Clams, Mussels and White Wine/Butter Sauce

I got to do my first experimenting in cooking AT SCHOOL. To feed to my classmates. So awesome.

Everyone's group but ours had to follow a recipe, then chef stopped by our table and said "do whatever you want. make it have pasta, clams and mussels." I believe our collective jaws dropped. After hemming and hawing over the recipe we were going to make, (should it be white wine? should it be cream?) we decided to rest on it. In the morning I showed up early and wandered into the library on a whim. Why it would take me 3 months to figure out that the best foodie library in town was in the damn culinary school, I have no idea. It was way better than walking into the Powell's food section.

I ended up finding a recipe to cook mussels in white wine. I wrote it shorthand (completely avoiding telling everyone that you were supposed to just use the wine for cooking the mussels instead of as a base for a sauce because I really didn't want a reduction of heavy cream as a sauce) and took it back to my group. They approved, but now I was stuck with the daunting task of figuring just how to make this into a sauce. When I disappeared into the adjoined kitchen with little more than a sauce pan, crawfish stock and some booze, I got a little bit of that high I used to get when you'd lie to your parents about something stupid. No, dad, I didn't borrow your power saw to cut the head off my brother's army men. Why would you think that? But it was more yeah, I know what I am doing with this half gallon of sauvignon blanc and a whisk.

Long story short. It worked out fantastic. I think I really have a knack for sauces. I'll give you the full breakdown below for what I did and write down notes for myself for ways to make it simpler in case I want to make it again. It was good enough I probably will some day.

First thing I did was set 1.5 cups seafood (mostly crawfish and shrimp) stock and 2 cups white wine to reduce in a sauce pan on the stove.

Next we sauteed up about three cups each mussels and clams (no shells) in a few ounces of butter, with minced shallots and garlic (feel free to be extravagant with the butter, it all gets added into the sauce anyways and the sauce is very buttery). As they are cook, clams and mussels release lots of moisture. When done, strain the juices from the pans through paper towels and into the sauce pan. (Put the clams and mussels in a bowl on ice to stop cooking) Continue reducing. The liquid from the pans is a nice milky color and gives lots of body to the sauce.

After about 20 minutes, add an ounce of minced shallots, a teaspoon of lemon zest, and let cook for another few minutes. When the sauce is done reducing, add enough minced parsley to make it definitely a factor in the sauce, I think I used maybe a half a cup (really don't remember). Then start swirling in chunks of raw butter (monter au beurre). Balance the sauce with about a lemon and a half squeezed into the sauce. Salt to taste. (Don't use salt until the very end because I lot of these ingredients are naturally very salty).

To finish, saute the clams and mussels (just to heat) in a small amount of butter. Toss the sauce with angel hair or small linguine, add the mollusks and salt to taste. Remember, the sauce will end up much thinner than thickened, roux-based, or cream sauces. That was a concern for members of our group (until the dish was assembled). This is a very flavorful sauce, and being a butter sauce, it only needs to coat the pasta, not have a pool of it sitting in the bottom. That is very unappetizing with thin sauces.

If I wanted to try this again and make it healthier, I would substitute the seafood stock for vegetable stock, only use butter to saute the mollusks and thicken with a cornstarch slurry. It would turn out much fishier and I would use less lemon and probably a few extra herbs to make it more "green" tasting, maybe saute up some mushrooms with it as well. I think it would require a lot of balancing to get it right.

Two Steps Forward...crap.

One thing about culinary school. You are constantly fooled into thinking you know everything. For a few days, you'll be in the groove, perfecting the same types of dishes. Then, all of a sudden you make the most appalling string of crap ever to grace your kitchen. Enter the shame...

Of course, it's probably just the fact that I now have the wherewithal to identify my mistakes that is making me insecure about the rubbery shrimp I produced yesterday. And the incident with the fennel. That wasn't so good.

Parsley

The use of fresh parsley (or any herb high in clorophyll I am guessing) will discolor sauces. To avoid this, make sure to cut the herb in the manner desired then wrap it in cheesecloth and run water through it and squeeze until all the coloring has rinsed out. The herb will still be flavorful but it will not leach the clorophyll into the sauce. Of course, if you want it to be green, skip this step.

Tomato Sauce

Despite it's vegetable name, classic tomato sauce has more than one meat product in it. In order to make it vegetarian, use olive oil in place of bacon/salt pork and omit the bones.

