Final Exam

The wife and I returned from Seattle yesterday and what that means, in addition to coping with some of the worst of jet-lag that we’ve ever had thanks to a long cross-country red-eye flight, is that I am finally able to upload the pictures of my final culinary school dish. Upon arriving at school last Friday morning at 8am, the four of us taking our final practicum that day were all asked to draw index cards at random, with each card indicating the name of a dish that we would be required to prepare. My card instructed me to prepare a ‘ballotine filled with a stuffing of my choice, served with a sauce in the ‘nouvelle cuisine’ style and accompanied with a starch or vegetable of my choice’. Just as a refresher, a ballotine is essentially a bird that has been partially (or even fully) deboned, stuffed, tied and baked.

Seeing how this was almost exactly the same thing that I prepared for Thanksgiving, I was quite happy with this choice and relieved that my card didn’t instruct me to prepare something much more intimidating, like individual fruit tarts filled with a flavored pastry cream of my choice, a dessert sauce of my choice, fresh fruit and a garnish of stabilized whipped cream (sorry Christian). Once completed, our dishes were handed over to a panel of tasters, who would evaluate and critique them based on flavor, presentation and creativity. Their remarks, along with comments from the chef instructor proctoring our exam, would be used to determine each student’s grade for the final practicum. Here is a shot of my dish right before it was presented to the judges:

The first order of business would be to consider my options for the stuffing and sauce. I interpreted the ‘nouvelle cuisine’ styled sauce to be one based around combining heavily reduced ingredients, as opposed to being flour-bound (using a roux for thickening, then simmering the sauce for a long period of time to cook out the floury taste). I decided to incorporate cranberry and port flavors into a sauce based on heavily reduced chicken stock and heavy cream. To highlight some of the fruitier flavors of the sauce, the stuffing would also contain chopped up cranberries along with onion, leek, mushroom, pork sausage and some bread for binding purposes. I’d use whatever the school kitchen had on hand for my accompanying vegetable; I was hoping to get my hands on some turnips, which I’d cut into french-fry sized pieces and cook in a skillet until they were golden brown.

Feeling good about my ideas, I began to write out a recipe. This was a bit more challenging than I expected since I didn’t really know how much of everything I’d need. For example, I had no idea how much chicken stock I’d need to begin with in order to reduce it to a consistency and flavor that would work for my sauce. After jotting a few rough ideas down on paper, then being asked to refine and clarify some of my ingredients and quantities, I began to assemble all of the necessary ingredients. Since the cornish game hen and pork sausage that I intended on using were still partially frozen, I set those aside to thaw out while I began to work on my sauce.

I started with about 6 cups of chicken stock, which I reduced down until there was only about a cup of highly concentrated, rich, chickeny goodness left. I also separately reduced some heavy cream to concentrate and thicken it. In a small sauce pan, I combined about a cup of dried cranberries with a cup of port and reduced that as well. Once all of these individual components were ready, I combined them all into one pot, then further reduced this until the right consistency had been achieved. After tasting the sauce, I determined that the highly reduced chicken stock had provided just a bit too much of a gelatinous quality to the final product. This was corrected with the addition of a bit of water and lots more port. When I was happy with the sauce, I set it aside for later use. While the individual components for the sauce were reducing, I made the stuffing and went foraging for vegetables. Not happy with the turnips that were available, I settled on serving a medley of parsnips and snow peas, cut into matchstick-sized pieces and simply sauteed in olive oil until golden brown around the edges.

With the bird finally thawed out enough to handle, I embarked on the toughest part of this assignment…deboning the whole bird while leaving it intact enough so that I would be able to stuff it and tie it back together. What I learned when I did this for Thanksgiving is that it can be a very time consuming and delicate process, especially when preparing seven birds. Since I only had one bird to deal with, I figured that I could take my time and work carefully to avoid tearing the bird’s skin, which would make the tying process especially laborious. After about 20 minutes of careful probing with an extremely sharp boning knife, I was ready to stuff and tie the bird back together. I never did feel like I mastered the tying procedure even after all of that practice, so I just kind of haphazardly sewed this little bird back together with a few pieces of kitchen twine threaded onto a trussing needle, which would later come back to bite me in the a** when I neglected to remove one of the strings from the cooked bird before I served it. Once stuffed, I applied a quick dry rub (paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, oregano, thyme, salt, black and white pepper) to it. I then seared the bird in a hot skillet and finished it in a 375 degree oven until the thickest part of the thigh registered 165 degrees. I allowed the bird to rest for a few minutes while I cooked the vegetables and strained the sauce. Finally, I removed the string from the bird, cut it in half to reveal the stuffing, snapped a few quick shots, and just like that, at around 1:15pm that afternoon, I was done with my final culinary school dish.

I should have taken an ‘after’ shot instead of taking two nearly identical photos; the judges ate just about everything, with the exception of part of one of the legs, which for whatever reason, was still just a bit on the pink side. Just seeing how much of my dish they ate made me feel like I had done a good job with this assignment. They also gave me great feedback by saying that they thought the bird was well cooked; in the end they weren’t too bothered by the pink part, which could’ve been cooked further but by doing that, I could’ve overcooked the rest of the bird. They also really thought that all of my flavor ideas worked well together; the cranberries and pork provided just a hint of sweetness that balanced out the richness of the entire dish. They also really liked my presentation too, something I still feel is a big weakness of mine. I was dinged for a few minor things, like my failure to remove one of the strings holding the bird together (I tried to, I just couldn’t find it!). My vegetables were just a tad too oily, though the judges liked them from a flavor and presentation standpoint. As I mentioned earlier, my recipe also could’ve been presented with just a bit more detail. Overall though, I was very happy with my final dish, as were the judges. I also recieved praise for my ability to work in a calm, cool, collected, organized and methodical fashion, which is exactly what I was trying to do.

Congrats guys, we made it!

Tanner, Kiko, Christian and I have all been together since last May and we’ve shared many a good laugh over the last ten months. We all ended our time at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts on this day. This being the first week away from school in a long time, it was definitely a little weird to not put on the chef’s clothes and speak in fake Italian accents (don’t ask) with these guys for eight hours a day.

Now having had some time to reflect, I can emphatically say that culinary school was a great experience for me, one that I would recommend to anybody with a passion for learning how to become a better cook. I know that culinary school has had a profound effect on my approach and attitude towards cooking and has certainly had the desired effect of making me a much more confident and better equipped chef. I am now proud to say that there is no longer anything I feel I can’t (or at least shouldn’t try) to cook.