Food of the Gods

There is nothing better than great barbecue, except maybe barbecue smothered in melted cheese. This was my chosen mode of disposal for the pint of Carolina barbecue sauce that I took home last week. Served atop a toasted pretzel roll (thank you Trader Joe's!), this gooey mess of a sandwich was nothing short of sublime.

Lobster Brain Bisque

If sauce making is a labor of love, then soup making is a simmering pot of love. What is more comforting that a bowl of soul warming soup on a cold rainy day? Day one of soup making was spent over steamy pots of black bean soup and unctuous cream of mushroom soup. While both of these soups were tasty, I had some issues with the preparation/plating of both. The black bean soup had all the makings of a great soup, but unfortunately the end product was pretty dumbed down. We simmered black beans with lots of great ingredients, but when the soup was ready to go we filtered off the cooking liquid, and pureed the solids with just enough of the cooking liquid to get the desired constancy. While texturally this method worked great, the remainder of all those yummy spices went down the drain, leaving us with a soup that only had faint chili notes and a vague smokiness from the cumin. Even the chipotle crème fraîche we used as a garnish fizzled, when it should have packed an extra punch. So sad.

On the other hand, the cream of mushroom soup was everything it should have been; it was mushroomy, oh so creamy, and a little sweet from a touch of marsala. The only thing that irked me was the garnish- julienned button mushrooms. Really? First of all, I think button mushrooms are the lamest mushroom out there, the black sheep of the mushroom family. Compared to the meaty portobello or the sublime shiitake, button mushrooms are pretty watered down. Second, other than color - the whiteness of the mushrooms was a nice contrast against the soup - and the nice height they brought to the plate, the mushrooms didn't add to the taste of the dish. I think that there are other garnishes out there that could have both heighted the flavor of the dish as well as made it visually appealing. But, I am but a student, and I do as I'm told.

Day two of soups was, if possible, sadder than the day before. To be fair, the New England clam chowder was quite good; it was creamy, slightly salty from the bacon and the briny goodness of the clams, offset with a kick of heat from some tabasco, topped with some fried clams that were so good I could have eaten hand full’s of them.

On the other had there was the shrimp bisque... dom dom dom. Oh the horror! Let me preface this by saying that when we were making stocks a couple of weeks back we made a lobster stock which smelled so God awful that it turns my stomach just thinking of it. That stock was destined to be the base of this soup. I should have know it would be nasty, but I kept holding out hope that it would turn into something great, that it would be greater than the sum of its parts. It started out fairly benign, sautéing some shrimp shells with some mire poix (onion, carrot, and celery) and tomato paste, but then chef had us throw in a couple of lobster heads for "added flavor". To this ill fated concoction was added some brandy and white wine (which should help, right?), flambéed (how cool is that!), doused with lobster stock (the beginning of the end), and allowed to simmer (because we need to meld and concentrate the flavors, right?...NOT!). While my nose kept telling me "this is going to be bad, this is going to be bad", I still hoped that in the end all would be well. How delusional was I! After simmering, we then pureed the contents of the pot- shells and heads too, we've got to extract as much flavor out of the ingredients as possible - and then strained. To this we were suppose to add a touch of cream and season with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Unfortunately/fortunately I accidentally added my milk and cream destined for the clam chowder to my bisque. Even diluted, the soup was probably one of the most vile things I have ever eaten. Imagine what a big pot of fish brains would taste like and you have the essence of this soup- Lobster Brain Bisque. Even the addition of all that milk and cream couldn't have saved it. But, being the good culinary student that I am, I seasoned that sludge to the best of my ability, fished it with some shrimp (what a waste of perfectly good shrimp) and plated it so that it at least looked like it tasted good. So the lesson of the day: lobster stock is not your friend.

No more butter!

I never thought I would say this, but after last nights' class there really is such as thing as too much butter. Last night was spent on, you guessed it...butter sauces! The rich hollandaise (which when making it by hand is so not worth the effort- whip out the blender baby!), the tarragony goodness of the béarnaise and it's tomato kissed cousin the choron, followed by a beurre blanc and a beurre rouge. While all these sauces are probably delicious in their own right, by the end of the night we were all grimacing as we were forced to taste our sauces. Can you say "Butter overload!”

Queen of Leftovers

Yes, I am the self proclaimed Queen of Leftovers. Presented with a refrigerator full of seemingly random ingredients I am able to pull together tasty meals (if I do say so myself). This weekend I looked into my refrigerator full of this weeks' sauces and went to work on concocting a variety of tasty dishes. First up to bat was the cheese sauce, and let me say, I hit a home run with this one. Already chocked full of yummy cheddar cheese, this sauce was destined for homemade mac and cheese. No blue box here! To this already sublime cheese sauce I added a couple of chopped chipotle chile peppers, some ground cumin, and minced cilantro (tell me, how good does that sound?!), and then poured over some cooked shell pasta. Let me tell you, this was some kind of wonderful.

Not to be outdone by the chipotle mac and cheese, I had to pull out all the stops to make the Hungarian sauce into something equally yummy. Since the base for the Hungarian sauce was a mushroom sauce I decided to add, you guessed it, mushrooms! I first caramelized up some onions and mixed mushroom, sauteed some shrimp, deglazed the pan with some lemon juice, slathered on the Hungarian sauce, and voila...dinner!

But what to do with the Creole sauce? In general I am not a big fan of creole food, but I am a fan of andouille sausage, which is a common sausage used in creole cooking. So I crisped up some andouille, threw in some peppers, onions, and the creole sauce. Served over some cheesy mashed potatoes (because you can NEVER have too much cheese) this turned out to be pretty darn good and very satisfying on a blustery winter day.

As for the Mornay sauce, well I ate that heated up with some toasted bread for dunking (classy, I know). Not a culinary masterpiece, but still good enough that when I reached the bottom of the bowl I was kinda sad.

Labor of Love

Another week of culinary adventures has passed, and I must say I'm not all that sorry to see it go. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed each and every class, but this weeks' lessons of stocks and sauces was akin to getting a facial in chicken essence and watching grass grow. Monday was spent making large vats of white chicken stock (beauty shot above) and brown veal stock, and Tuesday filled with the fishy goodness of fish stock, fish fumet (just a boozier version of the fish stock), lobster stock, and the wonderfully stink-free vegetable stock. While Monday's lesson left me with a serious hankering for chicken soup, Tuesday class left me tired (that's a lot of stock to make in one class) and reeking of fish.

After all that toil and trouble, and yes, the cauldron did bubble, it was time to utilize our finished stocks to make yummy sauces! Brown veal stock became espagnole (a brown gravy like sauce), demi-glace (even more tasty), and a bordelaise (so good I could have eaten it with a spoon). The white chicken stock was the base of a veloute, which is just a fancy way of saying thickened meat stock, and a yummy tomato sauce, which would then go on to be the base of a Creole sauce. While the veloute was nothing special, it was then used to make a supreme sauce, which is just a mushroom infused sauce- why they call it supreme I have no idea. The supreme sauce was perfectly yummy just the way it was, but we then used it to make yet another sauce-the paprika tinted Hungarian sauce. In addition to this bounty of sauces, we also made a thickened milk sauce called a béchamel, which was used as a base for two types of cheese sauces.

So after this week of simmering and stirring- and quite a lot of dishes- I am left with a new appreciation for the sauce at the bottom of my place, as well as a refrigerator stocked full of my weeks' hard work. Bon appetit!