This week's Culinary Works

I have to apologize at the beginning, for take ugly photos this week. I'm not totally proud of most of the dishes appearance, but I did promise that I'd post the photos.

Steamed Mussels in a White Wine, Shallots, and Parsley

(I'm sorry to say, but I ate the whole plate)

Seared Scallops with Parsley Coulis

Poached Whole Lobster in a White Wine Court Bouillon with a Baked Potato

Most Expensive Lunch I've had in this school.

Chicken Poached in Mediterranean-Style Broth

Sauteed Chicken, Hunter Style

(This was delicious, must recreate it at home)

Pan Roasted Quail with Rice and Sausage Stuffing. 

(The sauce wasn't reduced enough)

Hope you like the pictures, I will have more by Friday and I'll post them in the weekends.

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Classic Sponge Cake

One day, I came back home and my Father brought home 2 dozen duck eggs. He wanted me to make a Duck Egg Cake for him, so I decided to make it with a certain ratio, which I will talk about it later on. Now the recipe for Classic Sponge Cake is from Woodland Bakery in Chatham, NJ. The recipe is written by Gretchen Price.

Here's the recipe: http://www.woodlandbakeryblog.com/vanilla-sponge-cake/

Please check out her website, it has everything for aspiring Pastry Chefs or Home Baker!

Now for the details to making the cake; In today's cake, I've used 3 Duck Eggs instead of the 4 Chicken Eggs the recipe called for. That ratio is perfect as long as the weight of the Duck Eggs is around 200g, when cracked opened. I lowered the amount of sugar to 1 1/4 cup and then I followed the recipe with the other ingredients. Those are my changes to this cake and the result is PERFECT!

The cake is Moist, Soft, Light, and perfect Sweetest! Just the perfect harmony for the Classic Sponge Cake! With some Swiss Vanilla Buttercream from Gretchen Price, this is the best harmony of flavors!

I'm sorry about my pictures being ugly today, but it's the perfect picture to explain my next tip.

In the past I've tried this recipe using Chicken Eggs and it was also great, but it was really dry. One cool tip to keeping your Sponge Cake from drying out while it cools, is to place the sponge cake into a plastic bag and close it shut so the cake stays moist. In this case, I've used a Hefty Plastic Ziplock Bag to keep the cake moist. Once you are ready to frost, take the cakes out of the bag and stack the cakes on top of each other. When you cut into this cake, it will be moist! 

Hope you enjoy the tip, I will make another post later tonight to highlight my work in Culinary School. Subscribe and Stay tune for more upcoming pictures!

This week's work in Culinary School

Hi Everyone! Starting from today, I think I will post weekly photos of all the work I've done and the dishes I've eaten. So I'm going to stop myself from writing a large paragraph and show the pictures with it's respective names:

Beef Consomme with Finely Diced Carrots, Turnips, Haricot Verts, and Green Peas

This was the lunch I've had one day, it was a buffet. From left bottom to right bottom going around the plate;

Grilled Bacon Polenta, Deviled Eggs, Shredded Cabbage in Sweet Dressing (Don't remember Sorry), Parsnip Gratin, Parsnip Tart, Apple and Bacon Croquette, Apple Butter, Mixed Sauteed Vegetables, Carrot Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting (In the little cup), Smoked Trout spread, and Roasted Ham! 

During a Chef's Demonstration: Baked Shrimps 3 different types (Simply Seasoned with Salt and LOTS of Pepper) Very Tasty!

During a Chef's Demonstration: Salt Cured Red Snapper, and Amberjack Ceviche with Mangos, Supereme of Blood Oranges, and Pistachios. 

Salade Nicoise

Crispy Duck Confit with a Bitter Green Salad 

Macadoine de Legume

(or Carrots, Turnips, Haricot Verts, and Green Peas dressed with a Basil Mayo 

and topped with Tomato Fondue)

My Chef Instructor's Graxlax! So good with a piece of toast and Lemon Juice!

I had leftover Challah bread so I decided to make my own French Toast with Eggs, Milk, Sugar, Salt, and Cinnamon! Drizzled with Condensed milk.

Poisson en Papillote

(Fish baked in Parchment Paper)

This just came out of the oven, such a Wow factor.

Poisson en Papillote

This was the inside of the parchment paper. Very Delicious and Healthy too!

 So I ate the whole thing by myself.

Sauteed Trout, Grenoble Style

This was pan seared Trout with a Lemon Butter sauce. Garnished with Lemon Supreme, Capers, Housemade Croutons, and Cocotte New Potatoes.

"Cocotte" refers to the shape of the potatoes in this photo.  

Thank You everyone for their support! And I keep rewarding with more Food Porn! I hope you like it! Stay Tune next week for more! I hope..

Culinary School photos!

Hello! I haven't posted in a while because I've been attending Culinary School. It's been 7 days so far and I've learned a lot of things. These are some photos I've taken at the end of plating the dishes. They turned out pretty looking and delicious. Hopefully you'd like what you see, I may take more if I have enough time so my chef instructor doesn't yell at us. 

Roasted Beet Salad (bottom) covered with Goat Cheese (top) 

and Macedoine (cubed) Granny Smith Apples in a Shallot Vinaigrette. 

From left to right,

Caramelized Pearl Onions, Pommes Rissolees (French Roasted Potatoes), Cooked Haricot Verts,

Tournage Carrots, and Tournage Turnips.

