Veggies and Layer cakes

Last Wednesday we had a Test on vegetables which we had been studying for the previous three weeks. I know that sounds like a long time to do vegetables, but we did different styles of cooking like braising, roasting, and grilling. For the test we needed to make our own recipes for four dishes and we had two and a half hours to complete it versus the usual four hours that the class runs (a friend from Yeshiva was visiting that day and he said he felt like it was something out of a cooking show). We had to make a tomato antipasti, Braised pumpkin, braised carrot, and a pasta dish with vegetables.

(readers note: I saved my blog from the other night- what's written above- and no this is more)...

This week we did granitas in school (they are essentially ices). They're pretty easy to make, and it was more of something easier to do as a break between our test last week and purim break, which starts on thursday. Actually, we only did Granitas on sunday and monday... today the chef broke the class into two teams, with a head chef and sous chef on each team. Each team has to create a menu, which includes a theme, and a whole write up with ingredients that we will need and pricing and everything. Whichever menu the chef likes best, that team will cook the other team their menu when we get back next wednesday, and the following week the other team will cook their menu and the other chefs in the school are going to be judges on both teams dishes.

In pastry class today and tomorrow are a test on layer cakes, which is what we've been working on for the past few weeks. On sunday and monday we had more chilled out classes learning different purim pastry things.

Thats prety much all thats been going on in school lately. This week is Ta'nit Ester, and sunday is purim. I plan on buying a lot of wine and dressing up as Super Mario...

Apologies for this long overdue update

Since the last time I updated we did Pasta and Soups in class. The pasta section was very fun as every day when we would come into school we would be making our own dough and then use it for whatever the recipe would call for. At first we would make one big batch of dough for two recipes and then later on we started making two different types of dough, for example one thats richer and used two egg yolks instead of one egg, one infused with basil, one that had saffron in it... I think you get the idea. The past two weeks we were doing soups, but last week I was out with the Chicken pox so I missed the second week :( I know what alot you must be thinking "didn't you get chicken pox?" or "weren't you vaccinated?" No I never got chicken pox as a child but I was vaccinated and I found out the hard way that it is still possible (but rare) to get chicken pox a second time or after you've been vaccinated. Thankfully, the Greenbaums were generous enough to let me stay with them while I've been sick and I plan on going back to school tomorrow. (The up side is that we're starting a new section so even though I DID miss a week at least I'm starting a fresh subject with all the rest of the students, versus coming in on the second week and having to catch up.)

In baking we finished off breads the same time we finished the pasta. These past two weeks we were doing cream puffs, which is the same recipe for eclairs. I don't really know what they were doing in pastry class this past week as I wasn't there (chickenpox) but I do know it was continuing to deal with cream puffs. Again, when I go back to school tomorrow they will be doing a new section in the pastry class. Even though I can't actually MAKE UP the work I'm going to see if I can't at least get an overview of what I missed so I'll be up to speed and be able to do it on my own.

Picture Perfect

Okay, So since it's NYE and I'm feeling a bit lazy (and I've been taking alot of pictures lately in class) I've uploaded a number of pics and I'm just gunna tell a bit about what's going on. Also, some of the pictures at the end got uploaded twice so I apologize for that, and also anyone who has already seen the pictures on facebook, hopefully will still get a kick outta this.

Oh, and they uploaded backwards from the week

This is Chef Yochanan giving a practictical cooking lesson. Here he was making potato dough.
This is multicolored pasta that Chef Yochanan made and he's filled them with chicken veg filling.
Artsy shot if Chef Yochanan putting in the filling.
Here is Chef Yochanan rolling out the dough in a dough machine... it gets it nice and thin. You could roll it out by hand, but this is (as it probably looks) much easier.
So this is a repeat of the picture above. Chef Yochanan made three types of pasta dough, one regular, one with spinach infused to give it a green color, and one infused with beet root to give it a nice red color. Although you could make them here he decided to use a bit of all three doughs to make it kinda funky.