1. Render Bacon
2. Sweat mirepoix until it becomes clear. (Do not brown items one or two)
3. Add the rest of the ingredients
4. BTAB, DTAS
5. The sauce is done when carrots are tender
6. Put through a food mill
7. Salt, pepper, sugar and season to taste.

I really like the creole small sauce from this. We had it over omelets and it was delicious.

Notes on Purchasing and Receiving

Keeping extensive notes on your business day may seem tedious, but it will help your food costs and planning. Takes notes of what the day was like, what the weather was like, etc. Then, if you want to know if your restaurant is going to be insanely crowded a sunny sunday after the fourth of july, you simply have to look it up. It's not an exact science as people have frustratingly proved time and again to be irrational, unpredictable creatures. Other, larger factors may be at play as well. For instance, at my new job, we researched the aforementioned sunny Sunday and the year before had done ten times the business as we were doing that day. This because of the economic slump when people are loathe to pay astronomical prices for luxury cooking items.

Key terms: par stock - what you need to have on hand to make it from one delivery to the next with minimal overstock. Overstock of perishable items means possible spoilage, overstock of non-perishable means money lost due to excessive storage space being used. Use aforementioned notes to forecast par stock needs.

AP weight -(As Purchased) the weight of an item before trimming
EP weight - (Edible Portion) the weight of an item after all trimming and prep is finished
AP/EP - dividing the EP by the AP gives you a percentage yeild. Always purchase according to what you need as EP. So, say you need 6 pounds of carrots EP and have an AP/EP of 80% then you have to buy 7.5 pounds of carrots AP.

Portion control - there are a few reasons to be a stickler about portion control.
1. Consistency - everyone cook's idea of what a portion should be is going to be different. say you have mashed potatoes and gravy and one night it has a scant dollop of gravy on a heap of potatoes and the next it looks like gravy soup with potato garnish. The customer isn't going to be happy and won't return. Give your cooks a standard size serving ladel to serve it with and it will be consistent.
2. Food costs - How can you estimate your par stock or food costs without having a set cost for each menu item? Also, if an item is getting too expensive (food cost fluctuates with the seasons) it may behoove you to adjust the portion size.
3. Food costs II - If a certain menu item consistently comes back half eaten, make the portion smaller.

Menu Planning

Here's some ground rules for planning your menus to make the best of what you purchase. Following these rules lowers your food costs. It's also fun (in a nerdy culinary way) to stare at menus at nice restaurants and try to see what other uses they have for those crazy mushrooms used for the special.

1. Use all edible trim (this means using mushroom stems to flavor stocks, meat trim to make soups, etc. Perhaps this is why they have soups of the day?)
2. Don't add an item to the menu unless you can use the trim
3. Plan production to avoid leftovers (unless you're at home, then leftovers are fantastic)
4. Plan ahead for use of leftovers (like if you make roast chickens one night, have chicken salad sandwiches on the menu for the next day using leftover roast chickens)
5. Avoid minimum use perishable ingredients (can your super special perishable ingredient be substituted for something you can use in several dishes without loss of quality?)

Another thing I learned from watching Kitchen Nightmares is that you don't want your guests going home with food. This skyrockets your food costs. If possible, trim portion sizes, perhaps even lower the menu costs, until most plates come back empty or nearly empty. This also allows them room for dessert. How many times have I lusted after the passion fruit creme brulee only to find myself stuffed at the end of the meal and unable to fathom eating another bite?

Mise En Place

This is the french term translated to mean "everything in it's place". I know it sounds simple, but for someone like me who loses their keys/wallet/etc. on a semi-hourly basis, it's a hard dictum to follow.

Basically, what they want you to do is:
1. show up completely mentally prepared
2. prep everything for each dish beforehand (prep should be finished by the start of class)
3. during slower times clean up your messes and prep for the next class

For this particular class, we got the instructions on our dishes the day before. Given the above three requirements, that means I have to keep most of the events of the last three days stored in an easy access file in my brain. Like that's possible. For someone who skated through school without even paying attention, it's a rude awakening.

It took me about two weeks to wrap my brain around this concept and decipher the pattern of information imparted by the lectures. Now, after finishing my three weeks, I have 80 pages of notes, recipes and cryptic one words phrases which may or may not mean something.

Wish me luck.

