Today we took a little detour before starting another lecture on seafood. Chef Lexie lectured on Souffles and Custards.
Souffles have two parts: an In-active base (which adds the flavor) and the Active Lightener (which is always whipped egg whites). Chef Lexie described souffles as "a sauce that holds its breath", a somewhat apt way to put it! When you keep in mind that souffles are MEANT to deflate once they come out of the oven, it makes them less scary. Souffles are also usually served with a sauce of some type, which helps to mask the falling of the souffle. You make your base (melt some chocolate, maybe add salt, whip your egg shites until firm but not stiff, fold your whipped egg whites into the chocolate, then bake. The souffles go right from the oven to the table. An interesting thing about souffles is that they can be frozen instead of cooked. You make your souffle batter, put it in a ramekin, then freeze it. It can go right from the freezer to the oven to bake. That way you have a fancy dessert ready to go at any time. What could be better? Once baked, you should have a slightly molten center in a dessert souffle. A savory souffle should be cooked all the way thru. To check for doneness, you can "lift the lid" to check the center to see if it is done.
There are two types of custard: Stove top (Pastry cream and Creme Anglaise) and Baked (Creme Brulee and Creme Caramel). Both the Pastry cream and Cream Anglaise are made the same-scald your dairy, which your egg products and sugar together, temper your dairy with your eggs, heat on your stove top and cook appropriately. What cook appropriately means, is that pastry cream has cornstarch in it so needs to come to a boil to get rid of the "starchy taste". Creme Anglaise has no cornstarch so should not be brought to a boil otherwise you will scramble your eggs.
Creme Brulee and Creme Caramel are similarly made. You scald your dairy, whisk your egg product and sugar together, temper your dairy with the eggs and bake in the oven. The base can be made up ahead and time and kept in the fridge to be used at any time. Creme Caramel uses whole milk and whole eggs. Creme Brulee uses heavy cream and uses only egg yolks. Tips for cooking both Creme Brulee and Creme Caramel: both are baked in a water bath or bain marie-water half way up the ramekins; cover then entire pan with foil (and not the individual ramekins); cook low and slow-200 to 250 degrees for several hours. The low temperature gives you a greater change of success and a softer, more delicious product. You can tell the custards are done by gently shaking it; if the whole ramekin wiggles, it's done! If it ripples, it's NOT done.
Lastly, she covered Pot de Creme, which means "pot of cream". It is a rich royale-(custard) usually chocolate. It contains 3 eggs plus extra yolks, which makes it very rich and thick!
When you think about it, cheesecake is a baked custard but in this case cream cheese is your dairy. And the same holds true for doneness, if it wiggles it is done, if it jiggles, it is not done. Cheesecake should be baked like a custard not a cake, which will yield you a cheesecake that is moist and tasty, not dry and crumbly!
Next, back to fish....Chef Dale covered cooking methods for fish as well as recapping some of yesterday's fish lecture. "Flipper grade" fish is flash frozen on the ship that caught it, then delivered frozen. Sushi grade depends on how the fish is handled and the quality of fish and fat content. Fish live in zero gravity so they are tender by design and should be cooked accordingly. Cook fish like you would cook an egg-it has albumin (protein) and can easily be overcooked, which causes synteresis. The flesh should be just set.
How to check fish for doneness? 1. Fish that just separates into flakes but does not fall apart. 2. If bone is present (like in a salmon steak), the flesh separates from the gone and the bone is no longer pink. 3. The flesh has turned from translucent to opaque (although this last method is somewhat dated, you do want a little transluscency). Another suggestion is to cook fish for 10 minutes for every inch of thickness.
Not sure if you remember the nine methods of cooking from a previous lecture but each of these can also be applied to fish. Steaming, braising, frying, stewing, baking, grilling, boiling, griddling and roasting.
Look at the fat content of the fish to determine the cooking method, i.e. cod is best for fish and chips because of low fat. Salmon is not a good choice for fish and chips because it is so fatty-you take a fatty fish, then deep fry it-not a good choice!
You can also look at texture for deciding a cooking method. Use firm fish for grilling: Atlantic Bonito, Bigeye Tuna, Black Drum, Blackfish, Blowfish, Skate, Dover Sole, Yellowfin Tuna, catfish, Shark, Swordfish, Sturgeon, Eel, and Yellowtail. You can also look at the moisture level in the fish as well as the grain.
Lean fish needs added fat, such as sauteing in butter. Lean fish (cod, grouper, halibut, orange roughy) can be cooked using dry heat, dry heat with fat or grilled. Serve fatty fish (salmon, lake trout, whitefish) with some form of acid to decrease the fattiness.
I did learn that Mahi Mahi is NOT dolphin, but called a dolphin fish because it follows boats just like dolphin do. It looks more like a sailfish.
For lunch, we had Clams Casino for a first course, served over a small spinach salad. Clams Casino is a clam on the half shell, covered with a light "stuffing" and baked. GardeMo did a great job with it. It was quite tasty! In Hot Plate, we cooked Halibut cut into Pavi (squares or "pavers")by poaching, served it over blanched red cabbage flavored with dill and roasted baby carrots, sauteed fava beans and poached tiny red onions in a fumet broth. There was a "schmear" of pistou (pesto) aioli on top of the fish (I made that) and bacon strips for garnish. Interesting plate but the flavors went well together. Our fish got a little over cooked, but that is a problem sometimes with holding a dish for service. Dessert was chocolate souffles served with a raspberry coulis and Creme Anglaise.
Cris and I talked about the last two days, that we felt we did not perform as well as we should have. Not sure why that is the case. Although not everyone in our kitchen has the same skill level and I guess there are times when you are only as good as the sum of your parts. I guess we'll see.
I am watching "Chopped" on the Food Network to help prepare me for our school "Iron Chef" competition. What a lot of pressure!
My friend Kim is coming for lunch tomorrow. I am excited to have a guest!
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