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!
Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts
Friday, August 15, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Seafood, Day 2
I have two new characters to introduce:
Sutra, and Army.
Sutra: an 18-year-old originally from Miami, now living up here with his uncle. So named because we have recently discovered that he openly reads from the Kama Sutra before class. Yesterday he walked away, and someone found it on the table, and opened to the bookmarked page – fellatio. Life-like drawing and everything. Of a penis. And a tongue. Look, I don’t have a problem with someone reading up on this. Hell, go ahead, learn more and educate yourself. But before class? And then he comes back and says nonchalantly that he reads it on the El. How creeped out would you be if you realized the guy next to you was reading the Kama Sutra like it was a novel?
Army: This guy definitely rubs me the wrong way. I’ve been debating if I should mention him, but since lately he and I get into spats on an almost daily basis, it might be time to bring him up. I don’t know if he has PTSD, or he just really thinks he is that much more important than the rest of us, or he hates women or everyone, but he irritates me and several other people. Nemo was trying to shove his dishes at me for me to wash them, and I kept saying to him it wasn’t my job because I was on tables, and Army mutters ‘well, I’m on floors but we all have to do our part.’ Which probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s the way he says it, and the fact that Nemo and I were joking around, and this conversation was totally none of Army’s business and he should have kept his thoughts to himself. I mean, why didn’t he tell Nemo to wash his own dishes instead of criticizing me? Army also told me last week to “chill out” when he was the one speaking completely rudely toward me. Another classmate had to walk in-between us to keep me from going at him. He seems to have two moods only: snappy and whiny.
Anyway.
Last night we did trout and salmon. We had to filet two trout and share the salmon in pairs. I almost sliced through my hand. Let me set the scene: the tail end was toward my left, the direction I was cutting toward. I got to the middle of the fish and I was struggling to get my knife to cut through the pin bones so I’m gripping above the tail to pull it taut but it’s still not working – which was a good thing, because I realized that had the knife suddenly started cut through, I would have sliced right through my palm. As Chef says, that would have been Bad. Luckily, I had enough thought process to move my hand. The first one I left too much meat on the vertebrae, but the second one I listened more closely to Chef’s directions, and cut closer along the head before making the 90 degree turn along the vertebrae. That worked a lot better, and I left a lot less on the bone. I seem to be getting through fish a lot faster than I was with other proteins, so I finish ahead of everyone at my table except T. I don’t know why it is faster for me, but I just don’t find it as hard. I did pretty well on my salmon half, and I was pleased with it.
Then we cooked a piece of trout filet. Just salt and pepper on the trout, clarified butter in the pan, brown the skinless side (for presentation), then cook through on the skin side. Remove from the pan, then brown unsalted butter and lemon until it bubbles. Pour over the fish on the plate and serve to Chef. Mine was just slightly overdone, but I’ve never cooked real fish before, so I was pretty proud. I really liked how it tasted. I’ve never truly liked fish before, but this was really good.
Lessons learned:
Butter bubbles. And makes a cool frothy sauce.
When buying fish, you should look for clear eyes (except pike), pink/red gill color, smells fresh and clean, not slimy (except trout), firm, and scales not falling off (if left on). Most likely, if you’re buying at a counter, they’ll filet it for you, but you can also get it drawn (eviscerated), dressed (eviscerated, no scales, and no head), steaks, or traunches.
Sutra, and Army.
Sutra: an 18-year-old originally from Miami, now living up here with his uncle. So named because we have recently discovered that he openly reads from the Kama Sutra before class. Yesterday he walked away, and someone found it on the table, and opened to the bookmarked page – fellatio. Life-like drawing and everything. Of a penis. And a tongue. Look, I don’t have a problem with someone reading up on this. Hell, go ahead, learn more and educate yourself. But before class? And then he comes back and says nonchalantly that he reads it on the El. How creeped out would you be if you realized the guy next to you was reading the Kama Sutra like it was a novel?
