Culinary Foundations 6.14.10

Menu: NY Strip Steak: Grilled & Pan Seared
Twice Baked Potatoes
Pommes Frites
Pommes Duchesse
Creamed Spinach

Group included: Anna, Scott & Alyssa

Alyssa was assigned Pommes Duchess. Scott assigned Pommes Frittes. Anna, Twice Baked Potatoes & Creamed Spinach.

We started the potatoes for twice baked at 350' & set the timer for 1 hour. Then started our mise en place for the other items. Which entailed for the Pommes Duchesse - 4 Russet Potatoes, 1oz. butter, 1 egg, butter - clarified. We were supposed to boil the potatoes whole, but peeled & lg. diced to expedite the cooking process. As the potatoes were cooking Alyssa found the food mill. Which wasn't working well or we didn't know the nuances of it. Anyway, we maybe should have used a large cone strainer or China cap & spatula.

Scott was in charge of Pommes Frittes. He peeled then sliced potatoes in a julienne. Then soaked in cold water - changing it three times to try to get out some of the starch.

Okay - I am going to have to skip to the good part - cooking. I have 5 carrot cakes to make & get to a softball game in 18 min.

The Sous Vide NY Strip was fantastic. I have never had a steak served in this manner and probably will never be able to order one cooked Sous Vide either, as I expect paying for five kids' college tuition will supercede any pricey steak excursions. That being said - this was a very average cut of meat cooked perfectly.

Grilled Ny Strip: I apparently put too much seasoning on my "presentation side". By the time the steak had rested - my grill lines were not apparent. But the steak was done - I feel correctly - med. rare, well seasoned & tender.

Pan Seared Ny Strip: I feel that the cut of meat was much too small to use this procedure properly. It seemed that once you got a nice sear on each side, you would over cook the piece of meat by finishing it in the oven. I took mine straight from the pan to the plate, covered & let rest for 5 min for med. rare.

Pommes Duchesse: Ended up being a bit overdone & dry. We should have piped them smaller & maybe used the Salamander to finish them. Also we used fresh nutmeg & should have adjusted the recipe accordingly.

Pommes Frittes: Turned out well. We didn't get enough seasoning on them after our "second" fry. We chose to re-fry for 15-30 sec. & then re-season. This seemed to work well & not effect the fry.

Twice Baked Potatoes: Turned out well. I adjusted the recipe and added cream cheese and sour cream, because the potatoes seemed a bit dry & bland with out the cabbage & leeks. I did bring them home - against the rules - my kids loved them.

Creamed Spinach: I feel that we followed all of the directions & added a bit to the recipe, but still ended up with a rather bland end product. We should have added more parm. cheese, salt & cooked it longer to deepen all of the flavors.

As a whole, I think our group did very well. I think our recipes were fairly well executed & somewhat well presently. Timely at least. There are some very inexperienced cooks that maybe need to be paired up with someone in maybe a "mentor" type of situation. Many did not know how to bake potatoes, boil or mash & had never put markings on a steak. This last part isn't meant to be offensive at all, just concern for those in the class that are very new at cooking.

Blessings, I hope to have some pictures loaded this week of last weeks culinary attempts, as well as this weeks. We just so happend to have won a full NY strip at a golf tournament, so I will be cutting & grilling them up this weekend.