The Making of a Chef (7 page)
Read The Making of a Chef Online
Authors: Michael Ruhlman
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fter the pots and pans and knives and ladles and china caps and chinois and marmites and bowls were cleaned and put away and the stock had
been cooled and labeled and stored, and the floor had been swept, and the stainless-steel tables had been wiped and dried and chairs set around them, Chef Pardus handed back the papers on brown veal stock that had been due on Day One. I usually sat across from Travis, who had been in the army, stationed in Vilseck, Germany, was now in the army reserves, and had a job flipping burgers at Burger King in nearby Kingston; he was a tall, husky fellow from Kansas City, Missouri, had clipped blond hair, and wore glasses. He'd begun his culinary career at age fifteen, washing dishes at Furr's, a cafeteria chain. He gradually worked his way through fry cook, baker, vegetable cook, dinner cook. He then cooked at a Greyhound bus terminal, and after that worked in the bakery of the Kansas City Hyatt. By then he knew he wanted to attend the CIA. He didn't have the money, so he joined the army for two-and-a-half years.
fter the pots and pans and knives and ladles and china caps and chinois and marmites and bowls were cleaned and put away and the stock had
been cooled and labeled and stored, and the floor had been swept, and the stainless-steel tables had been wiped and dried and chairs set around them, Chef Pardus handed back the papers on brown veal stock that had been due on Day One. I usually sat across from Travis, who had been in the army, stationed in Vilseck, Germany, was now in the army reserves, and had a job flipping burgers at Burger King in nearby Kingston; he was a tall, husky fellow from Kansas City, Missouri, had clipped blond hair, and wore glasses. He'd begun his culinary career at age fifteen, washing dishes at Furr's, a cafeteria chain. He gradually worked his way through fry cook, baker, vegetable cook, dinner cook. He then cooked at a Greyhound bus terminal, and after that worked in the bakery of the Kansas City Hyatt. By then he knew he wanted to attend the CIA. He didn't have the money, so he joined the army for two-and-a-half years.
Judging from his expression and the way he shoved his paper immediately into his bag, Travis was not pleased with his grade. No one looked very pleased actually. David Scott, a graduate of the University of Southern California, sat in stunned disbelief. He had gotten a three out of five, and he'd tried hard. Paul Trujillo, from Belport, Long Island, got a fourâit took him two hours just to type it.
Pardus seemed to sense people's consternation. With knife cuts, it's clear what's good and what's not. You do them or you don't. If the consommé is cloudy, no one disagrees. But two out of fiveâAdam's gradeâon a paper? This is cooking school, not English, their annoyed faces seemed to say, and we're in a kitchen, not a classroom.
“Hey,” Pardus said to the grumblers, “most of you, when you get out of here, are going to be able to get pretty good jobs as line cooks. If you're good, you'll move up quickly to sous chefs. And when you're sous chef, people are going to look to you for
answers
. âHey, Chef, why does it do this, why does it do that?' And they're going to
expect
you to have answers. You're training to be managers, not flunkies. When you graduate from this school, you're expected to be
leaders
in the industry. You want to be flunkies? You want to drink generic beer the rest of your life? That's not why you're here. So when I don't think you're
pushing
it, I won't give you the grade.” He wanted his students to know how to dig for information. “If someone asks you to do an Escoffier dinner for seventy after you graduate,” he said, “you better know how to do it.” The next paper would be on emulsified sauces, and he mentioned it now. “If you understand the chemistry of how
an emulsion
works
, it's easier to
fix
it when it
breaks
. You have to have the knowledge and skill to fix it. I want you to look deeper into the subject.
Why
is hollandaise considered a mother sauce by some people but not others?”
answers
. âHey, Chef, why does it do this, why does it do that?' And they're going to
expect
you to have answers. You're training to be managers, not flunkies. When you graduate from this school, you're expected to be
leaders
in the industry. You want to be flunkies? You want to drink generic beer the rest of your life? That's not why you're here. So when I don't think you're
pushing
it, I won't give you the grade.” He wanted his students to know how to dig for information. “If someone asks you to do an Escoffier dinner for seventy after you graduate,” he said, “you better know how to do it.” The next paper would be on emulsified sauces, and he mentioned it now. “If you understand the chemistry of how
an emulsion
works
, it's easier to
fix
it when it
breaks
. You have to have the knowledge and skill to fix it. I want you to look deeper into the subject.
Why
is hollandaise considered a mother sauce by some people but not others?”
He relaxed a bit, looked around at the class. Then he spun his spoon in the air.