An ode to butter

I am taking a three week break from school right now because of a certain high school reunion I had plans to attend when enrolling in culinary school. Honestly, it's a bit of toture and my knife hand is itching to go out and buy a ten pound bag of carrots to brunois. So I am soothing my cooking jones by spending all of my time talking about food, class, knives, rouxs, etc. It's bound to get annoying. But I find most people will listen to my nattering as long as I am actually cooking for them. Consequentially, I've been baking a lot.

One recent conversation went as so (it's not verbatim, but close enough):

Me: Blah, blah, cooking stuff, BUTTER!
Friend: Oh really?
Me: Butter, butter butter.
Friend: You know, you talk a lot about butter.

And it's true. That entire week I probably talked about butter about as much as sauces, perhaps even more since butter, by itself, can be a sauce. It wasn't always like this. Like most women, I had cut butter out of my life a long while back and used it only sparingly and with solid conviction that the butter was trying to undermine me. But, seeing what the correct amount of butter can do to a dish is amazing. There's a fascinating amount of sauces you can make with butter and a few additives. I'm sure eventually my infatuation will cool and I'll start making stuff without butter in it. But for now, I sticking with the gold stuff.

Notes on a very short lecture on wine

I've read a book on wine before, but it's one of those subjects that you can read a hundred pages on but none of it sticks because it's about memorization. Like classes in history. Unless you can memorize the dates and names of significant parties involved, the information doesn't do a lot of practical good. Like, I know Malbec is a red varietal and Riesling a white, but do I know that classic profiles of each wine? No. Could I tell which to pair for a dish? No. They're all so different. Even within a specific varietal, each producer, hell, each bottle is likely different. I think I will leave that up to the sommeliers since I don't have a small inheritence with which to purchase an adequate reserve to amass enough knowledge to be of much use.

Here's the notes:

The equation for fermentation is:

yeast + sugar = ethanol + CO2 + heat = higher alcohols

Steps for making a white wine:
1. Press juice (removing skins)
2. Primary fermentation
3. Second fermentation - Introduce bacteria to convert malic acid to lactic acid

Once finished, wine is biologically and chemically stable.

Sulfites are preservatives. - I looked up why there is a controversy over sulfites in wine and here's what I came up with: sulfites are a naturally occurring preservative found on grapes. Like all things on the planet, some people have allergies to them (most prevalent symptom: headaches). Some wineries add extra sulfites which can cause extra discomfort to sufferers. For more information, see this wine page.

Tomatoes

There are three general types of tomatoes according to the lecture I got preceeding the making of Tomato sauce:

1. Cherry tomatoes - used for garnish, generally pretty sweet

2. Plum tomatoes - best for making sauces because of the lower water content (roma tomatoes are an example)

3. Beefsteak tomatoes - will turn to water/mush if cooked.

Heirloom tomatoes are tomatoes grown from an original seed unadulterated by genetic modifications. It is surprisingly hard to find an heirloom tomato seed. Use these for sandwiches and slice work. The ones that I have purchased come in a fantastic variety of flavors. My favorites being the ones that taste much greener almost to the point of grassy.

Au jus, Jus Lie, Glace and Essence: the differences

Here are how I understand the difference between the following sauce terms:

1. Au jus - an unthickened sauce made from pan drippings and what is left over after a roast

2. Jus lie - a thickened sauce made from pan drippings and what is left over after a roast

3. Stock* - flavorful liquid made from bones, vegetable matter and herbs/spices.

4. Broth* - Flavorful liquid made from meat, vegetable matter and herbs/spices.

*The difference between stock and broth is the natural gelatin content imparted by bones while cooking the stock.

5. Vegetable stock - technically a broth, but can be used to replace stock in vegetarian-ized dishes.

6. Glace (or Glaze) - stock reduced by 90%. It is very thick and solid when refrigerated. Reducing a stock to a glace makes for easier storage. You can just add water to create a stock. One way is to freeze glace in ice cube trays and store in standardized portion sizes.

7. Essence - is a vegetable stock reduced by 90%. This will still be thick but not nearly as thick as a glace. Essence can be made and put in a squeeze bottle and used as a sauce for presentation purposes.

8. Mother sauces - There are 5 main sauces in french-style cuisine. Bechamel, Veloute, Espagnole, Tomato and Hollandaise.

9. Small sauces - sauces made by adding one or more ingredients to a mother sauce

10. Intermediary sauces - a sauce made by adding on or more ingredient to a mother sauce that becomes a base sauce for two or more small sauces.

How to Make a Jus Lie

Jus (juice) lie (thickened) is pan drippings made into a sauce and thickened with a slurry (water + thickening agent such as cornstarch or arrowroot).

