Week #8

Another interesting week.

In Basic, we had a quiz, then a midterm, and then a pretty full kitchen day scheduled. Of note, is the fact that this was the first time in basic that we cooked any real dishes--so the idea of getting into the kitchen later than normal didn't seem very effective and seemed to place us all on edge. Would we get through everything AND our quiz and midterm on time? doubtful.

So far in basic, as far as cooking goes, we have only done sauces, stocks, and soups. But this week we had some real entree recipes to perform. My team had Chicken mole. Mind you, I am latino. And so I was looking forward to making this dish. BUUUUUUT I also knew that our Basic chef is also the international cooking chef over mexican cuisine. So not only was I expecting the book's recipe to be different than what I am used to, but I was also expecting chef to diverge from the recipe in the book at the last minute. I was correct on both counts.

As far as the mole results go...in my opinion...wrong color, wrong flavor, and wrong seasonings.

If you have ever had mole, it is a chicken in a chocolate sauce--not really sweet...just chocolatey. Well, this mole tasted like a christmas dessert recipe (cinnamony; nutmeggy; clovey; almost gingery; ). Chef said other than the color (which came out bright red due to us not having the right chiles to begin with) the flavor was proper.

Again, I'm not expert nor a chef....I am only a latino who grew up eating mexican food EVERYDAY of my life until I learned how to cook non-mexican foods. However, this mole WAS NOT MOLE. But our chef was insistent that this is the "traditional way" of preparing it. This left me, my teammate (also part mexican), and two other females in the class who are also mexican, just nodding in agreement--our minor conflict of opinions weren't worth any battles with our chef.

Oh...and we didn't make it out of class on time as expected. Our team, however, finished WAY in advance and helped other stations. I wish I could take pictures of the food we made, but we don't do presenting in this class, so the pics would not look very appetizing.

As for garde manger, it was cheese and egg cookery week. Nothing mind blowing here either. We made omelets, and a leek/squash frittata, and worked with making cheese. We were done pretty early compared to our full kitchen days. But sadly, since many of our cheeses need to set up for a few days, we won't know the results until two weeks from now (next week is spring break). And maybe its just me, but having worked in the professional world for a while, Spring break just seems like a delay to completing the semester--not partytime. Ah...to be young again.

Anyways, for our cheese, we made a mozarella roulade with prosciutto and basil. We started with fresh mozarella curd, heated, and shaped it, and rolled it. It was pretty easy.

So again....no pics this week.

Oh...and to respond to Mezza's question re the job interview: I decided to not interview just yet. It is such a good opportunity, but it would definitely be a major distraction from cooking and would likely (and maybe permanently) sidetrack me from pursuing a culinary career.

So now I just gotta make sure that I apply for some really good cooking jobs/internships so that if I ever get another job interview from my old career, I will have less reason to consider it. I guess its time for spring break for this geezer!