“O.K.,” he said, “you need to pick up the sense of urgency. You can be the best cook in the world but if you can only turn out one plate every two hours, you're never gonna get hired.” And then he was off into the evening's lecture, the method for cream soups, which we would be making tomorrow, cream of broccoli specifically, but that was a detail.
Method
was what we would be learning.
Method
was what we would be learning.
What I had expected on this Day Three to be a rather pedestrian lesson in onion soup, more or less still warm-up before the real stuff, became instead an experiment in and discussion of caramelization. The students would be caramelizing their brains out in a hundred different ways, but here was caramelization in a pure form, white broth flavored and brought to a deep rich amber solely with caramelized onions.
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hat day it began to feel like we were living inside a cooking show. The demos were just like the TV Food Network, only now you could really see things, smell them, hear them, have an actual sense of time. Here you could ask the chef questions. If you thought something was bogusâI was eagerly awaiting the demos on the béchamel and the roux-thickened brown sauceâyou could say so and the chef would defend it. Pardus was a fun chef, animated and smart. When he demoed the American Bounty vegetable soup, a soup that calls for ten vegetables, all of which require different cooking times synchronized to the same end, he ladled some clarified butter into his pan and sweated some leeks, then some onions, then added the garlic, saying, “You're cooking with your eyes, you're cooking with your nose, you're cooking with your earsâall your senses.” He took the pan off the flame and swept it slowly before us, our heads bobbing one by one to smell the garlic that had only just started to cook. “It smells a little raw now,” Pardus said. He cooked it more. “That's almost there,” and he swept it again through the crowd of noses, eyes, and ears. The garlic smell had fully developedâa smell I'd inhaled a thousand times, yet I'd never stopped to scrutinize the stages of its cooking. Each stage was distinct and would alter the flavor of the final product accordingly. Pardus shook the
celery and carrots, cut to a perfect small dice by Table Two, out of the white paper cup and into the pan. Corn, lima beans, turnips, and potatoes would also be used. “We're trying to time it so that they're all done at the same time, so that you can taste each vegetable,” he said. “That's what makes this a great soup.” When he added the parsley at the end, he noted that he preferred flat-leaf parsley because it was spicier and not quite as assertive as curly. When I completed my vegetable soup and set it before him on the desk, he told me that it looked good, bright, not overcooked, but the flavor was a little flat. “Take a ladleful out and salt it,” he told me. “Then compare the two. It's a big difference. It's a good test. It keys you into the effect of salt.” Not the
taste
of saltâa food shouldn't taste of saltâbut rather the
effect
of salt.
hat day it began to feel like we were living inside a cooking show. The demos were just like the TV Food Network, only now you could really see things, smell them, hear them, have an actual sense of time. Here you could ask the chef questions. If you thought something was bogusâI was eagerly awaiting the demos on the béchamel and the roux-thickened brown sauceâyou could say so and the chef would defend it. Pardus was a fun chef, animated and smart. When he demoed the American Bounty vegetable soup, a soup that calls for ten vegetables, all of which require different cooking times synchronized to the same end, he ladled some clarified butter into his pan and sweated some leeks, then some onions, then added the garlic, saying, “You're cooking with your eyes, you're cooking with your nose, you're cooking with your earsâall your senses.” He took the pan off the flame and swept it slowly before us, our heads bobbing one by one to smell the garlic that had only just started to cook. “It smells a little raw now,” Pardus said. He cooked it more. “That's almost there,” and he swept it again through the crowd of noses, eyes, and ears. The garlic smell had fully developedâa smell I'd inhaled a thousand times, yet I'd never stopped to scrutinize the stages of its cooking. Each stage was distinct and would alter the flavor of the final product accordingly. Pardus shook the
celery and carrots, cut to a perfect small dice by Table Two, out of the white paper cup and into the pan. Corn, lima beans, turnips, and potatoes would also be used. “We're trying to time it so that they're all done at the same time, so that you can taste each vegetable,” he said. “That's what makes this a great soup.” When he added the parsley at the end, he noted that he preferred flat-leaf parsley because it was spicier and not quite as assertive as curly. When I completed my vegetable soup and set it before him on the desk, he told me that it looked good, bright, not overcooked, but the flavor was a little flat. “Take a ladleful out and salt it,” he told me. “Then compare the two. It's a big difference. It's a good test. It keys you into the effect of salt.” Not the
taste
of saltâa food shouldn't taste of saltâbut rather the
effect
of salt.
He made Erica do the salt test as well. She would approach Pardus, her face scarlet and glistening from effort, trying to blow a stray bang that had snuck out her toque and down her forehead, a look approximating terror on her face. Her onion soup had not been hot. Her vegetable soup had been underseasoned. Her cream of broccoli would be too thick, her consommé cloudy. Each day she seemed to return from his desk, hyperventilating and apparently on the verge of tears, her whites becoming less and less so with each class.
