Where Art Thou Brisket

Waiting game is over.  I'm on my internship...yay!  Only 12 more weeks to go, :P


I kinda like the place that I'm working at.  At the moment, I am on the prep station.  I feel the pace is a bit slow but there are certain elements that I cannot fully assess it accurately:


1.  I started the week before Christmas
2.  My supervisor isn't there until next week
3.  It's only the beginning.


In short, Imma quit my bitchen.  Anywho, I did a photography gig over the weekend for Chef Joseph "J.J." Johnson.  Some may remember him as the contestant and winner of the first episode of Rocco's dinner party.  I posted a crap load of pictures...well, not really...like 75 pics out of 300 shots.  No way I was editing that in 2 days and the night before finals.  At his event, he made this butternut squash soup...oh so divine and he put goat cheese in it.  I never thought I'd do or say this but:  "Goat cheese, I love you...I want to marry you and want your cream."


So, off of inspiration from a few chefs that I've encountered in this short 9 months, I made a braised brisket dish.  Enjoy!

Braised Brisket with Tomato & Onion Rice Pilaf in
Hongroise Reduction

Braised Brisket Recipe


Disclaimer:  I really don't use measurements that much and I don't provide a list of ingredients because I'm nuts like that.


Please don't murder me. :D


Recipe:


Preheat oven to 350 F.  Trim fat from your brisket.  I'm sure it has a decent amount on there.  I buy my brisket in huge chunks and when I weighed it out, it was 4 lbs.  This will comfortably feed 8 people.  I make enough for leftovers.  Season your meat with the following:  crushed pink peppercorns, crushed black peppercorns, crushed white peppers, kosher salt, light on the thyme, decent amount of rosemary and Hungarian sweet paprika (you can find this at a decent supermarket or somewhere like Trader's Joe, Garden of Eden...some place like that and it's about errr... 4.00).  Use sweet paprika in moderation because it goes a long way.  Your peppercorns can be semi crushed.  It has a beautiful texture...or at least that's just my personal preference.


Heat a rondeau (a big ass non reactive pan with a forged bottom for my non culinarians) until it's at smoking point (piping hot).  If you're fast enough, prep one to two onions.  I used a Spanish onion for a decent flavor and threw in a yellow pepper.  For Christ sake...remove the rib of the inside of the onion (just a pet peeve).  Julienne both onions and peppers and set aside.  Once your pan is piping hot, don't be alarmed by the smoke, add a bit of oil to the pan enough to coat.  Use an oil with a decent smoking point like veggie or canola oil.  Olive oil will crash, burn and for the money, is not worth doing it in this particular meal.  Sear all sides of your meat until you develop a beautiful brown.  Remove brisket and set to the side.  In the same pan, saute your onions and peppers until translucent/soft.  Add beef or veal stock (veal kicks ass) and red wine with a 2:1 ration respectively.  Side note:  Alcohol is in almost every one of my dishes.  Place brisket back into the pan.  Add a sprig of rosemary.  Liquid should only fill half way up to the meat.  Bring the liquid up to temperature.  When it becomes warm, place into your oven uncovered for one hour.  Wrap with aluminum foil or shatterproof lid and lower temperature to 300 degrees and keep in oven for two more hours.  Lower temperature to 250 for last hour, total of 4 hours.


Pull brisket from pan and set aside.  Strain liquid and set aside veggies.  Put liquid back in the pan and place rondeau on stove; reduce liquid (crank up the heat to the highest temperature and allow it to evaporate into a thick liquid).  Since there is beef/veal stock in your liquid, we will create a hongroise reduction.


Hongroise sauce is a baby sauce from the mother sauce, Veloute.  It is also listed under sauce Supreme because of the steps that I'll explain to you right now:


1.  While reducing your stock, add a light amount of heavy cream to the pan.  Et voila...sauce Supreme, but we will not stop there.
2.  Although this is not part of the original recipe, add a small amount of goat cheese to your mixture, enough to taste. Incorporate until it's a light brown shade resembling gravy.
3.  Another modification is that I didn't use white wine but red wine.  Ha, almost NOT a Hongroise sauce but rules are made to be broken.  Since the wine is already there, don't worry about it.
4.  Add your julienne onions back in the pan and sprinkle a bit of Hungarian Paprika.  NOTE:  If you cannot find Hungarian Paprika, this is fine but the taste will be slightly altered.
5.  Reduce until nappe (no, I'm not being racist...it just means that the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of your spoon.)


