Breakfast -- Eggs (I want Eggs, Cotton!!)

I don't think Chef C is reading this blog (I certainly hope not, as I'm talkin' a lot of smack), but he seemed to react to yesterday's class, as a number of people complained about Norbit during the class. He started off the class with an admonition to stop whining about other people in the class because in the real world you just have to deal -- but in the real world if one team member is dragging the whole team down, it's costing the chef cash-money to keep the cog that's messing with the machinery. Today he had us get into new random groups after a brief lecture on the techniques of cooking eggs in different styles.

The class had a big cardboard box of about 150 eggs, with a horrible cartoon of "Eggman" explaining how to keep eggs fresh. When I think of the Eggman, I think of John Water's film, Pink Flamingos. Nightmares in high school did this clip give me:



I've gone on at length about my aversion to eggs in earlier posts (click the "Scrambled Eggs" label at left to see); I won't rehash.

Our group consisted of Speedy, Roundhead, Dora the Explorer and Norbit, who was absent today.

I've never worked with DtE before, but her reputation is well-known. Not only is her spoken English not that great, she doesn't fully understand it, either. In previous classes, I've seen her do things like put her knives in a storage bucket point-down, which is extremely disrespectful of the tools. I tried to engage her a few times, once asking for a colander and getting coriander. I asked her to press the shredded potatoes in said colander which she started, but when I turned my back she wandered off to, I dunno, go exploring? While Chef C was clear about how the first half of the recipes were group efforts, she'd move on and start on the individual recipes without a comment or warning. Yes, I let Speedy be team leader on this mess.

Speedy put me on hashbrowns and breakfast meats, which were dead easy. Bacon and sausage were laid out on a rack and put in a 350-degree oven. The bacon came out first after about 10 minutes, sausage another 20 until the casings were brown and cracking. I departed from the school's simplistic hashbrown recipe and simply shredded the 'taters, seasoned and squeezed them through a colander, added back the starch and threw in some shredded onion. Fried in shallow clarified butter, they came out magically delicious. It was gratifying to taste another team's hashbrown and finding it a lot less magical.

While the rest of the team were getting the mise together for the fillings and garnishes for omelets and frittata, I got the hard and soft boiled eggs on. I remember my mother's hard boiled eggs --truly frightful. She'd toss the eggs into boiling water and after an hour or so, take them out and peel them when they fell to room temp. Why so long, I don't know, I guess raw egg was considered bad? Here is how you cook a perfect hard boiled egg, guaranteed:

1. Place egg in pot, pour cold water until it's covered at least by 2 inches. Salt water heavily (this will NOT season the egg, only make peeling easier later.)
   
2. Bring to a boil, return to simmer
   
3. Simmer at a LOW, GENTLE simmer for 14-15 minutes.
   
4. Immediately shock in an ice bath for 30 seconds. Remove and peel (should peel easy).

Using this method, there was no green ring, and actually looked like a stereotypical hard boiled egg. Wish I could go over to my mom's house right now and cook her a perfect hard boiled egg, then tease her about the many times she forgot about the boiling eggs and ended up with burnt, exploded egg shards all over the kitchen ceiling.

Soft boiled eggs were a bit trickier, which I had RH assist on. Drop into boiling water, 3-4 minutes, shock, cut off the top of the egg shell with a special tool and serve in a small dish that allows the egg to stand up. Looks a bit like raw egg with a coating of solid egg white hugging the shell, but the heat has pasteurized it.

Next up was my ancient arch-nemesis, scrambled eggs. Chef C announced that if anyone had any trouble making scrambled eggs this morning, they would automatically get a full tuition refund and then be enrolled at Apex Tech. Mix a bit of milk in with the well-beaten and homogeneous egg, pour into a hot lightly oiled pan and immediately start stirring until it coagulates. While still a little wet-looking, plate. Carry-over cooking will cook it the rest of the way on the plate. Man, if my mom had these basic skills when I was a kid, I might actually....have little less to moan about now, he he.

The other teams had already presented their fritatta, but Speedy had not gotten his on the fire yet, due to fussing too long with the mise and getting confused over which pans to use. I prodded him a little bit, which clearly annoyed him, but a) it's a team thang, b) if there was a customer waiting, they'd be pissed, c) Chef C was not on it, d) Speedy is a much better cook than he gives himself credit for because he gets nervous and doubts his next move -- someone needs to yell at him to get him to focus over his nerves. The fritatta finally did get out, a full 30 minutes late.

