Taking stock

Monday, October 9

Today we learned all about the properties, cooking techniques and uses for two basic kinds of stocks (or fonds in French) - brown or white - and all the varieties from this. We also learned about the basics for meat stocks but don't do the practicum on this and added new words to our culinary vocabulary like mirepoix (combo of celery, carrot and onions in a certain ratio), consomme (strained stock or clarify), bouquet garni (bay leaf, fresh thyme, black peppercorns and fresh parsley), and ice baths for stocks to take them from hot to cold right away (otherwise if they sit out too long there is danger of bacteria and if you put it in the fridge when warm it will lower the temperature for other items in your fridge, which puts these items in the danger zone for bacteria).

After the chef's demo, we worked in teams to create large pots of diferent kinds of stock.. carrot-onion, brown vegetable, fish fumet, shitake mushroom, curry, Japanese dashi (traditional base), vegetable, etc.

It was quite the experience to work with very large stock pots with boiling liquids and have to work together, with good communication, to strain the hot stocks through cheese cloths and chinese hats and le chinois strainers. I know, the culinary vocabularly is full of politically incorrect terminology like a German sauce being white and a Spanish being red, etc
Our chef said it is what it is and we'll have to live with it for now.

We tasted the different stocks and the chef asked which stock we liked and why. I liked the vegetable stock with roasted vegetables and the porcini mushroom ones the best.

Tomorrow it gets better as we create some sauces from these stocks.