Pour this sauce over your rested brisket.  Meant to add these important tidbits:


1.  Allow your brisket to rest (don't cut it) for at least 15 minutes to allow the juices to do it's magic).  Cutting into meat immediately will make the juices pour out.  The food may be out of the oven but it doesn't necessarily mean that the cooking process stopped.
2.  Slice your meat against the grain.  This determines if your meat will be tender.  It will be good but it'll be better if you slice it the right way.


Pair this meal with potato latkes to make it a Jewish meal or you can make a nice pilaf like I did.  Just in case you don't know, pilaf is very simple.  Chop up whatever veggies you would like to add such as a basic mirepoix (50 percent onion, 25 carrot and 25 celery) and saute in a pot with some sort of fat (I prefer butter because it's rich and creamy).  Add in rice and toast it.  Make sure fat is on the rice.  Toast it until you smell its aroma.  It should have a nutty smell.  Add stock into the pan.  Cook until done.


Hope you enjoy this recipe (and my erratic side notes).  I would love to hear what you think and how it turned out.  

Tired but Thankful

My dear...I've been walking around with a big toenail with a split in it for a week.  I cannot remember my feet looking this terrible since I was pregnant and couldn't reach them.  

Time has been escaping me like you would not believe.  I've been out of my house from 8am and not seeing home until midnight.  Rinse, wash, repeat.  This is the life that I asked for in a sense.  Nothing comes easy and I didn't expect this profession of mine to come off gentle.  I have to pay my dues to this industry before I can really start reaping in the rewards.  

There are some really trying days where my husband supports what I do and then there's moments where selfishly, we want nothing more than to feel each other's breath across each other's chest but...this career has its jealous streak.  Prep this, blanch that... Mise en place, mise en place, mise en place!  CLEAN AS YOU GO...behind you...HOT POT!  The scent from my Chef jacket is always entertaining.  Arroz con gandules and maybe a taste of Indian food.  Don't mind the stain on my pants...that's just pastry cream.  

My son loves what I do but I can tell that he misses me terribly.  One night, I was revising some resumes for over 15 students and while typing, I decided to phone home.  "Another night...here...just talk to your son..." That would be the loving frustration from my husband.  He wants me...need for me to be home but he doesn't want me to stop doing what I love.  My bad boy of greatness answers the phone.  I can hear his smile and smell his excitement through my crappy MetroPCS phone.  Nothing but bright hellos and chattering away of how he behaved in school.  

One more week babe...I'll be on my externship.  Better hours in corporate dining.  Early riser mornings, social life at night and so family friendly for home.  I can divulge into the photography world and pump some art into my veins.  I can feel it now.  Babe, just one more week and I'll give you three months of nights together.  After that, the real world awaits me, taking on a career that will once again be jealous of our sleep and then I will be on another conquest to be alone with you.  Sleeping in our bed, under warm blankets with our hearts embraced.

Buongiornio!

Recipe Jotting at 2AM? Get a Life

Okay really...it's 2AM on a now, Sunday morning.  


Why am I still up?  Out of all things, I'm looking up recipes that I can tweak to my own liking.  This is a fat girl, please pause moment.  I've been invited to do really cool 26 year old things like going outside and getting wasted at a dope party and if I played my cards right, guaranteed to go to someone's after party.  I was even supposed to do the intimate thing and have a date night with my husband.  One of my friends came in from the UK and I just saw and heard the message at the last minute to go to an open mic.  


Oh no...what do I do for pure entertainment?  Read articles on New York Times about guess what?  Food.  Use my handy dandy journal and write down what?  Recipes.  Geez, either I'm a nerd ahead of my time or I need a damn life.  


Well, no sense in complaining about it, right?  Read this article about Starbucks' employees locking down the bathrooms in desperation not to clean it.  Made me chuckle a bit.  At a time back in the land called 2005 and 2006, I used to work as a Barista.  In fact, I was such a workaholic, I took openings at several spots.  My home store was next door to Bad Boy and I'd be there before the crack of dawn to open.  Too bad there were countless psychopaths who loved talking with me.  This was pre-locs, pre-culinary school and pre-baby weight.  Geez, that's when I was warm, fuzzy and naive.  


Anyway, I remember my regulars:  a man who came in with a jogging suit and stand there at 5:55am for his Tall Skim Vanilla Latte with a Butter Croissant.  Dedication I tell you.  Then, it would follow up with another person who wanted this Tall Soy Peppermint Latte.  She ordered this every other day that it made me interested in trying the drink out.  Wasn't bad at all.  Unfortunately, around morning rush, I remember this one particular day, a homeless man came in with a stack of newspapers and had a cup of coffee.  He didn't come to my register nor did I make his drink.  Perhaps someone felt bad for him.  Besides, I was in the theater district in the heart of 54th and Broadway.  Tourists mostly have a conscious; typical NYers would give him some change or tell him to go look for a job.  It had to be close to two hours because I remember being told by my store manager to take a break.  I have this tendency to want to potty right during break but I was greeted to a nice red "Occupied" stamp on the door.  Someone's in the bathroom.