Frying an egg as pretty easy, once I got a feel for the temp and the amount of oil - browning is a no-no, you want silky white whites. Basting a little with the oil to get the top fully cooked is sunny side up, flipping it once is over easy, no biggie.

However, I took four tries at making an omelet and failed miserably for a different reason each time. The method is: put your homogenized egg mixture in the pan, scramble until cooked halfway, let cook still for the other half, place garnish, then fold in thirds and plate fold-side down (French) or fold in half and brown (American). One time too much oil, another time too much heat, another time undercooked and tore, final time a little bit of all those errors. I think I was still a little bit frazzled from being so up and close to the scramble.

Poaching eggs is easy, just gently drop a whole raw egg into gently simmering vinegar-infused water, wait till it floats and looks solid enough so the yolks don't break, 3-6 minutes. We served it up on an English muffin, slice of Canadian Bacon and topped with Hollandaise sauce.

I don't mean to be vulgar, but poached eggs looks like boiled snot. There, I said it.

Cleanup was only a tight 30 minutes today, which was cool. At the end of class, Chef C announced we'd have new partners tomorrow, too. Will I ever get to work with the Media Ken and the Long Island Lolita?

ADDENDA:
I remember years ago I was out to brunch with my father and a friend, and I ordered a fritatta, thinking for some reason it was some version of pizza, judging by the menu description. I turned three shades of green when it was brought to the table, but I could not bring myself to send it back as I felt silly that I didn't know what it was. My dad was cool, but if my mom was there, she would have been pissed about the wasted money.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 3/5
Blueberries, kiwi, cherries, grapes, banana, good yogurt and good milk, wheat germ, ice. This one was a littler on the unsweet side, maybe a half teaspoon of honey would of taken an edge off, maybe a pinch of salt would of brightened it.

AM TASTINGS 10-11am, 5 or so pieces of bacon, 1 or 2 links of sausage, 3 hash brown patties, one bite of fritata chased by bite of bread, one half of English muffin with Canadian Bacon and hollandaise, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Chef wasn't tasting the eggs, so I wasn't either. Dirty Kim asked me to taste her fritatta because she was proud of it, so I couldn't say no. It was actually pretty good, creamy with eggs, not too eggy tasting, though I still needed a bread chaser.

AM TASTING: 11:45am, pieces of angel cake, chocolate angel cake, spiced angel cake and weird coffee-pastry cream layer thing with thin layers of angel cake, 1 bowel, hunger 3/5

We sent out a lot of eggs and bacon and hash browns to the other floors, this is what we got back as thank you.

DINNER: 5:30pm, small portion of yesterday's pasta with chanterelles, large portion of green salad, water, 2.5 bowls, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, homemade vanilla ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Brigade System/Executive Chef/Purchasing/Fats and Oils (Not My Mother's Scramble, ohmmmmmmm)

Yesterday, I had the day off from school -- I rode a bicycle all day and cooked up a storm in the evening, including my first-ever proper broiling of a crustacean. I also made this interesting ice cream recipe, which involved espresso. I had one serving around 7pm for dessert, and still hungry had a 2nd serving around 8pm. When I tried to get to bed around 10pm, I realized I was wired. I didn't hit the hay 'til around 1am. When I woke up at 6am, my stomach was tight -- OH NO, I had to eat scrambled eggs today! (See Addenda.)

First, however, was the day's lecture . Chef M reviewed the militaristic hierarchy of a large kitchen, starting with the 4-Star General, a.k.a. the Executive Chef a.k.a. Chef de Cuisine a.k.a. Boss of the Kitchen. The Sous Chef is the 2nd-in-command and can fill in for the boss. Under the Sous are several different Chefs dePartie -- section heads, which include Saucier (sauces), Grillardin (grilled items), Patisseur (pastry). Of these sub-commandants, the top would be the Tourenant, the one who can fill in at any station. The lowest, most junior would be the garde manger: cold prep. Things like salad can be worked up before service time and when the pressure is on, no cooking is involved -- just assembling. Having the new guy work garde manger is logical; without the heat of cooking, you can hurt yourself (and others) less.

After going on at length about the responsibilities of the Executive Chef (hiring, firing, purchasing, menu writing, payroll, marketing & PR, sanitation, training, delegation, getting face time on the Food Network), Chef M pointed out the drama of purchasing and dealing with purveyors, the salespeople who sell food and consumables to restaurants. "Always check everything," he told us, "they will always try to rip you off." The class took a walk to the purchasing department of the school, which is equivalent to the purchasing department of a mid-sized hotel. With a refrigerator as big as my bedroom, a pantry like a couple of well-stocked aisles at Wholefoods, a liquor cabinet that fills up a large walk-in closet and 50 and 100-gallon steam-kettles to make stock, this was something to behold.