Army: This guy definitely rubs me the wrong way. I’ve been debating if I should mention him, but since lately he and I get into spats on an almost daily basis, it might be time to bring him up. I don’t know if he has PTSD, or he just really thinks he is that much more important than the rest of us, or he hates women or everyone, but he irritates me and several other people. Nemo was trying to shove his dishes at me for me to wash them, and I kept saying to him it wasn’t my job because I was on tables, and Army mutters ‘well, I’m on floors but we all have to do our part.’ Which probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s the way he says it, and the fact that Nemo and I were joking around, and this conversation was totally none of Army’s business and he should have kept his thoughts to himself. I mean, why didn’t he tell Nemo to wash his own dishes instead of criticizing me? Army also told me last week to “chill out” when he was the one speaking completely rudely toward me. Another classmate had to walk in-between us to keep me from going at him. He seems to have two moods only: snappy and whiny.
Anyway.
Last night we did trout and salmon. We had to filet two trout and share the salmon in pairs. I almost sliced through my hand. Let me set the scene: the tail end was toward my left, the direction I was cutting toward. I got to the middle of the fish and I was struggling to get my knife to cut through the pin bones so I’m gripping above the tail to pull it taut but it’s still not working – which was a good thing, because I realized that had the knife suddenly started cut through, I would have sliced right through my palm. As Chef says, that would have been Bad. Luckily, I had enough thought process to move my hand. The first one I left too much meat on the vertebrae, but the second one I listened more closely to Chef’s directions, and cut closer along the head before making the 90 degree turn along the vertebrae. That worked a lot better, and I left a lot less on the bone. I seem to be getting through fish a lot faster than I was with other proteins, so I finish ahead of everyone at my table except T. I don’t know why it is faster for me, but I just don’t find it as hard. I did pretty well on my salmon half, and I was pleased with it.
Then we cooked a piece of trout filet. Just salt and pepper on the trout, clarified butter in the pan, brown the skinless side (for presentation), then cook through on the skin side. Remove from the pan, then brown unsalted butter and lemon until it bubbles. Pour over the fish on the plate and serve to Chef. Mine was just slightly overdone, but I’ve never cooked real fish before, so I was pretty proud. I really liked how it tasted. I’ve never truly liked fish before, but this was really good.
Lessons learned:
Butter bubbles. And makes a cool frothy sauce.
When buying fish, you should look for clear eyes (except pike), pink/red gill color, smells fresh and clean, not slimy (except trout), firm, and scales not falling off (if left on). Most likely, if you’re buying at a counter, they’ll filet it for you, but you can also get it drawn (eviscerated), dressed (eviscerated, no scales, and no head), steaks, or traunches.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Seafood, Day 1
Congratulations go out to Cari for completing the Chicago Breast Cancer 3-day walk - 60 miles, people, that's a whole lot of walking!! Way to go Cari!!
Today we did flat fish. If he did name what type of fish it was, I missed it. Since I've barely even eaten fish outside of sushi beore, it was a little creepy for me to touch. Plus, the eyes...
We brushed the scales off both sides, then removed four filets off of each fish (we had two each). Once we did that, we then removed the skin from the filets. Here we had to hold the knife between the skin and the filet, and put pressure hard down against the cutting board. Oh, but I did talk back to Chef today in front of everyone sice he really pissed me off. He announces to the class that we don't need to keep the fish carcasses, and then I dare to ask, so, you don't want to see them? He launched into how he had already explained this three times that he wanted to see everything, and when I said I had been confused by his statement, he repeated it again, and, well, that just pissed me off, so I very loudly said that I had been listening and understood very well, but his most recent statement seemed to say something different... he just looked at me across the room, and I turned around and got ice. That man. I think I'm actually going to do the weekly survey the school sends. There are so many things about this school that pisses me off. The lies in admissions. The rude teachers. The not getting the correct materials for us to learn how to cook.
