Putting On My Apron at Apron's: Week Four

[Amy Warren, LMHC / WQ Mag Columnist]

Along with Apron’s Cooking School chefs Bob Vitiello and Mike McClure, my classmates and I prepared a delicious feast of Linguine ‘Frutti di Mare’, Macaroni and Cheese with Buttery Crumbs, Mango-glazed Chili Roasted Pork Ribs, Pears Poached in Port with Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache and homemade Buttermilk Ice Cream in this week’s Basics of Culinary class. The focus was on techniques like poaching, tempering and sauce-making. The menu incorporated two of the five “mother” sauces: tomato and béchamel. Mother sauces are the five main sauces from whence all sauces are born. By the end of the class, I’ll be able to master all five sauces, also learning veloute, hollandaise and espagnole.

As usual, Chefs Bob and Mike spontaneously grabbed additional ingredients to add to the recipes we’d been handed. My classmates and I are onto Bob now; he is inevitably going to add butter. I teased Bob and Mike that they were just being typical men refusing to be controlled by the directions on a recipe. But the truth is that their example is making a positive mark, teaching all of us the true art of cooking—to become creative, to trust one’s own sense of taste, and to take risks. They make it look easy, and the results always taste luscious. My classmates and I are beginning to take risks of our own at home. In fact, it makes cooking more fun. And that’s the message of this class: cooking can be fun.

Speaking of risks, I’m beginning to feel better about my knife skills after seeing the movie “Julie and Julia” over the weekend. In Julia Child’s first days of culinary school, her slow, awkward slicing and dicing reminded me of my own. Hey, so maybe there’s hope of my eventual ability to master the knife. Perhaps I just need to devote an afternoon to chopping onions like Julia did.

Tempering was a technique we used when making ice cream this week. Although I knew the term, the meaning was new to me. Tempering means adding hot liquids to cold liquids, bringing the temperature of the hot liquid down and the cold liquid up. The process involves adding liquids a little bit at a time and whisking. One way to tell when tempering has occurred is when the side of the bowl that started cold becomes warm.

We were introduced to poaching with the pears. Poaching involves very slow cooking in order to get the flavor of the liquids into what you’re poaching and the flavor of what you’re poaching into the liquid. Although the liquid is initially brought to a boil, the heat is immediately turned down to a simmer. When cooking an ingredient, like shrimp, that cooks fast, let the liquid simmer for about a half hour before you add the ingredient.

And even more tips:
 Many sauces and stocks begin with a mirepoix: a combination of diced onions, carrots and celery.
 Pomi is the recommended brand of packaged tomatoes due to the purity of one sole ingredient, tomatoes.
 When making roux, use warm liquids. Cold liquids result in the formation of roux balls—those lumps that occur when you can’t get a smooth consistency.
 White pepper is simply black pepper that has been hulled. Use it when you don’t want black flecks to ruin the looks of a dish. The taste is a bit stronger, so a little goes a long way.
 Ever wonder what’s so great about that expensive Le Creuset cookware? Apparently it’s worth the money because it distributes heat evenly, is incredibly easy to clean and has a long life span.
 When glazing meat, baste it every 5 minutes.
 Add dried herbs at the beginning of cooking as the flavors will develop.
 Add fresh herbs at the end of cooking to maintain their flavors.
 Buying frozen shrimp is the freshest and safest way to buy them. They’re flash frozen right out of the sea.
 When buying clams and mussels, take them out of the bag as soon as you get home and place them in a bowl so they can breathe. Otherwise, they suffocate and die.
 The number one rule to making ice cream is to use real cream.

Only two weeks left of class to go and already I’m having that feeling like when I’m absorbed in a good novel that I never want to end. My thirst for knowledge has been whetted, and I want more….Plus, the food is good.

[Backyard Getaway (Lisa)]

Sounds like you are really enjoying yourself. Thanks for sharing some of the cooking tips you have learned.