Just my luck, there's another Starbucks down the block.  Used it, enjoyed my ten minute break on my derriere and ran back to my store.  This guy was still on the toilet.  Really dude?  How much did Starbucks make you go?  Forty mins later, my supervisor demanded that this homeless guy leave the bathroom.  


We were whiplashed by this alarming funk.  Oh dear, it was horrific.  Smelled like a clusterfuck of a dog tag teaming dead chickens from behind while going through an R. Kelly moment.  Didn't get it?  Just think about it, smoke a cigarette and call me in the morning.  This guy had the audacity to forget where the toilet was and I spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out why would the toilet play Trick or Treat with this guy and fool him into thinking that toilet was on the wall and who really is going to clean this up.  For 9.00/hr plus tips.  I don't know man.  


My supervisor walked past me and asked my coworker.  Bless his heart and his nose.  I would have puked and gave up my job that day. All I thought to myself is...no way man.  No effin way am I cleaning that up.   I salute those brave Starbucks' employees that said hell to the nawl on cleaning up that slop.  The things that food service workers endure man...y'all just don't understand.  


Thank God I'm in the damn kitchen right now and I pray to the man above that don't get an irate supervisor who gets off on sending me in a garbage bin with rats to clean out.  Please God...no flying cockaroaches and rats.  Please.  I'm a woman (the very few times I would pull out the W card).

Resident Fat Girl Checking In

Hi, I'm Latoya.  I'm 26, in culinary school and in a cyanide euphoric and slightly schizophrenic state of happiness.  

Just imagine.  I wake up every morning, five days a week, practically to the same schedule.  Alarm kicks in at 5:55am.  SMACK!  Buzzer kicks out for 10 minutes. SMACK! Just 10 more minutes baby.  SMACK! Gawdamnit, didn't I just say 10 more minutes and like an abusive relationship, I apologize, it cries and I fill it with empty promises that I will not do it again but we know that I'm going to do this until I get tired of the yelling.  What's a person to do when they're tired?  Get the hell up, wash your ass and carry on your day.  

So, that's what I do.  My day starts anywhere between 6:30 - 6:45am and if I'm a serious procrastinator, minutes to 8am where I'm going through the constant, "oh shit" moment.  Here's the ritual...stretch, scream, mutter in frustration, kiss my husband and possibly blocked because my son is the human alarm clock who lays over both of us.  He's the all knowing morning birth control.  As a young woman, I just want to roll over to my husband's freshly baked goods but my son makes sure that this doesn't happen.  Why?  Because he's 4 1/2, enjoys walking in on his parents during awkward moments and too young to understand that mommy's schedule is so chaotic that we crave intimacy at the wee hours of the morning.  Off to brushing my teeth with no breakfast in my system.  Pop 3 pills:  One multivitamin, one acidophillus tablet and one vitamin B complex...my levels have been horrific.

Since culinary school, I managed to get three cases of food poisoning, four viral infections, scarlet fever and five ER trips in nine months.  Can we say that my immunity sucks.  So again, no breakfast, already washed my booty but I have to think twice on whether I did it or not and in pursuit of finding mediocre to decent clothing to put on.  Hey, who cares...I'll be wearing my bright white chef jacket and checkered pants with the matching black non slip sneakers all day.  My puffy hat will lay over my heavy locks, which will one day become an inconvenience in a high speed kitchen and I will do a nail inspection, as I do every other morning.  Fresh white tall socks...can't get burned by hot water or some unforeseen but expected accident.  Check my knife kit, inspect my knives, pastry tips armed and loaded and my side towels are in the bag.  Backpack loaded and would make Dora the Explorer look for another job.  She knows nothing about my mission.  Dora and Sesame Street couldn't handle my pressure or have to deal with angry NYC commuters on a train.

7:55am:  Kiss my son, kiss my hubby for the fourth time, kiss my kid again.  Cry silently in my head and tell myself, "today's going to be a great day and I'll love it when I get there" but I miss my family.  I miss my social life but welcome to the real world big girl.  Big girls don't cry, especially in my industry.  I'm a chef in training.  Crying in the kitchen is weak.  Sure, we're emotional but it's accompanied with curse words, pounding knives, sharp objects, tortured meat and uptight patissiers in training who are determined to show you that baking isn't for pussies.  I'm out the door by 8:10.  Husband walked out at 8:05 so we can meet at our secret location:  the corner store.  If he's on time, I'll see him after I pick up my usual two bottles of water and banana.  These bottles will get me through two thirds of my day and I need to drink half of my body weight.  

