We started today with another guest chef lecture. Chef Pete taught us about Herbs and Spices. Herb is latin for grass and includes the leaves and stems of leafy, soft stemmed plants.
When you can, use fresh herbs in cooking-their flavors are more complex and they give more depth of flavor. When you buy herbs in the market, they have been already washed so there is no need to wash them when you get home. When you buy them at a farmers market, and they have dirt on them, place them in cold water, swish them around, then take the herbs out of the water and either pat them dry with paper towels or put them in a spinner. Chef Pete brought over samples of many herbs, basil, chervil, chinves, cilantro, dill, mint, majoram/oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme and fresh bay leaves.
He also covered herb "mixes", such as Herbes de Provence which is a combination of savory, thyme, oregano, rosemary and a bay leaf. It can also contain lavender, mint, sage, basil and majoram. In other words, things that grow together, taste good together. Bouquet Garni contains parsley stems, thyme and a bay leaf. There is also the "Simon and Garfunkel"-you guessed it, lol, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme-a good flavoring for poultry. There is Fines Herbes (feen-herb) a French combination of parsley, chives, chervil and tarragon.
Next came spices. He had samples of many spices so we could see them and taste them. Spice, in Latin, roughly translates to "fruit of the earth". Spices can include the bark, seed, bud, stem, flower, fruit or nut of the plant. Did you know the juniper berry, popular for use in cooking game and venison, is also used to make gin? Did you also know that almost all of what we buy as cinnamon, is really Cassia, a less expensive alternative to cinnamon? Do you know the five most popular varieties of pepper (also known as "piper nigrum")? (green, black, white, pink (which is not a true pepper) and Szechwan peppercorn (also not a true pepper)? Do you know the most expensive spice on earth? (Saffron)
When buying spices, buy whole spices when possible and when you need ground spices, use a cheap coffee grinder to grind them up. Don't buy a lot of spices at a time and date your spices when you buy them.
Once Chef Pete was done, we played Jepardy again, covering Tuscany, Spain and Portugal. Boy do I need to study more!!! Then we did a blind taste test with a red and a white wine. I am NOT good at figuring out exactly what the wines are and where they come from!
After class we had a meeting to go over our European trip. We will be flying into Milan, then taking a bus to Torino where we will spend about a week there, then flying to Paris to spend about a week at Chef Michel's cooking school. We will be gone 2 1/2 weeks instead of three. We do have the option to stay on in Europe at our own expense. I think I am going to try to do this as I am already in Europe. I am trying to talk Jordan into comeing over to spend some time in either France or Italy.
After the meeting, Paula and I went to an outlet mall in Lakewood for some retail therapy. Then out to dinner at McGrath's, a seafood restaurant in Lakewood. Next week we're planning on Italian.
Then is was home to do a little laundry. I do not have to cook this weekend so think I will do a little exploring of Colorado, then study, study, study!!
Good night all!
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