Strawberry with Sweet Sabayon (made with Marsala wine)

I've checked with my school on whether I can post photos of the food I've made, and I've been given the permission to post on my own blog. So Stay Tune for more plated dishes that I'm learning to make on a weekday basis. Thank you to everyone who have shown support. I really appreciate it!

Brownies!

The past few days I've been craving something like Chocolate Fudge. So I decided to look into Gretchen Price (the owner of Woodland Bakery and Woodland Bakery blog) for some ideas as to what to make. I came across Gretchen's Fudgy Fudge Brownies. You know it's good when its Fudgy Fudge and when its from Gretchen Price because I've had a lot of success with her recipe (being a person with no professional pastry experience).

In the previous post, I mentioned that I'm attending Culinary School so this might be my last post for quite a while. I'm really sorry everyone! The food porn that I show will come to stop temporally. I hope I have the ability to write for the blog for my school, but I will let you know when I do. Please Stay Tune.

Speaking of food porn, these Fudgy Fudge Brownies were VERY delicious! I would say that the pictures are as flattering but with a sprinkles of powdered sugar, it would look even better. I'm not a professional Food Stylist but I wouldn't mind if I was one. The changes that I've made to the original recipe will be said after the Food Porn.

Original Recipe: http://www.woodlandbakeryblog.com/fudgy-fudge-brownies/

Now the pictures are below,

The changes that I've made to this recipe was the following:

Used 1/2 cup less sugar for a bitter note at the end

Added 1 tablespoon of instant coffee powder

That's it. Next time to add more chocolate flavor, I'd add 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder. I would also use a 9 by 13 baking pan to make a thicker and more chewier brownies.  

Leave suggestions of what you might've done. I like to learn from others. Please Stay Tune for what's to come on my Young Chef's Journey! 

Good News!

Hello Everyone! I'd like to thank everyone who decided to follow my blog. A young home cook, who has a huge passion for cooking and baking, wanting to become a chef as his career. I intend to learn all that the food industry has to offer and I will savor every bite of food. Hopefully I can take pictures of the food as well and post them on this blog.

In the past few post, I've mentioned that I have good news. I didn't mention what it was "in regards to" and so I will "shred some light on it" with this post. Over the past few months, I've been researching Culinary Schools around my area and trying to look for the best one for me. I've located one in the heart of my city and I registered for it a month ago. On this very day, I've been accepted to enroll in their Culinary Program and I'm excited to begin the course. 

Now my Journey as a Young Chef begins! I can't wait what the future has in store for me. 

In the coming months, I'm not sure what will happen with my own blog, but I will keep everyone updated. Fortunately my school does have its own blog, so I might be the temporary writer because I signed up for it. I enjoy writing everything about food and I hope you can feel it as you read this! Please Stay Tune to get the most updated news about this blog.

I might decide to make sweet treat during the weekends depending on how intense the classes are. Stay Tune!

French Macaron

Today I wanted to conquer the one of the most finicky cookie in the world. The finicky cookies are called The French Macaron! Not the Classic Coconut Macaron, which are very good sweet treats by themselves. The reason why French Macarons are so finicky (or temperamental) is because they require a meringue based, which some people are intimidated. I've worked with Meringues before like the classic meringue cookies or making the based for a classic Swiss Buttercream. I can definitely say that playing with meringues requires a lot of practice, so be patient and give your attention to the details with your egg whites.

So the French Macaron has a meringue based that also requires almond meal (or flour) and powdered sugar to mix into the batter. I have to say mixing the flour with the meringue is extremely difficult because you have to mix the batter perfectly or else the result will be one of three; Cracked on top, Flat (will not rise), or Achieve gorgeous "feet".

If you reading this and you read "feet", then your not the only one. The "feet" of a French Macaron is the ridges on the bottom of the cookies. If you see those ridges, then you have achieve greatness and you've mixed the batter perfectly.

To be honest, I didn't test trial any French Macaron recipe. One day I saw on my YouTube subscription page that one of my favorite chefs has created a FOOLPROOF French Macaron Recipe. I thought I want to join that bandwagon and ride to achieve "feet" on my cookies! The YouTube chef that recently created her own channel, has different recipes for different people like In-a-Budget Meals, Fancy Dinner Party Ideas, Great Gift ideas, etc... Check her out on YouTube. Her channel is called Entertaining with Beth.

Her recipe for FOOLPROOF French Macaron is also in her channel, but the link is below;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ636Y8N6E8

(Also includes the video and the recipe in the description box, either watch what she is doing, or print the recipe. I watched the video 6 times, and read' the recipe 10 times to make sure I was doing everything correctly)

Now the pictures of the lovely French Macarons! Everyone's been waiting for them!

I didn't dye these Macarons any color because I wanted to "master" the technique before I waste any color. Traditionally a French Macaron is a sandwich cookie, so there is a filling. I decided to make a Strawberry Buttercream using Fresh squeezed strawberry and a vanilla buttercream from Crumb Boss! So I hope you like this recipe and try to master this finicky cookie. 

Suggestions: The cookies were a bit too sweet for my liking, so I'd use only 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar only when I use my strawberry buttercream recipe. If its a tart preserve or jelly, I'd use 1 3/4 cups of powdered sugar. I think 2 cups of powdered sugar may be too sweet. 

Please Subscribe or Stay Tune for new recipe that I might try. Please feel free to leave any suggestions so I can try. I'd LOVE know!