The only part that sucked for me, was the tasting. I really had to man up for this. The first one we tasted was... BABY COW!! ;-; ("Veal") which, actually, turned out to be the best one.
Best, meaning, I could taste the tomatoes and mirepoix and focus on that more than the meat. Barely. Actually, it was a demi glace(demi gloss,) meaning it had been simmered and reduced by half, so I guess it wasn't really a stock? The reason why the chickens were so much harder, was because there was a LOT of fat in there. Chef Thor said we needed to keep it in for flavor, but... I don't know many people who nom on chicken fat when they're craving snacks.
The second stock, and first of the chicken stocks we tasted was a "Brown Chicken Stock." It's called that because they roast the bones before making a stock out of it, which makes the color darker and the flavor bolder. The other one was your typical homemade chicken stock, lighter color and flavor. (If anyone doesn't know how stock is made, as far as I understand it.. they basically throw the bones of a certain animal into a pot of boiling water, sometimes leaving the meat on, add mirepoix, and then the flavor/fat/marrow gets boiled out of everything, then it's strained. If it's a veggie stock, then only veggies are used, obviously.) Luckily I didn't feel so lame during the tasting of these, because everyone in my area seemed to agree that the fat that coats your mouth/lips after tasting this was more than a little unpleasant.
Well, at least if I weren't sure about being pescatarian before (I was xP) I am now. This day did not make me miss a thing.
Anyway, I knew what I was signing up for, so I don't make a huge fuss if I can help it. In class, I mean. I can fuss all I want here! :D
Still, I can't help but think about not only the animal, but what could've *happened* to the animal, when we make a dish like that. Which is good. I really don't know where the school gets their meat from. I'd probably feel a little better if it was all happy little animals. That are then shot. lol
Now, we did do something awesome with the onions. We caramelized them! Yay! They were so cute. They smelled awesome and were tasty. I took a piccy of the tasting cups we were using, as well as the adorable onions in there that I ate. xD
Might've been a better pic, but I felt weird taking the camera out in class to snap a pic of onions! xD So, yeah. That's them. And my chopping board with bits of zucchini left on it.
"Hey! Psst! Look at that girl over there..."
"What... what is she doing?"
"...taking pictures of onions? In a cup?"
"...frreeeaaaaak."
I may have missed something, but what is mirepoix? I also didn't know about the brown chicken stock thingy, meaning roasting the bones.
ReplyDeleteAnd just outta curiosity, what made the caramelized cute to you? Maybe I am not very imaginative right now, I just finished my sign language class so I'm all sorts of brain dead from learning how to sign numbers. xP Numbers are HARD.
It's good that you have a "soldier through" attitude about having to taste and cook with foods you object to personally. It leaves you open to the education of culinary arts as a whole, which includes meats obviously. Very good! Very brave of you! I hope you can stomach through it all. D:
Thank you! Although, I don't think I will be as brave when it comes to pork. That is my weakness. Piggies are just so cute when they are all little and pink and oinky. ;-; Same with lamb, actually, especially because I've never had it my whole life!
ReplyDeleteI think I mentioned the mirepoix in my first post, and you might not've been reading at that point. :) Mirepoix is just a fancy french term for a stock base, which is two onions, two carrots, 3 celery sticks, and some seasonings. I can certainly see why they would want to condense that into one word! xD
The caramelized onions were just really cute to me, probably because of their simplicity. You get to chop them up all carefully, and then they all get piled up into their pans with oil and slowly soften and change color and have the flavor brought out. Then they are all floppy and tasty. lol Also, after all the broth-enduring, the onions were like my savior of the day! So, maybe I'm just weird, but they seemed pretty adorable!:D
Awwww. :( Poor piggies. I just remembered back in elementary school when the author of this children's book (that we had read in like, 1st grade) brought her pet pig to a special assembly for us to see. Her book was about the pig. I remember how cute it was in all it's piggyness. It was very well-mannered, and apparently wiped its feet on the doormat before it went inside the house. We got to stand in line and all of us one-by-one got to pet the pig. We had to be very quiet and calm so that it didn't get spooked by all us little snot-faces. xD
ReplyDeleteOh, I thought I recognized that word from somewhere. I did read it in your first blog. :P I wanted to catch up on all your entries so I could follow along better. ^-^ I know my entries are epic novels, sorry if any of it is redundant. I just have a lot to say I guess. I always have to keep tabs on my mouth for the social comforts of others because I could talk *forever* about one topic.
Yeah I guess I could see how floppy brown onions in all their caramelized glory could be kinda cute. :o) Never thought much of them before. ^^ Yeah... you're just weird. <3