First Day

Today was our first real day in the kitchen. We were in the kitchen last week but we were learning knife skills. Not cooking. This week, we had to learn the basics. How to clarify butter. Caramelizing onions (which I always mess up on at work). The standard breading procedure. Multi-tasking. Mise en place. Roasted garlic. A marinade. And a recipe we each had to cook on our own. We had to work in teams, which is fine; I just found it difficult. The girls I worked with didn't have much experience in the kitchen. I had the most experience out of all of us. They kept asking me questions but I hated that because I don't want to tell them what to do, then all three of us end up being wrong. I'd rather have myself go down in flames than all three of us. But I guess that's working in a team? But I also wanted to do stuff on my own.

For the clarified butter, you're supposed to melt the butter over a low flame then skim the milk solids off  of the top. I was skimming but I was taking too much of the good butter. So then we had to go back to the already skimmed butter and skim it again and dump the good butter back with the other good butter.  I messed up. I had never made clarified butter before but now I know for next time. I try not to make the same mistake twice. Unless we're talking about caramelized onions.

When I've made caramelized onions before, I always burn them. I found out today that it's because I cook them over a high flame. I learned today that when caramelizing onions, you use clarified butter and a low flame. I was cooking mine and I thought they looked shitty. Then the Chef comes over and holds up my pan and asks whose onions were those. I looked and said they were mine, just waiting for him to say they are too dark or something negative. He said, "These are actually some of the better looking onions I've seen." I said, "Really?!" with a screwed up look on my face. And he took my onions. I don't know if he went around and showed the others or what but that was pretty cool. Made my day.

I found out today that roasted garlic is really tasty. I definitely want to make that on my own and make a few things with it. I'm sure it'd be good rubbed on a steak! OH MAN.

The standard breading procedure was pretty easy for me. I bread things all the time. First pat your meat dry. Then dip it in flour. Then egg. Then panko. Then sautee. Easy.

We had to follow a recipe as well. It had tomato, garlic, onion, wine, lemon juice, and basil in it. Mine turned out pretty good. Mine came together really easy. One of the other girls' was really watery so we had to reduce it down. Turn up the flame and reduce it.

My group learned today that we need to manage our time better. We were supposed to make a baked potato for our plating at the end. We didn't put our potatoes in early enough so when we plated them, they weren't cooked all the way. It's okay because I wasn't really feeling like eating a baked potato today.

Today was a lot of fun. I think next week will go a lot smoother because I know what is asked of us from the Chef and it'll be easier to figure everything out. And if we stay in the same groups, then we all know how we work. It's pretty cool to have people looking to you for advice. I know i'm not going to be great at everything but that's why i'm in school so I can excel and perfect these tasks. Next week we are working with grains and starches. I think we'll be making risotto. I'm actually good at making risotto and it's one of my favorite things to make. I'm ready to go!