The Dish That Almost Made Me Hate Salmon

Get it. Get it.

The final for my Foundations I class consisted of a written final and two practical exams: knife cuts and making a warm Salmon Nicoise Salad with a vinaigrette.

The week before the final we were able to practice the dish from start to finish. I did not have much luck.

I was in a pretty defeated mood after the heat on our Beef Bourguignon was accidentally turned up by someone using another burner. The dish requires at least 4 hours. At about 2 hours in we realized the dish was a burnt mess.

So, I was not in the best frame of mind for the practice run.

My fish was basically raw in the middle and burn on top. I had to redo the boiled eggs a few times. And I decided I just didn't give a s*** about this dish. I was over it. Which is not like me at all.

First attempt

After looking at my initial plating, Chef said I had made salmon with a salad instead of a salmon salad.

The warm fish had to be plated on the cold greens.

I am not okay with warm food touching any type of lettuce. Like, I don't even get lettuce on toasted subs. It sends a shiver down my spine. Seriously.

After having a poor first run of the dish and being unable to practice it in the week leading up to the test, I was stressed.

Final Plate-A

This salmon dish was haunting my dreams.

I spent at least an hour the morning of the exam looking at creative plating ideas.

And, despite the encourage from a teammate, I was a bit of a mess until I had the dish ready. Again, not like me.

This dish has a lot of components.

An 70 minutes later, I presented my final plate and received an A. Chef was too generous. My haricot vert were a bit over and my salmon was still a bit under.

However, I rocked the knife cuts. A big thank you to all the sweet potatoes I butchered in the last 10 weeks preparing for this test.

An A on my final knife cuts. What, What!

Here's the list if you are inclined to try this dish at home:

Salmon Nicoise Salad
-salmon filet (obviously)
-mix of greens including arugula, radicchio, green leaf, washed and torn

-Nicoise olives, pitted and halved (again, if its in the name it should be in the dish)
-plum tomato, sliced and seeded
-fingerling potatoes or Yukon Gold, par cooked
-shallot, sliced thin
-garlic, sliced thin

Gonna miss this team! Such great cooperation!

-fresh chives, diced
-haricot verts, blanched (fancy french green beans)
-fresh basil, chiffonade
-veg oil for cook

You saute the potatoes, green beans, garlic, shallots, and olives in a pan adding them in the order listed before adding them to the salad. And, of course, cook the salmon. You can cook if after assembling all the other ingredients and let it rest in foil tent while you saute the items above.

GGB-Ginger Garlic Balsamic Vinaigrette

-2 parts oil
-1 part basalmic vinegar
-garlic, minced to taste
-ginger powder, to taste
-salt, to taste
-pepper, to taste
-honey, to taste

Add all ingredients except oil to a bowl and whisk til combine. Add oil slowly while whisking.

53 Meatballs

Meatball deity-Yeah, that's a thing. Read about Pastafarians

The class on pasta inspired me to attempt to make my own meatballs.

Why have I never done this before?

As usual, I initially wanted to do something creative instead of a traditional meatball.

So, I googled "unique meatball recipes." Trust me, I came across some weird stuff.

Eventually, I decided this article detailing 5 Must Try Meatball Recipes was the winner.

However, at the end of the day I decided my first meatball attempt should be traditional. But I did find a pork and apple meatball recipe that I'm saving for later.

You can get a link to the recipe I used as a guide from the link above or go directly to it here.

Here are the changes I made:

I used 80/20 hamburger instead of sirloin because I think meatballs need more fat. Also, I wasn't trying to make a 5 star meatball. Ain't nobody got time for that on a weeknight!

I double the garlic. Why? Because garlic is a food group as far as I am concerned. And, it is a really good immunity booster. Everyone should eat more garlic.

I used a mix of panko and regular seasoned bread crumbs because that was what I had on hand.

And, I doubled the basil. Charlie loves anything with basil.

Oh, and because I wanted to have plenty to freeze in individual meal containers with some homemade pasta for lunch I doubled the recipe with no idea of its original yield.

I ended up with....you guessed it...53 meatballs for two people.

Ridiculous.

Note to self: Stop doubling recipes on your first attempt.

