Sense and Elegance

Cooking is sensory. Professional cooking requires you to focus upon and use all five senses everyday, to be truly aware of your environment and the flow of service around you. Casual cooking is not necessarily so, but you would benefit greatly from learning to open your ears and refining your touch with food. You can learn so much more about food than just with your eyes and your tongue. An example,

I've watched sushi rolls being made since I was about 7 years old when my mother added a sushi bar to her Chinese restaurant. Not only was that just an extremely popular idea for Chinese-American restaurants in the 90s, but it was endless entertainment for fat kids (i.e. myself). The perpetually semi-drunken sushi chef, the gristly "ewww-that's awesome!" appeal to young boys of butchering fish, and the underrated food porn power of sushi were great babysitters while my mother tended to restaurant needs. As long as it kept me from playing "He-Man vs. Optimus Prime on Planet Hoth!" in the ice chests behind the bar, she was happy. But I've always found sushi intriguing and even though I watched for years without the intent of learning to do it, when the time came for me to actually try I felt more than prepared.

I was disappointed to find it was not quite so simple. I know the process of rolling out maki like the back of my hand. Clean bamboo mat, sheet of nori, gently distribute the sushi rice with moistened hands, place ingredients in the center, roll carefully, tighten in to a cylinder, slice precisely in half then thirds. But during my first attempt I saw the sushi rice clumped up in the wrong places, the cylinder wasn't exactly solid and then this obviously affected the precision of the cutting. What the eff, bro? Well even though I had watched for so long I really only learned half of the process. Feeling and knowing when the cylinder is tight enough to slice, feeling how perfectly cooked sushi rice responds to your fingers, and feeling your knife react to various ingredients is something you learn only by doing, and doing often.

The same goes for Western cooking. I watched the line cooks at Oceanique and Va Pensiero cook busy nights for months before I ever got the chance to do it. Watching so much gave me the proper preparation to have a basic idea of what I needed to do, so I didn't start out clueless, but I still had a long way to go in terms of becoming proficient at it.

So for you ambitious home cooks you should start learning to tune all of your senses in to the creation of a dish. I think risotto is a good dish to try out your Chef-Spidey-sense-in-training on as properly made risotto requires the use of all five. Risotto is challenging, but it has an overly intimidating reputation, making many cooks shy away from the thought of it. It requires patience and being highly observant, but equipped with some basic knowledge you can make a fantastic risotto and bring elegance to your dining table (read: impress some hoez. Let's be honest now, so many cooks are hoping to increase their domestic and sexual appeal at the same time). But of course I need to talk your ear off first about what risotto is, and then subtly add obscure sci-fi/fantasy references to further cement my social status as an unequivocal nerd.

Prisencolinensinainciusol

What is risotto? For those of you who haven't had it or who have only had mediocre risotto at best, what it should be is a delectable rice dish that creates a natural creaminess unlike any other starch or grain. There are various types of rice that are used, the most popular being carnaroli and arborio. The former is usually considered superior to the latter, but arborio rice is cheaper and more widely available. You will also need to select the grain size type as they range from superfino to fino. The grain size does not reflect quality and you can make a wonderful risotto with any type and size. Some are better for certain applications, but for standard risotto it mostly comes down to personal preference.

The special thing about risotto is that the grains are covered in starches that are released by cooking in liquid and by the physical mechanics of stirring. When you add a proper amount of liquid, a risotto reaches a beautiful equilibrium of starch and liquid that results in a creamy, satiny consistency. When the rice is cooked perfectly to al dente then you have a dish that gives you a little bit of bite suspended by a smooth finish and a wide range of flavor possibilities.

Risotto is traditionally served on its own, mixed with small cuts of meat and vegetables, or occasionally paired with a meat entree, like osso bucco. Personally, I think it is best suited as a small appetizer, or maybe as a starch to go alongside braised meats. The creaminess and richness seems too redundant to me when eaten in large portions, but I find it a rather dynamic vehicle to deliver a small bit of powerful flavors. The texture can go alongside nicely with a succulent, fall-apart braised dish as well, being more texturally interesting than mashed potatoes. I can think of nothing more "rib-sticking" or warming in winter weather than a long braised short rib placed atop a small mound of creamy risotto. Also, risotto is almost always finished with fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and butter in Italy.

So why all the fear and dread surrounding such a luxurious yet simple dish? Why in almost every cookbook I own does the chef-author acknowledge an initial nervousness with this grain? I mean it's not like something out of Harry Potter's Advanced Potion Making textbook (oh yeah, I'm going there). There isn't a precise number of counter-clockwise stirs to make, or an exact moment to clarify with gurdyroot to achieve Felix Felicis perfection (as some old school cookbooks would have you believe). I think most of it has to do with the almost constant observation it requires. Once you start a risotto you can't really stop, you have to guide it through every baby step, gauging doneness and tasting every step of the way. But we can break it down here for you in to a few simple sections, and you'll be on your way to getting your OWLS in risotto in no time (my inner nerd says yes, and yet my dignity says, please kill me).

This is your prep list, you'll need:

Carnaroli or arborio risotto (3/4 dry cup goes a long way, you'll probably have extras)
1 yellow onion, very finely diced (uniformly please, practice your knife skills)
A cup or so of dry white wine (remember what Riesling does to sauces, kids)
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (that powder in a Kraft tube doesn't count)
1-2 quarts of chicken stock (preferably homemade, remember those chickens? Eh? Do it)
Unsalted butter (the creamier, the sweeter, the better)

That is the basis for almost all risottos. You can change the cooking liquid to pair whatever ingredient you are presenting with the risotto, not that you have to present any. But if you want to focus on vegetable flavors (or just go vegetarian) you could use vegetable stock or even water. You could use beef or veal stock if you're going with a beef or veal dish, red wine if you want a more noticeable wine canvas to build your flavors on so to speak, so on and so forth. But remember all that collagen/gelatin/gooey goodness in chicken stock (beef/veal stock also have a good amount of this stuff so long as it's homemade) helps to bolster the creaminess and flavor of the finished product. I would recommend starting out this way and then adding flavors on top of this foundation as it is fairly neutral and holds up well to modification. I've never heard of using fish fumet or shellfish stock to make a seafood risotto, I think the fish flavor might get out of hand, but as I've yet to try it I won't pass judgment.

Here we go. Get ready to use all five of those pretty little senses you have. Making a good risotto will require all of them being tuned up and at attention.

Bee tee dubz ... you can use almost anything to cook a risotto in, but I would recommend a medium sized sauce pan. I've used everything from tiny saute pans to giant stock pots to get fairly consistent results, but I think the best risotto is made in medium proportions. You also need a trusty wooden spoon, obvi.

Step One: You Toast but .. then again you Don't Toast

(Edit: I lied .. the first step is to heat up your chicken stock. It doesn't need to be at a boil, but it does need to be hot before you start. Heat it and keep it in a sauce pan with a ladle on the adjacent burner.)

The first step is to sweat the onions. You can use any cooking fat (people use anything from canola oil to lard), but why not keep it real and use olive oil and butter? You're going to add butter later, so add just a little bit of it now to give richness and nuttiness to the onions. You don't want the milk solids to brown or burn, even minor flavor defects will present strongly in the finished product, just let it get hot over medium heat. Now listen...

Drop in your onions so there is a sizzle, there should not be a violent hiss. You can easily tell the difference when you're listening for it. When there is just a sizzle that means the vegetables are sweating, when there's a violent hiss that means they are searing. The difference is in the movement of water. Sweating, as you could imagine, just gently leaches out the water in the onions where a great part of their flavor is. Searing leaches that water out very quickly and evaporates it almost in the same instant. That's how you get fond and nice crusts, but we don't necessarily want that in this situation. You want the onions to give up their flavor in the natural, sweaty way (delicious, I know) as opposed to deglazing them off with the wine later. When you deglaze you get strong, caramelized onion flavors. You just want the more subtle sweated flavors because you shouldn't really taste the onion, which is why it's important the dice is small. You don't want to bite a big chunk of it. It will just support without you really knowing it's there (kind of like a Wonderbra).

Now watch, when your onions become translucent you are ready for the next step. Note: even Alton Brown had a hard time describing what "translucent onions" really are, because they certainly aren't see-through. You will have to learn by sight what that exactly means, but basically it's when they become .. less opaque. I'm sorry if that's vague but know that if they start to brown up a bit on the edges, you've gone a bit too far. Now drop in your rice.

The goal is to cover the individual rice grains with a bit of fat. You don't want to toast the grains here, none of them should color, but you do want them to absorb a little of that EVOO/butter combo (did I just use a Rachael Ray term?) They will kind of clump up at first but then when they separate back in to individual grains you will know it's time to drop in the wine.

If there are any browned bits I wouldn't worry too much. Just deglaze them off with your wine. I know I made it sound like you will ruin your risotto if you brown up your onions, but in all reality I doubt you would notice. But if you are going to make risotto you might as well make it perfect. Drop in your wine, stir your rice a bit to incorporate the liquid and smell...

When you cook alcohol you can feel the raw bite of it in the back of your throat as you breathe it in. You want to cook the alcohol off, I can't think of many food applications of alcohol where you wouldn't want to. Keep stirring, making sure your rice never sticks to the pan and keep getting your face in there to breathe in the vapors. Once it no longer has that alcoholic burn to it, you are ready for the next step.

Step Two: Never Disengage, Maverick

You guys know what I'm talking about? That scene in Top Gun where you think Tom Cruise pooses out on his wingmen and is cracking in the heat of battle? And the angry, bald man at the comm is yelling "Reengage Maverick! Reengage!" while smoking a manly cigar? And then finally Tom Cruise gets his shit together, stops crying over Goose, bangs Kelly McGillis and saves Iceman and the proverbial day?

Yeah ... NEVER DO THAT WHEN COOKING RISOTTO. GOOD MEN WILL DIE!

In other words, do not leave it, do not ignore it, once you have begun you cannot stop (until a certain point I will mention later... so I massaged the truth, big deal). Ladle in enough hot chicken stock to cover the rice in an even layer, nearing the top of the grains. How high your heat is will determine how quickly it cooks, but generally medium-high is desirable.

You will need to stir often with your wooden spoon. Now I told you earlier you don't need any precise set of motions like Polyjuice Potion requires, but generally scraping the edges up and then stirring the center is a pretty effective way to get everything to work. You don't have to constantly stir, but my guess is that some rice will begin to stick after 30 seconds of not getting any attention (I know, risotto is such a needy whore). Stirring releases the starches from the grains in to the stock and helps the rice absorb the stock evenly. It is the most essential mechanic to making this dish. Do it well.

When enough liquid has been absorbed and evaporated, and the rice is looking a little drier add more stock. You will be doing this several times throughout the process for about 10-15 minutes. The stock is both cooking the rice and providing a medium for the starch. Now get ready to get in there and touch...

