A Second Course

Have you ever bought a bunch of parsley for a recipe and ended up throwing most of it away a few days later when it goes bad?  That will never happen again! Below is my next food tip of the day for chopping, washing and storing parsley!

1) Gently rinse parsley and shake out excess water.

2) Remove all the leaves (try not to discard the stems, they can be used to flavor a nice stock or sauce).

3) Finely chop the leaves using a rocking motion with your knife –  one hand placed on the handle, the other gripping the tip (see picture below). When you think you’ve chopped the leaves small enough, keep on chopping! It takes me a good 10-15 minutes to finely chop an entire bunch of parsley.

4) Place the chopped parsley in a cheesecloth sachet (a regular cloth dinner napkin twisted at the top will work) and run under cold water until the water changes from green to clear. This ensures the parsley is clean.

5) Squeeze all of the liquid out and then dry the parsley off in paper towel. It should be light, fluffy and clean.

6) Freeze the excess parsley and it will be available whenever a recipe calls! And the best part – no need to thaw out before using…. just sprinkle right onto your food or plate as a garnish!

Did you know that copper is the best heat conductor but can be very expensive and heavy! Aluminum is the second best heat conductor, but the metal itself is very soft so it bends easily. It can also impart a metallic flavor and discolor certain foods. For the majority of my pots and pans,  I personally use stainless steel with either an aluminum or copper core on the bottom. At school, most of our pots and pans are stainless steel as well.

Stainless cleans easily, is food friendly, and is very strong. While it gets a bad rap for having hot  or cold spots on its own, the addition of an aluminum or copper core bottom/sandwich, make this material ideal for most of your pot and pan needs.

Just do yourself a favor, stick with the non-stick pan when cooking eggs!

Thanks for all the great feedback on the watermelon posting + photography. I’m so happy all of you enjoyed learning about how to select ripe melons. I promise to write lots more tips for shopping the market in the coming weeks, especially with all the incredible summer produce just a few short weeks away!

When a recipe calls for “small diced” apples, what really does that mean? A dice is a square. Well what size square you ask?  Below is a quick reference guide for what a standard recipe means when it calls for:

Small Dice = 1/4″ x 1/4″

Medium Dice = 1/2″ x 1/2″

Large Dice = 3/4″ x 3/4″

And remember, the larger the dice, the longer the cooking time!

Some of you may be surprised to learn what my biggest fear was prior to entering culinary school. No, it wasn’t the thought of no income for the next year. Although (gasp) I am having heart palpitations just thinking about it.  No worries, it will probably be another year before I have a financial crisis because right now I’m having too much fun.  So back to my biggest fear – Butchery!

Hello Fish

Admittedly, I thought there was a very strong chance of becoming a vegetarian during my cooking courses.  Despite the fact that I’m a huge foodie, love to cook and entertain for crowds throwing gluttonous affairs, I have avoided preparing the whole animal my entire life. I’m talking heads and legs. The skeleton. Am I the only one who would get creeped out when my lobster’s eyes were staring at me from a plate?  ”Please please don’t eat me” the little voice would say…they were dead, but my appetite was gone.

That all ended this week with Donald Duck and Nemo. It was me against the protein, and I won! The initial dread of blood and guts (well, I’m not gonna lie, there were blood and guts) was quelled quickly. The chef instructor seemed to carve the duck in one beautiful fluid motion, he made it look so easy. Cleaning the fish in a matter of seconds.  Not so easy for us novices, that is if you want to end up with as much serve-able meat as possible.

It took 4 days, but at the end of Week 2 knife skills I presented the following: an eight piece carved chicken (4 breast pieces, 2 thighs, 2 drumsticks), 4 pieces of duck (2 breasts, 2 legs partially deboned), a cornish hen deboned from the inside out (kinda gross), 8 flounder (flat) fish fillets and 2 striped bass (round) fish fillets.

Duck Before

Duck After

One Fish, Two Fish

More Fish

As you can see from the pictures, I definitely need more practice; not quite ready to be carving up chickens at Boston Market. However, I felt such a sense of accomplishment and pride for my poor pieces of protein that the opposite of vegetarianism (is this a word?) has happened. I CANNOT wait to carve more, cook more, eat more!  At the end of the week all I wanted was to turn up the flame and make myself something delicious. And indeed I did……

A La Meuniere = Ooh La La

Flounder a la meuniere (dredged in flour) – brown butter, capers, parsley….perfection! I will be starting a recipe section shortly for those of you salivating.

Stay tuned for next week’s Weekly Specials where I learn how to clarify butter – the start of any good roux – as well as intro to stocks, sauces and soups.  Gosh, my days are filled with so much food fun, it just doesn’t seem fair!

Week 2 Summary:

Cuts = 3

Fingers = 10

Check!