Happy New Year everyone! It's hard to believe it's 2015 already, Christmas vacation is over (a blissful 2 weeks) and it's back to school tomorrow. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I wish you all the best in 2015!
Now, I should catch you up on the last few weeks of school. My apologies for not posting anything. It was a busy November and December in the Cold Kitchen. It was a lot of fun in there and Chef Reinhard is a great instructor. I really appreciated how organized he was, with spreadsheets, labels and clip boards with prep lists. That's right up my ally.
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| Side of pork or half a pig. |
The Cold Kitchen is all about cold preparations. From making salads and sandwiches, to butchery, filleting fish and making sausage. I learned a lot in this kitchen and really got to know my classmates well. We laughed a lot in Cold Kitchen! We started off each morning making between 30 and 40 sandwiches for the cafeteria, special functions and O'Tools, the little cafe in the Trades building. It got a little repetitive at times, but we always made it fun.
Our lab day was on Tuesdays, and this meant we had a couple hours of theory in the morning and then back to the kitchen to practice. One of the coolest lab days was the butchery day! Our chef brought in a side of pork and a quarter of beef and we learned the primal cuts and how to separate them.
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| Quarter of beef. |
It was interesting to see the cuts of meat in real life and not just on a diagram in our text book.
The following Tuesday was poultry day and there was conveniently a function for about 700 people at the end of the week. And they were serving turkey. So we all learned how to break down turkeys. We separated the thighs and legs, took of the wing tip and wings, and took the breast off the rib cage. We did about 22 turkeys, before doing the same to about 16 duck and then about 15 chickens. The turkey was the easiest as its the biggest. But once you know how to process one bird, the rest are all the same, just a different size.
We also had a seafood lab day, which was very cool. We all learned how to shuck oysters! It's actually not that hard, you just need to know where to put your knife and twist. And as Chef Reinhard always says, "Don't be scared, don't be shy". And the best part, we got to eat as many as we wanted! They are so delicious with a little Tabasco, yum!
We also got to fillet some beautiful salmon. We all did pretty good. The tough part is not leaving too much of the flesh on the bones. And getting all the pin bones out.
Cold kitchen was also responsible for running the Salad Station, the Hot Sandwich Station and the Sushi Station. I really enjoyed this part, as it is more geared to where I want to end up (my own little cafe or bistro). I really enjoyed the Sushi Station. It was so much fun to learn how to roll sushi and make the sticky rice properly. The rolling technique is not that difficult actually. The tricky part is getting the rice on the nori (seaweed) evenly and not too thick. And as luck would have it, I received a sushi rolling set for Christmas! I can't wait to use it!
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| My first California Roll |
I was also lucky enough to work with Chef Reinhard and a classmate to make sausage. It was great to learn the proper technique and the right process. I hope to be able to make sausage at home one of these days.
The picture to the right is of the sausage casings being prepped. They are pork intestines and they were frozen. Here we have thawed them and they are being unraveled and hung to get any excess water out of them. Making sure it's one, nice long piece. We had already ground the meat mixture and seasoned it, so we were ready to make some sausage!
It's actually pretty simple to make sausage. You just need a few pieces of equipment to make it happen. Like a mixer with the meat grinder attachment and then the part that stuffs the casing. Easy peasy, haha!
Our last day of school before Christmas break was a field trip to the Sysco Warehouse in Lake Country. We had a tour of the warehouse, as well as participating in a few product comparisons. We also had a "Chopped" competition, where we were split into teams and had to create a dish using specific ingredients and present this to the judges in 20 minutes. It was crazy! The team I was on made a tuna tartar with a fresh salad of organic greens, grilled heirloom tomatoes and rainbow carrots, with a fresh vinaigrette. We came in third unfortunately, but it was a lot of fun! And we were really close to second place!
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| Our dish |
The field trip ended with an amazing two course lunch prepared by Sysco's in house corporate chef. We were served the most amazing lobster bisque, with a piece of butter poached lobster and creme fraiche. WOW! Our second course was a sirloin steak, cut California style, with braised short ribs (braised overnight), creamy mashed potatoes, baby carrots and baby bok choy. It was so incredibly tasty and incredibly tender! My mouth is watering just thinking about it
It was a great way to finish the year! Now, we move into the bake shop. On to muffins, cakes and breads. I'm really looking forward to it! Although that first morning is going to be tough.
Thanks for sharing in this journey with me! Here's to an excellent 2015!
~Vicki :)