Don't burn yourself but periodically pick up a grain of rice and squeeze it. When it is far from being done you can feel the hard, raw core of the rice. But check every time you need to add more stock and you will feel the rice softening around the core. Eventually you will reach a point where the core of the rice grain breaks in to 2-3 pieces. You will see a fragmented rice grain when squeezed between your thumb/forefinger. At this point in the game you are about 70% there.

At this juncture you can start testing doneness by biting in to a grain. When the rice is still just a bit hard to the tooth, you can now stop if you choose. This is about where restaurant cooks will stop. They'll pull it off the stove and cool it in the refrigerator at 85-90% done. Why? Because risotto takes 15-18 minutes to go from raw to done, it would be extremely impractical for actual dinner service. Doing it this way, when a ticket is called for risotto we put it on the stove and it can finish in about 3-4 minutes. You can do the same, preparing for dinner that night or even a meal a few days away. There is actually a potential benefit to doing this step and to explain it I'll turn to my boy, McGee.

"...the traditional way until it's just short of done, then refrigerating it. This allows some of the cooked starch in the rice to firm, giving the grain more resilience than it would have if cooked fully and simply rewarmed. Then just before serving, the chilled rice is reheated and finished with hot broth and enrichments." (McGee, 475)

The grain having a bit more bite is a good step in my opinion because risotto can easily reach a pudding like consistency. Clearly that's not what you want. You want a creamy semi-liquid that gives a bite. You want textural diversity, not textural uniformity. Do what you like but I think it's definitely important to at least be aware of this step.

Okay, so you've been ladling in the stock, you've been stirring it and catering to its every whim, you've brought it to near completion ... it's the final countdown...

Step Three: Finish Him!

Season your risotto with a healthy amount of salt and keep constantly tasting. In professional cooking we are tasting through every step of making a dish. It's the only way to keep track of what's happening with the food, the unique characteristics of every ingredient and the subtle changes produced by heat. You'll know when it's good, it will be ... surprise, surprise ... very creamy rice.

The traditional way to finish it is with a healthy handful of parmigiano-reggiano cheese, and a few knobs of butter. I recommend you do this almost regardless of what you're planning in the end. My chef makes a big point of this step and ragged on me for a long time to get it right. You've got to take the risotto off the heat. Kill the burner or preferably move the pot, it's time to say good night to the flame for now.

The liquid that suspends all that lovely rice is essentially a sauce. When the heat is on, and you add butter and cheese, it just melts and then you have some melted butter here, some cheese there. Now when you take it off the heat and you stir like a mad man, then you're making some magic. Stirring vigorously combined with the residual heat of the risotto will emulsify the butter and cheese in to this "sauce" that is your cooking liquid. Emulsification in food takes too long to explain properly here, but you are making a thicker, more balanced sauce. Basically,

The butter is physically beat and melted in to bajillions of tiny particles evenly suspended in the liquid, creating richness and thickness.

The stirring is releasing the final coatings of starch and further thickening your flavorful liquid.

The stirring evenly incorporates the cheese much like the butter.

Okay I guess that wasn't too hard to explain, so fucking do it. That's right, it's a command. God knows I've had that barked at me many a time.

Now spoon a bit of risotto on to a plate. Look at it, there shouldn't be liquid running away from the pile and the rice shouldn't look tight and sticky. Bite it, it should have resilience but otherworldly creaminess as well. Taste it, does it need more salt? Is it delicious? Listen to it ...

...

Okay just kidding, that won't help you.

Edit: If you make too much risotto for one meal it also kind of has a finicky storage policy. You should set aside extra at the 85-90% point, rather than completely cooked risotto. Thoroughly cooked risotto keeps cooking with its own residual heat and dries out and becomes a gooey mass. You can reheat it with stock but don't expect very fantastic results. Keep this in mind.

Step Four: The Step That I Probably Should Have Put Before the Other Steps

Now what can you do with the flavor of this textural wonderment that is risotto?

As I mentioned before, I think a small dish of risotto as a sort of appetizer is amazing. Maybe some of you can just eat a giant bowl of risotto and love it, but the creaminess can be overwhelming and eventually boring for me. But it can be such a powerful vehicle for flavors that its short burst potential is great.

You can steep saffron threads in to the stock to make a perfumed, shockingly yellow risotto. You can saute some shrimp or bay scallops on the side and fold them in to the finished product. You can spoon a dollop of basil pesto on top to give a punctuation of acidity and depth. You can mix in a more melty cheese like fontina or mozzarella for that lovely, stretchy texture and tangy flavor. You can mix in some roasted butternut squash (very popular combination) for a sweet and luscious wintry treat. I can keep using as many seductive adjectives until I run out and just tell you that the possibilities are endless. Oh wait, I just did.

The best risotto I ever had? BLT Market, New York City. Creamy white lobster risotto with fresh chervil, black truffles shaved on top at the table. Risotto is a famous vehicle for fresh shaved truffles. The funky aroma of truffles seems to explode from the shaving process, tantalizing a diner's nose from the get-go, and the creamy liquid and truffle flavor seem made for each other, embracing one another immediately and deliciously.

If someone is really bored, can they tell me how many times I used the word "creamy" in this post? Thanks. Over/under 50?

Happy cooking, this has been a test of the Panda Educational Culinary Blog Experiment.

EP6

The Beautiful Struggle

My chef was just chattering today while we were running through our Valentine's Day prep and he mentions the movie Julie and Julia. Now I've yet to see this movie, which is damn near heresy in the food-o-sphere, but I hear good things. Le Chef shares the opinion that many others do. Basically yay for Meryl Streep and Julia Child, boo for Amy Adams and whoever the hell she plays. He ends his quip with a question to me and asks, "Why don't you write a blog about your road to culinary school? Maybe people will find it interesting. Maybe for some reason they'll think you're interesting enough to talk about."

Well thanks for the faith in my life being somewhat intriguing, but actually I already started that so, :P.

But I realize some must think, "Oh look at Eric, trying to be so different and look at how exciting he makes his career out to be and how much he enjoys it. Ooooh fancy!" But that's not always the case. True, I do enjoy my career, it's the reason I'm pursuing it in the first place, but it's not all puppies and rainbows. It's kind of like the first year of a relationship. Everything's all exciting; you're learning new things, experiencing new experiences, everything is so goddamned lovey-dovey. But there are a bunch of roadblocks just on the horizon. All jobs are hard in their own way, kitchen work is just hard in a different sort of way. And when it gets hard it can really test your mettle.

Today was not a good day (Sorry, Ice Cube). Everything that could go wrong went wrong. And it all started because the guy who usually works the cold station really didn't prep his station at all. He wiped it out on Wednesday and left me a laundry list of shit to do and some. I knew that going in to the day and it still caused a bevy of hiccups.

I wish I had a photo (so you could see how shitty my handwriting has become) but here's what my prep list looked like. I usually write down the list of things on a blank sheet of receipt paper.

2 recipes budinos (2 sheet trays large, 2 small)
200 arancini
Basil pesto
Roast squash/zucc
Roast beet
Beet carpaccio
Pesto butter
Strawberries
Oranges
Normal prep

So basically what that means is I have to prep about 200 budinos, which are mini chocolate cakes essentially, 200 arancini, which are fried risotto balls, and then all that other shit on top of normal prep responsibilities for my station. I am pissed, I am fucked, I am so deep in the weeds I can't see the sky.

Making two recipes of budinos requires me to crack 64 eggs, and then separate 64 yolks, so 128 eggs and be careful to get no eggshells in the mix. 200 arancini means I have to cook about a pound of risotto and steep saffron, and risotto requires your undivided attention for at least 30 min. Cool it, add fontina cheese, form it in to 200 one oz. balls, bread it, fry it. And then all the other shit requires some time and I have about 3 hours until service to do it. Granted, I should have come in early to make sure everything was done in time but I fucked up and woke up late. Oh did I mention I have to make employee meal also?

I knock out the pesto, the roasted veg and start working on the budinos. Cracking eggs takes about 15 min. to my surprise, but mixing the bastard and then pouring it out into individual cake ramekins wrapped in plastic wrap takes almost 30 min. I decide to make jalapeno mac and cheese for employee meal and that takes me at least a half an hour as well. By the time 5 PM rolls around I'm not really close to being ready.

Around 6 PM my chef asks me where the arancini are. They are on the antipasti menu for tonight. I was under the impression they were being prepped for this weekend, not tonight. They were sitting in the cooler waiting to be formed in to balls and breaded. Shit.

We kind of half-ass a solution but the risotto is undercooked. My fault. I throw it back on the stove with some chicken stock and then I overcook it. My fault again. Things are not going well because orders are being called and I'm still trying to prep for the night. I'm running back and forth between the stoves and the pantry to stir my risotto and make salads at the same time. I am pissed off that I am left in this situation.

So I start acting like a child. Slamming cutting boards and oven doors, hacking off endive roots with brutal alacrity, cursing under my breath and shoving finished plates in to the window with careless bitterness. The staff starts to notice, and the Mexicans get annoyed. Finally, Luis curses me out after I slam the oven door right by his station.

"Huevon, a la casa!"

Huevon is an insult to mean a lazy, stupid person. I was taught this recently and I did not appreciate for a second that I was a) being called lazy when I was picking up someone elses' slack, b) being told to go home by someone who is not my boss.

I continue my immature behavior and shout back, "I'm not fucking lazy! Maybe Maestro should have done some fucking work yesterday!"

He retorts, "Shut up you little bitch" in English.

It's never good to get someone so angry they consider physical violence. It's especially never good to do this in a kitchen where there are a plethora of sharp knives and fiery objects around. Now I'm not very good at throwing knives (It's an optional part of the curriculum in Asian Parenting 101), but I do have a big one in my hands. I come much closer than I would like to admit to actually throwing the thing at Luis' face. It's pretty difficult to get me this enraged, but I've taken enough abuse for the day. I end up pointing the knife menacingly at him and taking an unfortunate amount of time to come up with a good riposte.

I can't call him lazy. This guy is actually fairly well-off in Mexico, but he came to America anyway to work 14 hour days. He starts at 7 AM at Bravo! Italian Restaurant and then comes straight to Va P to work a dinner shift. Shit, that won't work..

I can't call him fat, as immature as that would be, because he's actually one of the thinner guys in the kitchen. I can't knock him on his cooking because he's a solid and reliable cook. So my only choices are to be really stupid and say something borderline racist, or just give him a big "Fuck you."

I opt for the latter. I shout "FUCK YOU, pinchi culero," which translates to "FUCK YOU, you fucking asshole." Effective I know. He flips me the Mexican bird (which is kind of like a flick of the palm) and the chef comes in to give me a stern talking to. He doesn't think the dining room heard me, but I'm being loud enough that he thinks it's a problem. He gives me a prompt, "Shut the fuck up."

I am seething, but I've stopped my petulant behavior and just turned it inwards. The dark side of the Force is pouring through me, but I'm being good enough to release my anger in to solid cooking. I get plates out fast, I plate desserts real fast, I just stop talking and stop thinking and just doing. Before I know it almost everything is done, except the last recipe of budinos (all the eggs are cracked, and the ramekins are ready, he just needs to mix and pour).

