Week 3 Ossobucco and more

Here comes Week 3, where we had to make Ossobucco, Chicken Breast En Papillote , Risotto, Pan Fried Sirloin with Dutches Potatoes, Carrots and Beans. Big Menu!

This week I had a new teammate and she is amazing too. She is very calm and in control of the situation. I am glad that I was working with her as I have never made any of the above mentioned dishes. I have never even heard of Ossobucco before. I was responsible for making the Ossobucco and Risotto.

Ossobucco is a traditional Italian dish that uses the the "ossobucco" part of the veal. Yea, the name of the dish is the same as the name of part of the meat. It is the veal shank that is normally quite a cheap and tough. It is from the top part of the thigh which has a big bone and the meat is crossed cut to have the bone in the centre. This part of the meat is braised to make it tender. According to some people, the bone marrow is the best part of the dish. The traditional dish doesn't have tomato paste but we are making the modernized version. 

This is the one the trainer made for demo.

Our Ossobucco with risotto. We made a mistake,they were supposed to be served separately.Oops!

I like this Ossobucco and it is actually quite easy to make. So here is the recipe if you are interested in trying. I can't say that I enjoyed making the risotto though, my arm was sore from all the stirring and because I still didn't quite know how to control the heat of the electric stove, I burnt the onions and garlic a little and that made my risotto a little brown. As you can see here. Ha Ha!! 

Ossobucco (amended a little from the school's recipe)

Ingredients:

1 Bouquet Garni:
                                 20 peppercorn
                                 4 Parsley stalks
                                 1 Thyme Sprig
                                 3 Bay leafs
1/2 Carrot 
1/2 Leek
3 stalks Celery
1/2 Diced Onion
2 cloves Garlic- minced
1 Tomato
2 Ossobucco
1tbsp Butter
20ml Olive Oil
200ml Chicken Stock
3 tbsp Wine
1/2 Orange juice
1/2 Lemon juice

Method:
Preheat oven to 200C

• Bouquet Garni: Wrap all the herbs in muslin cloth and tie it up with a string. 
• Roughly chop the carrots, leek and celery and tomato. 
• Season the ossobucco with salt & pepper and dust it with flour. 
• Seal the meat on hot pan with some butter and olive oil, it takes about 5minutes.
• Remove from heat and put in on a baking tray with some olive oil.
• Use the same pan, sweat the diced onion and garlic, then add in the carrots, leek and   celery.
• When the vegetable is soft, put in the tomato paste and wine. Stir to combine and then pour over the meat that is on the baking tray. 
• Top with the chopped tomato, chicken stock, orange and lemon juice.
• Soak in the bouquet garni.
• Cover with a baking sheet and aluminum foil over it.
• Bake in the oven for 1/2 hour on 200C and then reduce the heat to 160C for another 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until the meat in tender. Check it every half an hour , add water if it is too dry and salt and pepper if required.

Note: You can use white or red wine.
           I tried using water instead of chicken stock and it was still nice.

Our Sirloin Steak was a success a well. Can you see how rare the meat is? hehe.... that is how my teammate likes it. Then there is the Dutches Potatoes which I really liked. I ate quite a few of the potatoes when it was hot from the oven. Delicious. The beans and carrots were blanched al dente. The garlic butter was from last week's class.

Pan fried Sirloin with Dutches Potatoes.

 Chicken Breast En Papillote is basically baked breast meat in greaseproof paper. This enclosure keeps the moisture trapped inside the bag and it requires very little oil in cooking it. This is a very healthy dish for people who are on a diet. It doesn't take long to make either. I personally do not like breast meat so this is not really a dish that I enjoyed. Maybe I can change the breast meat to thigh meat! 

Ingredients:

1 Chicken breast 
50g Mushroom
1/2 Lemon juice
5g Butter
Chopped Parsley
Butter
Baking paper cut into heart shape

Method:
Season the breast meat with salt & pepper.
Seal the meat on a pan with some oil.
Saute the mushroom with some butter and then add lemon juice into the pan. 
Place the breast meat on one side of the heart shaped greaseproof paper and top it with the mushroom and chopped parsley.
Wrap the chicken up by folding the sides of the greaseproof paper.
Bake in preheated oven at 200C for 10minutes or until the bag puffs up. 

Dish it up and cut the paper open in front of the customer! 

Ah.... overall it was a fun and exciting day! My teammate didn't want to take any of the food home so I took them all and that was our dinner for the night. Good thing the steak was rare because I refried them and it was medium rare. 

Next week we will be making choux pastry. Finally some pastry!!!!

Week 2 Start Cooking

This is when the fun begins. The menu for the week was quite interesting, we had to make mayonnaise by hand, garlic butter, fillet fish sailor style, chicken schnitzel, pear in red wine and an open sandwich.

It was a lot to do in one morning but I guess we had to start the stress test  somewhere. We were working in pairs, I had a wonderful partner. She was very organized and I think we made a good team. 

Preparing the workflow for the day took a long while but it was worth spending the time doing it because when it comes the actual preparation, all you need to do is refer to the workflow and work accordingly.

The mayonnaise was really quite interesting to make. We were lucky that the egg mixture didn't split. The end result was quite good. I forgot to take a picture of it though. It was great exercise for the arm because you have to continue whisking while drizzling the oil in. Good thing we were working in pairs. One person poured the oil while the other whisk and of course we rotated the whisking process.

The pear in wine was one that took a long time, therefore we made that and let it simmer away while we made the rest. The pear was peeled and cored and submerged in wine and sugar syrup with cinnamon and cloves for more than an hour. I think our pear could have been in the pot for a bit longer to get a nicer colour. 

Fish Fillet Sailor Style. I didn't get to fillet the fish but I did devein the prawns and fry the bacon. It doesn't look very pretty but it was nice to eat. 

The chicken was quite simple to make. The chicken breast was tenderised with a hammer, seasoned with salt & pepper and then coated with flour,egg wash and breadcrumbs before pan fried. Then the garlic butter that we made earlier was cut and placed on the hot chicken before dishing up. 

The butter melted by the time I took this photo.

The open sandwich had mayonnaise spread on the bread and topped with lettuce, tomato, ham, radish and gherkin. I quickly took a photo before packing it to bring home. Some students didn't want their sandwiches and was about to throw it in the bin so I quickly cling wrapped the unwanted sandwiches and then gave it to the homeless people on the street. I think the school should actually have a separate box where the students can put their food there if they don't want it and then have the food given away to the homeless. I can't stand the sight of throwing away perfectly good food. 

Ah..... it was a tiring day but fulfilling nonetheless.