Practice Makes Perfect

The comments have been made, and suggestions have been offered.  And, yesterday, on a whim and maybe a homework suggestion from The Sous, I bought $23.46 of produce at Whole Foods, and decide it is about damn time. 

I lock myself in my kitchen (even though it is an open kitchen), and for two hours I get to know the characteristics and personalities of the likes of white onions, shallots, fennel bulbs, long bulk carrots, cantaloupes, and navel oranges. I chop, and chop, and chop until my back hurts and my knives are dull. My job is to teach myself, by shear will and practice, how to mince, dice, julienne, and brunoise all of these vegetables. It is time. 

My goal is to figure out different approaches, like pulling through the length of my Chef's knife blade when mincing onions, rather than just pushing down on the bulb with my Santoku. Or to finally create a consistent 1/8 inch brunoise out of a carrot, and dice a melon into the same size pieces as The Owner and Chef M did this past weekend for the Escolar crudo. 

I became insecure about my knife skills on the first day at The Restaurant, when I butcher a red onion unrecognizable. They are in shapes that not even a Geometry major could attempt to describe. I obviously am also using the wrong technique to cut the onion, as well, hence the abiding scar on the tip of my ring finger from a battle with a peach pit and my paring knife. 

You would think after a couple of weeks I would catch on. But even this past weekend, I am mincing chives for The Sous and The Head Chef, and The Sous looks at my knife work and says, "Stage. What are you doing? Is this your first day of school"? I whine, telling him that my fingers are curled, and he retaliates by reminding me that my knuckles are not resting on my blade like he showed me that very first day, and that puts me at risk of cutting myself (which we know I do), even when my fingers are curled.  I have to admit, having that security of your knuckles on the blade helps me to guide my knife where it needs to go, with both hands, not just one. I also hate to admit that it helps me with the consistency of the chop because I know exactly where the knife is going. I see that I am not going to win this battle. 

He also explains to me that I have to be methodical in my cutting technique. Cutting chives, for example, is a rhythm, like the breaths and strokes of a swimmer. Each time your blade finishes swooshing through the chives you have given it, you then re-adjust your hands, so that you can cut more of those chives in that same rhythm, using that same technique, and having those same knuckles on your left hand gently resting on your blade. 

The same goes for a brunoise, or a dice. You square your produce off, be it a melon or a carrot, cut that shape into planks, cut the planks into sticks (julienne), and then rotate the sticks so that you can create a fine dice (brunoise). Just as consistent as those long crawl strokes of a swimmer. 

I also learn this past weekend that when you mince parsley, you pick the leaves all off of the hard stems (which I would have never done before). Then, you take a bunch of the large dark green leaves and bunch them up into a small ball in your fingers. Then you chiffonade the parsley so that it creates small, fluffy ribbons. Once you are done chiffonading all of the parsley, then you go back and run your knife over the parsley so that it turns into tiny confetti. It is much easier than just running your knife all over the cutting board trying to find the miscellaneous pieces of parsley that you didn't get the first time around. I have been chasing damn flat-leaf parsley around my freaking cutting board for the majority of my cooking life. 

I also have to work on efficiency in my knife work tasks. Last weekend, I was supreming three oranges and two grapefruits for The Owner, yet, I was just working on one piece at a time. The Sous points out that he would take those five pieces of citrus, and cut each of the fruit's tops and bottoms off, all at once, then cut around each one, back to back, and then work on supreming them individually. 

So, after being cooped up in my house for two hours on one of the most beautiful Summer days Seattle has given us, and knowing I could have been laying out on Lake Washington listening to the clinking of sailboat masts in the wind, and reading some of my new A-16 cookbook, I felt pleased with my attempt at anal retentive, and methodical chopping skills. 

From far away, like an impressionistic Monet painting, the mise en place came together, and I could have been mistaken for Eric Ripert. But up close, there were inconsistencies which I will one day improve. I just have many, many, many more hours of homework ahead of me with those pesky vegetables, and my knives. Sharpened like a razor blade, of course. 

The Banquet Squiggle

Banquet Squiggle- A short wavy twist or line, similar to a curlicue, that was used at Hotel Banquets starting in the 90’s to garnish a plate

 

There are many tools used when plating and garnishing a dish. You have your microplane to grate fresh horseradish over Kumamoto oysters, or to grate Mojama over a deconstructed carbonara. You have your ceramic mandoline and your vegetable peeler to cut thin crisp slices of a green apple, or shave a small Persian cucumber. But most importantly, you have your opaque 12 oz. and 6 oz. squeeze bottles for sauces and dressings. Maybe they have a lovage puree, or a creamy anchovy dressing. Or they contain a thick lemony aioli, or a frothy watermelon broth. 

