The Making of a Chef (8 page)
Read The Making of a Chef Online
Authors: Michael Ruhlman
“What we're gonna do is make what's called a clarification. A clarification is the mixture of the ground beef, the egg whites, mirepoix, and the
acid
of the tomato product. You could add white wine, you could add lemon juice. You could add hydrochloric acid if you wanted, probably wouldn't be very tasty. It needs
acid
in there. So we mix the beef, the egg whites, the mirepoix, and the tomato together, that's a clarification. It's a noun. It's a thing. It's different from the
process
of clarification. It's gonna look like a too-wet meatloaf.” He smiled. “It looks pretty gnarly.”
acid
of the tomato product. You could add white wine, you could add lemon juice. You could add hydrochloric acid if you wanted, probably wouldn't be very tasty. It needs
acid
in there. So we mix the beef, the egg whites, the mirepoix, and the tomato together, that's a clarification. It's a noun. It's a thing. It's different from the
process
of clarification. It's gonna look like a too-wet meatloaf.” He smiled. “It looks pretty gnarly.”
Â
Â
C
onsommé was clearly going to be the most interesting thing we'd done so far. The idea of making goop that looked like a ground-beef milk shake and dumping it into perfectly good stock offered childish pleasureâlike making mud pies or dropping very large melons from very high places or seeing how far apart you and a friend could play catch with a raw egg before it smashed in one of your hands. And yet, despite these crude pleasuresâindeed,
because
of themâthe end result was one of ultimate refinement.
onsommé was clearly going to be the most interesting thing we'd done so far. The idea of making goop that looked like a ground-beef milk shake and dumping it into perfectly good stock offered childish pleasureâlike making mud pies or dropping very large melons from very high places or seeing how far apart you and a friend could play catch with a raw egg before it smashed in one of your hands. And yet, despite these crude pleasuresâindeed,
because
of themâthe end result was one of ultimate refinement.
Over the weekend I read about the method in
The Pro Chef
, our textbook. This had helpful illustrations of what happened to your meat milk shake when you boiled it. It coagulated into a gray, scummy mass, or raft, and floated to the top of your stock, bringing everything that made stock murky with it. The raft was like an organic water filterâand the stock simmered up over it and back down through it. Consommé was not difficult to do, apparently, but it took some care. Sometimes a consommé would get the best of you.
The Pro Chef
, our textbook. This had helpful illustrations of what happened to your meat milk shake when you boiled it. It coagulated into a gray, scummy mass, or raft, and floated to the top of your stock, bringing everything that made stock murky with it. The raft was like an organic water filterâand the stock simmered up over it and back down through it. Consommé was not difficult to do, apparently, but it took some care. Sometimes a consommé would get the best of you.
Earlier in the winter, after several months of consommé heaven, K-8 ran into problems. Chef Pardus, who had been teaching since July, suddenly couldn't get a clear soup. The first time he shrugged, said this happened, and apologized to his class; no one else in the class could get a clear one either. And the definition of clear here is
perfectly
clear. Rule of thumb: you can read the date on a dime at the bottom of a gallon.
perfectly
clear. Rule of thumb: you can read the date on a dime at the bottom of a gallon.
Pardus went to the books.
Proteins, both in egg whites and in the meat, are actual things, molecules; if you took a twenty-foot metal tape measure and crinkled it up into the shape of a cantaloupe, you would have a replica of a protein. Imagine,
further, that at each inch of this crinkled tape measure was a little round magnet. These magnets are sticking to all the other magnets, keeping the protein all balled up. When these bonds are broken, lose their magnetic juice, the tape measure relaxes, loosens up, spreads out. Instead of looking like a tight tape-measure cantaloupe, it looked more like a lazy tapeworm. When you've got millions of these things relaxing all at once in the same pot, they form a net, create the filter that, as the raft rises to the surface, lifts all the muck out of the stock, clarifying it. What breaks those bonds is acid.
further, that at each inch of this crinkled tape measure was a little round magnet. These magnets are sticking to all the other magnets, keeping the protein all balled up. When these bonds are broken, lose their magnetic juice, the tape measure relaxes, loosens up, spreads out. Instead of looking like a tight tape-measure cantaloupe, it looked more like a lazy tapeworm. When you've got millions of these things relaxing all at once in the same pot, they form a net, create the filter that, as the raft rises to the surface, lifts all the muck out of the stock, clarifying it. What breaks those bonds is acid.
