Week Four - Poultry Lab

We had five chicken dishes and one marinade this week. Most of the time was spent on trussing the birds and then fabricating them, which is cutting them into the eight pieces - 2 each of legs, wings, thighs, breasts. As some of you know, I'm not a big fan of meat on the bone, so this week was challenging for me. But that's good, right? School *should* be challenging. So we cut up two birds Friday and two Saturday. Focus was on cutting out cross-contamination, staying aware of what had touched the raw poultry, etc. All went well in that regard Friday, but Saturday there was a hubbub. Island Kid left his cutting board all covered with chicken bits by the sink, covering the part...hold on.

Here's a description of the sink area. On the left is a disposal area, circular, with one of those hanging down, high-power rinsers, then to the right there are three compartments filled with water. The first is for washing and has soap, the middle is for rinsing and is just plain water, the third is for sanitizing and has a chemical in it. At the end is a drying area with a rack. Our cutting boards are about 2x3 feet and fairly heavy. Island Kid left his on top of the disposal area, completely blocking it, which caused a back up for everyone else. So Air Force called out to the class asking whoever put it there to come clean it. He answered back that he was doing other things and that he'd get to it when he got to it. She responded, calmly, pointing out that no one else could do their dishes until he did his or moved it and he shouted back "Then do it yourself and leave me alone. You aren't my mom." It devolved from there to the point where he was yelling at her in the middle of the kitchen 30 minutes later. Chef pulled them out into the hall and gave them a talking to and by the end of the class, she had resolved things with IK. It's a shame because she's a lovely woman and the kid overreacted and made her feel guilty for saying anything. Sigh. This is why I don't talk to people...

On to the deliciousness then. Friday we prepared the white wine marinade and two chicken dishes - Grilled Chicken with Red Pepper Butter and Chicken Saute with Garlic and Basil. The red pepper butter was delicious and super easy to make. You basically just roast the heck out of the red pepper, puree it up and whip it into softened butter. The saute was one of the easiest, tastiest things I've ever made, and all three chefs who tried it said it was the tenderest chicken they'd had from a first quarter student. YAY!! Saturday was Pan Fried Chicken with Pan Gravy, Poached Chicken with Tarragon Sauce, and Chicken Fricassee. All of which were ridiculously easy and good. Other than the drama, it was a pretty boring week.

In our Sanitation class, the head of our department came in to advise us on next quarter. I'll be taking Intro to Baking and Pastry, two classes, three nights a week, all lab. Two nights for Baking, one for Pastry. I think I'll also be taking Nutrition, but online. That will all total up to 12 units again so yay! I asked about doubling up on Culinary and Baking/Pastry and she didn't know the answer, so I'll need to check with the Registrar's office, which I'll do Wednesday when I'm at school for the Culinary Club meeting.

What else...Oh, mid-terms this coming week. Blech. The one for Skills is going to be anywhere from 40-100 questions, depending on the day Chef tells us about it. At least it's open book, but I'd like to be able to finish it without using the book. Our Sanitation exam is going to be a bear. It's basically a practice test for Serve Safe certification, which we'll get at the end of class if we pass our final, which is the actual, proctored Serve Safe exam. This means our mid-term is 90 questions and covers all 15 chapters of our book, even though we've only gone over 10. Should be interesting. It's a lot of memorization of times and temps, food handling, cooking, holding procedures, etc. Just a lot of information in a little time. For cooking lab, we're doing Vegetable Cookery...so another boring week for you guys. Grilled skewers, braised celery with basil, baked butternut squash, etc.