A surprise in the Colorado Sky! October 2011

The Colorado Sky is magical.

A friend of mine who lives near me once told me: "Every day as I go outside, look at the sky, and notice that it looks like it is painted with a different painting technique.

I run back inside and tell my husband: Honey, today it is painted in Water Colors. The next day I go out and in may look like it was painted in oil paints.

The next day it may look like it was painted with acrylics and the next with pastels. The techniques go on and on.

She tells me that it is always a nice surprise go outside and notice the Colorado Sky.

She has been practicing this activity for over 20 years and assures me that it is still a surprise to go outside and look at the sky.

After talking with her I started practicing the same exercise, the only difference is that instead of going out every day and checking the sky I go every few hours and I still find a different surprise every time I go out.

Water Colors:

Darker shades of pastels:

Here are two of the Cheese Souffles that I reheated from our production yesterday and ate this morning. Even though they don't look quite as pretty as yesterday, they were impressively delicious!

I have learned that when I wait to have something I made the next morning, it usually tastes "rounder", as if the flavors have settled.

Pastels:

Eggs Benedict and Brioche. October 2011.

Eggs Benedict served with a side of browned potatoes.

Delicious.

The Hollandaise Sauce I prepared for our eggs Benedict is finished with Dijon mustard and lots of Tabasco. 

Here goes the process of making it:

Start with fresh grade AA eggs. This way they will not break as easily.

In a stainless steel round bowl, whisk your egg yolks with a touch of acid (usually white vinegar and lemon juice), salt and seasoning of your preference.

Now, place your bowl over steaming water whisk your yolks until it becomes like a thick paste. Remove from the heat and start adding your warm, but not hot clarified butter, little by little, always whisking.

If it starts becoming to thick, add a bit more acid, like a few drops of lemon juice or if it is already too acid add a few drops of water. 

Continue adding your clarified butter until it becomes totally emulsified, to a consistency you feel is good. Now flavor it as you wish.

Hint: since the mixture of butter and egg yolk tastes very rich and fatty, I find it very relieving to add something citric and something spicy to this mix. It complements the flavor by balancing the fat. 

Post Scriptum: If the eggs break you can fix them adding a bit more water (1 tsp) or two new egg yolks and whisking them together.

On this delicious English Muffin recipe we used Compressed Yeast and Baking Powder. 

With the compressed yeast you make a sponge and then add the rest of the ingredients. 

Here goes the method: 

Warm up the milk to 75 degrees F. mix in the compressed yeast and a bit of pastry flour and let this sponge ferment for 15 minutes. 

Now add  the remaining pastry, bread flour and baking powder. Mix. 

Now lightly mix this dough with the sugar, salt, butter, and water, just enough to moisten the ingredients. Mix it a touch more on higher speed.

Cover the dough and, let it rest for 20 minutes. On this bulk fermentation, it will grown. Punch it down to give the yeast some new food and to equalize the temperature of the dough. Now let it rest for another 10 minutes.

Roll it out to a 1 inch thickness, cut it in circles or squares. 

Place it on a cornmeal dusted sheet pan and proof it on a moistened environment for 30 minutes. 

While proofing it, don't forget to place a small steaming pot of water inside proof box or in a moist environment and spray the dough before closing the proof box. This will avoid the outer part of the dough from drying out and enable the dough to grow to its fullest potential.

When you pinch the dough with your finger and it does not bounce back it is done proofing.

Now bake it on a lightly greased griddle at medium heat until golden. Flip it over with a pancake spatula so that both sides get golden.

Our English muffin production.

When cooking your eggs for your Eggs Benedict you will be using a poaching method. As soon as they come out from your warm water you should serve them immediately or hold them in ice water (so that they don't carry over cooking) until service time. 

Here goes a basic procedure for poaching your eggs: 

First, use the freshest eggs possible. 

How to know if your eggs is good? When you break it into a bowl, it should have a tall, dark yellow yolk with a small egg white and a smaller thicker transparent egg white ring around the yolk. 

Usually the bigger and taller the yolk and the smaller the white, the better the quality of your egg. 

As an egg gets older, it dehydrates and the egg yolk becomes smaller and the egg white becomes bigger and thinner. 