When Pardus asked himself what was different between the ingredients he was using in July and the ones he was using in December, it dawned on him that the hard pale tomatoes he was using simply did not have enough acid to break the bonds and unfold the proteins into their salutary net. When he next made consommé, he used canned tomatoes, and voilà : the date on a dime at the bottom of a gallon.
Â
Â
I
n addition to the consommé demo we would also be learning about roux, flour cooked in clarified butter, and slurries, pure starches such as cornstarch, arrowroot, or potato starch mixed in water to the consistency of heavy cream. Both roux and slurries took something thin as water and made it thick. Greg, doing more than his share (perhaps to keep from becoming bored), prepared the brown roux for Chef Pardus, since this took a long time to cook. Pardus could prepare the pale and blond roux during demo but he wanted the brown roux done at the same time. “Just like the TV shows,” he said.
n addition to the consommé demo we would also be learning about roux, flour cooked in clarified butter, and slurries, pure starches such as cornstarch, arrowroot, or potato starch mixed in water to the consistency of heavy cream. Both roux and slurries took something thin as water and made it thick. Greg, doing more than his share (perhaps to keep from becoming bored), prepared the brown roux for Chef Pardus, since this took a long time to cook. Pardus could prepare the pale and blond roux during demo but he wanted the brown roux done at the same time. “Just like the TV shows,” he said.
We crowded around Table Two as Chef Pardus dumped three egg whites into a large stainless-steel bowl and took a whip to them “to denature the protein mechanically,” that is, break their bonds. “Just a little bit. We're not making lemon meringue pie.” He dumped in the mirepoix. A half pound of ground beef shankâbecause the clarifying process also removes flavor, you must add more flavor. Then the tomato product: “We're using canned, remember,” he said, “so we don't have to worry about getting robbed of our acid in the middle of winter.” He added the stock, a nice gelatinous white beef stock. And Chef Pardus once again evaluated for quality.
“I've asked Victor to write this down,” the chef said. Victor Cardamone, from Table Three, stood by the white sheet of paper taped to the reach-in, marker in hand. “Clarity,” Pardus said. “It's perfectly clear. You can read
the date on a dime at the bottom of a gallon.” Vic noted this on the large piece of paper. “Flaaavor,” Pardus continued. “A nice rich flaaavor, the flavor of the main ingredient. What else?”
the date on a dime at the bottom of a gallon.” Vic noted this on the large piece of paper. “Flaaavor,” Pardus continued. “A nice rich flaaavor, the flavor of the main ingredient. What else?”
Greg said, “Full body?”
Pardus concurred: “Full body, nice mouth feel, a rich, full body. Overall appearance?”
Ben said, “Not greasy?”
“Not greasy.
Clean.
Another?”
Clean.
Another?”
“Temperature?”
“Temperature,” Pardus said. “
Hot.
This is not a jellied consommé.” Pardus paused for a moment to look around. And here was what made Pardus a good teacher in my mind. He showed you the classic method, told you why, but then would let some of his own biases show through, broaden the subject to include his own personality. He'd get a little sparkle in his eye and his lips would start their unusual convolutions for popping emphasis. “Though you
could
make a jellied consommé,” he said. “It's classical. You see how gelatinous this stock is? We made this clear and poured it into bowls, floated some garnish in it, and chilled it? It gels up. That's very classic, very European summer appetizerâchilled jellied consommé. You don't see it much in this country because people think it's like eating meat-flavored
Jell-O
. But if it's done right, it's very delicate. You wouldn't want a spoon to stand up in it. You couldn't do Jell-O shots with it.
Delicate.
It's very cool, very refreshing in the summertime. Jellied
quail
consommé? Little bits of truffle and foie gras set into the gelatin.
Nice.
Rich, refreshing.”
Hot.
This is not a jellied consommé.” Pardus paused for a moment to look around. And here was what made Pardus a good teacher in my mind. He showed you the classic method, told you why, but then would let some of his own biases show through, broaden the subject to include his own personality. He'd get a little sparkle in his eye and his lips would start their unusual convolutions for popping emphasis. “Though you
could
make a jellied consommé,” he said. “It's classical. You see how gelatinous this stock is? We made this clear and poured it into bowls, floated some garnish in it, and chilled it? It gels up. That's very classic, very European summer appetizerâchilled jellied consommé. You don't see it much in this country because people think it's like eating meat-flavored
Jell-O
. But if it's done right, it's very delicate. You wouldn't want a spoon to stand up in it. You couldn't do Jell-O shots with it.
