Day 8: Where's The Beef?

Today's Main: Grilled Red Snapper with Fire Roasted Tomatoes & Asparagus Tips Served Over a Bed of Wild Mushroom Barley Risotto. Food Cost per Serving: $6:42. Menu Price: $22.

A few days for homework Chef asked us to come up with an entree using ingredients from the Market. Chef asked each of us to present to the class our main course, the food cost and menu price. As chef you are responsible for creating the menu and calculating food costs. I think this exercise is a warm-up to having to create a food cost for every dish that we turnout.

One of the classes in the kitchen made shrimp bisque and their Chef brought it in for us to try. It was such a lovely soup with an intense rich flavour. I've not had a soup as such. I was wonderful. Most of the group had a taste, a few decided to skip on it and decided he would own it and finished it completely! I can make a soup, but this one has put mine to shame. But what the hey. I'm here to learn and learn I will.

To get us ready for soups, we need to understand about soups. Soups are divided into three basic categories: clear or unthickened soups, thick soups and special soups (specialty and national, vegetarian and low-fat). We need to understand the standard portion sizes for serving soup ~ appetizer portion or main course portion. Hot soups should be served in hot bowls and could soups should be served in chilled bowls. Could bowls will cool down a soup. Food should be eaten and served for the way it is prepared to be eaten. I hate cold food and would rather have my food served steaming hot even if it's too hot to touch.

We also talked about broths, stocks and consumee. I remember the first time I had consumee. I was not interested in a clear soup at all. To me it didn't taste very good. I was use to soups that have something solid in it. We will be making this soup learning how to make sure that it is clear and not cloudy.

The one thing that Chef stressed clearly about soups is that if you are making a vegetable soup, do not use beef or chicken stock. A vegetarian who orders a vegetable soup will expect that it is all vegetable with no traces of beef, chicken or other meats. We will be learning how to make a vegetable soup using water. Chef ensures that it will be a very tasty soup. I will let you know how it all turns out when we get to making soups in the kitchen.

I'm so excited about making specially soups and national soups. We will definitely be making french onion soup gratinee. Chef tells us that we will be baking bread the day before to use as the croutons in our soup. Veal stock for the soup will also be made ahead of time. Chef is a huge fan of Pho, so we will be making Pho Bo (Vietnamese beef and rice noodle soup).

The next chapter discussed was about understanding meats and game. Chef went through the composition, structure and basic quality factors of meat. We will be tested on the primal meat cuts for beef, lamb and pork as well as the fabricated cuts.

Somehow we got onto the topic of Kobe beef. I've never had Kobe before, but what I know is that it is a very tender beef. Kobe beef comes from Wagu cattle raised in Japan. which are raised in Japan. They are massaged daily, and are fed organic grain, beer and sake. Kobe is a very expensive cut of beef. On of the students next to me said she and her husband were in Las Vegas restaurant that served Kobe beef with a price of $25 an ounce.

Lots of homework this weekend and a project to work on. Week two is over, and I am sooooooo tired!