Old eggs are not the best eggs for poaching, they break a lot easier and they are not as tasty and satisfying when served in Eggs Benedict, where the egg is the main ingredient.

Continuing the procedure for poaching your eggs: 

In a big pot of simmering water, add a bit of distilled vinegar (1/2 tsp or 1 tsp per qt of water) and a touch of salt. 

This will help your egg whites coagulate without breaking. Swirl your water and add your eggs, one by one. The movement of the water will help your eggs not set to the bottom while still raw.

Simmer them for about 4 minutes, until the whites coagulate. Now remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and serve them immediately. 

This was one of the brioches we made earlier. It was literally the size of a soccer ball. We used it the following day to make a pizza type of Hors D'euvres.

Waiting a day is not the best idea for Brioche, especially in Colorado. It got a bit dry.

Our final Breakfast Buffet. October 2011.

On our final Breakfast Buffet, we made a sweet version of crepes, folded in quarters with a touch of Berry Compote in the middle, topped with strips of melted dark chocolate.

Here goes the recipe we used for our Berry Compote:

Ingredients

Berries, aromatics, sugar and some kind of liquid to complement the berries (we used a light red wine).

Mix all the ingredients with about 2/3 of your berries and bring it to a simmer. 

Reduce it until it reaches a Glace consistency. To check the Glace consistency it should coat the back of a wooden spoon. 

When you pass your finger through it horizontally, it should hold its shape.

Now remove it from the heat and add the rest of your berries.

Another part of our breakfast meal:

Baked ham, breakfast sausages, cheese plate, bacon, flavored mint water, fresh brewed coffee and each person received a cheese souffle. 

There were 3 extra ones that no had space to enjoy. Since I was also too full to eat it, I decided to take them home and eat it the next day. I kept them chilled and the next day I had heated one up on the little toaster oven and had it for lunch, it was even more flavorful, the flavors had time to set.

Hint

When cooking ham, always cook it in medium to low heat in the oven since ham is usually cured with salt and sugar. 

If cooked in the pan it will burn and not taste very good.

Bacon should also be cooked in the oven, at medium low heat, so that it does not wrinkle, unless if you will be using it chopped inside of a recipe, than you can cook it in a pan as you wish.

Learning how to make Cheese Souffle

 The heaven of heavens.

Any meal that includes Good Quality ingredients from eggs, dairy (especially Fromage), salads, fruits and nuts are delicious.

Here goes my "To Die For" Fromage Souffle recipe:

Butter, flour, milk, salt, white pepper (or black if you prefer), cayenne, nutmeg, egg yolk, Gruyere cheese and egg whites. 

You can play around with the proportions according to how rich or tasty you like your food to be. 

One thing you must remember though is once you have your warm mix of yolks, milk, cheese and seasonings, fold in your egg whites gently, just enough so that you don't see them in your dough. 

Now put them in your souffle ramekins or one ceramic baking pan.

Put the souffle in a preheated medium hot oven and bake. 

If you open the oven while they are baking, they might deflate, but once you shut it and the temperature rises again, they will inflate again, since hot air rises inside the air bubbles.

Once they have reached the right color, open, check it they are done by shaking them. If the centers do not jiggle they are done.

NOW YOU MUST SERVE IMMEDIATELY, since once the air inside them gets cool, it will naturally poof down. 

They will be light, fluffy, creamy and very flavorful. 

It was definitely an "Umami" taste to the mouth. 

Sausage patties with our breakfast meal. October 2011.

A Pork Sausage for breakfast.

 Cut the meat and some of the pork fat into cubes, small enough to fit in the grinder and let it chill thoroughly. 

Immerse the meat grinder and all of it's parts such as the Worm, Tami and base (except for the motor) in iced water so that when it's stays completely chilled. 

This step will help maintain the meat's consistency and it's emulsification of fat, protein and liquid.

Now grind the meat through the grinder with a large die and then again with a small die. Always keep a bucket of ice underneath the grinder so that it maintains it's temperature.

Once grinned, mix salt, spices of your preference (we used a basic Quatre Epice) and a bit of water together and add this mix to the ground meat. 

Mix thoroughly by hand.

Test for flavor by making one small portion of patty and cooking it in a pan. At this point you can adjust the flavor.