There are many options for plating these sauces and dressings: you can spoon the sauce in a corner and run the back of your spoon through it to create a sort of teardrop like arrow, you can drip consecutively bigger dots next to each other down the side of the plate, you can draw a straight line on the edge of your plate, or splatter the sauce, Jackson Pollock style. 

But, no matter what is in those squeeze bottles, do not ever, ever, EVER use them to create a banquet squiggle.

 

I feel uninspired as I begin to plate a crudo dish that I had already finished slicing and prepping on my cutting board. In a loss for creativity and lack of experience, and maybe eating at too many “trendy” restaurants in the 90’s when my influences started to take shape, I start to complete the final element, which is to create a garnish with the mint puree from one of the squeeze bottles.

I am sure you can imagine what happens next. 

I create a short wavy twist with that 12 oz. squeeze bottle in the corner of the white square plate, feeling at that exact moment, as I lift the bottle into the air to finish, that it was the lazy way out. Immediately I sense Chef M’s eyes bore into my plating. 

He says to me in his slight southern accent, “Oh, Stage. Stage. Be Careful there. We do not want this establishment’s food looking like some kind of hotel banquet, now, do we?” At that, he quickly picks up my plate to show The Sous and The Head Chef across the Boos Block what I have done, laughing hysterically. Then he says, “Stage gave you a little banquet squiggle.” 

All I can do is laugh, hard. At myself, and with the other Chefs. I take the plate back and assure him I can fix it. I wonder if anybody has a toothpick lying around? I plan to just create a pattern from the squiggle that I have seen those same Hotel Chefs do with berry coulis. 

Can you feel this getting worse? 

I pull some lines through the squiggle with the end of my fork, but at this point, the mint puree has settled, and all that is left on my plate is a verdant rectangle of slop. It looks like an ironic grass stain lying there on that white square plate. It reminds me of the grass stain I had in middle school, on the butt of my favorite pair of white Calvin Klein cut-off shorts, that I adamantly wore because I was too prideful to throw them away. He says to me, “Now you are just making a mess.” 

Maybe this is my hint to get myself a food plating book. But, I can assure you, It will have the banquet squiggle in there. 

It is a classic. 

But, regardless, the Chefs are never going to let me live this one down. 

Oyster Elbow

I think I have oyster elbow. 

I am at the ballet today, (trying to get in shape) and getting ready to do pushups, and my left elbow is terribly achey and sore. It takes me a while to figure out what I would have possibly done to myself, and then I realize: I bet I hurt myself shucking oysters all weekend. 

I have probably shucked more than 100 Oysters in the past two weeks. And, I have never shucked an oyster before working at The Restaurant. 

Each chef has their own unique way of shucking. Chef B, and The Sous like to hold a kitchen towel in their hand, and shuck the oyster that way. Chef M likes to put the kitchen towel on his working surface and wrap the towel around the shell to stabilize it. Some Chefs wear fancy gloves, and some Chefs use different kinds of oyster knives.

And me? Well, I am not a Chef, so I like to just get the little sucker open in less than five minutes, however I can. Yes. Five minutes. For ONE oyster. I was really bad at shucking them in the beginning. 

Oh, and not breaking the shell all over the place is another goal.

For my first oyster, I wrap the towel in my hand and nestle the shell in my palm like The Sous has taught me. I get out my oyster knife, and try to wedge it into the hinge. Not only did I not pop open the oyster, but I break the first layer of  shell and get my oyster knife stuck. Eh. Not good. 

So, to remedy this mistake, I just decide to push the knife through the oyster. This, of course, severs and slashes open the oyster meat. Then, I scrape around with the oyster knife, like I am digging for buried treasure, and I finally pop open the top shell, and try to abrade the muscle from its home. This breaks the oyster meat in half. 

Oops. 

Debris, mud, and the bits of shell look like a brunoise all over my demolished oyster. And the coveted brine? All over the cutting board, my kitchen towel, and my apron. 

I show The Sous. He laughs at the wreckage, and gives me another one, and we start the learning process again. He can shuck an oyster in about ten seconds with finesse. After watching him do this about four times, I am finally starting to get the hang of it. It is more of a slight twist and pop, instead of a jab and slash. More technique, less brawn. 

When I have done four Kumamoto oysters without turning them into hamburger, in less than five minutes, I finally get to top them with the beautiful finishing oil, finely minced apple, and freshly grated horseradish. I pack a mini All-Clad pan with ice and arrange them so that their hinges all face in towards the center. 

The order only took fifteen minutes or so, when it could have taken three, but I did it. 

When the night is over, my shoulder is aching, and my left elbow feels like I have torn something. 

But, I can shuck an oyster. In less than 5 minutes. 

