Level 4: Family Meal and Production

With only two days left of Level 4 and the end of school fast approaching, here is the rest of what we've been doing in this level.

The foreground is the production kitchen and in the background, the family meal kitchen.

During family meal, we prepared food for the entire school of over 150 people. So everything is done in large quantities. Chef Wanda, our chef-instructor for family meal, definitely gave all the recipes her own spin. And thank god for that. When we were in Levels 1 & 2, family meal was brought up to our classroom every night. I would say on average 1 out of every 6 meals was good. It was very disappointing. Almost every meal had raisins in it. Raisins in the rice, raisins in the salad and in the couscous. It became a joke, "where are the raisins tonight?" Needless to say, none of use were looking forward to eventually
preparing family meal considering what we were eating. This was cause for concern after it continued week after week and it certainly created doubt as to what we'd be learning down the
road. Well as it turns out, whomever the Chef that was teaching at that
time, was clearly very, very bad because with Chef Wanda most everything was delicious. She proved us all wrong.

Pork shoulder

 

The production station consists of butchering, filleting and breaking down meats, poultry or fish for the restaurant; and preparing stocks for the lower levels and/or the restaurant. It can get boring because essentially we are doing the same thing every class (even though we are learning a great deal of very important information.) My classmates and I can't wait to start actually cooking again. But it was this station and some of family meal that really prepared me for what I was going to do during my kitchen trail at Locanda Verde.

After changing, the first thing I worked on was cleaning a box of fava beans. Then I cut grapes in half that were to be marinated in red wine. Then a box of cherry tomatoes (below). 

After the tomatoes were halved and packed. I got started on some other tasks before I eventually went upstairs to the kitchen to watch service. It was chaotic to say the least. Saturday night plus a private party for 50 people, plus any room service orders that came in (the restaurant is in the Greenwich Hotel), made for a lot of energy. The kitchen is very small, so I was pretty much hugging a wall for most of the time. But it allowed me views of most everything that was going on. Some of the cooks were kind enough to make me some of what they were cooking (lucky me). I tried the rabbit terrine with sour cherry mostarda (below), fire-roasted garlic chicken (which was incredible), lamb meatballs, watermelon and cherry tomato salad, mozzarella crostino with eggplant and pesto on prosciutto bread, penne pugliese with sausage, broccoli rabe and ceci, spaghetti with pancetta and cockles, homemade pappardelle with lamb bolognese, mint and ricotta, plus the pasta special which was a pasta with porcini mushrooms and porcini butter. I ate so much that when I noticed family meal down in the prep kitchen, which was the restaurant's incredible ravioli, I was too full to eat any!

Next up, is a kitchen trail at one of Bobby Flay's restaurants. And that is going to be really exciting. It was Bobby Flay and his restaurant Mesa Grill that really had the biggest and long lasting impact on me. But that's a story for a future post.