But this was a pretty simple task, and then we spent the last hour watching a video on fish sustainability. It was a PBS video, and it was really interesting. "Empty Oceans Empty Nets" Basically, oceans are over-fished, which means fisherman are going further and further out to get fish, which are also being fished younger, which means they haven't had time to reproduce, which means they aren't replenishing... You get the point. But. People are trying to do something about it, at least in some places. Farming for certain species works, like mussels, tilapia, and oysters, but not for carniverous fish, since you need to fish to feed them, thus totally nulling the point of farming... Or, like they've done in Alaska with halibut and salmon, fisherman have to buy into a kind of co-op, which has limited membership, which has catch quotas and limits boats. Also, you can buy only from providers that have the Marine Stewardship Council seal on cans or fresh packages, because it certifies fisheries based on their use of sustainable methods. Or go on Seafood Watch, to learn what fish you should or should not be buying.
Lessons learned:
It's important to get as much information as possible. Looking for a seal is a good first step, but it's not like we can expect people to spend a lot more just for the seal when we all have budgets we have to live by. So, do what you can, but if you can't right now, I don't think it should bother you. At least that's my opinion. If I buy fish in the future, I'll probably go to Whole Foods (where I otherwise would not bother to shop since it's expensive and I'm a budget shopper) because they follow the MSC goal.
P.S. Many thanks to Steph who gave me a shout-out on her own lovely blog... you're great, Steph!!
Today we did flat fish. If he did name what type of fish it was, I missed it. Since I've barely even eaten fish outside of sushi beore, it was a little creepy for me to touch. Plus, the eyes...
We brushed the scales off both sides, then removed four filets off of each fish (we had two each). Once we did that, we then removed the skin from the filets. Here we had to hold the knife between the skin and the filet, and put pressure hard down against the cutting board. Oh, but I did talk back to Chef today in front of everyone sice he really pissed me off. He announces to the class that we don't need to keep the fish carcasses, and then I dare to ask, so, you don't want to see them? He launched into how he had already explained this three times that he wanted to see everything, and when I said I had been confused by his statement, he repeated it again, and, well, that just pissed me off, so I very loudly said that I had been listening and understood very well, but his most recent statement seemed to say something different... he just looked at me across the room, and I turned around and got ice. That man. I think I'm actually going to do the weekly survey the school sends. There are so many things about this school that pisses me off. The lies in admissions. The rude teachers. The not getting the correct materials for us to learn how to cook.
But this was a pretty simple task, and then we spent the last hour watching a video on fish sustainability. It was a PBS video, and it was really interesting. "Empty Oceans Empty Nets" Basically, oceans are over-fished, which means fisherman are going further and further out to get fish, which are also being fished younger, which means they haven't had time to reproduce, which means they aren't replenishing... You get the point. But. People are trying to do something about it, at least in some places. Farming for certain species works, like mussels, tilapia, and oysters, but not for carniverous fish, since you need to fish to feed them, thus totally nulling the point of farming... Or, like they've done in Alaska with halibut and salmon, fisherman have to buy into a kind of co-op, which has limited membership, which has catch quotas and limits boats. Also, you can buy only from providers that have the Marine Stewardship Council seal on cans or fresh packages, because it certifies fisheries based on their use of sustainable methods. Or go on Seafood Watch, to learn what fish you should or should not be buying.
Lessons learned:
It's important to get as much information as possible. Looking for a seal is a good first step, but it's not like we can expect people to spend a lot more just for the seal when we all have budgets we have to live by. So, do what you can, but if you can't right now, I don't think it should bother you. At least that's my opinion. If I buy fish in the future, I'll probably go to Whole Foods (where I otherwise would not bother to shop since it's expensive and I'm a budget shopper) because they follow the MSC goal.
P.S. Many thanks to Steph who gave me a shout-out on her own lovely blog... you're great, Steph!!
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