Now on to the Cherry Clams. Wish me luck on those. I feel they will be even more difficult. I will probably title that post Clam palm. 

The Methods

The minute I step in the door, Chef M has a laundry list of things I need to accomplish before 5:00. It made me regret getting here at 1:20.

But there is a problem; all of the items have to do with baking. And, I am just not a confident baker.

Chef M whips out The Restaurants culinary bible: the giant Giorgio Locatelli cookbook, slaps it on a giant Boos Block, and turns to a page in the middle that has been bookmarked with a ribbon.

The recipe is for grissini. Ugh. I hate working with dough. And, I have never made grissini.  

He spouts off some changes that he wants, like using active dry yeast instead of fresh, and substituting out Pecorino Romano instead of Parmigianno Reggiano. He tells me I have to weigh all of the ingredients, and preheat the oven in advance, and read through the whole recipe, and learn Locatelli's techniques and methods for working dough. It was an earful, but all important, I assure you.

Then, as I begin reading the recipe, he puts another smaller book on top of the Locatelli book. It is The Restaurant's master recipe list. He flips it open to the "recipe" for biscotti. He tells me I will use toasted pistachios as the filling, and double the "recipe". I look down at the book. It is a long list of ingredients, and at the bottom the directions say: Use the cream method.

Descriptive. 

I guess I will just be add-libbing this one, too. Great way to start a shift.

As I am walking back to the kitchen, Chef M also tells me that I will be making a lemon mostarda using the triple-blanch method. I look at him. Smile. And, wonder when I will get a chance to google on my iPhone the terms mostarda, and triple-blanch. It is only 1:25. 

I find a scale, and start to measure my ingredients for the grissini. I am having to do math in my head while I weigh the flour because the scale does not have a reset button to start at zero. I find a cup, and place it on the scale: 5.8 ounces. A nice, even number to subtract everything from. 

(Sigh) Lovely. 

I weigh the flour. The recipe says I need 13 1/2 ounces. I am sorry, but there are not 1/2 ounces on this scale. I eyeball it because, frankly, nobody is looking over my shoulder. It seems to be a little over 1 1/2 cups. That sounds good enough. 

Then I melt butter, and milk, and add in the active dry yeast. I add that mixture, slowly and in a steady golden stream, to the flour and begin to form a dough with my hands. You have to understand, I really have no experience with dough. I am slightly shaking, and I am nervous that this is not going to turn out. With dough on my hands, palms, finger condom, and apron, I wrap the hard (should it be hard?!) dough ball in a wet, blue towel. Now, I wait for it to rest. Maybe it will soften up with time?

Chef M comes to the back, and asks me if the dough feels "right" in my hands. I laugh. 

Sure. 

Then, I move on to the lemon mostarda, which I have no IDEA how to do. I would have done the biscotti, but the butter needed to get to room temperature so that I could properly use the cream method. Honestly, I am really screwed with either recipe that I chose. Chef M told me earlier that the mostarda should contain lemon zest, sugar, white balsamic, dijon mustard, horseradish. No amounts, of course, or directions of order, but just enough to make about 2 cups. I get out a zest tool, and create beautiful pale yellow curls all over my cutting board. I ask The Head Chef to tell me what the triple-blanch method is (it is not google-able), it seems easy enough, and I get started on that. Meanwhile, my timer is buzzing because my hard dough now needs to get the Locatelli press and flip method, and then go under the blue towel again. My head is spinning. 

When my grissini dough is finally ready, I roll it out through a pasta wheel, and begin to form it into long sticks. I can't make them even, of course, and I put them on a Silpat to cook for 15 minutes. During their time in the oven, which actually ends up being more like 30 minutes because I make them too thick, I whip of a quick double-batch of biscotti. Using the ever-so-descriptive "cream method", I start them like I am making cookies, toss in the pistachios (that I almost forget) and put the loaves in another oven to bake as well. Phew! Two down. 

I pull the grissini out of the oven, crispy and brown. Chef M takes an ugly one (one of my first rolling attempts), tastes it, tells me this recipe is an experiment, and informs me that we may or may not serve them. 

What? All of that stress for an experiment? I need a cocktail. 

I finish up the lemon mostarda, golden and sweet, that will be served on the cheese plate, with the "may or may not" grissini, and a huge hunk of aged Pecorino. I put in into a small white bowl. 

The only thing left to do is cut my biscotti, and bake them for a second time. It is 4:45 and I need to get on my Chef's coat and my apron. Chef M, walking by quickly, grabs one of the "butts" from the end of a loaf, tastes it, slaps me on the back, and says, "That's the best shit you have ever made!" 

I smile ear to ear, on this inside, of course.