Chez Christine

Molecules for Me?

I found this article in the New York Times about women and molecular gastronomy quite interesting, especially on the heels of the whole Marcel-Top Chef-molecular food thing.  It made me think for the first time how interested I am in the whole modernization of cooking products and methods.

I remember when Chef Guy at Le Cordon Bleu found out I was going to El Bulli last April.  He suddenly showed great interest in me and my cooking.  I found his critiques more in depth.  He wanted to know which Parisian restaurants I had been to and which ones I liked.  He wanted photographs of the food I had eaten in these restaurants.  Even with the language barrier, he kept telling me to try to stage at El Bulli.

I found his interest flattering but a little annoying.  Turns out he himself (a former contestant on the original Iron Chef) knew a lot about molecular gastronomy and thought I was interested too.  On the day of our practice run for the final, he pulled me aside to show me how they make fake caviar.  Needless to say, I was annoyed since I was racing against the clock, trying to cook a main and three sides for four people.  I kind of half-watched him out of respect, then ran back to my station to make sure my pigeon wasn't overcooked.  It was fun to watch, but I wasn't in the best frame of mind to watch it at that point.

My gut reaction?  I don't think I'm that interested in that type of food.  I like eating it, reading about it, and seeing what people come up with, but I like connecting with whole foods and using classic techniques to make them delicious.  My preference is, like the article suggests, to provide comfort and pleasure with my food, not surprise.  And I prefer to do it without special chemicals or machines. 

Yes, it's true that mostly men are doing this kind of stuff, but then again, most engineers are men also.  Is it a gender thing or a cultural thing?  Right now, it's probably a mixture of both.  I applaud women out there who are working in this field and hope to see them succeed and encourage other female chefs to do the same.  Who knows, maybe in a few years I'll own some methylcellulose myself.

Bon appétit!

LCB Knife Kit

The ubiquitous cooking school knife kit.  Some of the most frequent questions I'm asked revolve around this bag of tools.  Yes, the knife kit is included in the tuition at LCB.  Yes, the school provides all the food and the uniforms.  Yes, you can bring your own knives and tools in if you like (will try to dedicate another post on this later). 

I think the kits are pretty similar throughout the official LCB schools, with a few little exceptions.  I have no idea about the LCB degree program schools elsewhere though- you'll have to find that out yourself.

So I've decided to list every item in my 41-piece knife kit.  Did I use all of the tools?  Absolutely not.   Some I consider pretty useless or replaceable with other knives or tools.  But the best moment the first week of class was when my kit was placed into my hands.  The knives are all Le Cordon Bleu Wusthof line- heavy but sturdy and German.   I'd take knives over jewelry or haute couture anyday.

1. Knife Case
   
2. Wavy Edge Slicer
3. Flat Icing Spatula
4. Bent Icing Spatula
   
5. Cook's Knife- 9"
6. Meat Fork
   
7. Paring Knife
8. Filleting Knife
   
9. Turning Knife
10. Boning Knife
    
11. Light Cleaver
12. Scissors
13. Sharpening Steel
14. Zester
    
15. Melon Baller
16. Apple Corer
17. Channeling Knife
    
18. Trussing Needle
19. Vegetable Peeler
20. Pastry Brush
    
21. Pastry Crimper
22. Piping Bag- 350mm
    
23. Piping Bag- 430mm
24. Plastic Scraper
25. Sugar Thermometer
    
26. Exoglass Spatula- 30cm
27. Whisk- 30cm
28. Table Fork
29. Soup Spoon
30. Teaspoon
31. Stainless Steel Nozzle- U6
    
32. Stainless Steel Nozzle- U8
33. Stainless Steel Nozzle- U10
34. Stainless Steel Nozzle- U12
    
35. Stainless Steel Nozzle- U20
36. Stainless Steel Nozzle- A7
    
37. Stainless Steel Nozzle- D7
38. Plastic Nozzle- StH
    
39. Plastic Nozzle- E6
40. Plastic Nozzle- E8
41. Plastic Nozzle- PF16

Other non-knife kit equipment you receive:

• Tefal electronic balance (scale) including batteries
• Hermetic Plastic Bowl for leftovers
• Hermetic Plastic Sauce Bowl
• Two small scale bowls

Bon appétit!

Serrated Vegetable Peeler

Serrated Vegetable Peeler

Since I am a self-professed kitchen gadget junkie, I figured that I might as well share some of my experiences and recommendations with kitchen tools on my blog.

Today's gadget will be the serrated vegetable peeler.  When I was a volunteer assistant at Sur La Table cooking classes, it was recommended in the first class I worked in.

Design: It looks like your typical vegetable peeler, but with tiny little teeth on the blades instead.  The serrated vegetable peeler is used to peel soft fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes and peaches.  It replaces the old method of scoring and scalding in hot water.  A normal vegetable peeler cannot handle these foods because you would need to exert too much pressure to peel, thus bruising or ruining the flesh inside.

This gadget is similar to a bread knife or tomato slicer- the teeth on the blades help to gently grip and remove slippery skin without damaging what's underneath.

Suggested Usages: For peeling tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, plums, mangoes, soft pears, and other soft-fleshed, thin-skinned fruits and vegetables.  Not recommended for root vegetables (for these, the Y-shaped or horizontal peeler is wonderful) or hard-fleshed things like apples.

