Culinary Foundations III in Review: The Laws of Cooks?

Pancake-flipping robot. Not one of Asimov's.

Isaac Asimov's science-fiction work is famous for the Three Laws of Robotics, rules of behavior that the robot characters would inevitably interpret in different ways. After completing the third of Le Cordon Bleu's three "foundations" classes, it seems to me that cooks should have something similar in place to help us operate. (By the way, Asimov wrote the Foundation series. Coincidence? Er... yes.)

We actually already do. If you consume enough food media, you've probably heard a few operational bon mots from different chefs. One of my chef-instructors paraphrased an oft-held belief in restaurant kitchens: being fast is better than being good. He only had the caveat that a good cook should be both fast and good. A recent Top Chef episode featured one chef saying "fast is slow and slow is smooth" -- in other words, do it right the first time. (Hugh Acheson, however, thought this made zero sense whatsoever.)

I wrote briefly of kitchen multitasking when I was in Foundations II, but in hindsight, those were all simple items. By comparison, Foundations III was a decathlon. Production days typically featured dishes with multiple preparations and techniques. Some days had more than one dish. My most successful days were the ones where I was prepared and efficient. I eventually started timing elements of my chef-instructor's demos so I'd know that, for example, sauteeing mushrooms takes about four minutes, so I shouldn't step away from the stove for six minutes to mince some shallots. I did that. Burned the mushrooms. Had to redo them.

Which brings me back to the Laws of Cooks, which exist but not really. If I had to put them down in stone, they'd probably be something like...

Be Prepared. Know what you need to do before you have to do it. Know when to do it. If something takes 40 minutes to braise, do that first, then go on to chopping stuff. (Thanks, Boy Scouts of America!)

Be Clean. Because shit piles up real fast. I've had a few days where I had to stop and figure out which saute pan at my station was clean and which wasn't. Not a good idea.

Be Organized. I suppose this is the lovechild of being prepared and clean, but it's worth throwing out there. I've had to stop to dig a knife out of my kit because I didn't have them all out together. Not a good idea, though it might make a fun spectator sport.

Be Efficient. I learned real fast never to make one trip for one spice when I could grab all five I'd eventually use. By the same token, don't waste nice knife cuts on something that's going to be removed or strained. Wasted motion is a killer.

Be Fast. It's a carrot, just fucking chop it already.

Food is Done When It's Done. A lot of the chef-instructors love saying this in reply to students asking, "Chef, how long do we cook it?" Mostly because it's true. You can crank up the heat or chop things smaller or whatever, but water boils when it boils, steak sears when it sears, and polenta finishes when it finishes (or doesn't).

Okay, that's a lot of stuff, and not nearly as elegantly tied together as Asimov. Organization is inferred, and efficiency and speed go hand-in-hand, so how about...

Be Prepared.
Work Clean.
Work Smart.
It's Done When It's Done.

I guess I'll see if those work for me moving forward.

Here's a selection of dishes we made in class.

Pan-roasted duck with turnips

Tea-smoked duck breast with ginger-carrot puree (I seared the skin a little much)

Salmon steak with beurre blanc, plus fennel mousseline

Veal blanquette with rice pilaf

Breaded veal escalope (aka veal scallopini)

Sweetbread fritters with tomato sauce, fried parsley

Recipe: Risotto Milanese

Apparently, a lot of saffron used to come through Milan, owing to the fact that the city is in a geographical sweet spot connecting Italy to the rest of Europe.

Some fun facts about saffron:

1. A saffron thread is a stigma from a flower of the saffron crocus plant. Each flower contains three.
2. One pound of saffron is roughly the equivalent of 75,000 flowers.
3. Due to the fact that it's handpicked, and from aforementioned fun facts one and two, it's the most expensive spice in the world. Perhaps, also because...
4. Today, most of the world's saffron comes from Iran.
5. It's the defining ingredient of paella. It also makes for a fine risotto.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup short-grain rice (arborio is widely available)
• 1/4 onion, finely minced
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 5-7 saffron threads
• 1/3 cup shredded parmesan
• 1/4 cup (half a stick) cold butter, in chunks

Equipment

• medium sauce pot
• small sauce pot

Prepping

Warm the chicken stock in a small sauce pot until steaming. Add the saffron.

Finely mince the onion. The onion bits shouldn't be any larger than a grain of rice.

Cooking

Use the risotto method, of course!

Heat a tablespoon or two of olive oil (and a pat of butter if you want) in the medium sauce pot. Sweat the onions for a few minutes, just until they start to get a little color. Add the rice and toss to coat in the oil/butter. Toast the rice for a minute or two.

Add the white wine and reduce until almost dry.

Add the stock 1/4-1/3 cup at a time and stir. Wait until the rice absorbs most of the liquid before adding more. It shouldn't be too dry before you add more, but it shouldn't be soupy, either.

Test a grain of rice as you get towards the end of the stock. Liquid should be absorbed all the way through, but you still want some bite. You know, the whole al dente thing.

When you're getting close, add a pinch or three of salt and stir in the butter and a little cheese. The cheese will thicken it up, so add a little more stock if necessary. It shouldn't pile up when you spoon it onto a plate. The word we used in class was "wavy." Go wavy.

Serve with more cheese. Sprinkle some minced parsley if you want to take a picture of it.

Day 49: The Risotto Method

From stocks to soups to sides and now, finally, a solid food dish that could conceivably be a meal all by itself, risotto.

I don't remember the first time I learned about risotto, but I do remember thinking, "Wait, it's just rice?" Oh, the folly of youth. Because A) I can and have eaten rice for consecutive decades, and B) it's really, really tasty rice. Creamy and nutty and luscious and all that.

And it's customizable! Since Le Cordon Bleu is all about techniques over recipes, and risotto is a technique, our chef-instructor taught us the basic risotto method – in Italian, no less – with which one could easily make their own plate of creamy rice deliciousness. As my favorite Italian, a super plumber named Mario, would say, "Let's-a go!"

The Risotto Method

1. Soffrito* - Saute aromatics. The word means suffer, so imagine onions weeping out their moisture.
2. Riso - Add the rice. Coat it in the fat the aromatics are currently sauteing in and let toast a little.
3. Vino - Wine, to deglaze the pan and add a wee bit of flavor. Cook until almost dry.
4. Brodo - Broth. The liquid should be hot so as not to stop the rice's cooking process. Adding a little at a time promotes more even cooking.
5. Condimenti - Butter and cheese and salt. And, if you're feeling sexy, vegetables and cooked meats or seafood.

*Not to be mistaken with the Spanish sofrito, although the basic idea is the same. This is the flavor base.

The condiment step is an obvious spot for getting creative, but really every step of the way can be switched up somehow. Different stocks/broths, wines, etc.

As for the rice, starchy short-grain varieties work best. Our chef-instructor recommended three: arborio, carnaroli, and vialone nano. I've read more than handful of recipes recommending bomba. I've actually made half-decent risotto using calrose, but that should probably be a too-lazy-to-go-to-the-store last resort.