Week 6: Spicy Mac-n-Cheese & Being Under Pressure
- Oct 5, 2017
- 4 min read
Day 1: What a saucy day! Chef began telling us the magic of sauces and the variety of ways you could use them to complete or just to compliment a dish. Mother sauces are a foundation for making other sauces off of the first. Such as the béchamel sauce, which Chef used for the mac-n-cheese that he used as a demo for our class and which we also got to devour! The béchamel sauce started off with a roux, then cayenne was added and finally just a small portion of organic milk. Chef insisted to add the milk in slowly in the pot, which allowed the sauce to be become more thick & creamy.
After our demo for the mac-n-cheese, Chef pulled us over to the other side of the kitchen to assign us which sauce we would be preparing. Luckily, my group was given the easier & more delicious sauce, Beurre Blanc! The instructions were simple, heat up white wine, white wine vinegar, diced onions and peppercorns. Once the onions looked translucent, we slowly added in diced butter over time. We kept the heat on low and slowly whisked the soup until it looked like melted vanilla ice cream. Once the cooking process was done, we added salt for taste- and man it tasted amazing! I could definitely see why a sauce such as this one would compliment any sort of dish.
My biggest AHA moment for the day was hearing Chef say, "it is much better to go slower than faster" which was pertaining to the cooking process. But I took it was it so much more important to take each day that we're in the class at a time and not be in such a rush to get through things. But rather take my time, go slow and enjoy each class period.
Here was the recipe for the Beurre Blanc & Chef giving us our instructions for the process!
Here was Chef pouring the delicious cheese-sauce over the macaroni noodles. Ugh, I can't get over how delicious it was!
Day 2: What a stressful and overwhelming prep day. As we arrived to class, Chef told us the layout of the class period and that we should feel pressured to get everything done that we can. Once Nick came around and checked that we finished our plan we were set loose!
My team turned to the table, took a look at the prep plan and went out own ways. I went to gather ingredients while others gathered utensils and asked the questions our team had. As I returned to the table, everyone was eager to get started on the tasks we had to make our cream of broccoli soup. I took on the tasks of preparing the blond roux, making the chicken veloute, blanching the reserved broccoli florets and asking A LOT of questions.
Preparing the blond roux was so incredibly simple! This was probably because we had some practice before our prep day...almost as if Chef planned it. Making the chicken veloute was easy to make but it was important to do the right thing. I made sure to bring the chicken stock to a simmer and allow the roux to cool down- then I mixed both together to make the veloute. Blanching the reserved florets was simple to do, chop them into bite-size pieces and lighten them for our event day. Besides preparing food items for the soup, I made it a priority to ask questions to Chef & Nick while we were able.
Now, everything from prep day seems fuzzy due to how overwhelming it was. But it was a successful class period. My team worked very hard to finish everything that we needed to and everyone was so attentive to what their tasks were and continued to ask what else they could do to help. My biggest AHA moment from prep day was how vital it is to have a detailed schedule of how to make our soup. If we weren't required to make a plan for our event- prep day would've been a nightmare. Let's wait and see how event day goes...
Here are some pictures of us preparing our soup, the soup in progress and our half-sheet tray full of our ingredients for event day.
Here's a video of Chef showing us how to puree our cream of broccoli soup. And him saying, "my pressure" due to the song "Under Pressure" playing throughout the class period. Not to mention, prep day is SO MUCH PRESSURE. But good pressure.
A Weekly Concept Integrated From Another Class Into This One...
In my HA 270 class it is so tempting to rush through the material being taught and then not know what to do when it comes to quizzes or assignments in class. Since the class is taught in the computer lab I feel free to take quick notes, skim through powerpoint presentations and then work on other assignments- this pressures the heck out of me when I'm trying to complete something worth points for the class. I can feel the same way in HA 243 at times. I'll be so focused on just finishing the demonstration we're supposed to be participating in that I forget to do it properly or rather I completely mess up. It is easy to speed things up and want to rush through every single process that we're given but as Chef has said before, "it is much better to go slower than faster" which shows how important it is to just take my time, look over the material and actually succeed on the task I'm working on.
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