Early morning Chook.

Oops... last weeks...

College started at 8am with the dissecting of a raw chook. 8am is a little early for slimy raw chicken with fat, skin, bone cracking and popping. Not to mention the giblets I found when finally splitting the poor chook in half. (Giblets for those who don't know are the inside goodies like the heart etc.) I know it has to be done and I wouldn't say I'm the squeamish type when it comes to food but 8am in the morning, really? the smell of parmesan cheese was too much the other week.

We washed and dried our chook, learnt how to truss it then cut our chook into saute pieces which is 8 pieces. Four white meat and four dark meat. You usually serve one dark piece and one light piece when serving in a restaurant. Trussing is tying with string so your bird doesn't flap around in the oven or your roasting pan (also for even cooking and presentation).

When I cut my chook I took off the marylands (thigh and drumstick as one piece) first and looked for the oysters. The oysters on the chicken are located on its back, one on each side of the back bone. It's a fleshy piece of meat that sits in what looks like a little oyster shell which is part of the chickens back bone. After removing both marylands I took the drumstick off the thigh bone and frenched the bone on the drumstick. Frenching the bone is cutting the meat away from the bone to expose the bone. We also removed the knuckle but Chef explained that some chefs don't do this because the bone can split.

Next was the boobs. This is a lovely process because first you have to remove the back bone from the breast bone. You hold your chook up and cut downwards then pop the shoulder blades out and remove the back bones from the breast bone. This was not my favourite part of the whole early morning experience. I removed the boobs by placing my chefs knife on one side of the breast bone and pushing down then scraping the meat off the remaining bone. I did this for both boobs then we split them in half so we had 4 even sized pieces with the wings still attached.

This all sounds a little groosem. But I respected my chooky and my 8 peices of chicken were neatly cut and not mongolated. We made a delicious thai curry with the chicken pieces. I made a thigh curry, the boys made a boob curry - as chef put it.

We made pilaff rice to go with it and guess what? SUCCESS! The stove time was minimum so I got away with less time to burn it. We sweated onion off in butter, added the rice, stirred it so all the rice was coated then whacked it in the oven until it was done. Delicious and nutty... will definitely be repeating this at home.

To go with the curry and pilaff we made cucumber riata (chef's recipe) which consisted of yoghurt, lemon juice, salt, cumin and cucumber. Wow, yum. We jumped through different cultures and countries this lesson but it all tasted great for lunch.

Thanks for reading! Keep watching for lasagne (my favourite) & anglaise sauce (scrambled eggs? or custard?).

Buttery goodness.

Week 3 at college was delicious. The morning started out by collecting our goodies on a large gastronome for boiled rice, Tomato Concasse and Mushroom Duxelle which we used then in a rich pasta sauce. No one in the class needed lunch after this which worked out quite well since my egg and salad sandwich had gone soggy in my bag.

Tomato Concasse is diced tomatoes which have been blanched, refreshed, skinned and deseeded. First I cored my tomatoes and made a cross at the other end with my paring knife. The tomatoes were submerged in boiling water, I counted to 15 seconds (obviously less for the more squishy tomatoes) then refreshed them in a bowl of ice water. The skins slipped of as if the tomatoes couldn't wait to get naked and ready to become a concasse. I chopped each tomato into quarters then deseeded each quarter. The quarters were then diced about 1cm. What can you use these minx of tomatoes for you ask? Brushetta, salads, garnish, pasta sauce, pizza base sauce... the list can be endless.

Mushroom Duxelle is finely chopped onion and mushrooms cooked in until there is no liquid left. First I sautéed the onion in butter (you know this is already going to be delicious because it starts with butter) then added the finely chopped mushrooms which I sweated off until there was no liquid left. This was seasoned to taste and left to cool ready to be used in our pasta.

I mentioned cooking rice above. If you have read my other blog and my rice post you will know that I cannot cook rice unless it is with a rice cooker. I have sort of gotten the hang of boiling the rice and then letting it steam in a colander when I am desperate but today we were required to cook rice using the absorption method and not using cup measurements for the water but your finger. The water must come up to your first knuckle when you stick your finger in the pot and touch the rice. Terrible explanation and I can tell you this, I need to practice cooking rice. Mine was gluggly. At least cooking rice is better to practice then tourne potatoes, and yes to answer your question- I am still avoiding potatoes.

Now to the delicious pasta we made. Delicious but terribly rich I must warn you.
The sauce was very quick because we'd done all the prep to start with so first things first the pasta needed to be cooking for at least 5 min before I start the sauce. I gently sautéed a clove of finely shopped garlic in butter then stirred in some of our mushroom duxelles. Added cream and a tsp of french mustard and brought it to the boil and reduced the sauce a little. Tasted and seasoned with S&P then finish off with some tomato concasse, parsley and parmesan cheese. The spaghetti was folded through and served in a hot clean bowl. Sprinkled with extra cheese, tomato and parsley for garnish.
Delicious buttery, creamy mouthfuls! mm yum.

After lunch and our food coma we zested and segmented oranges. Zest is the outside coloured part of citrus fruits such as lemon, lime and orange. Segments are the fillets of the fruit. We also learnt different techniques to use lemon as a garnish on a variety dishes.

Theory consisted of us getting our assignment and learning that we have an assessment on the 30th of March for Food Hygiene. All this talk about food poisoning is going to make me scared to leave the house or eat anything. Ok maybe not the later of the two because that would never happen, food and I get on too well.

Thanks for reading! Watch this space for shallow poached chicken, grilled sirloin steak, buttered beans, sauce a l'anglaise plus more next week. Until then. Happy eating!