Delicate.
It's very cool, very refreshing in the summertime. Jellied
quail
consommé? Little bits of truffle and foie gras set into the gelatin.
Nice.
Rich, refreshing.”
He stirred the consommé with a wooden spoon, released from his reverie. He had put it on a low flame and warned everyone about scorching and the need to stir frequently. “Don't throw your pot away until after I've looked at your consommé.” The danger, of course, is that the egg whites will fall to the bottom before they coagulate, then stick there and burn. This gives the consommé a beautiful, deep amber color, but it doesn't do much for the flavor. Pardus knows the color so well, he can take one look at someone's soup and say, “Lemme see your
pot
.” And sure enough there will be burnt egg white on the bottom.
pot
.” And sure enough there will be burnt egg white on the bottom.
Adam, who typically hovered at the back of the crowd and was tall enough to do so, asked, “I was wondering, does the clarification take out the gelatin?” Adam was always asking questions like that.
“No,” Pardus said.
“So is consommé a base for, like, aspic?”
“Yes.”
“It is?”
“M-hm,” Pardus said. “As a matter of fact, a lot of the Garde Manger classes will be coming up here, asking us to save our consommé so they can make their aspic for the Grand Buffet.”
There was quite a bit of standing around at this point, since we were all staring at the pot as Pardus stirred, waiting for it to come up to heat and form this so-called raft.
“So why is consommé important to know how to do?” I asked.
“Why is a consommé important to know how to do?” he repeated. He continued to stir with his wooden spoon, thoughtfully, pushing it into the edges of the marmite, making sure he didn't feel any sticking egg white. “It's a technique that requires some finesse,” he began. “It's a soup that is popular, that is used quite frequently in good restaurants. And it's something that takes some patience and training to know how to do. You can't just tell somebody to go make a consommé, this is how you do it. It takes some practice.”
He stopped stirring, abandoning, for the moment, the party line for his personal thoughts as a cook who had moved through the ranks of several high-end French restaurants. “I would think that it brings together all the aspects of making a good stock and bringing that to the ultimate state of perfection. It's a
perfect
stock.” That
p
in perfect really popped. “It teaches you to focus, teaches you to pay attention, to take care of ingredients. There's some chemistry involved and coagulation; there are so many things going on in making it that the beginning cook is made aware of, instead of just making a bowl of soup.” He raised his eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, one of my friends had trouble with her consommé in this morning's chef's practicalâand consequently probably won't be teaching here.”
perfect
stock.” That
p
in perfect really popped. “It teaches you to focus, teaches you to pay attention, to take care of ingredients. There's some chemistry involved and coagulation; there are so many things going on in making it that the beginning cook is made aware of, instead of just making a bowl of soup.” He raised his eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, one of my friends had trouble with her consommé in this morning's chef's practicalâand consequently probably won't be teaching here.”
Chef Pardus's stock came up to heat, and sure enough, there was the raft, gray and scummy and solid, with just a little bit of stock foaming up at the side of the pan. Pardus had stirred almost continuously, even as the meat milk shake congealed. When the raft began to rotate with the spoon he stopped and let the consommé take care of itself. He would slip an onion brûlé down the side of the pot into the stock for more color and flavor, and later a sachet. When it was done we would all evaluate it.
“O.K.,” he said, “demo's over. Go to town.”
