from beef stock to red wine reduction

Yesterday I made my first beef stock, which I, then, reduced to a demi-glase, which I used to make a red wine reduction......YUMMY!!!!!

To make a beef stock you need several thing. First is bones, lots and lots of bones, about 12 pounds of bones. Second is a mirepoix, about 3 pounds. And last is a bouquet garni.

Stock bones are one of the cheapest things you can buy from your butcher. When you buy your bones, try to get  mostly knuckles and marrow bones. The less meat the better. When the stock cooks, it basically renders out all of the flavor from the bones, and if there is a lot of meat, then you will have to skim off the fat from the surface.

Once you rinse off the bones, place them in a roasting pan and stick them in the over (preheated to about 400 degrees). Don't coat the bottom with anything, just let them cook for about an hour/ hour and a half.

Next, add your mirepoix to the roasting pan. A mirepoix (pronounced mɪərˈpwɑ) is an assortment of cut veggies, usually carrots, onions, and celery. Depending on what time of stock you are making will determine how fine of a chop you need. a beef stock cooks for about 6 hours, so you are going to want a fairly rough chop.

After another 30 minutes, add 4 to 6 oz of tomato paste to the roasting pan by spreading it over the bones and mirepoix with a spatula. Then let it cook for another 30 minutes.

Next, put everything into a pot on the stove. Now, at the bottom of the roasting pan is going to be some yummy leftovers that are stuck to the pan from the bones. To remove those pieces, place the pan on the stove over low heat, add 1 to 1 and a half cups of red or white wine, and use a wooden spoon to scrap off the pieces. Then pour everything into the pot, fill up the pot with cold water and bring it to a boil.

Once the water is boiling, add the bouquet garni, and let it simmer for 6 to 8 hours. A bouquet garni is bundle of herbs like thyme, parsley and sometimes bay leaves, usually tied together with string.

Once you have extracted the flavor you are looking for, strain out the broth, and cool it down.

The next step is the demi-glase. a demi-glase is when you take a stock and you reduce it to about half its volume, so that all that flavor is compacted and intensified. This sounds simple because there is very little to actually do. All you have to do is put on a stove on low heat, and let it simmer.

Once your demi-glase is done, the last step is the red wine reduction. To start off, dice up 2 medium shallots, place them in a sauce pan with one tbsp of butter, let those simmer for a few minutes. Then add 1 cup of red wine, and reduce it to 2/3 of its volume. After that, add 1 cup of demi-glase and let it reduce again until you get the desired flavor. Lastly, add another tbsp of butter to smooth it all out.

When done right, you are going to want to eat it with a spoon, it's that good.

Sauce Veloute & Sauce Bechamel

In addition to stocks, in my second day of my cooking class, we also made two basic sauces. The first being a basic white sauce known as Sauce Bechamel, and the second being a white gravy known as Sauce Veloute.

To make either sauce, you start off by making a roux. A roux (pronounced 'ru') is a mixture of melted butter and flower, to which you add milk for a Bachamel, or white stock for a Veloute.

The ratio of flower and butter to liquid is 1/2 an ounce of each to 1 cup of liquid, and of course, salt and pepper to taste. Additionally, for a Sauce Bachamel you will also add 1/4 of a bay leaf and freshly grated nutmeg (a micro-plane grater will be your best bet).

When making the roux, you want it to get to a "wet sand" consistency before adding the liquid. Once the milk or stock is added, keep mixing it until the roux is completely mixed into the liquid.

In our cooking class, to know when our sauces were almost done, we learned that if you scoop some of the sauce up and pour it back into the sauce and it doesn't make any noise, it is almost done.

If there are lumps in your sauce, which there most likely will be when you make it for the first time, do not worry.  Simply pour the sauce through a strainer and you are good to go.

five types of stocks

A stock is an extract from cooking meat bones and/ or fish bones and/ or vegetables in water. There are many different uses for a stock, such as sauces, soups, braises, consommé’s and aspics.There are five different types of stocks

A white stock - made with blanched veal or beef bones, along with a mirepoix (a mirepoix is a rough chop of stewing vegetables, such as onions, carrots, celery, and sometimes leek.