You couldn't not like Erica. She tried so hard to no avail, and she did so with such visible effort that one absorbed the pathos of her predicaments. She had the foulest mouth in the class, but she was also sweet-natured and endearingly ingenuous. When we got to the front of the line at K-9 for dinner and Erica was asked if she would like one of the two soups, she responded, “Split pea, please.” She turned to me, cranking her head all the way back. She said, “I.
Love.
Split pea soup.”
Love.
Split pea soup.”
After dinner we'd return to cool the stocks, clean the enormous kettles, wash the pots, wheel three large bins of garbageâcompostable garbage, recyclable garbage, and worthless trashâdown a flight of stairs, through a hallway, out back doors, and down the drive to the Dumpsters. And then we would sit for lecture. On Friday night, Day Four, everyone was looking forward to the weekend.
“This is nice,” Chef Pardus said, pacing before us, spoon spinning in the air. “It's quarter to eight. If we're doing this in three weeks, I'll be real impressed.” He went over Monday's products. Roux, first of all, then the soup. “The big one on Day Five, we do consommé. Now keep in mind, six o'clock is still our deadline. All of a sudden you've got extra things to do.
Some of you were right up against the wire today. On Monday, you have to be developing a sense of urgency. You're going to have to be very well organized. You're going to have to have a good equipment list. You're going to have to have a good prep list. Walk yourself through your day. What are you going to do when you come in? Set up your station. Start your bones, whatever you're going to do. Make sure you're going to have enough
time
. Consommé's going to take at least an hour, probably an hour and a half to cook. Might be one of the first things you want to get done as soon as the demo's done.”
Some of you were right up against the wire today. On Monday, you have to be developing a sense of urgency. You're going to have to be very well organized. You're going to have to have a good equipment list. You're going to have to have a good prep list. Walk yourself through your day. What are you going to do when you come in? Set up your station. Start your bones, whatever you're going to do. Make sure you're going to have enough
time
. Consommé's going to take at least an hour, probably an hour and a half to cook. Might be one of the first things you want to get done as soon as the demo's done.”
He paused, picked up his daily grade sheets, and flipped to today's page.
“Todayâwas a good day. I think. Everybody came in on time, the kitchen was pretty clean.” He spotted some low numbers on the page and said, “A few people lost some points on sanitation. Again I want everybody to be clean, I want everybody to
look
clean, I want everybody taking care of their hair, O.K.?
Look
at yourself in the mirror before you get to class. People with long hair and people with pony tails, you need a heavy-duty hair net. People with hair that's getting borderline, make sure that it's under your hat, no stray edges; I don't want to see any bangs coming down the front of your hat. Check your sideburns; they're supposed to be half way, no farther down. Hey, I had to cut my hair and shave off my beard. If I have to give up those things, you guys gotta toe the line too. Make sure your tables are clean and neat. I don't want to see wads of paper towels sitting on cutting boards after you've finished degreasing a consommé. Please. You're going to start losing points as a group, as a table; I'm not going to say, âOh, your board is messy. I'm just going to take points off of you.' You're working as a team on that table. You start out with ten sanitation points each day. You can go down to
zero
. It's usually not that severe, unless I see somebody
tasting
with their
fingers
. Then that's an individual case. But watch out for each other. âHey, guys, our table's messy. Let's clean it up.' âI know you're busy, I'll wipe down your area right now, you watch my back later.' Work together. Pots, good job today. Prep list, equipment list, you're getting a good idea of what I'm looking for, that's good; it's gonna come in handy. We're starting to pick up a little speed here. It's still kind of a light load. It's gonna get a lot heavier. Talk to some of the guys in Intro now about what the load's gonna look like by the time you're halfway through Skills Two. They could come in here and knock this out in an hour and a half and go home, something that takes you right up to six o'clock. But that's O.K. You'll learn to become more organized and quicker as the weeks wear on.”
look
clean, I want everybody taking care of their hair, O.K.?