Verdict: I loved it and immediately purchased one after trying it out.  I find it extremely useful and a gadget that can't be replaced by any regular knife. As for brands, I've seen ones by Oxo, Williams-Sonoma, and many other kitchen gadget companies, as the concept is starting to take off.  It's inexpensive (usually around $7) and a welcome addition to my gadget drawer since I actually use it quite often.  In fact, it was hard not to go out and buy one during cooking school, where they insisted that we scald our tomatoes each time to remove the skin- such a nuisance!

Bon appétit!

Crazy for Silicone

Today in practical I was using the above silicone brush to brush egg yolk-cornstarch "cement" onto fillets of fish.  I brought this brush back with me from the US because:

• the regular wooden-handled brush included in our knife kits was getting warped and moldy- appetizing, isn't it?
• you can never really get the flavors out of regular bristles: if you did pastry and cuisine, can you imagine brushing apricot glaze on puff pastry after you just used it to brush butter on fish?
• the fact that you have to soften the bristles with water before use grosses me out- it's the crustiness factor
• silicone is cool! well, it actually can take heat well, withstanding high temperatures
• it's dishwasher safe and you can really clean it
  
 

Last week Chef Bruno marveled at my brush.  Today, our new chef was so amazed at the brush, he called the pastry chef from next door to show him.  He had an incredulous look on his face when I told him it would withstand heat up to 500 degrees (although I should've said Fahrenheit).  He discussed how hygienic it was (duh!), and asked me where I got it and how much I paid for it.  I should've whipped out my Williams-Sonoma silicone spatula and oven mitts also, that would've probably given him a heart attack!

I found all this interest hilarious.  The French were the first to use silicone baking molds for madeleines and other cakes and pastries, they were the first to use Silpats.  Leave it to them to stop there and then let the capitalist Americans start developing the silicone oven mitts and other gadgets that now seem to be an essential part of the kitchen.

Bon appétit!

My New Best Friend (Sept 28, 2005)

My New Best Friend

I confess:  I am a kitchen gadget junkie.

Even without a permanent kitchen of my own, I have managed to collect quite an eclectic assortment of cuisine-related tools for someone who just turned 25.  In fact, I was the first person I knew to have silicone cookware when it came out: Orka gloves, spatulas, brushes, madeleine pans, etc...

Silpats?  Last count was 5.
Bundt cake pans with different designs? 3
Herb mill?  Check.
Rotary cheese grater?  Check.
Ricer?  Check.
Cake decorating tools?  A whole toolbox full.
Strawberry huller?  Check.
Cookie press?  2
Nutmeg grater?  Check, even though I don't have any whole nutmeg.
Ice cream sandwich maker?  Check.
Large chef's knives? 3
Vegetable peelers?  3 (regular, Y-shaped, and serrated)
Mandolin?  Check.

...and this is just what comes to mind.  I'm sure there's more under my bed or in the closet back home.  I'd always convince myself that I couldn't live without a gadget and that I would find a place for it somewhere. 

In fact, only a week before coming to Paris, I bought the grand-daddy of them all:  a 700-watt Kitchenaid 12-cup food processor.  Lest you think I'm totally crazy, I bought it with gift cards I'd accumulated or worked toward at Sur La Table over the past two years.  I also took advantage of their assistant discount, making my out-of-pocket cost less than $50.  It was a now-or-never kind of thing, but I didn't need much persuading.

Fast forward to my apartment here.  The kitchen is tiny and has equipment from the 1930's.  There's no counter space, and the only appliances are a gas stove (with only 2 working burners) and a toaster.  No microwave, no coffee pot, no tea kettle, nothing.  When my roommate showed me how to turn on the oven, she had to find matches.  A big poof of fire came out when she lit it, and I'm sure she singed some of her arm hairs off.

Initially, I decided that this kitchen would be adequate.  The microwave I could live without.  In fact, I feel like your quality of life, at least what you eat, is better if you don't rely on one.  Hot water or coffee pot?  Well, I don't make coffee at home and you can always boil water in a pot.  Blender or food processor?  A luxury but certainly not an everyday necessity.  Rice cooker?  Chinatown had some cheap ones, but I think cooking rice properly on the stove is a basic technique that everyone has to learn anyway.  Maybe this whole back-to-the-basics thing would detox me from my junkie ways.

Then I realized that I couldn't reheat things properly at home, and the kitchen suddenly became downright frustrating.  How would I reheat puff pastry or even a quiche?  I experimented with double boilers and offsetting pans to get lower heat sources, but gave up after awhile.

The lack (or fear) of an oven was driving me crazy.  At home, my toaster oven was a great alternative to the regular one.  You could warm up virtually any leftovers properly without overcooking or drying the food out, and you could cook frozen foods in small portions when feeling lazy.  Plus, it was the only way to reheat breads and pastries.  To not have a toaster oven was killing me.

Until tonight.  I found a guy through the classifieds and raced over to his studio after class.  Left with a toaster oven in one hand, a printer in the other hand (don't ask me how I got suckered into that).  Lugged my purchases through rush hour Metro traffic and built up some arm muscles on the way home.

My roommate wasn't too happy to see the toaster oven- she asked me where it would go and why the regular oven wasn't good enough.  Normally I'm a very agreeable roommate, but in this case, I put my foot down.  The toaster oven was staying and I'd find a place for it.  No singed arm hairs for me.

My mind is racing with what I'll put in it for its inauguration.  Go to Picard (the frozen Trader Joe's of Paris) for something frozen?  A mini casserole of some kind?  Bake some peaches and make dessert?  Roast some potatoes?  Suggestions gladly taken.

The possibilities are endless.  It's the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Bon appétit!