Tag Archives: rants

Culinary School: Why I’m making the worst food of my life

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Poulet Saute Chasseur

Nights in culinary class move in a dance of steel and time pressure. Yank out the wishbone. Quarter the chicken. Sear the skin. Chop the mirepoix. Simmer the stock. Strain the sauce. Pull the chicken from the oven. Plate the food. Run to the front. Hope for the best.

Chef Ray glanced at my plate of poulet sauté chasseur (hunter-style chicken) and gave me a hard look. “I think I’ve told you this before,” he said. “This plate. What’s wrong with it?” I looked down at my chicken. Among the finely shredded flakes, there were some unruly tufts of parsley perched on top, shamelessly advertising their prowess at escaping my knife. “I know, I know,” I apologized, “the parsley isn’t chopped small enough. And there’s some pieces of stems.”

With a spoon, he pointed at a resolutely intact parsley leaf. “Look,” said Chef Ray, “you spent two hours making this dish, and you put herbs like this on the plate it and it just ruins the presentation.” He chased the offending chunk of parsley to the edge. “The chef that taught me insisted on really finely chopped herbs, so since that’s how I was taught, this is a pet peeve of mine too.” Chef Ray prodded at the chicken. “This is cooked well, it’s not overdone and the skin looks great. But you put parsley like that on the plate and that’s the first thing you see.” I bowed my head. “Yes, Chef.” He sighed. “All right, start cleaning up.”

God damn it, I hate chopping herbs.

You know what it looks like when Chinese people chop herbs? Like a lawnmower belched huge piles of foliage on the table. And that’s perfect. We embrace chunky cilantro and scallions like Sir Mix-a-Lot loves chunky booty. Let me show you some examples:

Five Spice Beef
Here’s a plate of Five Spice Beef from China House in Mountain View. It looks like they didn’t bother chopping anything, they just threw entire stalks of cilantro on the plate.

Mission Chinese Mapo Tofu
Maybe we need to look at a better restaurant? Cult favorite Mission Chinese Food in San Francisco has won all sorts of awards, so let’s take a look at their mapo tofu. Yup, you can definitely see big pieces of leaves and stems floating on that chili oil.

Twice Cooked Pork
And my personal favorite, Double Cooked Pork from Happy Kitchen in LA. THEY ONLY USED CILANTRO STEMS!

Let’s review the most common culinary school sins:

  • Plate not hot enough (forgot to put it in the oven)
  • Plate too hot (forgot to take it out of the oven)
  • Sauce underreduced and not nappant (sticks to the back of the spoon)
  • Sauce overreduced and too thick
  • Vegetables not brown enough or too brown/burnt
  • Meat under or overdone
  • Vegetables not cut uniformly (see taillage)
  • Not enough acid (lemon juice)
  • Food not salty enough (I’ve never been told my food’s too salty, even when I try to overseason)
  • Too much grease
  • Too much sauce (pooling at bottom of plate)
  • Sauce drips on plate edge
  • Using black pepper in a white dish (where’s your white pepper idiot?)
  • And of course, my #1 nemesis, the herb garnish is too big

In other words, no matter how hard you try, your plate is never good enough. Wait, this is starting to sound familiar…

Maybe the solution is to give up on cooking?

At least my extra tournage work at home paid off. Chef Ray looked at my potato cocottes and said they looked great without other comment. Phew.

I can’t even imagine how much of a pressure cooker it would be to compete on TV. (Well, maybe I can. This piece from pastry chef Allison Robicelli is a hilarious read if you’d like to hear more.) I would have a nervous breakdown. Or start pouring fish sauce on the judges’ cars.

Whatever. My new favorite food photography blog is now Dimly Lit Meals for One (exactly what it sounds like).

Clearly the solution is to start chopping like this guy:

Komatsu after learning Food Honor

Chasing the Forbidden Dragon: Lyon’s Quartier Chinois

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We were in France, and by god, I was going to get some Asian food.

Before your jaw drops off in horror (sacre bleu!), let me back up for a minute and explain my mad logic. The UNISG masters students had arrived in Lyon, a land of fine haute gastronomie…and the third largest Chinatown in France (after two enclaves in Paris). At lunch, we had just gorged on a stunning French meal, accoutered with boisterous grand chefs, wine, and healthy doses of cream and butter. The University was allotting us a stipend of €15 for dinner, which does not go a long way in Lyon. Besides, I was itching for something chili and umami-laden. According to Wikipedia, Lyon’s Quartier Chinois could be found in the city’s 7e arrondisement. Our hotel clerk had marked “Le Guillotière” on the map, and armed with that knowledge, we set out to search for the best bowl of pho in Lyon. It might not have been French food, but it was at least French colonial food?

After wandering across the Rhône river, I saw a number of Moroccan restaurants, African barbers and veiled women. Hmm…it appeared as though we’d found an “ethnique” section of town, but not Chinatown per se. I craned my neck searching for ideographs, as we wandered further east and north from Le Guillotière. It was time to break out my expert Franglais. “Pardon monsieur, pouvez-vous me dire où est le Quartier Chinois?” Again and again, this question elicited quizzical looks and head scratching. “Er, le Quartier Chinois? Je ne sais pas…il y a un quartier chinois?” No one even knew of the neighborhood’s existence; it was as if we were trying to find Diagon Alley.
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Confession: I Hate Italian Milk

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Here in Bra, the heart (and physical headquarters) of Slow Food-landia, people are raised from birth to eat locally, cook with raw, unprocessed ingredients, and buy from small, independent producers. Great, these are philosophies that I have tried to uphold all along, so it’s not like I have suddenly been told to wear a burka.

Well, today I am going to go rogue and fess up about something that has been irritating the hell out of me: Italian milk. It sucks.

To provide some background, there are two grades of Italian milk: intero (whole) and parzialmente scremato (similar to 2%). I’ve been buying the latter and it tastes good, but honestly I would be happier with skim milk. Also, Italian milk is sold in supermarkets in paper cartons or plastic bottles in either half-liter or liter sizes. When I first saw this, I was somewhat dismayed, since this is a quantity that would last me through maybe four bowls of cereal. Where is the gallon jug that is so ubiquitous in American grocery stores? Don’t they need to make lots of cappucinos every morning?

Soon afterwards, I discovered why the milk is only sold in tiny containers: it spoils incredibly quickly. Though the expiration dates on U.S. milk jugs are marked for about two weeks in the future (and oftentimes the milk is good even beyond this date), Italian milk cartons indicate sell by dates about 3 days away. And unlike with American milk, that date is Serious Business. On multiple occasions, I have drunk milk from a carton one day before the expiration date, only to discover the next morning that it has curdled. Sometimes this discovery occurs as I absentmindedly pour chunky milk into my bowl of cereal, and shovel a spoonful into my mouth.

The milk comes from local dairy farms in Piemonte, so shouldn’t it be even fresher and last longer than milk in the U.S.?

Spoilage speed aside, another reason milk is sold in small packages may be due to the size of European refrigerators. Like cars, refrigerators here are about half the size of their American counterparts, and there would simply be no space for a gallon-size container.

I was whining about the short shelf-life of my milk to one of my flatmates, who suggested the bricks of UHT (ultra-high-temperature processing) milk. This is shelf-stable milk that does not need to be refrigerated (until the carton is opened) and lasts for 6-9 months. It also tastes terrible, like the milk has been cooked.

Both American and European producers pasteurize their milk, so I don’t think that explains the milk spoilage speed. I mean, for chrissakes’ they invented pasteurization over here.

On the plus side, the yogurt over here is excellent, and lasts for at least a couple weeks.