Tourné a l'anglaise or Vegetables English Style

So another session of Culinary School has gone by and I've added another tidbit to my skillset. Now, what is a Tourné ? Basically, it's cutting a vegetable to a small oblong football shape roughly 2-3 inches in length. While it sounds like a waste of time (since it's only a garnish right?) it does elevate whatever dish it's paired with to another state. This technique transforms plain blocky vegetable cuts into something worthy of a fine dine meal.

It looks and sounds simple but believe me, the first time we made it, it was HARD. You face the dangers of the vegetable (or worse, the knife) slipping and injuring yourself. But I guess with enough practice, anyone can make beautiful tourne'd vegetables.

The vegetables that are commonly used are the following (ranked from easiest to toughest, in my opinion)
1. Zucchini
2. Potato
3. Carrot
4. Jicama

Now, as these are kind of thick, you can't just boil them or saute them in butter, there's also a technique that was taught in order for one to cook these vegetables properly.

First, cut a piece of parchment paper enough to cover your pan, and then punch a hole in the middle. Dump some water into the pan, put in the vegetables, add about a tablespoon of butter, then cover with the parchment paper. While this is heating up, the vegetables inside will cook and the water will evaporate through the hole you punched in the paper.

You can tell when the water is all gone when the pan starts to sizzle. When this happens, take out the paper and then saute the veggies in the butter as usual, seasoning to taste. To check for doneness, you can poke the Jicama with a paring knife and if there's little or no resistance, then it's done.

After that, you can enjoy the veggies on their own or add them as garnish to your main dish!

Whew, that was a mouthful. That sure takes buttered vegetables to a whole new level if you ask me.

Knife Skills + Recipe/Technique

Yesterday was our first ever laboratory session (Yippie!) and we started off with some basic knife skills.

I didn't grab any pictures but you can see some great images from About's "How to Use a Chef's Knife" HERE

I guess I was too busy cutting up vegetables to really worry about taking pictures. Also, there are tons of resources out there for proper knife grips. I'm not going to say that you're going to need to enroll in a culinary class to learn how to hold a chef's knife, but it really helps to have someone there to ask if your grip is proper. I mean, again, there are tons of resources out there, both pictures and videos, but nothing beats the feeling of chopping vegetables just for the act of chopping itself.

Anyways, we sliced up a lot of potatoes and what do you do with odds and ends? Well, make mashed potatoes and crispy shoestring potatoes of course!

Recipe # 1 Mashed Potatoes
Yield 6-8

1 Kilo Large Potatoes (It's important to use large potatoes, because we need the starch)
1 Bulb Garlic
1 225gram bar of unsalted butter (or 1 cup)
1 Small box all purpose cream
Oil
Salt (To taste)
Pepper (To taste)
Nutmeg (To taste)
Cayenne Pepper (To taste)
Chives

Technique:
As a whole bulb, cut the top off the garlic
Dress the garlic with oil and place inside an oven at a medium temperature (this should be done about the same time as the potatoes) (Roasted Garlic)
In a large pot, bring water to boil.
Cut up potatoes into quarters (for faster cooking) I prefer not to take the skin out as this adds flavor to the dish. But if you're going for the ultra-smooth variety then by all means, peel the skin off before boiling the potatoes
Boil the potatoes for about 20 minutes until cooked
Drain the potatoes (Don't let cool! Do all the steps while still hot)
Squeeze the garlic into the potatoes
Start mashing the potatoes with a potato masher, or thick gauge wire whisk
Add the butter and all purpose cream slowly while whisking/mashing
Mash until you reach the desired consistency (Some like it ultra smooth, others like it chunky)
Once you reach the desired consistency, add the chopped chives, salt, pepper, nutmeg (some people skip this spice) and cayenne pepper to taste.

Enjoy your mashed potatoes!

Recipe #2
Crispy Shoestring Potatoes
Yield: 4-6
Ingredients

1 Kilo Large Potatoes
Oil
Salt (To taste)
Pepper (To taste)

Technique
Peel the potatoes
Slice the potatoes into shoestrings (about 1/8 inch thick)
After slicing the potatoes, drop them in a bowl of lukewarm water to prevent browning and to help draw out the starch
Drain the potatoes thoroughly and then dry with a paper towel to prevent splattering while cooking
In small batches, deep fry in hot oil for 3-4 minutes
Drain the potatoes on paper towels and cool for a few minutes
Once the cooked potatoes are cooled, re-fry in hot water for about 2 minutes for that extra crisp
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy your shoestring potatoes!

Learned something about Canned Tomatoes and more

Living in a tropical country, it's pretty hard to find those large sweet tomatoes that we see on tv. Our tomatoes here in usually come in the small tart variety.

Anyways, after researching on how to make a basic tomato sauce, I looked into canned tomatoes and discovered something that I really hadn't thought about before. If you take a look at the ingredient list of canned tomatoes, it should only say "Tomatoes, Tomato Juice" and that would mean that the tomatoes were picked and canned at the perfect ripeness. Oh, and some citric acid as an acidity regulator. But when I checked out most of the local brands, most of them contained stuff like salt, sugar, calcium chloride, msg and other stuff.

This just made me laugh as I know a lot of people who say that they never use MSG and that MSG gives them headaches etc etc etc, and then they use all sorts of convenience products like magic sarap, broth cubes, ready-to-use sauces and the like. It's no wonder they say that their food is so yummy and they use very little salt. Reality check, read the labels, you'd be surprised at how much salt you've already dumped into your food.

HACCP Wrap up

Well HACCP was a total bore. Personally I think it's some pretty high level stuff and should be left to those who are already late into their careers and are in the running for the executive level jobs, but for those who are just starting out (read: Culinarians) then basic food safety should be more than enough information.

Rather than putting down what was taught that day, I'll just put in a couple of really helpful links (Which will probably be clearer than anything I can type down here)

Wikipedia's HACCP page HERE

The FDA's HACCP page HERE