Chill it a bit and then make your patties and cook them in the griddle.

Grinding

We used a proportion of 70% meat to 30% fat.

You can play around with this ration. If you want a richer sausage you can mix in 60% meat to 40% fat or 50-50. 

For this patty, the ration we used was rich enough.

When using cheese...October 2011

On our breakfast week we also learned how to make a cheese platter. This is one example done in class, but it was not an example that our chef instructor would want us to repeat. When making a cheese platter you should either leave the cheese whole with knives next to each one and serve them accompanied by fresh fruits or cut the pieces equally and uniformly. If that is the choice, create some kind of design that in not symmetrical but that has some kind of ordered intention. Also, you should NOT make happy faces, boats or any other kind of designs with your cheese, unless you are working on a cruise ship and want to welcome your guest with an obvious treat. It is also important to serve a nice variety of cheeses and of good quality, since they might be eaten without an accompaniment. 

One thing I have learned is to always serve cheese at room temperature, never cold. Also, the best storage temperature for cheese is around 55-60 degrees F. If you are storing them on the fridge, remove them some time before so that they are at room temperature for service time. 

At refrigerator temperature, which is basically too cold for cheese, the milk fat is congealed and as hard as refrigerated butter, the protein network becomes unnaturally stiff and the flavor molecules become masked. The cheese will then taste rubbery and flavorless.

One more hint: When buying cheese, try to buy portions that are cut while you are watching. Precut portions can be days or weeks old and their exposed surface most likely will develop a rancid and off flavor from the contact with air, light and their own plastic wrap.

Biscuits and Fruit Platter. Breakfast Week. October 2011

Here is our final Fruit Platter. When creating your design try to create one that is not symmetrical but with even cut fruits. You can always use the scraps of the fruits in some way. We opted for putting them piled up in the middle. 

I just adore oranges, especially organic ones. Their flavor is so intense, sweet and sour, it makes my body happy at any time.

"A nice fruit tray is the mark of a good chef." 

First wash all your fruits, peel them and cut them into evenly large pieces.

Hint: Pineapple peal makes a delicious tea when boiled. It can be served hot or cold with whole cloves, fresh mint leaves and ice.

One of the most delicious treats we made were Chef's Country Biscuits. In this recipe as usual we mixed the dry ingredients together and then we cut in the chilled butter and mixed it to form lumps. The lumps should look the size of peas. Now add the milk mix a touch more. Don't overwork this dough, it should look broken.

Now transfer dough to a lightly floured surface. Fold it exactly 3 times. No more, no less.

Cut in squares, so that you use all the dough and place on paper lined sheet pan on a high heat preheated oven. Remove when tops are light golden.

Let cook for 20 minutes before serving it so that gluten relaxes. 

Hint: When cutting the butter, instead of cutting with two knives, use an oven rack and pass the whole 1 pound of chilled butter through the rack. You will cut it all at once. With a bigger quantity of butter you can also use a mixer to mix it. 

Lets talk a bit about Flours.

When working with different kinds of flours you should know what it is made of, examples:

Cake Flour-6-8% Protein/Gluten

Pastry Flour-7-9.5% Protein/Gluten

All Purpose Flour-9.5-12% Protein/Gluten

Bread Flour-11.5-14% Protein/Gluten

Whole Wheat Flour-13/14% Protein but only 6% Gluten

High Gluten Flour-13.5-14.5% Protein/Gluten 

Vital Wheat Gluten-40-85% Protein/Gluten (added to flour to increase gluten content such as rye, whole grain and specialty flours).

When making a Whole Grain Bread, the bran particles of the whole wheat flour cut through the gluten strends in the dough and makes it a heavier crumb. That is why we should add additional gluten, with a portion of Vital Wheat Gluten Flour to make the final baked bread light and tender.

Breakfast week continues with Crepes, pancakes and more...October 2011

When Forming or Pancakes: Spread one small ladle portion onto a preheated lightly greased griddle and allow space for them to spread. Flip over when the sides start becoming full of bubbles. It should look smooth with no vain marks. If you see darker vain marks it is a sign that you are using to much fat, reduce your amount of fat.

