The four pictures you see above are the last ones ever from food prep 1 lab. Since I am about a month overdue in my blogging, I'm cramming them all into one blog. I apologize, but as my old boss always said "it is what it is". Oh, speaking of my old boss- I went to a new restaurant the other night with my friend and it turns out it's in the exact same place where I used to work (Kin Noodles Pasta Shoppe). It was weird at first, but it's a really fancy Thai place now and I hope they do well, unlike us.
So since I last posted we've been diving into the meat section of the course with full force. After the dry heat section (kabobs in my previous post), we moved onto moist heat, poultry, and seafood. In the moist heat lab I prepared the last picture (bottom right) of stuffed yams that I made a pecan streusel for and leg of lamb. This was my first time tasting lamb, let alone cooking it- so it was an interesting experience and I actually liked it. Oh and my yams were bomb!
The next section of lab was the start of poultry and in this lab I made chicken kiev (bottom left picture). Got to use the frier for the second time after breading up the stuffed chicken. It was really good! The next poultry section I made chicken a la king (top left picture). Boy! Talk about a lot of work. It took the whole time in lab to produce and honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of it. It just tasted like biscuits and gravy with chicken and pimentos in it. ALMOST FORGOT! This was the lab that I fabricated my first chicken! What is fabricating you may ask? Well you see- it's the not-so-gory way of saying cutting up a chicken. Had to hold the chicken under running water to rinse it off, picking off any pinfeathers. Then carry it over to your cutting board and hold it by the neck, cut down along the backbone on one side, then along the other. Throw that junk away. Then turn the chicken over and pull it open, cut along the breastbone in the middle and then pull out with your hand. Cut chicken in half. Then karate chop it into fourths. Use your finger to guide along the joints and cut into eighths. It was scary at first but now I'm a chicken fabricating pro!! lol.
The last section of lab was seafood. I was slightly disappointed to only have one day to work with seafood but oh well. I signed up for shrimp creole (top right picture) and it was pretty easy to make. That day once everyone was done I got to try the following for the first time ever : shrimp (sad, I know), tuna steaks, lobster tail, and cod I believe. It's funny because all the items I tried didn't really have the fishy flavor that I am always so scared of. What have I been running from?!
I think this will have to suffice for now. I am going to hold off on talking about my final lab disaster until I have my individual conference with Chef Easter tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!
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