culinary school flashback: week 2 in review
I’m back with another flashback 😀. This one was fun for me to reread because we had a rough day in the kitchen, i.e. it took us forever to make the food. Looking back on that now, I had no idea what busy actually meant, but being new to the kitchen, this day was truly overwhelming to me!!
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week two of culinary school in review
This week we only spent two days in the kitchen, the other two days we learned all about sanitation.
We are still focusing on knife skills and techniques, therefore Monday and Tuesday we made more soups and salads. Nonetheless, the menu was delicious and I am doing a really good job of not finishing all the plates – keeping an eye on my goal of not gaining weight throughout this process.
Monday was a rough day in the kitchen! We served dinner an hour late!! It’s incredible how much work it is to perfectly dice a million different types of vegetables, make a tart crust from scratch, make the custard for the tart from scratch, make mayonnaise, perfectly boil eggs, peel tomatoes, etc., etc. There came a point where I was literally sprinting throughout the kitchen with pots and pans to get things done!
Once we did finally serve, the food was yummy and included a citrus salad with an orange vinaigrette, strawberry tartlets and a Madedoine vegetable salad served inside a tomato, along side a 12 minute egg.
A perfect hard boiled egg
The trick is to add the eggs to boiling water and don’t start the timer until the water comes back to a boil. After 12 minutes, transfer the eggs to an ice bath. Peel the eggs in the water to prevent the shell from taking off any of the egg and you should be left with a perfect hard boiled egg.
After Monday’s debacle in the kitchen, Tuesday was a breeze. The kitchen was quiet, calm and organized:
We created a julienne celery root salad with homemade mayonnaise, a leek and potato soup, and orange slices served with candied orange zest for dessert.
I also learned how to butcher an entire chicken – it was a bit sad to take him apart.
As I mentioned earlier, Wednesday and Thursday were filled with sanitation training. We listened to the instructor tell many stories about restaurants in this area. It’s pretty gross how dirty some restaurants can be. When dining out, I almost want to ask to see my steak before it’s cooked, or go as far as asking to see their walk-in cooler.
While it was pretty unnerving at times, it was very informative. We learned how to properly organize walk-in coolers
(i.e. not to store raw chicken above seafood, but rather all the way on the bottom self in case the chicken juice leak), we learned about personal hygiene (i.e. washing your hands every time you enter and re-enter the kitchen for 20 seconds with soap under 100 degree water and that by MD law, a hand washing sink needs to be within 25 feet of any cooking surface), we were walked through the process of how to receive food deliveries and what to look for in terms of quality. Finally, we learned all about the bacteria and viruses people can contract if food is not properly cooked
After two days of training, we had to take a sanitation test – fingers crossed I passed!
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That’s it for week two of school. Check back next week for more flashbacks to culinary school.
If you missed the last few posts, check them out here, here and here 😀!!