadcrumbs and parmesan on top.



I covered it with foil and baked it off. I didn't ask Rex if I was doing it right because there were 20 high school kids running around like chickens with their heads cut off demanding his attention and I didn't want to bother him.

I put it in the convection oven to cook it more quickly ... first mistake.
After checking on it, it was getting really brown and drying out the noodles ... second mistake.
I should have asked Rex before I baked it, but I didn't.

Trick I learned at school:

If you want to bake something and keep it moist at the same time, cover the pan with plastic wrap and then with foil. The plastic will trap the moisture in.

I should have covered my noodles with plastic first, and didn't so they were a little dry. I also should have used the regular oven instead of the convection because it had too much heat circulating around it.



I learned a trick or two and will hopefully not make the same mistake next time. It turned out pretty good considering my mistakes.

I also proofed and baked my second tray of rolls, and this one turned out better than yesterdays. Yesterdays were a tiny bit overcooked. That was about it for my day.

Day 9 - October 5, 2009

Day 9:

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.