I learned rolling meatballs is a skill. I think I'm a pretty good meatball roller after this experiment. By the end I had mastered rolling a consistent size.

However, I wasn't expecting to spend nearly two hours hand rolling meatballs that day. Geesh!

No, that's not butter. I was practicing my knife skills on a block of mozzarella.

The recipe says you can cook them on the stove-top or bake them in the oven.

I did both.

Why you ask?

Because that's how I roll ;)


I'd say these meatballs were a success.

After packing the freezer with 3 meatballs to a container until the was no more room and using 8 for our dinner that night I still had about 13 meatballs leftover in the fridge.

I had planned to use them for meatball subs in the next two days.

However, when I came home from work the next day I discovered they were gone!

Turns out that was Charlie's breakfast and lunch that day. I guess he liked them!

Orange Cake POPS

For some reason I got it in my head to make orange cake.  An orange chiffon cake to be exact.

And, since we have a juicer I want to put fresh orange juice in the batter

And, then, since Rule #11 of the Chef's Oath is to "Waste Nothing" I candied the leftover peels.

But wait, I couldn't just make cake. That would be too easy. I wanted to make cake pops instead.

Charlie brought a cake pop maker a year or two ago for a project so I decided to test it out.



Bad choice. I think the machine gets too hot. It seemed to burn the outsides or overcook them at the very least while leaving the centers underdone.

After fighting with it for an hour, I gave up and decided to do it the "old fashioned way." Because people did make cake pops before we had a highfalutin gadget for everything.

I crumbled the cake in a giant container, mixed in a vanilla butter cream , rolled the mixture in to balls and then left them in the freezer over night.


The next day I made a chocolate ganache and a vanilla glaze to dip them in.

 I'd never made a glaze like this before and dipped most of the cake pops before I realized it was too thick. So, some of them look a little wonky. (i.e. they aren't supposed to be white)




 Oh, and I also added some of the candied orange peel to the cake and butter cream mixture for texture since mixing the two together created a fairly dense mixture.

This cake pop experience reminded me to keep it simple. I should have just make the orange chiffon cake and frosted it with the chocolate ganache. The candied orange peels would have made an excellent garnish!

Yeast Rolls Are a Southern Thang?

 After the first rise and punching it. Then rolled in to balls.

Yeast rolls are a big deal in the South, y'all.

In fact, I'd say that among my friends and family they are the go to roll to include with every holiday meal.

And, they are my mom's favorite bread.

There's just something amazing about a warm roll that has something of a "skin" on the outside while being fluffy, yeasty, and sweet in the middle.

They must be served warm and with butter. Honey or brown sugar butter takes them to a whole new level.

After the 2nd rise. It doubles in size twice!

So, you can imagine my surprise when very few people here in Omaha including many people at the culinary school had no idea what I was talking about when I described yeast rolls. To be fair, it is entirely possible they have a different name for them.

I found out when trying a local donut place that yeast donuts are called raised donuts here. Which makes total since, after all, that is the function of yeast.

So, I bit the bullet and attempted to make yeast rolls for a food day at the office I was working in.

Making the dough: easy

First batch: realizing my oven was too damn hot!!

Waiting on two rises: slightly irritating because my patience bone was broken that day

Baking: pain in the ass with my terrible oven

End Result: worth it but will make some adjustments for the next batch

Here's a link to the recipe I used the first time I made the plain yeast rolls:

Second batch with oven adjustment.

It's a good place to start but I'd recommend adding an additional 1/2 cup of sugar. They weren't quite sweet enough for me.

Also, I had to set my oven about 30 degrees below the recommended cooking temp to get the insides done without drying them out. But, my oven is crap and the heat settings aren't accurate.


This is a very versatile dough and super easy if you're patient. You can use it for cinnamon rolls too!

After my initial yeast roll success and in conjunction with cleaning out the pantry, I made some pumpkin yeast rolls to use the last can of pumpkin puree that was left over from Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Loaf-Excellent for sandwiches

And, here is the recipe for pumpkin yeast rolls.

I added my own spice mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves instead of the spices listed.

It's basically the same process as regular yeast rolls. I made a loaf and rolls out of the pumpkin dough.
 