Here is one way to create a Jus Lie.

1. Heat pan
2. Add fat
3. Add bones and trimmings
4. Caramelize
5. Add mirepoix (mix dependent of food served) caramelize
6. Add tomato product until loses red coloring
7. Deglaze (using wine, alcohol until au sec)
8. Add juice (can use fruit juices such as apple or apple pieces)
9. Add stock
10. Simmer for 45 minutes
11. Strain
12. Thicken with a slurry of it needs it.
13. Put on a line or freeze

This is called a quick sauce because it only takes around an hour rather than waiting for the juices off of a roast that could take several hours. Serve this sauce over the meat whose bones you used to make the sauce.

This procedure can make either a jus lie or au jus to serve with dishes.

Espagnole Standard Preparation

3 hours estimated cooking time

1. In a sautoire (straight edged sautee pan) melt butter
2. Caramelize carrot and celery
a) add onions later, faster browning
3. Whisk in bread flour and make brown roux
4. Whisk in tomato puree and cook until orangeish brown
5. Deglaze with red wine (whisk) until au sec (almost immediately) cook until redness is out
6. Whisk in stock
7. BTAB, DTAS
8. Add sachet or bouquet garni
9. Simmer until light nape
10. Strain thru chinois
11. Vent
12. Label
13. Date

To make demi glace, take 1 part Espagnole, 1 part beef stock and reduce by half. Espagole is not generally used as a sauce or for making small sauces. Demi-glace is generally used for that. In contemporary kitchens, demi-glace is sometimes replaced by jus-lie.

Espagnole was created in reaction to the French Revolution and increased attention to food cost due to the dissolution of royalty.

Sauce Notes

For bechamel and veloute sauce always use white pepper.

Tarragon goes great with shellfish.

Don't freeze cream based sauces, stock based sauces are fine.

Bechamels and veloutes are strained.

Try jalapeno mac and cheese.

Mashes, Smashes, etc.

Mashes and smashes are smashed, cooked starches. Similar to mashed potatoes, they are a bit drier and can be formed into shapes on baking dishes and browned for presentation.

1. Boil starch (BTAB, DTAS)
2. Put in oven to dry out
3. Press through a food mill
4. Add seasoning/flavor

For rutabega seasoning use: salt, pepper, brown sugar, cloves and nutmeg.

Vegetable Stock

1. Sweat Mirepoix in olive oil until onions are clear
2. Add cold water
3. BTAB, DTAS
4. Simmer for 30-45 minutes

Notes:
Do not use leafy grean vegetables, they will cloud the stock.

Court Bouillon Standard Procedure

Court Bouillon is used as a short broth or poaching liquid for fish and shellfish.

1. Add sachet ingredients loose and mirepoix
2. Add equal amounts white wine, white wine vinegar, and lemon juice (1 lemon to a gallon, drop the squeezed lemon in for cooking)
3. Add cold water
4. Simmer 30-45 minutes

*if using to poach shellfish add step 5
5. add 2 oz of salt. The salt will penetrate the shells. BTAB then add whole, intact shellfish.

Fish Fume Standard Procedure

Fish stock can be made in the same manner as white stock, or this procedure can be used for a more fragrant stock. Fish Fume can be used for poaching but court bouillon is used more commonly nowadays.

1. Rinse bones
2. Sweat white mirepoix in a small amount of fat
3. Add bones (cover with parchment lid - fold in quarters, cut in a circle and cut an "x" in the middle to let out steam. put on low heat with no stirring until bones are opaque)
4. Add cold water
5. BTAB, DTAS
6. Skim
7. Add mushrooms, sachet/bouquet garni
9. Simmer 35-40 minutes
10. Strain
11. Vent
12. Label and Date

Pluot and Apricot Salad

This was definitely and experiment and the flavor profile is off but still delicious enough for me to regret how much time it took to find my camera to take a picture of it. The next time I make this recipe, I am definitely making it ahead of time and cooling it before adding the lettuce. Also, I would definitely omit the celery and caramelize the carrots and slivered almonds in more sugar. Either that or used sugared almond slivers and caramelize the carrots alone.

I know that the cilantro and curly parsley seems like a bit much, but it adds a freshness that makes the dish light and summery (even in my 85 degree apartment) and balances the sweetness of the fruits, vanilla and sugar.

