Monday, December 10, 2007

Culinary School

There's something about ice baths that are quintessential to the culinary school experience. Even though the best restaurant kitchens use them, many kitchens do not. The point is to cool down a liquid such as a stock or a sauce as quickly as possible. When you cool a volatile liquid slowly, it gives bacteria a chance to grow and degrades the flavor and life of the the liquid. But when you cool them below 40 degrees fahrenheit very quickly you keep them fresh and tasty.

That, plus the fact that in school we try to teach the best way, equals our students building ridiculously cold ice baths, such as this one. What I have my students do is place two bricks on the bottom of the sink and place the container you strain into on that. Then we build layers of ice and salt and let it sit for a bit before adding a little cold water so that the entire surface area of the container is surrounded by cold liquid, not just the parts that are in contact with the ice cubes.

Then we stir the liquid as it cools to speed it up. It's fun, and competitive, and we cool down large quantities of hot liquid in a matter of minutes.

4 comments:

Keren Brown said...

I am not kidding when I say that I learned so much in your class.
I am a confident cook now because of you

Anonymous said...

Gostei muito desse post e seu blog é muito interessante, vou passar por aqui sempre =) Depois dá uma passada lá no meu site, que é sobre o CresceNet, espero que goste. O endereço dele é http://www.provedorcrescenet.com . Um abraço.

frantic foodie said...

just got home and erez is raving about the pate. I told him to call his mom and tell her that he is in love with pork now. Not typical Jewish. Anyway we went back at looked at the piggy pics. We thought we saw an eyeball in the corner there. Thanks for the beautiful book, I cant wait to read it!

Cakespy said...

Totally hot. Here's a pic of your brilliant pate:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cakespy/2173633824/

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