I wish I had pictures of the pumpkin rolls but we ended up devouring them before I could snap photos.

Butter Cake!

Baby Butter Bundt Cake

A few years ago Charlie and I discovered the wonder that is Butter Cake after a friend suggested we try it at a well known pizza chain. I will forever love and hate him for this suggestion :)

With butter in it's name, one should be expecting a very rich cake.

However, two bites in to Charlie and were both sure we were on the verge of a diabetic heart attack.

I was sure I could feel my arteries constricting. And, I may have hallucinated Paula Deen at our table for minute.

But once I was sure immediate death wasn't going to follow, I knew I was hooked on this cake.

In the years since the first tasting, I've come back to this cake again and again trying to figure out its exact composition.

I've researched tons of copy cat recipes. And, I tried several in my own kitchen.

Finally, after devoting three days and untold amounts of butter to this cake, I found something I felt was close enough.

I think the original has some sort of cream cheese topping or filling but I was purely interested in the cake and the crust achieved on its outside.

My version ended up as a bunt cake and is very, very rich but remains fluffy.

I coated the inside of the pan with butter and sprinkled with sugar to get that nice crunch on the outside. And, I also poured a vanilla butter glaze over the bottom of the cake as it cooled and  topped it with the same glaze before serving.

The finished product must have weighted at least 8 pounds. Which is good. Because then you burn some calories moving it around as this is NOT a diet friendly cake :)

I took the finished product in to work. After all that experimentation, Charlie and I did not need to eat a third butter cake in one week since even the mistakes were too good to throw away.

Big Butter Bundt Cake

The cake was gone within 15 minutes.

Success!

The recipe requires some explaining and would take up too much space here. If you want to try it, call/text/email and I'll send it to you with some tips!

Hey Semolina!

Other than desserts, my absolute favorite thing to make is pasta.

Most savory chefs will tell you that pasta is "simple" or "boring" but I feel pasta is exactly the opposite.

When I think about the range of pasta shapes (600 worldwide), flour combinations, flavor add-ins, and all of the sauces you can make, I'd say pasta is one of the most versatile dishes on the planet. And, that's not even including stuffed pastas!

Angel Hair Linguine

In class, we each made our own pasta noodles and then as a team we made the following sauces:

Alfredo
Puttanesca
Amatriciana
Bolognese

Puttanesca

Fun Facts
-Thomas Jefferson is credited with introducing the U.S. to pasta. -Macaroni is only elbow shaped in America.
-Originally, "Yankee Doodle" was a song the British used to make fun of Americans.

Average American eats 19.5# of pasta a year.
Average Italian eats 62# of pasta a year.

*According to chef, Puttanesca translates to dirty whore and dish originated in brothels. I love the story to much to try to verify it.

My Best Pasta Tips 

Dough: 1/2 cup semolina, 1/2 cup all purpose flour and 2 eggs 
Water: Should be salty like the ocean and at a rapid boil, add pasta, stir only until boil returns
Sauce: Light sauces go with thin noodles; Heavy sauces go with thick noodles

The secret to the best Alfredo is a bit of freshly ground nutmeg.

Never rinse your pasta!

And, of course, making pasta should be fun!



Fettuccine coated with an avocado cream sauce topped with green onions and red pepper flakes









Habanero infused spaghetti tossed with olive oil and chunky "salsa" (Cilantro, tomato, yellow and green peppers and red onion)

Greek Pasta: Fettuccine tossed with olive oil, feta, black olives and sauteed red onions

rICE rICE BABY

removing it from boiling H20: a total b****

baby corn deliciousness

If I think back to my childhood, we didn't eat rice often. But, when we did all memories of rice include Success Boil-in-Bag rice top with canned La Choy chicken chow mien.

As I grew up I tried lots of different dishes in Chinese restaurants.

Later, my friends and I ordered a ton of Chinese takeout while in college.

As a result, rice was largely a side dish with Chinese food in my mind.

Or as another amazing side dish when I stole a recipe from a friend for a Parmesan and mushroom risotto.

I did develop a love for rice pudding in college as well. But that just relegated rice to a dessert.

