Week 13: An Egg-strodinary Short Week & Giving Thanks
- Nov 24, 2017
- 4 min read
Day 1: Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we only had one day in the kitchen this week with Chef and luckily for us it was egg day! Chef brought us to the front of the kitchen to give us our assignments for the day. He first showed us how to make a French omelet which I didn’t know was any different from a usual omelet to be completely honest.
He first began by placing three egg yolks, some cream and salt inside a bowl and he whisked it until it was smooth. He then proceeded to grab some chopsticks…strangely enough. Which led to Chef telling us a story of how one time he was working an omelet bar and as his partner grabbed his $10,000 kitchen tool to help Chef out he realized he didn’t have anything to make the omelet with but at the corner of his eye he saw a pair of chopsticks… Quickly, he grabbed the Chinese delicacy and used those to mix his eggs in the pan and ever since then he’s enjoyed using those much more than a $10,000 kitchen tool.
Before we knew it, Chef pulled out a pair of lightsaber chopsticks and pulled us over to the stove. All of a sudden, the infamous Star Wars soundtrack was playing throughout the kitchen. He then quickly showed us his technique for making a French omelet. Which requires constant stirring of the eggs so they are able to coagulate. He then brought the finished product back to the table and put some pesto filling inside & then demonstrated how to properly and cleanly fold over the omelet which makes it looks like a rolled omelet rather than flipped over. And it tasted delicious!
Then it was our turn, while I would love to make a French omelet Chef thought it would be more beneficial for our teams to try to make an egg over easy and poached. Which both are harder than they seem. Both were made by cracking an egg into a bowl to show the perfect egg yolk. The difference between both techniques is that the over easy egg is simple placed into a low-heat, butter covered pan until it’s egg whites turned into a white tone. While a poached egg is slowly placed into a pot with a poaching temperature and kept for about 3 minutes.
The eggs were all delicious but difficult to get perfectly. Once compared to other tables we realize we could have made some minor adjustments to perfect our eggs so they looked how they should – but it they tasted good that was good enough for me.
My AHA moment, once again we were taught the versatility of eggs and I was able to see how so many different delicacies are made all over the globe. From comparing a French omelet to a western omelet or learning why certain people prefer over easy compared to scrambled just amazed me. It was fascinating to see all the different ways to make something equally as delicious from a simple egg.
Here are some pictures of Chef's french omelet in progress and the finished product. Along with my group's over easy egg before and after as well as our poached egg- which were both delicious!
Here is a video of Chef showing us how to fill the omelet, how to properly roll it and the best way to present it to the guest! It tasted delicious and looked as if scrambled eggs were inside an envelope.
Day 2: Thankfully, it was finally our fall break from NAU and I was able to come home and celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday with my family. Just yesterday, we were busy shopping for all of our ingredients for our dinner and man you can bet Costco was packed on a day like that. We gathered ingredients for delicious sides such as delicious green beans & cheesy mashed potatoes and one cannot forget the famous turkey that’ll sit as an edible centerpiece on our dining room table. While my dad & nana handled most of the cooking and I was focused more on the decorating for the holiday I offered to make duchess potatoes which I so conveniently learned from our class!
I began with the recipe we used in class but I then remembered that my family does not own a rice strainer…quickly I grabbed my phone and googled ways to cook duchess potatoes without a rice strainer and thank goodness, some recipes were available to use! The one I opted for was adapted from “The Way to Cook” by Julia Childs. It called for the same recipe and method except for using a rice strainer I used a potato masher which in my experience was WAY more fun to use.
The potatoes came out delicious & so did the rest of my family’s cooking for our dinner. The table settings I created were beautiful and it was just so nice to catch a break from the crazy schedule NAU has. I can’t even begin to comprehend how thankful I am for my current journey as a NAU student to where I am now – and especially for my family. I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am today without their love and guidance. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
My AHA moment, as I was helping put together our dinner for my family I realized how stressful everyone can easily become while getting ready. I feel like this holiday has a lot of unneeded stress placed upon everybody’s shoulders and people often forget how to look around and be thankful for the holiday season and why it is important. I’m thankful to have a home to go to around this time of the year and I am even more thankful to have a wonderful family to celebrate it with.
Integration from Another Class into This Class or My Future Career
I can think of a variety of ways my other classes can impact my future career but the class that brings the most impact is my ECO 280 class. Right now, in our curriculum we are learning about the importance of creating a stable economy in order to have strong businesses stay afloat. Learning about the different ways to analyze the economy I am able to see how valuable it is to know how to analyze business trends in the future so I can make sure whatever company I am working for in the hospitality industry stays afloat and even better succeeds at its job.
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