We did, and it worked. The opaque stock became crystal-clear soup,
though Eun-Jung created a bit of kitchen drama when she let hers come to a boil, obliterating her raft. She wrote everything down, or appeared to, but certain things she did not understand. It would be very easy for her to miss the modifier “low simmer.” Unless she could actually see it, she was never quite sure of herself. Pardus dashed to the rescue. I think he was glad someone's raft had broken. He loved to fix things on the fly, no time to spare. He made a new clarification by dumping the ruined consommé into a steel bowl, adding more ground beef and egg white, and dumping some tomato juice left over from someone's concassé for the acid. (Next time this happened, he spotted half a lemon and squeezed that into the new clarificationâhe really didn't care what kind of acid it was.) He put it back on the fire and brought it quickly up to a simmer with a beautiful brand-new raft.
though Eun-Jung created a bit of kitchen drama when she let hers come to a boil, obliterating her raft. She wrote everything down, or appeared to, but certain things she did not understand. It would be very easy for her to miss the modifier “low simmer.” Unless she could actually see it, she was never quite sure of herself. Pardus dashed to the rescue. I think he was glad someone's raft had broken. He loved to fix things on the fly, no time to spare. He made a new clarification by dumping the ruined consommé into a steel bowl, adding more ground beef and egg white, and dumping some tomato juice left over from someone's concassé for the acid. (Next time this happened, he spotted half a lemon and squeezed that into the new clarificationâhe really didn't care what kind of acid it was.) He put it back on the fire and brought it quickly up to a simmer with a beautiful brand-new raft.
Eun-Jung now knew how to ruin a consommé, how to fix a consommé, and how to finish a consommé. When the consommé had simmered properly, she ladled it out of the pot into a second pot through a coffee-filter-lined chinois, a fine mesh strainer. The stock was perfectly clear. She tasted for seasoning, reheated it, poured it into a hot bowl, degreased it by dragging brown paper toweling across its surface, all of which Chef Pardus had demonstrated with his own, and at last brought it to the chef for his inspection. It was a good, good-looking, flavorful consommé.
Making consommé was strangely satisfying. Something happened that you could
see
âan objective improvement. It was sort of like sanding and oiling a piece of wood that had started out pale and rough. After I'd finished my consommé and Pardus tasted it and liked itâ“You could be a good cook, Michael,” he said, a little surprisedâall I wanted to do was taste my consommé and stare at it, remarking on the clarity and color.
see
âan objective improvement. It was sort of like sanding and oiling a piece of wood that had started out pale and rough. After I'd finished my consommé and Pardus tasted it and liked itâ“You could be a good cook, Michael,” he said, a little surprisedâall I wanted to do was taste my consommé and stare at it, remarking on the clarity and color.
I wasn't alone in this feeling. While I was staring at mine, David Scott, who had already finished his consommé, stood across from me, his head bobbing up and down. “That was really cool,” he said, grinning.
Pardus even tacked on an elegant little bonus to this consommé class, circling back around to the stock from which the consommé was made. We were going to make the white beef stock and chicken stock a new way, borrowing from the consommé principle.
“I'm going to start with boiling water,” the chef said, “and we're going to add some acid. We're going to save all our tomato scraps from today, and we're going to add it to our white stock. We're going to try to make a self-clarifying stock. It's apparently a technique they've been using in Europe for a long time. I never heard of it. I talked with Chef Hestnar and he said,
âYeah, it's true. We don't teach it here at the CIA, but you can do it and it works pretty well.' Chef Griffiths tried it last week and said it works great, came out nice and clear and took an hour off the cooking time. So you already know the official CIA way, and we're going to go a little beyond that and learn another way. We'll all learn this together. It's a new one on me. This is an experiment. If it doesn't work, then the next time someone tells me, âOh, yeah, this works great,' I'll tell 'em, âNo, it
doesn't
. I've
tried
it.' And if it does work, great. Then you guys have two ways of making a good stock.”
âYeah, it's true. We don't teach it here at the CIA, but you can do it and it works pretty well.' Chef Griffiths tried it last week and said it works great, came out nice and clear and took an hour off the cooking time. So you already know the official CIA way, and we're going to go a little beyond that and learn another way. We'll all learn this together. It's a new one on me. This is an experiment. If it doesn't work, then the next time someone tells me, âOh, yeah, this works great,' I'll tell 'em, âNo, it
doesn't
. I've
tried
it.' And if it does work, great. Then you guys have two ways of making a good stock.”
When lecture was over, I would walk out of the Culinary Institute of America into the cold February night like a kid leaving an amusement park, a kid with an open pass for all the rides for as long as he wanted. Chef Pardus had said today that I could be a good cook.
I
knew that of course I'd be a good cook. But I left the Culinary that night more uplifted than usual because he had recognized it.
I
knew that of course I'd be a good cook. But I left the Culinary that night more uplifted than usual because he had recognized it.
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