Recipes from Meat Fab - Beef

Grilled Sirloin Steak with Whole Grain Mustard Sauce
2 T minced garlic
1 T coarsely chopped fresh oregana
2 T cumin seeds, toasted
2 T paprika
3 T whole grain mustard
2 oz olive oil
3 oz red wine vinegar
4 oz sirloin steak
salt and fresh ground pepper
-combine the garlic, oregano, cumin, paprika, mustard, oil and vinegar. Pat the steak dry with paper towels; sprinkle with salt and pepper, then coat generously with the spice paste.
-grill or saute steak to medium rare doneness

Steak Diane
4 oz sirloin, tenderloin or flank steak
1.5 oz worcestershire sauce
1 oz shallots, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 oz mushrooms, sliced
1 T lemon juice
1 t mustard powder
1.5 t thyme
1 oz brandy
2 oz heavy cream
1 T parsley, chopped
1 T chives, snipped
- heat saute pan, add clarified butter, heat, sear steaks, remove and keep warm. depending on thickness, you may need to finish them in the oven to desired doneness
- in the same pan, add more clarified butter and saute mushrooms. Add shallots and garlic and sweat until fragrant
- off the heat, add brandy and burn. Once brandy is burnt, add Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, mustard powder and cream. reduce to nappe, adjust seasoning and finish with fresh herbs. serve over steak.

Grilled Medallion with Romesco
3/4 c olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 slice white bread crust removed
1/2 c almonds
1 red pepper roasted and peeled
1 tomato roasted and peeled
1/2 t cayenne
1/2 t hot paprika
1/4 c sherry vinegar
-grill steak
-gently fry the garlic in the oil until softened and golden
-fry the almonds and bread until golden
-combine remaining ingredients

Steak au Poivre
4 oz fillet
1 t oil
2 t black pepper cracked
2 T butter
1 T cognac
1/2 c beef stock
1/4 c heavy cream
- lightly rub the beef with some of the oil. generously coat with peppercorn
- season with salt
- heat pan with remaining oil
- add 1 T of butter and wait for it to foam then sear the meat on all sides
- place in the oven to cook to the desired doneness. Remove beef to rest
- deglaze and scrape the pan with the brandy, burn. add the stock and cream to reduce
- finish with butter and check seasoning.

Meat and Seafood Fabrication Practical

Thursday we had our final and practical for meat fab. We had to truss a chicken, then cut it into quarter pieces, cut another into sixths, filet a flat fish and skin one filet, filet a round fish, and clean half a tenderloin. Oh yeah, and take a final. Making it more hectic, you have to bag, clean and sanitize between every different protein in order to avoid cross-contamination. whew!
I missed 7 points on the final, but earned 3 extra credit, so I really only missed 4 points. The first third was questions from previous quizzes, so I got all those. Then there was true/false, where you had to correct the false statements. Then fill-in-the-blank.
Grades on practical as follows:
truss 4/5
1/4 technical 23/25 portion 23/25
1/6 technical 24 portion 25
flat technical 23 portion 24
round technical 23 portion 22
tenderloin technical 23 portion 24
organization/sanitation 48/50

I got a 93% in the class! Currently on the road to honor roll, people - woohoo!

I actually really liked Chef B today - yesterday too, actually. He and I joked around and chatted. He teased me about how small I write, so he made a tiny box for me on my grade sheet to see if i could fit my name in - which i totally did. And I made him admire what a nice job i did skinning the filet, because, people, it was amazing - I left no flesh at all on the skin. I think if I had super-sharp knives, i would be near perfect at fish. The grading on technical for the round fish - well, I was right in the middle, but the people who scrambled at the end before the time was up got better grades than me even though they left more flesh on the bone. I think he wanted his break.

So final analysis on the class/Chef. When he told us our grades, I told him twice that I had learned a lot. I meant it - he's tough, but boy do I really feel like I understand how to handle meat (ha! dirty!). And in the end...yeah, he has an ego, yeah, he likes to boss people around, and, yeah, he doesn't have the best teaching skills. But, if you show him you tried first and want help correcting your mistake, he was very good at showing you how. Plus, he was actually really interesting to talk to when there was down time. Turns out, he was a psych major in college. And, he ended class by saying he was very impressed by how well we all work together, and that we should never lose sight of that. And that should we need anything in the future, no matter the class or where we are, he's available to us. Which I thought was really nice.

I didn't go out last night because i had to go back to work again today. Next up: intro to baking. Yay!