But I'm still furious and every time someone talks to me I grunt back and give them a dirty look. I avoid eye contact with Luis because it'll just make me more angry. I am hating every inch of this stupid kitchen and all the foreign Mexican chatter floating around. I leave with a serious urge to kill rising in my gut.

This was just one of those days that makes you hate your job. Every job has those kind of days, but in a kitchen these days usually coincide with the busiest weekends. Valentine's Day is fucking war, kids. Whether you think it's a stupid holiday or a great excuse to get laid, it causes upheaval and panic in the restaurant industry. Okay, good restaurants won't panic, and we aren't panicking, but it is stressing me out. I have a long ass weekend ahead of me and I just want it to be over.

But that's the reality of the job and I had the whole way home to think about it. And the more I thought about it I realized, I was being a little bitch. Alright, you got screwed that's true. What the hell does complaining about it do? Nothing. Do you want someone to feel bad for you? Sack up. What does acting like a child throwing a fit do? Throws everyone else's chi off and disturbs the rhythm of service, not to mention just annoys people. Cooks often call the start of service time "curtain call," which is a very apt description. As soon as service starts, the show must go on. No one fucking cares what kind of bullshit is going on back there. Paying customers show up and they expect results. In hardcore kitchens there are no sick days, there are no excuses. Customers don't care if your dishwasher decided to not show. They don't care if your shipment of beef didn't come in, or that you by accidentally let a box of frisee rot. They just want their food, their restaurant experience, and they'll leave their money for it. Just get the job done.

This Rule #76 (No excuses, play like a champion) attitude to the job is both exciting and disheartening. When things are smooth it can really jack up your adrenaline as you feel you are in a constant, but winning battle against the customers and the clock. When things are bumpy, it is terrible. You're fighting a losing battle to keep up and god keeps throwing wrenches in your plan. There's nothing you can do, customers get pissed off, then the waiters get pissed off, then the cooks get pissed off. Shit hits the effing fan, chain reaction to hell commences.

So it's good and it's bad. That's the case with everything in life, nothing is perfect. Do I regret base jumping in to a kitchen with no real experience? Not for a second. Had I gone straight to culinary school like I had originally planned, I think there's a good chance I would have washed out. The pressure, the pace, the stress might have broken me. Do I wish it were easier sometimes? Yes, sometimes, but as my mom and eerily enough my chef always says, "If it were easy, everyone would do it." The difficulties of any job are something you either kind of enjoy and rise to the challenge of, or something that breaks you. Only the truly successful, the cream of the crop enjoy life's endless obstacles. Though they shave years off your life, cause you terrible stress at the time, overcoming them is an achievement in itself.

So while I've somehow managed to wax motivational again, with this whole "Life is unfair, work is difficult" shpiel, I'm glad this happened. Though the steam is just done boiling out of my ears, I realized that all the inspirational shit I tell myself, I now must start doing. Showing up is not enough. Work is not playtime. You didn't come here to socialize, you came here to hone your technique, to learn what it's like to work the line, to fight through service. To be thrown in to the weeds and to hack your way out. Well I didn't do a great job of it today, but I'll be ready next time. No more excuses, no more shortcuts.

The kitchen doesn't teach me everything. I learn a lot on my own because I read a ton of cookbooks and just expose myself to a lot of food information in general. When I make jalapeno mac and cheese, I don't need a recipe. I see jalapenos, I see various cheeses, vegetables, milk, butter, flour = Bechamel sauce with mixed cheeses, sauteed onions and jalapenos, combine and enjoy. Chef Jeff never taught me what a Bechamel sauce is (Blonde roux + milk, salt/pepper, mother sauce). I learned how to make that myself, embarassingly enough from Bobby Flay on an episode of Iron Chef I think. I learned the principles of what makes it work from Harold McGee. I know what a chiffonade cut is, I know how to dice an onion, I know how to hold a knife, I know what sauteing vs. braising does to meat because I learned it myself. I think Chef assumes I learned it at Oceanique. I didn't really learn anything at Oceanique. Almost all the food knowledge I have is of my own doing.

My point is, I need to stop relying on people to sympathize, to pick me up when I'm down. True, kitchens require teamwork. But I want to be an island. I'll help as necessary, but I want to be so badass of a cook that I can bump you off your station and work 2 of them like it was nothing. That will require my ongoing personal quest for knowledge and a strong application of it in the field. This isn't a profession that people just happen in to or can't escape anymore. This is becoming an ultra-competitive profession that people will fight tooth-and-nail to succeed at. I'm not saying you have to cut people down on your way to the top, but you have to learn how to rely on yourself and your skills as a cook.

As a generation of young people who have no idea what they want to do with their lives is beginning to bloom, I think a lot of them are finding their way in to the restaurant business. It's an attractive industry for these kind of people who, like me, think of cubicles as galleys, and ties as nooses. Of course everyone would like to work for Thomas Keller at Per Se. It's the best restaurant in America. What are you going to do to earn that though? Thankfully, politics and appearances do little to get you there. It's all about how you handle service, how much you know about food, how unquenchable your thirst is, how impeccable you can be, and how well you can fight your way out of the weeds. At the end of the day it' just about how well you can fucking cook.

Recently an American cook quit Va Pensiero. He said he was really into molecular gastronomy and didn't really fit in with the food and the people here, but really he had sort of a meltdown one night like I almost did tonight. It was maybe 3 weeks since his first day. On his first day the Chef asked him to make our beef tenderloin dish, kind of as a tryout. Grilled beef medallions, garlic mashed potatoes, sauteed rapini, glazed shitake mushrooms, beef peppercorn sauce. The Chef asked for medium rare. I watched him cut it open to see a grayish ring of meat and a pink center. Medium, rested improperly. He knew he had kind of pushed it past temp and plated it too soon. The Chef hired him anyways. But now that he's gone, he has a sort of resentment that his cooking style was scorned for this newfangled scientific school of cooking. He tells me one day,

"That's great and all if you're in to molecular gastronomy. But before you do all that you got to learn to hit medium rare."

Lesson learned. Onwards and upwards.

EP6

The Restaurant Model, The Restaurant Dream

There are a few universal characteristics of the restaurant industry that, with all the details and specifics aside, represent the unique nature of the business.

It is generally not a lucrative endeavor, though that fluctuates slightly depending on what type of food you do and where you are in the country.

There is a low return-on-investment. And we're not just talking monetary investment, but time and energy commitment as well. A responsible and dedicated restaurateur will be there 6-7 days a week.

It is vulnerable to the capricious whims of the public. Although the mob can seem unfair and implacable, this is a harsh reality that all Star Fleet capta.....errrr, hopeful restaurateurs must face. Keeping up to date with trend changes as they are happening and appealing to your clientele are paramount to success.

I suppose there are more difficulties that only restaurateurs really have to deal with, but to me those are the trickiest to handle adeptly, and most clearly define the difference between success and failure.

I'm sure many of you have gone to a fancy restaurant and wondered why a pasta dish costs $18, or why a bottle of wine seems jacked up to $50. There are specific reasons for this and it's not merely a price-inflating tactic to line the owner's pockets.

A standard restaurant model goes like this. Every food item, all the money that comes in and is spent must follow a basic guideline.

35% food cost
35% staff wages
20% overhead (equipment, rent, repairs, etc.)
10% profit

So when you could make a pasta dish for like $4, then a restaurant could (hopefully) do it better for you at a higher price. Every dish needs to follow that model somewhat, but every restaurant has slightly different numbers. Some places get away with cheaper food cost, some with cheaper labor. Some places, like restaurants in New York City, have to charge exorbitant amounts to compensate for the high price of land (Ever eat in Times Square? Yeah a $19 hamburger at Friday's is ridiculous just to enjoy that illuminated piece of real estate, but tourists = suckers). And believe it or not, four-star dining has some of the worst profit margins because staff and food costs are skyrocketed. They need the best cooks and front of house management, and they demand the best ingredients. So when those numbers edge closer to 40% each, the profit margin takes the hit. This is why a good chef must be a good manager of efficiency. Every bit of waste will hurt the overall profit. When I clean vegetables in the kitchen my chef will walk by and inspect my trimmings. If they aren't exclusively waste product he will always point at the pile and remind me, "That's the difference between being open, and being closed."

Wine generally follows a 2.5-3x mark up rule in restaurants. A high-end restaurant will need to pay one or more sommeliers, manage the space to store all those bottles, and hunt down all those fine wines to keep a diverse and balanced wine list. So a bottle that is sold at $10 from the vineyard will probably reach your table after you cough up $25-30 bucks.

But if you look at it that way, what are we really making? Two or three dollars per dish? A little more on wine? And this is only real profit once we clear a certain hump. If it's a slow month, you still got to pay the worker bees. And as is the case with so many restaurants, most of the profit must often go back in to the restaurant. To constantly adjust and improve your establishment is a result of being a good cook, a personality quirk that you acquire sometime throughout your career. Every day, you must do better than the last, you must constantly be in a pursuit of perfection.

So what does that mean for me? Michael Ruhlman speculates in The Soul of a Chef, that true money, lavish riches are bestowed upon only the most enterprising of chefs. Chefs that can create empires, make themselves a household brand, are the ones who reap the true rewards. There aren't millions to be had by most restaurateurs. Only chefs like Roy Yamaguchi and Wolfgang Puck can earn the kind of money we attribute to celebrities and power executives.

But I'm not really looking for that kind of money anyway. I've had personal fantasies of being a recognized chef, of being a famous name that lights up the culinary blogosphere every week. But if it never happens, I won't exactly be heartbroken. I truly try in convincing myself to keep my head down and always have the end goal just in the back of my head. To just focus on every day as it comes. The goal is to own and manage a fantastic restaurant. To reach that first goal I must build a solid foundation of culinary technique. To reach that goal, I have to go to Va Pensiero and give it 110% every day I step in to that kitchen.

If fame and fortune ever reach me, it will hopefully be because I was prepared and ready when opportunity came knocking. Time and chance happen to us all, and it will require no small bit of luck to attain meteoric success. I should focus on controlling what is controllable, myself, and push onwards from there.

How's that for fucking motivational, yeah!? Too bad it's always easier to give advice than to follow it. I'm very good at giving advice to others, and to a somewhat detached sense of myself. But actually carrying out those orders in my CPU is a whole 'nother matter. Here's to trying though.

Now let's talk about "trending" and public appeal. Catering to your audience is the most important thing a chef needs to consider. A certain restaurant model that works in New York might not work in Chicago, or in a suburb, and vice versa, ad infinitum. For instance, my mom's restaurant? High-quality but standard Chinese-American food in a neighborhood of mainly Jews. For some reason, Jewish people love their Orientar food and my mom is more than happy to oblige. Va Pensiero delivers fairly traditional, high-quality Italian food for older, richer, North Shore folk. Nothing too far outside the canon of Italian cuisine so as to confuse, but we have high-end dishes that are necessary crowd pleasers given our price tag. We're practically required to have a beef tenderloin dish, even though it's not necessarily prepared in an "Italian" manner (and even though I think filet mignon is the most overrated food item in all of restaurant history).