He meets me.  Kisses me passionately.  Walks to the train station talking about photography, my other mistress.  Wait, is my camera in my backpack?  Of course.  What can I build this crazy portfolio with?  On the train by 8:20.  8:25 train will get me fired by my work study job.  Ha, go figure.  Work study job at 26 years old but everyone starts from somewhere, even if you were making over 50K three years ago.  He leaves four stops later from the train.  iPod love:  Telepopmusik, No Doubt, Marilyn Manson...someone scream and sing to me while I'm molested and fondled by these nasty commuters.  They give me the same strange looks every morning.  Perhaps it's the checkered pants, locked hair, evil look of sleepiness and my chained bracelet with the spikes.  I'm a sore look.

Off at 14th Street.  It's 8:55.  If I am lucky, I can take the bus one stop.  If not, I'll walk like a mad woman through people to make it in two minutes to my job.  Whew...made it to the bus.  Ring the bell.  Off the bus.  At work.  My supervisor's a funny dude but like I've told many people:  You have to be slightly off to be in this career.  Perhaps, daddy issues?  Never accepted?  "My family is a bunch of Nazi chefs and I decided to follow...", "I wanna be a Betty Crocker kinda gal without the box" or the infamous, I saw too much Food Network and think that everything on television is acting and easy.  Newsflash.  IT'S HARD!  Exhausting and tiring and if this isn't your passion, walk the hell out of the kitchen and save yourself the aggravation.  Don't dare try to break the glass for oxygen.  That's my reserve.  Five and some hours of working.  Eight doors down is my school.  No breaks.  Five hours of being ripped a new one by my adoring but crazy chefs.  They've learned what they had to learn.  Still learn how some of us are morons and sometimes mystified by our lack of trying to give a damn.  

6:30pm...depending on the day, I'm on a trail.  Just a nice word for being an apprentice.  I'm a patissier in training...few doors away from my school and my job as a Soup Kitchen Chef.  If not, I'm home by 7:30.  Perhaps if I feel like being an adventurous adult, I'm looking for a cheap bar to score some shots with my classmates.  They share my love/hate relationship.  They understand that we have no life in this business and we've set ourselves up to this penitentiary but we frigging love it.  The smell of production.  The speed, the burn marks, the battle scars, the yelling...why do we do this to ourselves?  We LOVE it.  We live it.  It makes my nipples perk and don't you dare touch me when I'm close to erupting.  

Chix Milanese w/ Spring Salad & Penne

I'm home.  Turn off the kitchen talk.  Wait...I have to cook.  Hubby tells me not to worry bout it but I know he wants to eat and as tired as I am, I want to cook because I love this insanity.  The glimmer on his face.  The silence and erotic moans erupting from their mouths as they eat a piece of me.  It's my meal they're enjoying.  We may even have company over tonight.  Who knows?  But dinner is served baby.  I love to keep my family happy, even if it means that I'm going to crash before I take ten bites.  Sorry baby...not tonight.  I promised I'd stay up and watch a movie but I'm frigging exhausted.  I promise...tomorrow, I'll make a better attempt of staying up later.  Perhaps, I'll wake up in three hours like I tend to do when I realized that I broke yet another promise of movie night and I didn't help my son with his homework.  Just wait babe...this will all be worth it.  I'm done with the physical portion in four more weeks in school.  I can smell my externship approaching.  Corporate dining.  Stable hours.  Monday through Friday.  Maybe not as crazy as a restaurant but I still get to have my rendezvous with my cast iron, stroke my steel and make it beg for me and I still get to have my family.  Don't worry babe.  Four more weeks.  I'm drowning myself in food and photography for a bit longer for a gratifying end result.  Thank you for being patient.  Your understanding turns me on.  Your support makes me horny.  Babe, turn out the lights.  I want to make love to you under the dessert that I made for you.  It's 2am...you know that we're going to be exhausted in a few hours. 

Upside down on purpose...my life.

Don't worry...I'll beat the alarm clock and apologize for the assault and battery.  It's used to this by now.  Esthero, lull us to sleep.  Besides, we only have less than four hours to get up for work and do it all over again.  Thank God for weekends but that's another form of passion.  Photography finds a way to call me and stroke my legs gently.  She knows how to make my shutter flutter.

Welcome...and hi again.  Did I forget to mention that I am a chef and photographer in training?