I never realized until this particular class in culinary school that there are as many ways to  eat rice as there are to  eat eggs.

I learned that rice should never be boiled and that there are 5 main ways to cook rice properly.

1. Absorption/Steamed/Simmered

Chef's demo of risotto-bacon lardons, Parm, plum tomatoes, basil, and avocado

2. Oven Method
3. Pasta Method
4. Pilaf Method (my favorite)
5. Risotto Method


For this class we made:

-basic white rice
-fried rice
-dirty rice (trust me-it tasted dirty)
-risotto all Milanese
-rice pudding

mango rice pudding made with coconut milk

-brown rice and broccoli pilaf

*Food Safety Note*

Rice has the potential to make you very, very sick if not cooled and stored properly.

Brown rice should always be stored in the refrigerator.

Rice may contain a bacteria spore that is very hard to kill even with cooking. However, you are unlikely to get sick unless the rice is allowed to sit at room temp or is improperly cooled giving the bacteria time to germinate in to active bacteria.

Therefore, rice should never be left to cool on a counter or reheated more than once.

If not properly reheated, the heat can also activate the bacteria. Scary, right?

And, since you don't know how the rice has been handled I would not bring home rice as leftovers or order fried rice when eating out. After all, all fried rice starts as regularly cook white rice which is then cooled, held, and then recooked.

G.B.D.

BUT OH SO GOOD

Back when the flu struck around the first of the year I had to miss class of "Fry Day" also known as Golden Brown Delicious day.

VERY DISAPPOINTING!

The lab classes for the culinary program are no joke. I had lecture on Saturday from 12:30-1:50 and then we were in the kitchen working through the week's recipes with instructor demos from around 2-7pm. Missing one class meant you missed A LOT!

I was horribly sick and didn't want to give anyone else the flu so I emailed my professor and he gave me the go ahead to try the recipes at home.

Charlie was wonderful enough to get the ingredients I needed from the store and brave enough to eat the food.

I haven't been particularly inclined to eat fried food since working through all of these deep or shallow fry recipes. And, I only did about half of what they did in class.

 Deep fried Curry Dusted Okra

Trust me: YUM!

Awesome Chipotle Hush Puppies!

Newcastle Beer Battered Cod

Excellent batter but the fish was awful.

Not from cooking but poor quality from the store :(

Beignets

 Chef said the book had a bad recipe.

Mine were certainly too big and dry but did come out looking the way they were supposed to.

But this is not my idea of a doughnut.

What I Didn't Know About Food Safety Could Kill You

As part of the culinary program, I had to take and pass a sanitation course that lead to a ServSafe Certification.

The intent of the class was to prepare me to look at sanitation the way an owner or manger might.

After 10 weeks of this class and a 93 on the exam (woot!) I can now bore you with all sorts of facts on physical, chemical, and biological food contaminants.

I can also recite the required safe temperatures for all food products as they pertain to receiving, storing, cooking, and holding.

I can even develop a plan to protect food from terrorist attacks or deliberate contamination by employees or rival businesses. Yes, this was really in the textbook.

However, after learning all of this information and more, I find myself dissecting every restaurant experience, of which there have been few, on a whole new level.

I know which foods are most easily contaminated and exactly what illnesses they can cause.

Three thousand people die needless deaths each year from forborne illness. 3,000!

48 million get sick. That's 1 in 6! And symptoms can take up to six weeks to develop!

But, I really wish I had know this information all those years ago when I was a waitress.

I fear I may have unintentionally made lots of people sick.

I usually kept a towel in my pocket to wipe tables.

I frequently took dirty dishes from tables to the dish pit without washing my hands before moving on to a new task.

And, believe me when I say the in the roughly 8 years I waited tables in 3 different restaurants, I NEVER saw anyone wash lemons before cutting them to go on glasses or temperature check the salad dressings.

Knowing what I know now makes me wonder how even more people don't get sick. Actually, they probably do. They just probably don't know it is a forborne illness.

So, please take this as a fair warning that I am going to be a pain in the ass to go to a restaurant with in the future unless I know the kitchen staff.

But, really, we should just skip eating out and you should come over for dinner. I'd rather cook for you anyways. :)