Chef Michael Symon of Lola fame brought high-end cuisine to Cleveland. He did it by introducing familiar ingredients and making something high quality out of something simple for the people of Cleveland. He essentially let Midwest folk test the waters, feet first. Bratwurst is a common Midwest grill food that everybody here grows up eating. Now how about foie gras bratwurst? Even if you don't know what that is, a waiter can explain that to you in an instant, and you'd then be able to visualize it and be tempted to try it. Another important thing; he kept every entree under $25. He figured out how to make great food for cheap, knowing that Midwesterners weren't about to shell out big bucks for this kind of food yet. You got to know your audience.

But a restaurant in the city, somewhere in New York for example, can really push the boundaries of what we call food. Molecular gastronomy is the next hot thing, and the temples for this cuisine all reside within major metropolitan areas. Could those places really exist somewhere where people aren't ready to be so adventurous with their food? Maybe, but I doubt they would enjoy as much success. Same goes for fusion food, and any experimental cuisine.

But this is the current trend, and it seems that if you want some real recognition you're going to have to hop on this bandwagon. Of S. Pellegrino's Top 50 Restaurants of the World's list, I would gather that at least 70% of those restaurants use "molecular gastronomic" techniques (probably means they have liquid nitrogen and nitrous-whipped sauce foams somewhere in their kitchen). And many are of the aforementioned "temple" establishments, restaurants focused solely on scientifically tinkering with food. So people are hungry for it, people are ready for it, the question becomes if you want to do it that way.

I think high-quality ingredients prepared with flawless technique will always have a place in this world. Be it well-done "junk" food or old-school white tablecloth, there will always be a market for shit that just tastes good. And that should always be the focus for anyone who wants to serve food. That's great and all if you can magically turn something from ethereal foam to satiny sauce on the plate. I respect the technique and research behind that. But if it tastes like crap, then I am not so impressed. I am probably judging prematurely as I've yet to eat at a place like Alinea, or Moto, or El Bulli, but I like traditional preparations as of right now. Today's culinary school graduates are all wide-eyed about new kitchen techniques, but I'm not so intrigued yet. I guess I'm more of a Kevin Gillespie than a Michael Voltaggio.

What do I want to do, you ask? Well, I have a couple things in mind...

At some point in my life, I want to open a sandwich shop. They are the perfect food item, combining starch, veg and protein all in a convenient, hand-held package. Wally & Agador's near my apartment was a fantastic, high-end sandwich shop that unfortunately failed. Maybe the market for expensive sandwiches is difficult to maintain. But if a shop offered braised pork belly BLTs, soft shell crab sandwiches, duck confit on country wheat, and expertly cured Italian meats, could you say no? Alongside a pile of homemade chips or fries? Rick Bayless maintains what is essentially a very good sandwich shop. I guess the key is to establish yourself first in a good restaurant ... which brings me to my next point.

I'm sick of Chinese food. Correction, I'm sick of bad Chinese food. I say this as objectively as possible, but I think the best Chinese food I've had is from my mom's kitchen. Chicago Chinese food has thus far been lackluster. The Koi/Chen's chain is the only thing remotely high-end, and they are in my opinion, pretty bad. The rest consist of cheap take-out places and dim sum done with little enthusiasm. All Asian cuisines seem to be advancing in to the realm of fine-dining, but Chinese cuisine is stagnating on this side of the world.

So what's the logical choice for me? David Chang used his background in French culinary technique and his experience growing up with Korean home cooking to create his Momofuku empire. He has elevated humble ramen noodles and steamed pork buns to a high place of culinary honor. I'm not saying I want to follow his model and method, but I think that's a logical place to work if I want to try and do something with Chinese cuisine, a place that embraces French technique seamlessly melded with Asian cuisine.

But what do I know and love of Chinese food? Thanks to crappy take-out and poorly realized restaurant ideas everybody thinks Chinese food equals sweet-and-sour chicken, cornstarch laden sauces and thick-skinned dumplings. Everybody thinks of MSG infused wonton soups and greasy egg rolls. That is a travesty. I've never been to the homeland (something I plan to fix), but I've had real and good Chinese food before. The myth about a menu for white people and a menu for Chinese people is not really a myth. There's a whole bevy of Chinese dishes featuring exotic ingredients and techniques that Chinese restaurateurs fear the white man ain't ready for. Which is kind of true. But as people are beginning to appreciate food more; appreciating slow food, sustainable food, locally grown food, something beyond the borders of hamburgers and hot dogs, of steak and fries, of endless protein/starch/veg dishes, I think we are developing a generation of diners who are ready for a bold step in to the unknown.

So how do you blend (or to use Ted's word, "blound") two cuisines? Fusion has been a pretty popular idea for a while, but its execution has generally been awful. Asia de Cuba, Lespinasse under Gray Kunz, Vong and Momofuku are the only successful examples I can really think of. The key is to have a deep, deep understanding of the two cuisines you're trying to throw in the blender. You have to know at heart what that cuisine represents and then make educated decisions as to pairing flavors together. It requires experimentation from a well of knowledge. I remember at Spice Market, Jean Georges' casual fusion establishment, I had a braised prime beef short rib with Asian buckwheat noodles. Hints of star anise, Sichuan peppercorns spiked a traditional red wine and veal stock braising liquid. The natural succulence of well-braised meat is usually paired with something like the texture of risotto or mashed potatoes, but the fall-apart beef was pleasant contrast to the soft bite of buckwheat noodles. The dish came together wonderfully and my mother immediately sought to develop her own version.

Jean-Georges spent years working in Bangkok, familiarizing himself with the food and ingredients there. Gray Kunz grew up in Singapore and had a childhood that smelled like kaffir lime, cardamom and lemongrass. His lifetime of experience with exotic spices, ingredients outside the canon of classical French cuisine, allowed him to show the adaptivity of serious French technique. Good "fusion" chefs would never use the word "fusion" with any seriousness or pride. They would more likely say they were showing the flexibility a background in solid French technique allows. They would more likely say they were presenting diners with exciting new flavors and presentations that they were deeply knowledgeable of. I guess the true difference lies in subtlety and authenticity. The goal isn't to throw in unusual flavors and assault the palate. The goal is to introduce an unfamiliar yet pleasant sensation that rings true to all cuisines borrowed from.

What I am basically getting at, after this long winding, talking road of Chinese food and fusion food, is that I think it's time someone stepped up to the plate for true Chinese flavors. China has such a rich culinary history and an expansive repertoire of dishes that I am not aware enough of. Chinese-American food, though often cheesy (in the stylistic sense, not the literal sense) and dumbed down, has promise. And I thoroughly enjoy both. I love when my mom's head chef from Shanghai throws down a crayfish and snail stir-fry that tastes like nothing else I've ever had. But I can't deny the simple pleasure of well-done sesame chicken with a bowl of white rice, as that was my favorite dish growing up. And I can't resist well-done dim sum. Translucent, paper-thin skins that just barely contain an impossibly flavorful filling. I don't care if it's gringo-pleasers like shrimp shu-mai or something a bit more traditional, like pork and Dungeness crab soup dumplings. I love it all, I want to learn to make it all.

So here we are at an important life juncture. I must continue to refine my French culinary technique (also known as "skizills") while educating myself in traditional Chinese cuisine. I must also use the Chinese-American kind of food that my mom does so well as a bridge. If I get deep empathy for all those cuisines, then I think some kind of unholy Triforce of culinary wonderment can be had. Some sick, twisted brainchild of mine that can wow your mouths (that's what she said). And somewhere along the road, I'll make sandwiches and maybe rest on my laurels. If I'm lucky.

So we're kicking it old school. Not like Nick Cannon in Drumline, replete with cassette tape sessions and snare drum showdowns to sort out his daddy issues. No, nothing quite that lame or contrived (Sorry, when I hear "kicking it old school" that line spoken by Orlando Jones haunts my dreams). We're talking an intrepid, head first dive into a Chinese kitchen. And I think I have one in mind. We're talking an expedition, nay a pilgrimage back to the homeland is in order (though to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure even I know the difference between China and Taiwan ... and boy do large throngs of Asian people terrify me .. cameras and peace signs everywhere ::shudder::). How long I can stand Asian parenting and the hideous dystopia that is Long Island again though is the first question. I'll enjoy Chicago while it lasts.

EP6

Roast Chicken

Preface: This is a long ass post (even for me) but should give you everything you ever needed to know about roasting chickens, the myriad ways to prepare and flavor them, and how to make a good stock out of them. The details are probably excessive, but if you’re bored at work or seriously want some in-depth knowledge of poultry preparation, read on, brave soul. If you find the big blocks of info mind numbing, there are summaries at the end of each section of my personal preferences. Read at your leisure.



Okay, so apparently my last post was popular enough that you guys want a recipe. I'm not really much of a recipe person only because I don't deal in precise measurements (not because I'm that awesome, more because I'm that haphazard). So I'm going to give a few basic guidelines to the utter romance that is a perfectly roasted chicken. You're going to have to feel your way through it from there. After you roast 3-4 chickens, you'll be a pro, turning out perfect chickens every time. If I've inspired you to try some fanciful cooking and stock-making at home, I want to make sure you are at least presented with all the options and know how to do them right.



When Alexander Lobrano interviewed hundreds of French chefs in his epic tour-de-force of Parisian restaurants, he asked each of them what ten dishes most defined French cuisine. Nestled at the top with beef bourguignon and bouillabaisse, was roast chicken. A true French family meal that has enjoyed popularity in the humblest of peasant homes, to the most elegant of royal courts, whole roast chicken is spectacular. But like any "national" dish there are endless interpretations of it, and countless methods of preparation. Some people will defend their recipes to the death, not unlike American barbecued ribs. But there are definitely some reliable techniques that you can use to customize chicken to your liking. Let's start with types of chickens.



Cluck Cluck



People need to respect chickens. Too long have diners consumed poorly raised chickens; mass produced, mass slaughtered and processed. Not only do these chickens suffer poor living conditions, the quality of their meat suffers as well. This can be thinly veiled by a thick, fried flour crust, but once you've had a good chicken I think you'll reconsider.

There are something like 3 chickens for each person in America. Most of these are of the aforementioned prisoner type. Now the overall happiness of a chicken throughout its lifetime might have questionable influence on its quality of taste. But free-range chickens are fed natural diets and get more exercise, so they will develop more flavor for these reasons. The emotional satisfaction of poultry aside, at least consider these more concrete reasons.



There are also heirloom birds that are raised by artisan farmers that have an extraordinary flavor. Such examples are the poulet-rouge chicken and the blue-footed chicken.



Fanciness aside, the most important things you need to consider are quality and size. I already sang the praises of organic, free-range chickens, now you'll want to get one in the "fryer" size category. Fryer chickens are anywhere between 1.5-4 lbs. (depending on market specifications) and are generally the perfect roasting birds with optimal skin-to-meat ratio. A 2.5-3.25 lb. bird will have beautifully crisp skin just as the meat is finished cooking. With poultry I don't think flash-freezing has the same quality as fresh, so I would go as fresh as possible with no obvious defects or bruises on the flesh.



