Putting On My Apron at Apron's: Week Five

[Amy Warren, LMHC / WQ Mag Columnist]

It should be no surprise how much I’m enjoying the Basics of Culinary class at Apron’s Cooking School when you hear a menu like this week’s menu: Blackened Grouper with Citrus Cream Sauce, Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Dried Fruit Compote, Grilled Asparagus, Potatoes Gratin (a class favorite) and Peach Cobbler. There wasn’t an abundance of leftovers to take home after we devoured this meal!

Apron’s Chefs Jim Hendry and Tim Saba were our instructors for the evening. This week’s featured mother sauce was veloute—a sauce made from chicken, fish, or veal stock and thickened with a roux. The sauce is the base for other variations. This week, we used sauce veloute made with chicken stock to create a citrus cream sauce.

Tim showed us how to transform a dry rub (the Cajun way) into a paste rub (his preferred way) by simply adding oil. The little girl inside of me who used to try to be so perfect re-emerges when Tim tells me to throw in a tablespoon of this spice and a teaspoon of another. What, no measuring spoon? I feel a sigh of relief inside when Tim’s verdict of my unmeasured measurements is “perfect.” Wouldn’t Mom be proud?

As my fellow students and I laugh and try our hands at new techniques, I’m struck that this is the most relaxed educational environment I’ve ever been in. Instead of guiding us to be more rigid and precise, we are taught to be more flexible. It is hands on learning at its best—with a reward at the end of the evening of the delicious dinner we’ve helped prepare. The message here is you can’t really mess it up that bad; go ahead, take a risk and experiment. The cantaloupe soup recipe that I created and made in minutes for lunch is tribute that the education is rubbing off.

In our fifth week of class, we are forthcoming with questions, all of which are graciously answered. In response to our readers who wanted to know why the cheese in their sauce isn’t melting completely leaving lumps in the bottom of the pan, the answer is to use younger, softer cheeses such as gruyere, fontina and mozzarella rather than hard aged cheeses. Additionally, stir the cheese in off the heat.

In this week’s class,“you had to be there” for a lot of the tips and the funniest ones were “off the record.” But here’s a few tips to share:
 To ripen any fruit or vegetable, put it in a brown bag with a banana.
 Fish is cooked when it reaches 145 degrees.
 Another way to tell when fish is ready to serve is when it flakes apart after being prodded in the middle with a spatula.
 Whenever you remove meat from heat, let it sit for a few minutes allowing the juices to redistribute. Cutting the meat immediately results in bleeding.
 Insert the thermometer into the center of the largest part of the meat.
 Trichomoniasis is killed at 138 degrees.
 To calibrate a thermometer, stick it in ice water to 32 degrees.
 Keep in mind that meat will cook 3-4 more degrees after you remove it from heat.
 Be sure and trim the fat from pork tenderloin, the filet mignon of pork.

 When searing meat, don’t move the pan. It cools down the temperature too much.
 For oils with a high smoking point, use canola or grapeseed oil (which has the highest smoking point although it’s the most expensive).
 Once you cut fruit in half, cut it with the skin side down for easier cutting.
 To cut a peach, follow the line in the center. It guides you along the side of the pit.

Only one more week to go. I still wish it didn't have to end.

[Patti Linn]

Enjoying your blog..... Stay tuned for my adventure with Dave and Tony Horton's P90X fitness challenge.