This could also be adapted to a desert omitting the carrots, celery, lettuce and switching the parsley and cilantro for mint. Also, probably changing up the vinnaigrette a bit, maybe with champagne vinegar. Serve with fresh whipped cream or other delicious baking cream.

So, here's what I did for 1 serving:

Make Lemon/Balsamic/Cinnamon Vinnaigrette
1 part lemon
1 part (or a little less) balsamic vinegar
1/2 part olive oil
cinnamon to taste

Cut in half, de-seed and slice
1 pluot
1 apricot (fully ripe)

Mince
1 tsp - fresh curly parsley (not flat parsley)
1/2 tsp - fresh cilantro

Slice in thin strips
1/2 C lettuce

Caramelize (by sautee) the following in scant butter:
2 T - Slivered apricots
1 T - Carrots, brunois (x-small dice)
1 T - Celery, brunois
2 tsp - sugar
When caramelized, add 1/2 tsp vanilla

Take off heat and add apricot, pluot parlsey and cilantro flipping in pan to distribute flavors. Add about 1 T of the vinnaigrette. Don't let the fruit cook all the way. If serving warm, add the lettuce and serve immediately. If serving cold, I would hold off on the herbs, vinnaigrette and lettuce until about ten minutes before serving time and mix them with the cooled fruit salad.

Serve on a leaf of lettuce.

Anyways, this dish was delicious and odd. Something that with a few tweaks I would be delighted to eat in a restaurant.

Stock Generalities

A stock is a flavored water, or to get more technically: a clear, unthickened liquid flavored with soluble substances extracted from bones, veggies and seasonings.

The basic ingredients are: water (100%), bones (50%) and mirepoix (10%)

The way to measure out these percentages is to take the bones as your given weight (being that they are the most costly and are generally disinclined to change weight easily), then double the weight and add that much water (water being approximately 8.7 lb/gallon at sea level), then use 10% of the bone weight as your guide for the mirepoix. Honestly, this equation is a little flawed. If people could trust one another to do ratios, it would be much simpler, i.e. 20:10:1. But it turns out that people entering the culinary field have just about the same talent for math that the rest of the population has (minus, of course, nuclear physicists and accountants.)

ACIDS: In general, acids used for fish stocks are likely to be white wine or lemon juice. Acids used for beef/veal/brown stocks will be red wine or tomato product.

Mirepoix sizing: General rule is that the smaller the bones, the smaller dice for mirepoix and vice versa.
Small dice: Fish Stocks
Med dice: Chicken, fowl, game, etc.
Large dice: beef, veal, etc.

How to Make a Brown Stock

Brown stocks are made from carmelized bones/vegetables.

NOTE: Do not rinse the bones beforehand. The proteins, etc. already present are an asset when browning.

1. Carmelize the bones

1. spray pan with cooking spray
2. rub with oil
3. brown in an oven at 375 degrees (low temp in case you get busy. Allows for greater leeway)

2. Add tomato product to the bones and brown again. (Will take much less time)
3. Carmelize the mirepoix (same as above)
4. Put the bones in a stock pot
5. Add cold water
6. Degrease the pan
7. Deglaze the pan (putting the pan over heat, pour in wine or other liquid)
8. BTAB/DTAS
9. Skim the impurities
10. Add Mirepoix
11. Add sachet or bouquet garni
12. Simmer
13. Strain
14. Vent
15. Label and Date

Standard Procedure for a White Stock

This has been drilled into my head so many times, I thought I should write it out for reference.

White stock (stock made without carmelization)

1. Rinse bones
2. Add cold water
3. Bring to a Boil/Down to a Simmer
4. Skim protein impurities from the surface.
5. Add mirepoix
6. Add sachet or bouquet garni
7. Simmer for allotted time
8. Strain through a chinois
9. Vent
10. Label and Date

Notes on Stocks I

When you are finished with your stocks and all of the fat has been drained off, pour enough fat back onto the stocks to create a seal. This will solidify when refrigerated and create a seal that will add a week to the life of your stock. You can pull this off when the stock is ready to be used at you don't want all the fat incorporate back into the stock when used. That just reintroduces impurities and unnecessary greasiness.

If the fat cap breaks up, strain through a chinois or china cap to remove chunks.

Also: Always smell and taste your stocks before using. Of course you smell first. If it smells off, your stock is ruined. If it tastes off, the same.

Remember not to add your mirepoix too early. Vegetable matter will break down much faster than bone matter and will not retain the correct flavor if added too soon.