My Suggestion/Preference: Buy a nice, free-range, organic chicken in the 2.5-3.25 lb range.



Early Preparation



These early steps might be a bit much for irregular home cooks, but I assure you they are worth it. You have your choice between brining and salting. I will discuss the merits of both.



Brining is essentially submerging meat in a salt solution. For a textbook definition I'll turn to Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, which is the end-all be-all of molecular gastronomy and food science.



"Salt disrupts the structure of muscle filaments. A 3% salt solution (2 tbs per quart/30 g per liter) dissolves part of the protein structure that supports the contracting filaments, and a 5.5% solution (4 tbs per quart, 60 g per liter) party dissolves the filaments themselves. Second, interactions of salt and proteins result in greater water-holding capacity in the muscle cells, which then absorb water from the brine. (The inward movement of salt and water and disruptions of the muscle filaments into the meat also increase its absorption of aromatic molecules from any herbs and spices in the brine.) The meat's weight increases by 10% or more. When cooked the meat still loses around 20% of its weight in moisture, but this loss is counter balanced by the brine absorbed, so moisture loss is effectively cut in half. In addition, the dissolved protein filaments can't coagulate into normally dense aggregates, so the cooked meat seems more tender."



Whoo, that was a mouthful. For someone who stopped doing science at non-honors chemistry, my brain hurts but basically brining = juiciness. The only downsides will be that your chicken will be kind of waterlogged and the drippings will be quite salty. You will need to cut back on your seasoning a lot. But a brine is a wonderful thing. Figure a ratio of 20 parts water : 1 part salt and add as many flavorings as you like. Lemons, black peppercorns, herbs (rosemary, thyme), are all tried and true combinations. When it does come time to roast, make sure your chicken is very dry. You can brine for up to 2 days, you can let it dry in the fridge for one night, pat it dry with paper towels and then throw that bitch in the oven. You can't reuse a brine.



Salting is a dry method endorsed by Judy Rodgers of Zuni Cafe fame. I don't have much experience with salting chickens, but she suggests rubbing a chicken all over with salt up to 24 hours before roasting. Salt will have the similar effects of brining, but minus the water obviously. Essentially it will be a cure, drawing out some moisture but intensifying flavors (Judy Rodgers claims that after 24 hours, reverse-osmosis will occur and your chicken will reabsorb moisture). You can play around with both and pick out your preferences afterward, but I would definitely recommend doing one of these if you have the time.



My personal input? For a sublime roast chicken, a brine of 2 days with lemon/thyme/peppercorns/copious amounts of garlic, a night hanging dry in a refrigerator, and then sensually massaging dijon mustard into its loins for at least a few hours beforehand, and letting it come to hot and heavy room temperature. Oooh ... that'd be a dirty bird.



Ahem.



My Suggestion/Preference: Brine if you have the time (mua haha, nice rhymes) with citrus/garlic/pepper notes, let the chicken dry, add mustard. Seriously, I was so skeptical mustard was going to make a difference when we did it at Va Pensiero, but I found out it makes for a delicious, delicious chicken with no real overpowering mustard flavors.



Pregame Roasting Rituals



Choose your weapon. In this case, your weapon is a good pan. Disposable aluminum, weak tin pans, are no good. As we discussed in our last chapter of Panda Educational Blogging, you need something that is ovenproof and able to get some fond. I would use a 12-inch, stainless steel pan with vertical edges, also known as a sauteuse. If you have a roasting pan, all the better, but most people don't own such a luxury item in their kitchens. Something that fits the bird snugly will do, including a cast-iron skillet.

 (Presenting a bird on a cast-iron skillet also gives it a lovely rustic and peasant feel to it, don'tcha think?)

To truss or not to truss? Thomas Keller swears by it, Judy Rodgers thinks it's unnecessary. He thinks it makes the bird roast evenly and presents nicely, she thinks it's an archaic practice and she likes the way the bird gets a little toasty in the nether regions. Frankly, I don't think anyone keeps butcher's twine or wants to deal with the hassle of trussing at home so I say forgo it. But again, if you're looking to impress, the beautiful shape the bird roasts in leaves an impression. (Ruhlman claims that trussing reduces moisture loss, which I personally have no experience with. He also suggests if you don’t truss to stuff the chicken with onion, lemon and herbs to even out the heat distribution. If you’re curious enough, google how to truss a chicken and rope that baby up)



To preheat the pan or not to preheat? If you preheat the pan to the point where the bird sizzles on contact, then it won't stick as much and will brown a bit on the back. Some like the skin to stick a bit so you can add it as part of the deglazing process and create more flavor. I generally don't preheat the pan,. Again, experiment but know that either method is acceptable, no way to go wrong.



To lube or not to lube? No, I didn't regress in to a repressed sexual relationship with poultry ... again. We're talking about oil (bitch, you cookin?). Many health conscious folks would steer clear of butter and drizzle extra virgin olive oil all over the skin. Some say don't use any oil, there is enough fat in the skin to aid the browning process in itself. Well I think that any true student of French culinary technique would do it the way they did it. Lots ... o' .. butter. Unsalted, creamy sweet butter, massaged into the bird will do good things. You don't need a lot, just a bare tablespoon probably, brought to room temperature and schmeared on to the breast. And butter in itself is a holy vehicle of flavor. When it's room temperature you can mix it with herbs, shallots, spices, you name it, and all that milky-fat loveliness will find its way into your chicken.



So now you have your chicken prepared as you like it, do you give it some friends to go into the fire with? This is also optional. If you want roasted vegetables as a side dish to your chicken, go right ahead. If you add thick-cut onions, potatoes, whole garlic cloves and mushrooms they will roast alongside the chicken and absorb all the juices, giving you an immediate side dish. The garlic in fact should be completely caramelized by completion time and be sweet and spreadable on a nice hunk of peasant bread. Note that everything will kind of have a one-dimensional chicken flavor though, surprise surprise. But if you want to make a pan sauce, which is personally what I like to do, you can roast the bird alone and figure out the sides later.



My Suggestion/Preference: Snug, ovenproof, 12-inch skillet, rub with herbed butter (thyme, shallots), roast alone or with a few whole garlic gloves, and a sprig of thyme in the pan.



Guns Up, Let's Do This



You ready? You excited? It's game time, bitches. Time to do the dance! I know I've talked a lot about guys impressing girls with roast chickens, but I can't stress enough, if you have a girl coming to eat dinner with you (roast chicken is a perfect dinner for 2) tell her to be there in about 30 minutes because your kitchen is about to smell fucking ... awesome. All the single ladies, if you're trying to impress a dude with your domestic skills then that works also. I'm confident the aroma of roasting poultry will cut through any beer stained kitchen, and I quite literally lived in the king of beer stained kitchens (9:12!).



Dry your chicken. Dry it as much as possible with dry paper towels, especially if you brined it. The more excess water your chicken possesses the more it will steam as opposed to roast. Steaming is not what you want in this situation as it will deter the crisping of the skin.



Now if you brined your chicken, you don't need to add much salt. A very light sprinkle on top and a teaspoon rubbed in to the cavity. If you didn't brine or salt your chicken ahead of time (tsk, tsk) then don't be bashful with the salt. Get .. in .. there. You want to see an almost palpable crust of salt on top and a heavy dose of salt in the cavity. Pepper is always optional, but strongly suggested. Be careful though, as pepper burns. If you haven't rubbed down with dijon or whole-grain mustard yet (I recommend Roland's or Maille's), now is the time to get under the skin with it. You can also slip fresh herb leaves under the skin or thinly sliced cloves of garlic. And since I absolutely love garlic, I will be doing that. Tarragon in all its anise flavored glory is also an excellent choice.



Let your chicken come close to room temperature. It can sit out in the open for 30 min., nothing bad is going to happen, especially with all that salt up in there. If the center of your chicken is as cold as your refrigerator, about 40 degrees, then it's going to cook unevenly and dry out in the wrong places. This is a good step, trust me. (Salmonella is about 1/70,000 and is generally only ever a problem with mass-produced, factory birds)



There isn't too much leeway on oven temperature. If you bought a 2.5-3.25 lb bird it will finish in about an hour at 450 degrees. Don't be scared by the high temperature, the dark meat should just finish cooking as the skin is perfectly browned. Get a good relationship with your oven by, like all good relationships, spying on it. Use a reliable oven thermometer to find out if it's faithful or a dirty, lying whore. Kidding. About the whore thing, I would never be so harsh to my oven. And don't open it too often. I know you're curious to see the magic happen, but if you don't have a window, trust me .. it's happening. Conventional gas/electric ovens take forever to gain back heat, so try to leave it closed, unless...



You are basting. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea if basting does anything beneficial. It doesn't really reintroduce juices into your meat, it only kind of protects the skin which is not necessary in this project. It also makes the skin wet, which affects the crispiness. But I think it's sweet and fun to do. So I will baste once at the half hour mark and then leave it be. Do not baste for the last 20 minutes if you choose to do so. You don't need a turkey baster, just get a big dinner spoon, collect the juices and spoon them over. The golden, herb-flecked pan juices that run hot over the chicken breast are just ... mmm ... so sexy. (I swear I'm not a poultry fetishist)



So remember, you can set it and forget it for the most part. Throw the bitch in the center rack, and let the good times roll. You have an hour to make a side dish. Mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, wild long-grain rice (not Asian short-grain ... that's just a bad combo in my opinion), cous cous, green beans, whatever. Just don't steal oven space from the chicken because it hatez the taterzzz when they steal heat from it. You figure out your own side dishes, but personally I like a big crusty hunk of bread and a light salad with vinaigrette.



At about the hour mark you can start checking for doneness. It should be firm, but still have a bit of give to it. I don't really have a good way to describe checking for doneness, so use an instant-read thermometer if your personal one isn't so good. You're shooting for 160ish at the thigh, but I think anything from 155-165 is acceptable. Roast one for yourself at first, and if it’s a little underdone you can finish cooking it. After doing that once or twice you’ll get an idea for what is done and what isn’t.



Pull it out, put it on a board, cover it with foil and let it sit on the stove top for at least 15 minutes. Why? WHY!?! Resting roasts and grilled meats is incredibly important! So important I should have included it in my last post about comprehensive home cook skills. Not to get too sciencey, but let me hit you with some knowledge.



Heat causes molecules and juices to move rapidly, and in this case towards the coolest location at the center of your cooked product. If you were to cut into it right now, those juices would rapidly leave the meat and leak onto your cutting board where they serve no good to anyone, unless you let your dog clean your dishes. If you let the meat rest, the temperature and the juices relax and are allowed to redistribute throughout the whole roast. There are better explanations, but basically, if you rest it, it will be juicier.



My Suggestion/Preference: Dry chicken, season, slide garlic cloves under the skin, let it come to room temp., throw in a hot oven, baste once, make side dish, let it rest for 15 minutes.