A chicken (white) stoke - made with chicken bones, along with a mirepoix.

A brown stock - made with chicken or beef bones and vegetables. The different between a brown stock and a white stock is for a brown stock, you first brown the bones and mirepoix in the oven, and then tomato paste is added and cooked longer.

A fish stock - made with fish bones, along with a mirepoix.

And lastly, a vegetable stock - a vegetable stock is made when meat is not desired. Although, a vegetable stock is quick and easy, it is, however, the lightest of stocks and therefore generally not used for sauces.

my first days in cooking school

On August 8th I started my first day of the 20 week, Pro 1 cooking class at New School of Cooking.

The first class was our introduction day, getting to know our teacher Laura Weinman, getting to know our way around the kitchen, kitchen and food safety, and lastly, some chopping.

My second day was much more interesting. We covered stocks and and the beginning of sauces.

A stock is an extract from cooking meat bones and/ or fish bones and/ or vegetables in water. There are many different uses for a stock, such as sauces, soups, braises, consumme's and aspics.

To my surprise there are actually five different type of sauces, a white stock, a chicken stock, a brown stock, a fish stock and a vegetable sauce.

grilled veggies

For the past few weeks, I've been making grilled zucchini and eggplants. They are just so good and so easy.

As with any time you are cutting vegetables, or anything else for that matter, you want to try to cut things into roughly the same sized pieces so that they take the same amount of time to cook.

I sliced the zucchinis and eggplants, cutting them the long way.

I, also, intentionally keep the skin on otherwise everything would completely fall apart and you will end up with a bit pile of mush.

Next, I coat them in a mixture of olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, dries basil, dried oregano, and paprika.

After that, I placed them on a cookie sheet, make sure not to pile up the veggies too high or the ones at the bottom won't cook as fast as the ones on top.

Stick them in a preheated over set to 375 degrees, and let them cook for about 30 minutes or so, maybe more depending on how much you cook.

You can, also, cook them on the BBQ, but for that you want to cut them a little bit thicker.

simple roasted potatoes

Roasted potatoes are one of the simplest and one of my favorite side dishes.

I like to use fingerling potatoes, like new potatoes, the skin is very delicate and doesn't need to be peeled before cooking, but the flavor is closer to the regular, mature potatoes that we're used to. They, also, have a firm texture that holds up well to cooking.

I usually cut them length wise and once or twice width wise, depending on how big the potato is.

I add about 3 to 4 tablespoons of oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, basil, and thyme to a bowl with the cut up potatoes in it.

Then I mix it all together, and throw it on a cookie sheet, stick it in the oven at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes and then about 5 minutes on broil.

And that's it!

cauliflower tomato soup

The greatest part about making soup is that you don’t have to use the freshest products to get good results.

This is probably my favorite vegetable I’ve made in a long time.
I started off by blanching 3 tomatoes. As they were cooking, I chopped up 2 medium zucchinis, a head of cauliflower, 2 cloves of garlic, and an onion.

After I got the tomatoes in the ice bath, I heated up a pot with a carton of vegetable broth in it.

Once the tomatoes were cool enough to cut, I chopped them up and added them to the broth, along with the rest of the veggies.

Then I added about 3 cups of water, and my spices. I used salt, pepper, thyme, and basil.

Now, when I eat soup, it needs to be hardy or it’s just not worth it. So I decided to make mini turkey patties to add some “umph” to the soup.

I started by dicing up some garlic and shallots super finely. No one wants to bite into a big chunk of garlic when eating soup, or a burger for that matter. Then, I mixed that with about a pound of ground turkey, bread crumbs, and an egg.

I knew that if I tried to cook the patties in the soup, they would completely fall apart. So I first seared them in a frying pan.

This does two things, first it almost forms a crust on the patties to that they hold their shape better. And second, it holds in all the moist “juices” from the turkey.

Once those were done, I added them to the soup, and let it sit on low heat for about an hour.

It was surprisingly good, I ate like 3 bowls back to back.