and that's a wrap!

In my last days of sandwich station, some people from pastry side rotated over so they could be trained (and in turn, train their pastry cohorts). Del and I were sent two bite-sized Asian girls, whom I proceeded to call our "minions".

Besides training them in the art of sandwich-making (and the art of filling-making, such as egg salad and tuna salad, which I still don't know), we also showed them how to fry chips as a side accompaniment. Here they are frying beet chips, which is made the same way as any other root vegetable chip - sliced with a mandoline and dropped into hot hot oil. I suppose you could bake them too, but I haven't yet made chips that way, only fries.



Then there were things we didn't plan on teaching them but happened anyway - one day we wanted to make buffalo chicken sandwiches (shown in the last post) and it required the chicken breasts being pounded thin (the better to be fried!) and so we employed our minions as meat pounders. Small girl + big mallet = scary.



Then on my last day in sandwich, I coincidentally decided to make a wrap, thus concluding my rotation with how I began it. It was actually pretty slapdash of me. I hadn't felt like making anything that day so I was looking in the sandwich recipe binder for some inspiration, and I came across a chipotle chicken recipe, which was interesting because I'd never made anything with chipotles before. So I made chipotle chicken, and decided to put it in a wrap with some lettuce. But the wrap needed more, so I wanted to add rice, but it was too late to make rice, so Del found some already-made guacamole, and Chef suggested cheese, and I thought of sprouts, and ranch - and TA-DA, that's how something edible got made.



And that's a wrap of my half-semester in savory!

an homage to salad

So in sandwich station every morning we made a batch of 32 regular sandwiches (8 egg salad, 8 tuna salad, then two more combinations like 8 turkey & swiss and 8 ham & american). Then after that we make two sandwich specials, usually one veggie and another non-veggie. Del and I got in the habit of making the non-veggie specials but it was hard coming up with ideas, probably because I don't eat that many sandwiches, or maybe because I simply don't get excited by sandwiches.

One idea I came up with was the Cobb salad sandwich, which, as you know, isn't exactly a sandwich idea (guess which station I missed being in!). I toasted the ciabatta bread (brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with Italian herbs) in the oven, Del grilled the chicken (with the addition of liquid smoke, some seriously potent stuff!), and we topped that off with the requisite lettuce/tomato/bacon/egg/avocado (so not kosher, as it has just occurred to me). I enjoyed doing all the arranging but also finishing with lines of ranch dressing from a squeeze bottle. Almost like painting!



A few days later Bernie, in salad station, made an actual Cobb salad. It turned out beautifully - just the kind of salad one would want to pay tribute to.

sandwich me crazy

Having found my niche doing composed salads at salad station, it felt anti-climatic to be ending my half-semester on the savory side with sandwich station. As I rotated there, I expected to follow along with what the more experienced sandwich station people were making, and on my first day it was roast beef, arugula, and horseradish cream cheese wraps.



You lay down the wrap (an oversized tortilla), put down some spread, then lay out the ingredients like it's a pizza. You can roll it up burrito-style and cut it in half, but I chose to roll it up horizontally (without tucking the ends in) and then cutting the roll into slices, as you would to make hor d'œuvre-type tortilla spiral sandwiches. Except then I stuck them on kebab sticks! Which made them look like lollipops.



So once I figured out there were presentation possibilities in sandwich, I got to working. The next day I decided to fancy myself with a 3D fruit garnish. I had chosen pineapples and oranges to complement the shrimp salad sandwich my partner Del was making (partially for the flavor, partially to offset the green and red of the cucumbers and tomatoes he was using). Not content simply to cut the pineapples and oranges into slices, I built this, with the addition of celery, parsley, and dried apricot.



And together it looked like this.



Cole slaw was a common side dish to go along with the sandwiches we made because it pairs well with many cold sandwiches (we weren't allowed to make hot sandwiches because they wouldn't keep until lunch service). I got tired of making coleslaw pretty fast so a variation I made was asian coleslaw, where I added bell peppers and snow peas and used some sesame oil in the dressing.



Nom!

iron chef!