This is Challah that we made... There's a four braid, five braid, and a six braided one. The small ones are basically dough tied into a knot.
These are pitas that we made before they were cooked. They are covered with saran so they don't dry out. They need to sit so the dough will rest after being rolled out, and they are in a proofing box (its a warm box, but it's open in this picture, for most recipes when we use it the door is closed)
Home made Hummus with Tehina and harrisa
We had a polenta day, so this was an on the spot creation because there were kashrut issues with some ingredients that came in for the first way we were going to make it. It's creamy polenta cake with roasted red pepper sauce
Marinated roasted red peppers with baked polenta
Deep Fried polenta sticks with lemon mayo dip
Funny face Foccaccia. This one wasn't mine, but it was kinda funny so I put it up anyways...
Same foccaccia before it grew a beard and was baked
Lentil salad with pomegranates and apple
Taboule salad.

So there was a taping in the baking kitchen this afternoon. It's going to be airing in Israel and France (it was done by a French cook). So when we were in school for the pasta lesson some of the kids that are also in the baking class were pulled out to help get ready. So I helped get the dough ready (it needed to sit in the freezer for two hours) so even though I'm not on the show (nor was I there when it was being taped) the dough that will be used on the show to finish the recipe will the the one I made(after he makes what I made as the first half, you know how they do it on cooking shows).

Okay, thats it for tonight.

Happy New Years 2010?!

Turducken

So people were asking me for pictures of the Turducken and I finally found the pictures my teacher took of them and here they are :)

A delay in my update

So I realized that I haven't updated in about two weeks, mainly because I've had a break from school and got carried away, but here I am...

So I wasn't feeling so well the last week before school vacation so I missed a couple mornings, and I also don't remember every singe recipe we made, so I'm not going to go listing them, but the last day before vacation (in cooking class) we made a two course meal: the first course was fish patties with creamy coriander sauce, and the second course was spicy chicken, potato salad, and sweet potato french fries. (IT WAS AMAZING!.. and both images above) In baking we were given a small test which meant we had to make cinnamon buns and babka (from scratch, obviously).

Over vacation I've been spending most of my time with the Greenbaums (family friends here in Israel), except for a couple nights. On Sunday night I went to a battle of the bands with alot of other guys from yeshiva, which was really fun and to top it off, my yeshivas band was the winner :) Actually, that night same night, before we left, there was an ask the rabbi session which I was asked to moderate. Then on Monday night I went with the Greenbaums to Yerachom to visit their new granddaughter. On Wednesday night I went to a party in Katamon (an area in Yerushalayim) which was pretty fun. And then I was back here (at the Greenbaums) for shabbat. Unfortunately, Etty wasn't feeling so well so I helped a little bit with the preparations.

I start school again on Monday, and I'll be here until then getting ready to go back to school.

This week we started with Yeast

So this week we finished up our egg section and by wednesday we started with potatoes. More specifically french fries. We made regular and steak fries as well as two dips to go with them. Now, to Tarentino my blog, we started the week by making scotch eggs and fecatchia. Scotch eggs are AWESOME! Essentially it's a boiled egg with patty meat wrapped around it, rolled in flour, egg, and bread crumbs, and then deep fried. The fecatchia was with basil and cherry tomatoes. We also made (not on the same day) crepes with two sauces, a chocolate sauce and a lemon orange sauce.

Tuesday we only did breads, so we used the same basic recipe that we used for the fecatchia and multiplied it by three. We made rosemary raisin bread, rosemary onion garlic bread, and mini cal zone type things with a grape filling (literally, halved grapes that were mixed with sugar and wine). And then, as I said before we made french fries and steak fries along with a lemon chili dipping sauce and a Spicy Cajun dipping sauce. We also made Cajun fries using a Cajun spice mix we had made at the beginning of class.