Look
at yourself in the mirror before you get to class. People with long hair and people with pony tails, you need a heavy-duty hair net. People with hair that's getting borderline, make sure that it's under your hat, no stray edges; I don't want to see any bangs coming down the front of your hat. Check your sideburns; they're supposed to be half way, no farther down. Hey, I had to cut my hair and shave off my beard. If I have to give up those things, you guys gotta toe the line too. Make sure your tables are clean and neat. I don't want to see wads of paper towels sitting on cutting boards after you've finished degreasing a consommé. Please. You're going to start losing points as a group, as a table; I'm not going to say, âOh, your board is messy. I'm just going to take points off of you.' You're working as a team on that table. You start out with ten sanitation points each day. You can go down to
zero
. It's usually not that severe, unless I see somebody
tasting
with their
fingers
. Then that's an individual case. But watch out for each other. âHey, guys, our table's messy. Let's clean it up.' âI know you're busy, I'll wipe down your area right now, you watch my back later.' Work together. Pots, good job today. Prep list, equipment list, you're getting a good idea of what I'm looking for, that's good; it's gonna come in handy. We're starting to pick up a little speed here. It's still kind of a light load. It's gonna get a lot heavier. Talk to some of the guys in Intro now about what the load's gonna look like by the time you're halfway through Skills Two. They could come in here and knock this out in an hour and a half and go home, something that takes you right up to six o'clock. But that's O.K. You'll learn to become more organized and quicker as the weeks wear on.”
To me, this did seem like quite a lot to get done in four hours. We'd made ten gallons of white stock. We'd cut all our standard daily mise en place and turned our carrots. Then we'd done all the additional fine knife cuts on leeks, onions, celery, garlic, tied up a second sachet with butcher's string, small-diced our turnips and potatoes, measured out our lima beans and corn, concasséd more tomato, and chiffonaded our cabbage. And then we made the soup and had everything evaluated. I wasn't out of breath or red in the face, but it seemed to me you could only go so fast.
“Now, American veg soup. Drum roll.” He scanned the numbers. “Everyone had a good soup. Nobody had a
bad
soup.” He said a lot of them needed salt. He told us how to evaluate the soup, how to think about the tastes. “A little underseasoned, I said? It doesn't taste
bad
. It tastes
good
, right? Good soup, nothing really wrong with it. You add a little more salt, it doesn't
taste
salty. But it
tastes
a little â¦
better
. It picks up the flavor, rounds it out a little. That's the balance you try to strike, and that's how you start to develop a palate and be aware of those four dimensionsâacid, sour, sweet, and bitter. Knowing how to play off those components and round them out is what makes a well-developed palate.”
bad
soup.” He said a lot of them needed salt. He told us how to evaluate the soup, how to think about the tastes. “A little underseasoned, I said? It doesn't taste
bad
. It tastes
good
, right? Good soup, nothing really wrong with it. You add a little more salt, it doesn't
taste
salty. But it
tastes
a little â¦
better
. It picks up the flavor, rounds it out a little. That's the balance you try to strike, and that's how you start to develop a palate and be aware of those four dimensionsâacid, sour, sweet, and bitter. Knowing how to play off those components and round them out is what makes a well-developed palate.”
And if we think he's wrong, he added, “Tell me. I want to talk to you about it. Show me. Show me that I made an error in judgment, or convince me. I'm happy to debate this. I'm not always right. Don't be afraid to challenge me on this stuff. We can both gain something. Any questions on American Bounty soup? I liked it, I thought you guys did a really good job.
“O.K. Let's go first to page four-fifty-four and talk about this consommé recipe, so we get it broken down for you. It's one gallon now; we want to take it down to a quart. So we'll use a small onion brûlé. Mirepoixâwe'll need four ounces. Ground-beef-
shank
âwe'll use eight ounces. Three egg whites, beaten. Four ounces tomato concassé. Now this will depend if you use fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes. It depends on the acid content of the tomatoes. This time of year, the hothouse tomatoes, they don't have a great deal of acidity, so I like to use canned tomatoes. Summer, when they're really fresh and ripe and they've got
good acid
, we use
fresh
tomatoes every time. But this time of year we're gonna use canned tomatoes.
shank
âwe'll use eight ounces. Three egg whites, beaten. Four ounces tomato concassé. Now this will depend if you use fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes. It depends on the acid content of the tomatoes. This time of year, the hothouse tomatoes, they don't have a great deal of acidity, so I like to use canned tomatoes. Summer, when they're really fresh and ripe and they've got
good acid
, we use
fresh
tomatoes every time. But this time of year we're gonna use canned tomatoes.
“Forty ounces of white beef stock. We want to have some room for reduction and loss and you'll understand why when we talk about the method. A standard
sachet
. For
get
about cloves, and for
get
about allspice. Don't
do
it. You want to try it some other place, some other time, fine. I'd rather concentrate on the flavors of the consommé rather than building a fruitcake.
Kosher salt and white pepper. Careful with the pepper, taste your soup, you may not need it.
sachet
. For
get
about cloves, and for
get
about allspice. Don't
do
it. You want to try it some other place, some other time, fine. I'd rather concentrate on the flavors of the consommé rather than building a fruitcake.
Kosher salt and white pepper. Careful with the pepper, taste your soup, you may not need it.
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