The Magic of Pan Sauce ... MAGIC PAN!



Here comes my favorite part. Making a pan sauce. It's so beautifully efficient. You are going to clean up your pan and make a delicious sauce out of every ounce that this bird had to give you. And of course it includes deglazing. Ready? Let the magic begin.



Use some kind of long wooden spoon or tongs and slide it through the chicken’s cavity to gently lift it on to a plate or board. Some juices will leak out of it, make sure you can reserve these. Now observe your pan. If you roasted it with just a few items, then remove those and note the browned bits on the surface (if you didn’t preheat the pan, there should be a lot of tasty skin stuck to the surface). Tilt the pan and spoon off all but about 2 tbls of the fat. Throw in some veggies (onions/carrots/celery) and any extra meat your chicken came with, gizzards, neck, just not the liver. You can also add the wing tips from your roasted bird for extra flavor. Let them brown heavily, you can take it far so long as it doesn’t burn.

I think you know what’s about to happen. Time to de-fucking-glaze. Get yourself a cup of dry white wine (anything but a Riesling really. For those of you at Buckingham Thanksgiving, the gravy was too sweet because Kevin gave me Riesling when I asked for anything but … sorry to put the crosshair on you, buddy) and drop it in the blazing hot pan. Start vigorously scraping up the bits with a wooden spoon. Now you’re going to let the wine reduce thoroughly, so much so that your pan starts crackling again. Now here’s where you can do two different things.

You can add a good homemade chicken stock. Now if this is your first chicken venture I guess you won’t have that yet, so you can use store bought. Or…

You can use water. It won’t be as good and you will need to thicken it more, but you’re essentially making a quick stock with water.

Either way, also add any juices your chicken has given up and reduce it thoroughly.

Now you will need to thicken it. You can either make a roux in a pan on the side, or make beurre manie. A roux is equal parts butter/flour when cooked slightly is a powerful thickening agent for liquids. Ideally you should only ever add cold liquid to hot roux, or hot liquid to cold roux to avoid lumps but it shouldn’t lump up on you too badly. A beurre manie is another option. It is essentially a roux, but instead it’s just equal parts butter/flour kneaded together at room temperature and whisked in to the liquid of choice. Whichever one you choose, add it to the pan and start whisking madly.

Once you have a smooth sauce you should taste it and adjust your seasonings. If it’s too watery you can “mount” more butter in to it, by whisking in a few knobs of butter or you can let it reduce further. If it’s too thick you can add a little water/wine/stock to it to loosen it up. You can also add fresh herbs at this point. A classic combination of chopped parsley/chives/chervil/tarragon makes a sauce called fines herbes that is spectacular.

Pour your sauce off in to a gravy boat or just ladle it all over your chicken and sides. I can’t give a good lesson on cutting up a chicken over text, so google it if you want a perfect presentation. Otherwise whatever your common sense and knife hand can accomplish is adequate for your purposes. Bon appetit.

My Suggestion/Preference: Rest your chicken and collect its juices, spoon off most of the fat and reserve, heavily brown mirepoix vegetables, deglaze with dry white wine, reduce until crackling, add stock and juices, thicken with roux, finish with chives and a squeeze of lemon juice.

It’s Not Over Til the Chicken Hits the Stockpot

Eaten your fill? Couldn’t resist and ate the whole thing? Still got leftovers to last? Whatever the case, strip your chicken of what good meat it has (I would eat the chicken butt .. crispy, fatty, juicy, oft-neglected … it is the girl with low self-esteem eager to please you) and store it in the fridge. Don’t leave your chicken carcass naked. The skin around the joints, the cartilage and spare back meat or going to be important to building your stock. You can freeze it now and wait until you have more chicken to work with, or you can make a small portion of stock right now.

If you’re using one chicken carcass make sure you have a tall, skinny pot that will minimize evaporation and fit your stock making produce snugly without excess water. As long as it is taller than it is wide, then you are good.

Add enough cold water to just cover your chicken (cold because hot water carries more impurities from the pipes, hence its sometime cloudy nature). Set it on medium to low heat and walk away. For the most part. Check on it here and there, but don’t stir it, only tinker with the heat if necessary. It should barely simmer with bubbles lazily rising to the surface intermittently. It should not, I repeat NOT boil. Boiling is a violent process and draws out fat and impurities from the chicken, and then emulsifies them in to the liquid where they are hard to get rid of. If you are simmering gently then those impurities will rise to the surface in a scummy cloud where they can be easily skimmed off. Skimming is not essential for home cooks, but if you have the time, why not?

You can let it cook for up to 12 hours, but generally 3-4 for one chicken body is more than enough. In the last hour or two of cooking throw in your aromatics. Throw in 2 onions, a carrot (peeled) and a few ribs of celery all roughly chopped. I like to split a whole head of garlic, remove the excess paper and drop it in also. A handful of peppercorns cracked with the bottom of a saute pan, and any tough herb stems you might have are also good. Generally you don’t add salt to stocks, for reasons I will discuss later.

Taste your stock often. You will learn how the flavor develops from hour to hour. It won’t really taste like much, just like a very light chicken broth because there is no salt. Once all the aromatics have given up their flavor, the stock should have much more body and potency. Strain it and cool it rapidly. You can let it sit out, but all health departments will note that this is the optimum time for bacterial growth. It’s generally not really a problem, but if you like to play it safe then pour your stock in to several separate containers, and then place them in an ice/water bath in your sink. Once they are cool you can then move them to your freezer. You can throw your stock straight in to the freezer or cooler, but they will be very hot and heat up your fridge considerably.

My Suggestion/Preference: Start with cold water, gently simmer chicken carcass for 5-6 hours, add aromatics in the last 2 hours of cooking, strain once to remove obvious solids, strain second time through cloth or coffee filter to purify, chill and freeze.

The Versatility! Oh, the Versatility!

As we have discussed before, stock is a foundation of culinary technique from where you can go to any place and any height . If you’re so inclined, beef stock and veal stock can take you even further, but they are less economical for a home cook as they tend to not have tons of cow bones lying around. But chicken stock will be more than enough to not just elevate your cooking, but transform it. As long as you are aware of a few simple techniques and have the bravery to experiment, you can do some magical things.

Reduction is the first thing. Chicken stock on its own doesn’t have a ton of flavor. It should have a clean, distinct flavor, but not a powerful one, not like a good chicken soup would. Reduction is the means by which you can intensify the flavor without adding excess salt (which many store-bought brands do). Pour in a pint or more of chicken stock in to a pot, set it on medium high-heat and watch the water bubble away. Make sure it doesn’t scorch and when it reaches a thick, satiny consistency, you can whisk in a knob of butter and add some salt/pepper. It will be rich, flavorful and have a wonderful mouth feel. The French test for the right consistency is when it coats the back of a spoon. This state is called nape. Dip in a metal spoon and observe the sauce coating the back. You should be able to run a finger through it, leaving a clean streak on the back of the spoon. That’s when it’s ready. Put it on anything, grilled chicken, grilled asaparagus, any sauteed vegetables, it’s all good.

As I’ve talked about before, well-made stocks have a lot of collagen/gelatin stolen from fresh chicken bones. Connective tissue, cartilage and skin around the joints are the best for giving up this stuff. As a sauce reduces, the water leaves and intensifies the concentration of collagen/gelatin and makes your sauce thick and satiny. They are literally long strands of proteins that are suspended far apart in a unreduced stock, but when the water leaves they come together and tangle each other up. But when you take out water, everything else gets magnified as well. Any salt, impurities and undesirable flavors will present more boldly in a reduced stock, so it is important that you have the cleanest ingredients in mind when making one and season after reducing.

You can customize it to your liking.
-Add fresh herbs and lemon juice for a light, refreshing sauce on grilled chicken.
-Add tomato paste, molasses, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, chili powder, paprika for a shotgun BBQ sauce.
-Add chili powder, paprika, garlic, cayenne, dried ancho chiles for a taco seasoning sauce.
-Add butter, garlic, parmesan cheese and chili flake for a smooth and simple pasta sauce.
-Add soy sauce, mirin, Sichuan peppercorns, rice wine vinegar for an Asian inspired stir-fry sauce or glaze.

It is a blank canvas on which you can paint a beautiful picture (bahahaha ... lame sentence).

You can freeze any of those customizations in ice cube trays and when you need a little bit to enhance a sauce, just throw in a cube or so.

You can start a plethora of soups. Use your leftover chicken to make an extraordinary chicken noodle soup. You can make a great cream of tomato soup as well. I could go on and on but I will let your own curiosity and the power of Google to take you there.

And you can make onion pasta.

Caramelized onions, tomato fondue, pancetta, fresh herbs, butter and parmesan cheese are all it takes, Paul. And Ted.

Hope that covers everything. Sure as hell is long enough. Happy roasting.

EP #6

From Mediocre to Splendiferous

For those of you who are curious, no I have not embarked upon my epic homemade BLT yet. I'll keep you posted when I do, hopefully with pictures. I know I seem to be multimedially-challenged (it's a word), but hopefully I can make that happen.

But I do want to talk about cooking at home. I've lived with over 25 different people in big college houses. I've seen hopeless cooks whose ineptitude is more a result of their lack of confidence than their actual culinary skill. I've seen pretty decent home cooks who manage to scrape together some interesting dishes, despite what ingredients are available to college students, and what their diets often require (carbs upon carbs). My point is that after working in a professional kitchen for some time now, and making employee meals more than just often, I think I've learned enough about food efficiency, practical cooking and convenience of time to give you home cooks some really helpful tips. Yeah, that's right, bitches. Buckle up, it's Food Network educational time with your host, Eric Panda.

In my experience this is how college students manage their groceries.

1) They seldomly go to the store (once every 1-2 weeks), but when they do they stockpile like Skynet is about to set us up the bomb.

2) They buy simple, non-intimidating ingredients and plan to use them to their fullest. Meaning ground beef, onions and garlic get showcased in almost every meal (not really a bad thing).

3) Convenience is king. The most important thing about a college student meal is not that it be impressive and delicious, but that it be tasty enough and nourishing.

It is my belief that with some very basic culinary knowledge you could turn your home cooking from mediocre to splendiferous. I'll break it down in to several main points.

COLOR

In all cooking, with all ingredients, color = flavor. What do I mean by color? I mean that golden brown patina that perfectly sauteed vegetables get, or that dark brown crust that meat gets when it's blasted with heat. I think this is probably the biggest problem with novice cooks. They are scared of really turning up the heat and getting the proper color on their food. Grey food = listless, flavorless, boring. No matter how wonderful your jarred sauce is, it will fall flat on an unmarked piece of meat (I don't care if it's Chaka's Mmm-mmm Sauce either, Scott).