Now, in the afternoons we started working with yeast, which means that we needed to wait till next day for the dough to actually make the pastries, at least for most of them. On Sunday we made two types of Babka dough which we made on monday. We also made a Krants, which is very similar to Babka but the dough is a bit more delicate and also after you roll it up with the filling inside you cut it open and face the two sides up so you can see the filling and then braid it. Aside for the effect, this allows the filling to show after it is baked. We also made cinnamon buns. On Wednesday we made Sufganiot, which if you didn't know, are cooked in oil. Basically I felt like my arteries were clogging on Wednesday what with the French fries in the morning and like three sufganiot in the afternoon, that was the first day the whole week I didn't take anything home. Actually, with the new mixers we just got, we divide into four groups for most of the recipes... and now that we have a new student making the number of students in the class seven, someone needs to work odd man out. For a good chunk of the week I was working as odd man out which was A) so I could get the experience of doing the whole recipe by myself but also because B) doing the whole recipe by myself means I don't have to spit what I make and can take home twice as much to share with the guys in the Yeshiva.

Anywho, it is late here so I am going to cut it short so I can go to bed... Good Night

So as it turns out the internet was down last night when I went to post this, but it's good because I realized that there was actually something else I had wanted to share. On Wednesday, Chef Yochanan, the founder of the school, came into the kitchen to cook (he wasn't working with us rather just working in the kitchen at the same time for an order he had received). Anyways... he was cooking a Turducken, which for those of you who don't know means a stuffed chicken stuffed inside a duck (with more stuffing) and then stuffed inside a turkey (with more stuffing). All three birds need to be de-boned, and by the time he was ready to tie this monster up it was already in the afternoon (while I was in Pastries). So as it happens I was stepping out of my classroom right when he needed help tying it all together, so he called me over to hold the bird(s) together while he wrapped the string around and then knotted it. The end result is meant to be sliced so you can get a piece of each meat with stuffing in between, but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to taste it as this was a special order for someone else. That being said I was still really happy and excited to be able to help with this bird.

Okay... NOW I'm done with my post for now :)

Another week, and a full day of testing

So this week wasn't too bad. We started in in cooking at the beginning of the week by making a tomato soup which we had to make up the recipe for. This was mainly because there were extra vegetables that he didn't want to go bad, but also to see where we are and if we are able to create our own soups without a recipe. I think everybody did well on the test, however I do know he said his head was numb after tasting someones soup which had about half a cup of paprika in it!

The rest of the week we also worked on vinaigrettes, and eggs (scrambled, fried, and a review of poached). With the vinaigrettes we also learned how to mix a salad properly (putting the dressing on the bottom of the bowl and the salad on top, then mix with your hands so the whole salad gets dressed without weighing it down with the dressing). On Wednesday we had a quiz/test on theory because the chef got the impression that we collectively had NOT been doing the reading. After that test he gave us a practical exam which meant making one egg- scrambled, fried, and poached. Then make a balsamic honey vinaigrette and a salad to go with it-- mixing the salad in front of him to show we know how to.

Now, this would have been all well and fine (and it was, I believe I did very good) but then in the afternoon we had a test in baking as well. The chef gave us a sheet with recipes we had done in class and we were told to go to work. The recipes were tart from scratch (with flangipan sp? filling --an almond based cream), a butter cake, and macaroons. Now you have to understand that the macaroons use food coloring so at the end of the class most of the students were covered in green or yellow, or red. I worked SO hard to keep myself clean of all those colors (which I think helped my overall grade) Also, some people didn't get to bake off their tarts because they were finished too late and there wasn't enough time to let them bake. We also didn't bake off our macaroons (apparently, unlike cooking, you can tell how the finished product is going to come out based on how it looks before it goes in. Or perhaps he wasn't interested in that as much as procedure as the chef always puts everything in the oven anyways). I got an A.

Tomorrow I plan to pick up my tart, which I was able to bake but was not able to bring home because it was too hot when we left for the day.