Relaxing Day

Today we had a substitute chef. It was soooo relaxed in the classroom. But we did start with a quiz. I kind of had a rough-ish afternoon, so that didn't really help my difficulties studying. But I did manage to learn most of the prime and sub-prime cuts of beef and their moist v. dry cooking. Kind of didn't bother looking at all at the chicken or duck notes... but some of it came back to me. I may have pulled off a C on it.
Oh! But that reminds me! I got a 95% on my Sanitation test! Woohoo! Definitely can get my state certification if I decide to. I probably didn't beat T., but from what I heard the rest of my friends say, I did better than them... That stuff was interesting, and it does kind of stick with you...

So with the sub, we actually cooked, and were done early. Which led to a lot of muttering that it isn't us, it is Chef's obsession with his own voice. But I completely screwed up and cut the loin with the grain, instead of against the grain. And the sub didn't catch me until I had lost basically all my meat (don't worry, I cut it into stew meat - we don't trash it). But if it had been Chef B... Irish pointed out I would have caught it if he had been there, so I was lucky I made the mistake tonight. I shrugged and began cutting it into cubes, but Rico says I'm too hard on myself - she says I tend to triple-check myself after I screw up. Which is true. I do do that.
Then we grilled a fillet (so good), and seared a smaller cut of tenderloin. My sauce was too thin on this - I put too much cream. I couldn't eat more than a couple bites of this - I had some of my other steak and then wrapped it to take home. T. allowed me to eat some of his burned fat though - I seriously love that. A lot of people think it's gross but oh man when it's still melting from the heat of the grill.... it can't be reheated, so it has to be eaten right away.
A marinade was used for the grilled steak, but I was still cutting away at my meat, so I missed what it had besides garlic and shallots - I don't know the liquid. For the seared steak, we made Steak au Poivre, which is as follows:
-put oil in hot pan
-salt and pepper both sides of steak, then place in hot pan
-sear both sides, then place in oven to complete cooking
-briefly (seriously, just about 15 seconds) saute garlic and shallot
-pour in cognac - it lights on fire!
-when the fire goes out, pour in veal stock and cream
-reduce
-add two pats of butter to finish off the sauce
-pour into bottom of plate - enough sauce for each bite of steak

Okay, I'm sorry to go completely off topic, but I really just have to emphasize that every single person needs to be watching The Wire. I caught up to the dvds this weekend, and I really really love that show. I've only worked with Hispanic gangbangers, so I can't verify the authenticity of it, but from what I've read, people say it really is accurate.

Lessons learned:
My friends in this class - I have really quickly learned to depend on them. If not that we are such good friends already, but that I have a lot of fun with them. Even when Chef B is there, we find a way to laugh. If only for having met such a great group of people, I am glad I did this program. On that note, the group is being split up next class. When Rico pointed this out, there was quite the uproar - people really do not want to be separated. I think Nemo and I are under different chefs. Sad. Sad. Sad. I mean, I can still see him before class, or any of the rest of my friends, but, still, sad.

Beef, Day 1

I'm struggling to remember what we did. Oh, we had the round of beef. That's the butt. There's a huge layer of fat on top. Basically, we take that off, and cut apart where the muscles naturally fall. Then we clean off silverskin (fibers that connect muscle to muscle, or muscle to bone) and excess fat. Since we had split it in half (I was with Rico), we each had to cut the fat off of half part of the tenderloin. Then we trussed to make a Round Roast, and cut the rest for stew meat after we showed it to him. Rico had a whole bunch of fat; I had a ton of meat - which meant it took me forever to clean it. I felt really confused when it stopped becoming obvious where the muscles were, but Chef B told me I was doing just fine. If I had known everything but the tenderloin and roast were going to end up cut into cubes for stew meat, I never would have spent so much time cutting apart the muscles... Oh well, it's good practice.

Chef B has been better. I mean, he still clearly loves to hear himself talk and he still yells when we don't ever get to cooking, but he's actually become almost friendly - Irish jokes around with him a lot, because they both love dogs. And, when I asked him if I had missed him calling my name for attendance, he told me he didn't need to say it because "I'm unforgettable." Keep in mind he said that extremely sarcastically. But that's okay considering he has no idea who most people in the class are.

Lessons learned:

I tried to upload this, but here's what I learned for the quiz tomorrow: primal cuts of beef. And working with beef is for some reason a lot easier for me than poultry. I don't really get grossed out by it - in fact, yesterday I was kind of craving french fries as we cut up the round.