.: Culinary School of Fort Worth - Week 3

I was so busy, this is the only picture I managed to take.

This is after I had eaten half of my assignment as a mid-morning snack.

It was Hell's Kitchen meets Mary Poppins. (Meaning all the pressure, without the 'sailor talk'.) The first two weeks of Culinary School were a cake walk compared to this week's class. After an hour lecture, we made our way to the kitchen where we were instructed to get our knives out for a knife skills test. Our task was to take one onion and julienne half of it and small dice the other half, with one carrot batonnet half of it and julienne the other half, take one potato and small dice half of it and batonnet the other half, slice one mushroom, and small dice half a pepper, all in 5 minutes!!! Wow, I finished everything except the last bit of my green pepper. I took way too much time on my carrot. Each one of our cutting boards was inspected for the correct cut and for accuracy and precision. I kept thinking of my poor kids everytime they're handed a pop quiz. The shoe was finally on the other foot.

Next, we drew numbers and were put in a group that was either in the dining room kitchen or the big kitchen. As we assembled in our group, we were handed a paper and told to 'go for it'. What?!? We had 1 hour and 15 minutes to individually grill the perfect chicken breast and zucchini, bread and pan fry a beautiful piece of cod, bread and deep fry a chicken tender, onion rings and French fries, braise two chicken legs and roast a small roast and batonneted carrots. As each item was finished, I presented my item to the Chef to be critiqued for look, color, seasoning and finally taste. Talk about pressure!

One thing I learned is to season your items first. For example, salt and pepper your raw chicken breast or fish, then grill or pan fry. The heat will sear in your chosen seasoning. You should never see salt on top of a dish. Who knew?

Next we traded places with the other group and had the same amount of time to individually; shallow poach a piece of salmon, deep poach an egg, simmer 1 cup of rice and boil 1 cup of pasta, steam 2 shrimp and carrot, blanch a cup of broccoli, saute 2 shrimp and onion and finally sear a chicken cutlet. Whew. It makes me tired just thinking about it!

It was so much fun to really cook. I learned that I have much to learn. But luckily, my happy family will be the recipient of many, many practice sessions in my own kitchen.