Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Culinary School #21-Mexican Food
I love all of the themes that we get to play with in culinary school. However, there are a few things that in my opinion would make them better. I believe that all theme nights need a few simple things-decorations, costumes and cocktails. And unfortunately in culinary school those three components are missing unless you consider costumes to be chefs uniforms, cocktails to be added only into the food ingredients...boring, and decorations to be pots and pans. But damn the food is good!
So on Monday night we got to explore Mexican cuisine. I was pretty excited for this class because I love Mexican food and although I cook it...well it just never tastes authentic to me or as good as it tastes in restaurants.
Let me start with the highlight of my night. As you know I love cooking gadgets and the gadget I discovered on Monday night is just about the coolest thing ever-tortilla cozies! Yes, I know they look like tea kettle cozies, but alas they are not! They are for keeping your tortillas warm! They are almost like two giant quilted potholders that are sewn together. And I have to admit that now when I reflect back this was a bad idea and not very sanitary, but they also worked as great boxing gloves and were kind of reminiscent of a sumo suit for your hands...thanks for playing culinary school buddy if you are reading this.
So needless to say since we had tortilla warmers we also learned how to make tortillas. We made flour tortillas and although they were good I am pretty loyal to the traditional corn tortilla. It also didn't help that I had some of the most amazing hand made corn tortillas on Saturday night and they were still haunting me. If there was a way for me to kidnap that cute Mexican Grandma from Saturday night I seriously would have...just so I could have warm tortillas everyday...not because I am a malicious or violent person...just for clarification.
We also made tamales. I had made tamales once before with one of my dear friends departed mothers, Rosie. She used to make them every year for Christmas and one year she invited me to participate in the family tradition. And I have to say even to this day that remains one of my fondest kitchen memories.
However, in school we made a sweet dessert tamale with caramelized pineapple. Oh yum!! I did learn a cool trick about masa. Did you know it should float if placed in water? That is an indication that it is made correctly. Random knowledge, right?
I also learned a few other tamale tidbits:
So on Monday night we got to explore Mexican cuisine. I was pretty excited for this class because I love Mexican food and although I cook it...well it just never tastes authentic to me or as good as it tastes in restaurants.
Let me start with the highlight of my night. As you know I love cooking gadgets and the gadget I discovered on Monday night is just about the coolest thing ever-tortilla cozies! Yes, I know they look like tea kettle cozies, but alas they are not! They are for keeping your tortillas warm! They are almost like two giant quilted potholders that are sewn together. And I have to admit that now when I reflect back this was a bad idea and not very sanitary, but they also worked as great boxing gloves and were kind of reminiscent of a sumo suit for your hands...thanks for playing culinary school buddy if you are reading this.
So needless to say since we had tortilla warmers we also learned how to make tortillas. We made flour tortillas and although they were good I am pretty loyal to the traditional corn tortilla. It also didn't help that I had some of the most amazing hand made corn tortillas on Saturday night and they were still haunting me. If there was a way for me to kidnap that cute Mexican Grandma from Saturday night I seriously would have...just so I could have warm tortillas everyday...not because I am a malicious or violent person...just for clarification.
We also made tamales. I had made tamales once before with one of my dear friends departed mothers, Rosie. She used to make them every year for Christmas and one year she invited me to participate in the family tradition. And I have to say even to this day that remains one of my fondest kitchen memories.
However, in school we made a sweet dessert tamale with caramelized pineapple. Oh yum!! I did learn a cool trick about masa. Did you know it should float if placed in water? That is an indication that it is made correctly. Random knowledge, right?
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| Pineapple |
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| Pineapple being caramelized with butter |
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| Pineapple and golden raisins flambe with rum and caramel |
 |
| Pineapple tamale |
- Tamales should be cooked in a steamer
- Tamales should be cooked standing up and not laying down-like tall ways
- In the steamer there should be a layer of corn husks, the tamales themselves, another layer of husks and a damn towel to really assist with the steaming process and to keep them moist
Now here is another random cooking tidbit and I can't for the life of me remember why he told us this. But did you know that if a recipe calls for whole wheat pastry flour you can use regular whole wheat flour and just sift it 3-4 times and it will be the same thing.
On Monday when we showed up for class it was evident that the end was near. No, I am not talking about the end of the world and this is not some wisecrack about the Mayan calendar because it was Mexican night...I am talking about culinary school. We have two more weeks left and there were only 4 of us that showed up to class. At first I thought to myself,"holy hell this is going to be a long night." I thought the lack of students would equal more work for those of us that did show up, however I really enjoyed the evening. We all got assigned two recipes that we got to work on ourselves and it was nice to be in a professional kitchen doing my own things. I was responsible for the Chicken Enchilada Stack and the Grilled Shrimp in Pasilla Cream Sauce and I found that I learned so much more being hands on from start to finish with my recipes.
The Enchilada Stack required me to make my own enchilada sauce, cook the chicken in the sauce, shred the chicken, fry the tortillas and layer. It was a really great, easy and fun dish. Take the tortillas, dip in the enchilada sauce, place on the pan, do a layer of shredded chicken, layer of cheese and repeat. Voila!
The Grilled Shrimp was also a lot of fun. I grilled the shrimp on a cast iron grill pan...I so need one of those. The sauce had roasted pasilla peppers, roasted corn, beer, chicken stock, cream and roasted pumpkin seeds and it was a combination of roasting, simmering and pureeing. I truly enjoyed every minute of this recipe...ok except for the beer part, which required me to put it in the recipe and not in my mouth.
We also made chille rellenos, which I have wanted to make for a long time. This was a vegetarian varietal and did you know that relleno translates to stuffed? I thought that was kind of interesting.
Now for some food porn so we all have sweet dreams tonight:
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| Corn Cakes w/Grilled Chicken and Chile Sauce |
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| Beef Fajitas |
Tomorrow I plan on trying to tackle vegetable fried rice...wish me luck...and don't worry you will hear about it either way. Kind of starting to panic now that I am realized there is only 2 weeks left of culinary school, what am I going to write about? Cheers and Good Night!
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