So the way that the culinary department ran the Iron Chef competition, each team had to come up with three courses while using the mandated ingredients of salmon (smoked or fresh) and rack of lamb. Some teams went crazy and tested out their menus; my team met for a couple of hour-long meetings and discussed what we would make - poached salmon salad for the first course, herb/nut-encrusted lamb with pearl rice risotto and carrots/asparagus for the main course, and a lemon pistachio mousse with candied kumquats as dessert. The overarching theme was the use of citrus and nuts throughout all three courses, and of course using local and seasonal produce.

My teammate Eric and I were in charge of the salmon salad, which for me involved washing arugula, thin-slicing and blanching fennel, segmenting oranges, toasting almonds and pistachios, frying capers (which was scary because I have never deep-fried anything in a pan), and then plating everything before an hour and a half was up. Most of what I did was captured on camera, because there's a culinary school alum pursuing broadcast journalism who decided to do a documentary on the competition. I volunteered to be one of the four students he followed, so maybe there will be a video I can link you all to in due time.



When it came time for plating, we discovered that our plates were not sufficiently cold, which then involved a mad scramble to stick the plates into the walk-in refrigerator, and then the freezer, and then back to our station, where the whole team assembled around me to watch/help me plate. This was the result:



We then carried out six plates to the judges (mostly chef instructors) and presented the dish with a description. Sadly, unlike on Iron Chef, there was no feedback from the judges so we had no idea what they thought of the dish.



Afterward I helped present the main course (in which the lamb was undercooked). And then the entire team presented the dessert, which I helped garnish.



All in all it was a slightly nerve-wracking but mostly exhilarating experience. My team didn't win, so we weren't the best, but I definitely don't think we were the worst. Hopefully I will be chosen to compete again sometime in my culinary school career, as by then I will have accumulated enough experience to have more of a hand in each and every one of the courses!

middle eastern chicken salad

For my last act in salad I wanted to make something with chicken (the only other mass-consumed meat I hadn't used), so I found this recipe for Middle Eastern Chicken Salad in the salad station binder (we have binders full of recipes for each station).


Went to the walk-in refrigerators to gather all my ingredients in a hotel pan (standard metal pans used in culinary settings) and was struck by the contrasting colors and textures of the vegetables, so I took this picture.

Although this dish is a so-called salad (and thereby served cold), I would rather eat it warm, as one of those one-pot hearty dinners. For those that are interested in the recipe, you can see it in the zoomed-in version of the picture above, available here.

Basically you cook rice in chicken stock (1 to 2 ratio, but depending on the rice) with the addition of sauteed garlic and shallots, and dried currants (I substituted dried cherries and dates since we didn't have currants). Cut up some chicken and put it in a separate pot with a bay leaf and enough chicken stock to cover, bring it to a boil then simmer for half an hour (same procedure as rice really). To adhere to the one-pot policy, one could sautee the chicken first then add it to the rice.

Side note: I learned the difference between chicken stock and chicken broth! Stock is made from the bony chicken parts (as opposed to meat for broth) so it is heartier. Although I would say they're interchangeable if you don't have stock on hand.

While the rice and chicken are cooking, cut up some carrots, celery, and scallions. Once the rice and chicken are done cooking, mix all of the ingredients together, like so.



Season the mixture with lemon juice, cumin, cinnamon, mint leaves, and salt and pepper to taste. I like things spicy so I opened up a container of cayenne, but then made the mistake of talking to someone while I was adding the spice so I dumped some handfuls worth into the rice. If you know cayenne, you'll know that "some handfuls" really means "way too f-ing much". So I scooped out the contaminated portions of the rice, but then I didn't want to throw it away so I made the mistake of eating it. Let's just say my tastebuds were shot for the next hour or so.

Since this was a boxed salad I was doing (and not a composed salad, where I would have kept all the ingredients separate instead of mixed), presentation was not such a big deal. But I put in the effort anyway.


The white stuff is plain yogurt in the middle. If you want to be a little fancy you could mixed in some diced cucumber and dill or something, but I decided to keep it plain (especially after that cayenne mishap, I could use a little plain, hah!).

***
In other news, it was around this time when Chef revealed to me that I had been chosen for the Iron Chef competition, which coincidentally is tomorrow. There are 6 teams with 8 members each, the majority of which are second and third semester students, which meant not many first semester students were chosen, so I consider this an honor. Each team has an hour and a half to prepare three courses, and even though I'm not experienced enough to take the lead on any dish, I hope to do much preparation and put my presentation skills to good use. Wish my team luck!