When making Buck Wheat Pancakes we follow practically the same process as making Crepes but with this batter we mix very little, purposely leaving lumps and now folder it egg whites whipped to make the dough lighter, since it is naturally heavy due to the Buck Wheat Flour we used.

Hint: When making Whipped Egg whites use egg whites that are at room temperature, they will whip easier.

Acid will help your foam: Throw a drop of vinegar in your mixing bowl with whites before whipping.

 To hold it's shape, put a touch of sugar during the whipping process.

Be very careful not to let any of the yolk in your whites when they will be used for whipping, since fat inhibits formation of the foam.

At this point the bottom, first side do the Crepe, is getting browned.

Hint: You should not thoroughly wash your Crepe Pan, since the more you use a crepe pan, the less it will stick.

Learning how to make Crepes: The first step is to mix you dry ingredients (Flour and salt in a bowl) and gradually add your eggs and a bit of your milk. Mix until it is lump free and then add the rest of your milk and your oil. It should have a heavy cream like consistency. Cover your bowl and let it sit for two hours in the cooler before frying it. This will relax the Gluten.  

At frying time rub crepe pan with oil and let it heat. Cool it now bring it back to the stove, brush on a thin layer of clarified butter, remove the pan from the stove, remove all excess butter from the pan and start with one small ladle of crepe batter. Tilt pan to cover it only with a thin layer of this batter and and return it to the heat until the bottom is browned. This will be your visible side. Flip it over.

Brine Curing our Breakfast Meat. October 2011.

We are now entering breakfast week and during this week one of the meats we are making is Corned Beef. The first step for preparing our piece of meet is Brine Curing it. We do do by immersing it in a water mixture with 2 parts salt, 1 part sugar, spices, herbs. The meat will then end up having about 60% moisture and 7% salt by weight. The reason why at times we choose to Brine Cure our meat instead of Dry Cure is because the proportion of cure that penetrates the meat is smaller and more even compared to a Dry Cure. It also takes a longer time for the product to be cured, so you can partially cure your product more easily, which is what we did. We partially Brine Cured our tough piece of meat for a few days in the cooler and finished it by a slow, moist cooking method.

PS: "Corn" in Corned Beef, coming from the English word for grains including Salt grains.

The first step to working with meat is smelling it and making sure it does not smell like much. If it does smell, it should have a very light smell of fresh meat.

Hint: When working with your piece of meat, always keep it on top of a baking sheet, this way you will not risk that any any of it's juices drip to undesirable places and "cross contaminates" other products or surfaces. One very useful hint that was thought to me is to always keep my cutting board firm inside my baking sheet when I am cutting meats so that the juices stay inside the sheet.   

Simply delicious.

Halloween is showing its face with beautiful orange colored pumpkins. This is AlfaAlfa's cheery decoration.

At night we got to have dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Boulder: The Kitchen Next Door. Simple, Casual and delicious local food. I had to order the Lamb Sandwich with Mint Sauce. My brother had the Pork Sandwich and we ordered sides of Garlic Paste Fries and Cheese and Ham Breaded Croquettes. All was simply delicious!

Finally I got to get and GIVE my own free hug in Down Town Boulder. A one time opportunity of going Live! Better than in the movies...

Mom likes her salads less sweet. She had hers with Aged Cheddar Cheese and lots of Tomatoes.

Our Fresh Picked apples also tasted quite delicious in this salad.

One of the ingredients That I must always have in salad are nuts. This time I went will fresh Whole Foods sunflower seeds. I stored it in my special Toll House cocoa pot. Cocoa is a "Umami" food for me.

Sometimes simple ingredients can make a delicious meal

Another beautiful Day in Ho Hum Paradise. Sept. 2011

We also found an interesting fruit along the way that looked like a grape. I wonder if it was of the grape family. I was kind of afraid of trying it, but my brother did and thought it tasted sweet like a grape.

He went apple picking with me on our way back home, and this time the apples were even sweeter that last time. One week can make quite a difference in ripening stages.

My dear brother was visiting and joined me for our hike.

A view of South Boulder from the top.

I just love this place.

I like passing on valuable ideas

Some of the sentences we very nice.

Parked in a corner of Pearl Street is this very interesting truck. I studied it for quite a while.

A spotted view from the top of Sanitas Mountains, looking a Boulder.

Going for a walk near home...