After successfully passing my midterm evaluation, which was perhaps the most nerve-racking evening of class so far, I've transitioned into level 4 where my class has been divided into three groups. There are three stations (family meal, production, and buffet) within level 4 and each of them focuses on catering to the masses.
In the family meal station we cook dinner for the entire building. It's not a meal crafted with scraps from the restaurant either. Most kitchens serve the staff a meal using the food that's nearing the end of its shelf life and with the ingredients that are cheap for the restaurant (pasta, rice, chicken, etc.). Family meals at FCI are like Thanksgiving meals, not prison grub. There's always a protein, and usually multiple choices— chicken, turkey, beef, pork, fish... everything. There's a variety of side dishes, a salad with an assortment of dressings and toppings, and usually dessert leftovers from the pastry department.
In production (where I am right now) we prepare for the proteins for the L'Ecole (the restaurant) and make stocks for the entire building. We spend hours filleting fish (bass, tile, flounder, fluke), butchering and trimming lamb and pork chops, deboning poussins (spring chickens slaughtered at 28 days, fyi), breaking down ducks, rendering duck fat, and browning large pans of veal bones and vegetables. It's almost therapeutic doing the same thing for a couple hours. You enter a zone of concentration, attempting to dislodge each undesired chime bone, prick every translucent fish bone, and dislocate the delicate poussin joints. You want to do it right too because otherwise the chefs from the restaurant will hound you down to show you mistakes. You also want to work effeciently and with caution. I've already managed to slice my left index finger knuckle while I was filleting a tile fish. The cut bleed for nearly three days. Not fun.
In buffet, the pace is a little different. We spend two weeks planning, creating, and preparing a buffet for all the chef instructors and students in levels 4-6, which was my group's first task. You test recipes and concepts that sound intriguing and spend two weeks gradually preparing for buffet day. My group wanted to create an Asian-inspired buffet. We all submitted recipes we thought looked interesting and collaborated. We also studied charcuterie and executed curing brining techniques. We stuffed some sausages, made terrines, and whipped up some liver mousse.
A couple of us were interested in making head cheese, which involves brining the head of a pig and using the head tissues to make a terrine. I took some other pictures of this process, but I'll spare you the details. Culinary geeks think it's neat, but I know the majority of people don't really care to see the inside of a pig head. After brining the head, poaching it, and removing everything from the skull, we set the meat and fat in a consommé. We sliced and deep fried the terrine for service and served it with a garlic chili sauce. Was it good? I mean, I wouldn't eat a lot of it, but it had some good flavor, and it's a practice that ensures the whole animal is in fact being used.
In this photo John is blending chicken liver mousse.
In this photo you can see the meat grinder in the background. David and James are preparing a meat mixture to stuff into sausages. We spent two weeks in this small kitchen.
Andrew is grinding meat to make into sausage.
My friend Maura took photos of our buffet on the big day. I was cooking and running food from the kitchen to the buffet tables. In this photo you can see a watermelon salad that we made some vacuum sealing watermelon. We also have some skewered octopus, and the chicken mousse.
Watermelon salad with pine nuts, basil, and oranges. In the very back you can see the terrines we made from duck and pork.
Mango and rice punch popsicles & macadamia cookies with coconut panna cotta
Chef Ryan putting the finishing touches on our black cod.
Our buffet was a success. It was a stressful night, but it was definitely neat planning and executing all the dishes we made. I wish I had more photos, but there's not a lot of time to snap pictures when you're cooking. I sneak them when I can.