After some basic knife-skill drills, we were shown the proper way to care for cast iron. Since it is porous, it will rust easily so never get it wet. To clean, heat and scrub with coarse salt repeatedly (my caste iron wok is gonna get some good luv from me next time I use it!). Then, he showed us the proper way to scramble an egg: 1.) whisk 3 eggs (less will cook too fast) until the yolks and whites form 1 homogeneous color. Hit with a healthy dash of salt. 2.) Heat cast-iron skillet and drop enough fat of your choice to coat the bottom of pan, no more. Do not let smoke. Put a drop of egg mixture in pan to see if it cooks quickly. If not, heat more. 3.) Drop in egg mixture and immediately start shaking pan AND stir rapidly with wooden spoon. Repeatedly scrape down sides and bottom. 4.) When the egg still slightly runny, after about a minute, plate and serve. It will continue to cook and firm up on plate.

My partner and I did three rounds of different oils to taste and see how they cook. The sesame oil tasted very strong, overwhelming the eggy flavor. The peanut oil was mildly pleasant, with only a faint peanuty aftertaste. The clarified butter, however, was very pleasant, giving a round, almost sweet mouth feel to the springy egg.

I made the first batch with sesame oil, and put it on the plate. I grabbed some bread while my teammate washed the pan for the next batch. I put a small amount of the egg on the spoon, brought it to my face and looked at it, and it looked nothing like my mom's scramble (again, see Addenda). I popped it in my mouth and....it wasn't that bad. Pleasantly poofy, not sulfurous at all. The chef brought out a brick of foie gras to accompany the eggs, and the two items slathered on french bread wasn't a bad snack at all.

Tomorrow, I visit the Dean of Student Affairs to talk volunteer opportunity. C-school is art school, but it's also vocational school. Where am I going?

ADDENDA:
On the bicycle ride up to school today, I listened to NPR podcasts and chanted out loud, "NOT MY MOTHER'S SCRAMBLE" over and over again. I would of said, "Not my mother's eggs", but that just had too many off-colored meanings. The little meditation was my nutritionist, Ilsa's, idea.

When I met with Ilsa Tuesday, I confided that I was a bit concerned: Thursday would be scrambled eggs. If I am to be a serious student of the culinary arts, I can't just dismiss such a major foundation ingredient as 'inedible.' Over the past year or so, eggs have started showing up in my fridge, mostly as ingredients in pancakes, ice cream, and various baked goods, but the smell of frying eggs makes me literally gag. Why?

It's all my mom's fault. She was a brilliant, successful, intelligent, loving woman, but she could not cook if her life (hell, my life) depended on it. She would cook breakfast quickly for my brother and me every morning and, 4 out of 5 times, it would be scrambled eggs. Eggs quickly beaten, thrown on a hot pan without much of a shake, and what would appear on my plate would be a little bit burnt on the bottom, a little bit raw on the top, and bits of white and yolk everywhere. No salt, not egg, fried in no oil but in a (now recognized as toxic) teflon no-stick pan. Literally looked like fried boogers. My mom would not tolerate waste, and eventually I learned to place the cut-up egg on a napkin between my legs when she was not looking.

As soon as I could get out of the house, the last thing in the world I would want to eat is an egg. Looking back, it was the lack of choice, the powerlessness of having to eat those eggs that has given me such a visceral reaction to even the smell of a frying egg. Being confronted by a properly made scrambled egg, however -- and made by my own had -- might just help me to get over this detritus that has hung around my brain for so long. Therapy Session, $35K, with Culinary School thrown in for free!

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, banana, .25 bowl, hunger 1/5

AM SNACK: 9am, small piece of French bread, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM TASTING: 11am, samples of scrambled egg fried in sesame, peanut and clarified butter, small piece of foie gras, french bread, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:45pm, good quality Margarita pizza, minus crusts, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
The pizza at Naples 45 at Grand Central is, surprisingly, probably in the top 20 of the city.

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, fresh shrimp spring roll, small quantity of seaweed salad, 2 inari, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Pre-made snackies from Wholefoods.

DINNER: 8pm, boca burger on whole wheat, 10 saltines with good peanut butter, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5