The textbook definition is kinda like this. There's something called a Maillard Reaction, and it's a fancy, complicated process that occurs when food interacts with heat. Natural sugars in the food caramelizes, browning occurs, flavors develop, yada yada. I don't know the details, but I know things need color to taste good. So let me take the most common college meal and show you how to make it better.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

I've seen almost everybody throw a cold pound of ground beef in to a pan, start stirring it madly, and letting it stew in its own fat. The beef sticks in random places, it clumps, it turns gray .. blech. It's harder to brown ground beef because of all the surface area present, but that doesn't mean it doesn't benefit from it. Next time, dice an onion and heat up your oil until it shimmers. Throw them in and let them saute for a few minutes, until they get a slight coloration themselves. You should ideally use a steel pan, but if you have non-stick that's fine. I say use a steel pan because then you will get fond. Fond is French for foundation. When you saute something, the high heat forces liquid out of the food and on to the hot steel surface. The water evaporates and all that is left are the solid sugars and proteins on the pan surface. Those brown crispy bits that you see sometimes? Culinary gold. So if you have a steel pan and it is hot enough, and you give your onions some time, you will start to get some fond.

Next, you will deglaze your pan. Deglazing is pretty much my favorite thing ever. You take something acidic (wine, apple juice, vinegar, beer, literally anything acidic) and pour it in to the hot pan. The liquid should sizzle violently, but it will magically clean all the fond off the bottom of your pan. What it actually does is break all that flavor off the pan and introduce it into the liquid. It's beautifully efficient. It cleans, it conserves all flavors, it bolsters your sauce, it does everything but please you sexually. So what that means is after you saute your beef and onions on high heat (and you dropped in your garlic just as your beef was finishing, right? Because garlic burns quickly, and burned garlic ruins a dish instantly), drain off the fat, drop in a scant half cup of dry white wine to clean up all that delicious crispiness. Scrape around with a wooden spoon to make sure you got everything. I assure you, it's surprisingly fun.

Then just add your tomato sauce, some dried herbs (oregano, basil, bay leaf ... all good. I know almost none of you keep fresh herbs, so dried is okay), and let that baby simmer. Tomato sauce is not hard to make, it's just hard to make spectacular. Simmer for a while, the longer the better. Just make sure you watch it and stir often. Tomato sauce is sugary and will scorch very quickly, leaving the bottom of your pan covered in a black carbon sheet that is not tasty nor easy to remove. If it's too acidic you can add a little milk or butter to mollify the tang. If you find this a consistent problem (maybe your tomatoes aren't perfectly ripe yet), saute carrots along with your onions. The natural sweetness of the carrots will help balance the flavor profile. If you like your sauce on the sweeter side, you can do this always. If it's too watery, let it reduce. All that steam rising out of your sauce is just water, and as it leaves, the flavors concentrate. Let it reduce to a consistency you like. If you like chunky tomato sauce, leave it be. If you like smooth, puree it in a blender and then add it to the browned beef. I promise you, your tomato sauces will start becoming more robust in flavor and texture. As long as you season properly.

SEASONING

Seasoning is not throwing Old Bay or generic BBQ spices on to your food. Seasoning food in the traditional sense means adding salt and pepper. The biggest difference between restaurant and home cooks is the amount of salt used. Salt develops all flavors, and you need much more than you think to perfectly season food. But alas, this is probably one of the hardest skills to develop. I am having trouble with it myself working on the pasta station. The key is to constantly taste, to be bold, use kosher salt. Add in increments until something tastes to your liking. Once you actually can taste the salt, that's when you've gone too far. It will be a little bit of trial and error, but when cookbooks tell you to "Season to taste," that's what they mean.

Now for those of you who have sodium related blood pressure issues, I would say be careful. Otherwise if you have no genetic disposition towards a poor sodium-blood pressure relationship, have two healthy kidneys, and drink enough water every day, adding more salt will not do any harm to you. I promise you, I've researched this. Jiwon, you'll be just fine as you have the most overactive kidneys and bladder I've ever seen. 10 bathroom breaks on the New York-Chicago road trip!? TEN!?! I digress...

Pepper is important too. It's not hot in the traditional sense, but it makes flavors pop and is essential to developing a proper flavor profile. Fresh-ground black pepper is ideal. You can always season food at the table, but really you get the best results when you season perfectly before you plate.

Some other helpful tips; it's almost impossible to over-salt a big cut of meat. A good steak needs nothing more than a beautiful char from a rocket-hot pan, and a very generous helping of salt/pepper. True French culinarians will even brush the steak with a little clarified butter as it finishes. If you have a date to impress, I suggest you sneak it in. Makes a world of difference.

DINNER REMIXES

Now you've run out of Easy Mac, tomato sauce, and Hamburger Helper (which I have a deep guilty pleasure for by the way) and you want to keep meals interesting. Having one of those cookbooks from such TV personalities like Rachael Ray, and Robin Miller may help you stretch 2-3 meals out of one, but where would your self-respect be then? JK! Lolz! Use em if you like.

Seriously though, there are a few simple ways to stretch meals out, and they just need one basic ingredient and a little bold creativity. Let me read you this excerpt from Michael Ruhlman's, Ratio.

"If there's one preparation that separates a great home cook's food from a good home cook's food, it's stock. Stock is the ingredient that most distinguishes restaurant cooking from home cooking. Stocks are simply infused water, but they're a preparation that couldn't be more valuable to the home cook."

From the big man himself. Stock is intimidating to most home cooks, but it really shouldn't be. It's incredibly simple and can be made in small quantities. You can do nearly anything with them. A good way to start is to roast a chicken once a week. Roasting a chicken is such a simple and delectable dish, I wish I made them more myself. Rub salt/pepper all over a bird, in the cavity and on the skin. I like to rub dijon mustard under the skin everywhere up to 2 days in advance. Put some vegetables down in a pan, onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, mushrooms, whatever, put the bird on top, roast for about an hour at 450. Take it out and let it rest for 15 minutes, boom ... done. A fantastic dish that can be stretched endlessly and you don't even need to have good butchering skills.

Eat what you like of the chicken with rice or potatoes, then pull off all the good meat still on the carcass. Then you can use this carcass to make stock. Throw it in cold water with onions/carrots/celery/garlic/peppercorns, and heat it up. No salt and heat it gently. It should never boil, it should barely simmer. You don't even need to stir it, just set it on medium-low heat for 2-3 hours. Your kitchen will smell delicious and in just a few hours you'll have a gallon or so of culinary gold (I realize I used that term already ... I wanted to use it again). Just make sure you strain it through a fine mesh strainer. Ideally you strain it through a cheesecloth or handkerchief and a chinois, but a mesh strainer will suffice for a home cook. Thomas Keller at The French Laundry will have his cooks strain a stock 20 times through a chinois lined with cheesecloth to make it perfect. Obviously, unnecessary for your purposes but you get the point.

Now what do you do with it? ANYTHING! Stocks have collagen/gelatin in them that are gently extracted by the water. So when you reduce them (down to about a 1/3 of their volume) you have a thick, velvety sauce ready to go. Whisk in a little butter, salt/pepper, herbs of your choice and put it on anything. It's delicious.

Pull the chicken off the carcass, add it to a pan with your stock, add chili powder/paprika/cumin/garlic and a squeeze of lime juice. Best chicken tacos you've ever had, I promise.

Add whatever spices or herbs you want to it and reduce it and it will be a good sauce. Use it as gravy for mashed potatoes, cook broccoli or bok choy in it, add butter/parmesan cheese/lemon juice/parsley and toss pasta in it, cook rice in it, make soup out of it. Millions of soups use chicken stock as a base. It is an incredibly versatile ingredient.

You can use store-bought stock. I'd prefer you use store-bought vs. nothing at all, but a note of caution when you reduce store-bought stock nothing really happens because there isn't a lot of collagen/gelatin in it. But the important thing is that stock will enhance flavors whereas water will rob flavors. Water is a solvent, but this same property allows you to infuse it with chickeny goodness.

Don't be intimidated by stock, it really is very simple and will do wonders for your home cooking if you are willing to experiment a little bit. It will also freeze for several months without any ill effect.

Okay that's all for now, folks. Be bold. A little home cooking practice will take you far. I hope some of you dudes can impress some ladies with your new-found knowledge.

EP #6

The Process of Improvement

I don't like learning.

Okay that's too definitive of a statement. I don't like struggling to learn things. Not to toot my own horn, but the first thing I really learned was music and it came to me pretty easily. Classical music and schoolwork until high school was generally very easy (as I'm sure most of you Northwestern nerds also experienced), and I never really bothered to learn anything else (except the art of pwning n00bs .. which being Asian, also came pretty easily).

So it seems something of karmic justice that the two things I'm most passionate about would cause me great difficulty. Ultimate, pretty clearly was going to be difficult, given my portly past and lack of athletic training. But cooking was a wild card. What did the movie Ratatouille teach me? Anyone can cook! But I'm not sure that's totally true.

Don't get me wrong, anyone can cook, but to cook well in a professional kitchen takes a lot of good fundamental training and dedication. A common statement chefs like to tell their cooks to inspire greater work is, "Showing up is not enough," meaning just showing up to a kitchen and scraping by on your station is not helping anyone. You have to internally turn up your focus, you have to want to strive for perfection in everything you do, you can't take shortcuts.

And I do try to get everything just right, and it frustrates me that I can't. But I think I'm coming to a point where I'm realizing that I will make mistakes in my quest for flawless cooking technique. It's going to take a combination of a personal quest for knowledge and the helpful teachings of my fellow cooks alongside a lot of kitchen hours to get there though. It's going to take mental endurance and stubborn determination, because improvement is difficult to see internally, and when you care so much, failure can really takes it toll on you.

But sometimes, things just click and give you hope. I notice this in sports as well as with cooking. For instance,

I've probably thrown a frisbee over 50,000 times in my life (I actually tried to calculate this with Chris .. it's somewhere in that ballpark probably). I would say 60% of those were forehands, and 37% were backhands, and 3% were miscellaneous throws. My strongest throw is probably my forehand and forehand hucks because of this. Improving your big throws are hard though. I remember when I was just starting out that even a mild wind would frustrate a true flight pattern. I could get a disc to go 60+ yards but it would bend in at a bad angle, and take too much force of motion.

Then one day (I actually remember this) I went to toss with Colin on Deering Meadow. The hucks were just ON for some reason. Released with a slight I/O angle, flat flight pattern, tailing gently inwards after 65ish yards to hit the receiver in stride. All my throws that day were like this. I had achieved a perfect huck. All of a sudden I just got it. Felt the disc slipping tightly off my middle finger, and moving smoothly outwards. Now obviously my hucks aren't always that nice (especially now that I'm out of shape), but I understood the mechanics of it now and could replicate a "perfect huck" with at least 90% or better consistency.

That brief ultimate tangent was to describe to you the moment I had in the kitchen the other day. The thing I like to practice most are basic knife skills. Cutting vegetables, butchering meat, doing those with precision and speed is something I aspire to. I basically want Hung Huynh-like skill with ze blades. But I can be impatient with learning, as I mentioned before. When you cut an onion (or anything really) you want the blade to rest against your knuckles on your offhand. You make a repetitive chopping motion with your knife hand, and you guide the movement with your offhand. I can chop things quickly, but the cuts are not perfectly uniform because my guiding hand is off. I could do each action independently, but not together. I had similar difficulty with chickens, not finding the perfect spot where the joint naturally separates, instead slicing through the whole damn joint and causing unnecessary blood and damage.

Well, the Mexicans told me rather late in to prep that I had to make employee meal this past Saturday. Thankfully I could use a few chickens, but that meant I had about 10 minutes to break down five chickens and do something with them. Chuy was so kind to offer to make rice. Plain rice.

This is the closest I've come to doing a Top Chef Quickfire Challenge. I run to the walk-in and start pulling out shit. I run to the dry goods storage and start pulling things together. I throw the chickens down on the board, put on some gloves, steel my boning knife and kind of pray that this goes well. Thankfully, it's an employee meal so it doesn't have to be perfect, in fact the Mexicans suggest I roughly chop the chickens up. But I refuse, I am breaking down a chicken the proper way. For some reason I'm finding all the right joints, the cuts are pretty damn clean and I'm moving pretty fast. No extraneous blood on the board. The smartass American cook is asking me when the meal will be out by. I say 4:30. He goes "Alriiiiiiiight..." Shut your face, I'm busy. Don't be such a hater.

Before I know it the chickens are quite beautifully (at least for me) broken down in to about 10 pieces per bird, and sitting in a bowl. Alright, now what do I do with them? I get 2 red onions, 2 yellow onions, a couple of old tomatoes, and some Yukon gold potatoes. I start chopping like a mad man. An epiphany or something happens. My guiding hand is moving the knife along perfectly, the slices are probably 97% uniform. Toss those in a bowl with oil and dried oregano, throw it down on a sheet tray. Next, chickens. I go to the spice rack and start pouring shit in a bowl. Spanish paprika, cumin, ground coriander, cayenne pepper, oregano, barbecue seasoning (yeah I know, I picked that up and was like, what?! Okay...) and salt/pepper. I rub down all the chickens, throw it on top of the veg and bake in the oven. I'm worried they might be over spiced, but I hope for the best.

Chicken is done at 4:34. So I'm a little off. Whatever. Put it out and I'm really eager to try it. I snipe a leg and take a bite. Heyyyyy! This is pretty damn good!

I wait to see what the others think. I'm like a sorority girl on a date, I am dying for a compliment.

"The chicken is good, guey."
"Maybe you should make family meal always."

Oh my god. I would open myself sexually to you right now if you want. Now I understand how compliments work!

Later my Chef comes up to me to talk to me about the new antipasti menu, my pet project which I"ll discuss later, and goes.

"Hey .... good chicken."

YOU LOVE ME! I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT ALONG, YOU ACTUALLY LIKE ME! SEE! I HAVE A SENSE OF TASTE!

Man, I was on a roll that day. Things just seemed to click. I hope I don't go back on Wednesday only to find that this was a fluke, but alas who knows? It was a little forward in the spice profile, next time I would've added a touch of honey and a few lemons to add a rich, sweet component and a fresh, acidic brightness to keep the flavors distinct. I wanted to prove I could do Asian food, but I ran out of time. Sweet and sour chicken is to Asian food, as McDonald's chicken nuggets is to American food. I could rock that. And indulge in all the guilt-ridden deliciousness with glee.

My next project will be a home-cooking adventure. Yeah, you heard right, I am going to cook at home and do a damned good job of it. And not bitch too much about washing the dishes. I'm thinking a Ruhlman-esque challenge of making a BLT, my style.

Braised pork belly (sofrito, salt/pepper, chipotle pepper, cayenne and coca cola)
Pickled fennel shavings
Butter lettuce (is that even in season? Probably not ... winter sucks)
Tomato jam combined with the reduced braising liquid (which should have coca-cola-ey goodness)
And last but not least ... a solid, homemade mayonnaise on a good, crusty bread (ciabatta or fresh baguette probably) to texturally contrast the fall-apart goodness of the pork belly.

Input? Tomatoes are horrendously out of season so using canned tomatoes and making a fondue/jam out of it seems to be the best idea. I am hungry just thinking about it. I hope I get to have my own sandwich shop some day. Nothing better than a sandwich and some fresh-fried potato chips.

I digress ... a lot. Love and peace,

EP #6

Restaurant Lifers

Happy New Year. Belated. Very belated.

The holiday season for restaurant workers is the true grind of the year. Every friggin' holiday of every color and creed assaults you violently, almost everybody else has plenty of free time to go out and eat dinner, and then you contend with the universal celebration that is New Year's Eve. The hours are punishing and the long stretches of prep work seem to blur the clock away.

Basically, that was me making excuses as to why I haven't written in a long time.

But I have thought about it! I swear! I've got all sorts of developments and things to talk about that I would love to share with those who still read me. And I've got the time to write about it now, because frankly the most important development is that now the restaurants have come to an abrupt halt in business.

I don't know anything about economics other than that our current economy has a big boo-boo and that is affecting the restaurant business. My buddy Rob fails to divulge any details, despite his closeness to Lord-General Bernanke. White tablecloth restaurants are hit especially hard. Only the biggest and the best are comfortably afloat, and many of us are treading water, dangerously close to going under. For instance, today, Thursday the 7th? The weather in Chicago blows, Va Pensiero has 4 covers on the books that will likely cancel due to the snow storm. The executive order is given; we close for the day. I wish they could have told me that before I took the train all the way to Evanston, but alas I figured out some work to do. In fact I'm thankful I can put in a few hours, cooking and cleaning at a relaxing pace and earning a little money, because a lot of us are getting our hours cut down. I'm the lowliest toad spawn on the food chain, by all means I should be getting cut first, but thankfully I am still getting time on the clock. (For certain reasons I'll talk about in the future)

And when we do work? Well the pace is certainly different. The four days leading up to New Year's Eve was a mad buzz of activity. Getting in at 11 AM, prepping your station for dinner service as fast as humanly possible, and then immediately switching focus to prepping the tasting dinner for NYE. Curtain call at 530 PM, dinner service through 10 PM, any free time during service devoted to more prep, more organization, clean up and break down, head home around 11 PM. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. New Year's Eve itself? 10 AM - 130 AM, the single craziest day of work in my life.

But now, it's downright lethargic. We're averaging 15-25 covers a night, and I'm at a point I can handle that with ease, almost boredom. That leaves a lot of time for idle chatter. My espanol has improved exponentially. Well at least my kitchen Mexican (After "learning" Spanish in school for quite some time, I've come to the conclusion that the Mexican dialect is it's own language). It's difficult to have any conversations of substance with my broken Spanish, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what kind of people restaurant work attracts.

But it isn't fair to make a conclusive statement, because despite all stereotypes of restaurant workers, I've already found that we are a diverse group of people. Chuy, our sous chef defies any preconceptions you might have about cooks. Not only can he work circles around the saute station, but I've discovered he's one of the most wholesome people I've ever met. He crossed the border at 17 and has been working in kitchens in Chicagoland ever since, starting at dishwasher, like so many other immigrants from his country, and moving on up. Though I've found not all make a natural progression up the culinary ladder. They really have to have a genuine curiosity and aggressive drive to want to learn French culinary technique in the English language. He owns a house, married his childhood sweetheart, takes care of his family of 7 siblings who are now all in the Chicago area, and has 3 children of his own. Every morning he gets up at 730 to walk his two oldest kids to school, making sure they don't get tied up with the wrong crowd and ensuring them a safe journey. He doesn't really drink, only on holidays where he says he often has "too many cervezas," and his only real vices are gambling small sums on Manny Pacquiao (not a bad bet honestly, the man is a monster) and his hometown soccer team, Chivas. Oh and he loves Chinese food and is disappointed I'm so bad at making it. (If he would just order some soy sauce and ginger from the purveyors, we'd be in business)

He's a very fatherly figure to me. He's never really gotten angry with me, and he's always there to give me advice. He, more than anyone, is responsible for my culinary education and is almost painfully observant, noticing my slightest errors. This is the best situation I could have hoped for. His culinary technique isn't perfect. He learned with an emphasis on speed of action, rather than precision of completion, if that makes sense. He often can't explain why something should be done this way, but he's very confident that it should be done that way (and he's right). But I always feared the stereotypical kitchen with the angry chef at the helm. In fact I was expecting it early in my career, but thankfully it hasn't happened yet. I'm sure I will encounter it at some point, but hopefully I will have the skill and confidence to weather the verbal abuse. For now, Chuy is an excellent and appreciated mentor.

But not all are quite so kind or squeaky clean as he. The sushi chef at Blu was a true anomaly. I'm still not totally sure how to spell or pronounce his name, but I think it was Cheten Nepali (It's Tibetan). We all just called him "Tee." He hated me at first because I was hired over the attractive waitress with no serving skills or experience. He was out to get me even though I had extensive knowledge about sushi, Japanese and a genuine interest in restaurants. But as he scrutinized my work as a server he finally came over to the other side, realizing my enthusiasm and knowledge was doing the restaurant a lot of good. Then he would teach me a bit about sushi, about fish, about cooking, but unfortunately his English was almost unintelligible to me. I came to like Tee a lot, and was sad to see him leave after we shared our last cigarette in the alley between Blu Sushi Lounge and Flattop. But he was a very unpredictable person, and I found it was because that cranberry juice he perpetually enjoyed at his station turned out to be sake and cranberry juice. (The pink hue was suspicious.) He follows the pattern I've seen in many sushi chefs over the years. Many of the ones my mom hired had an ingrained tradition from Japan of sipping sake while working with sushi. It's just a part of the trade in many circles, I don't blame or judge him for it. But he remains one of the more bizarre and darker characters I've encountered in my career.

Which brings me to my closing point. Tee left rather abruptly after Blu Sushi Lounge switched hands to a new owner, not liking the new guy's management style. And just like that, someone you spend hours working and hoofing it out with is gone from your life, likely forever. I can be a nostalgic and sentimental person, and I don't like the idea of "never again," whether it be friends, lovers or coworkers. It hurts me deeply no matter how shallow the connection. But that is the reality of the restaurant business. It is transient at best, employees coming and going like the wind, serving their own interests, because after all, it's just a job and your skills are applicable almost anywhere. People you come to like for their eccentricity leave, and fresh faces take their place.

This new guy at Va Pensiero is a very fresh installment in to the kitchen. He is the first American line cook I've ever worked with. Born and bred in Evanston, he also was in to music but somehow found his way to Kendall College and gained a sharp interest in food. It's refreshing for me to be able to talk to someone who chose this profession as a lifestyle, as opposed to being forced to rely on it as a means of earning a living. I talk to him about all the restaurants he's worked in, Quince in Evanston, Spiaggia in Chicago (wonderful Italian restaurant that the Obamas went to for Valentine's Day... but he didn't cook for them). We talk about what kind of food we like, he gives me some tips on cooking, gives me insight in to American fine dining. Generally we've had a good relationship so far, us being almost the same age. Our favorite subject of discussion?

"Hey, have you ever been to Hot Doug's?"
"Dude ... please. He opens up again on the 5th. You game?"

I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

EP #6