Pastry, Pastry, Pastry

Three days of pastry: sugar, flour, butter, chocolate. Repeat.

The week started off with a continuation of last week's tour of foods of the world, with a stop in India (which I will come back to). But the bulk of the week was spent on pastry.

On Tuesday we made cookies and bars with Janine Sciarappa, who is, herself, a graduate of this very program. During the morning we explored the core ingredients of baking (e.g. floour, sugar, eggs, leavening agents, etc.) and what each contributes to the process (e.g. structure, moisture, flavor, leavening, etc.) It was a brief, but very interesting introduction to the basic elements of baking. For example, you might think sugar only serves to bring sweetness to the table, but in reality it can also contribute to structure and be a catalyst for creaming ingredients (e.g. eggs) and for leavening (e.g. yeast).

We made quite the assortment of macaroons, short bread cookies, graham crackers (yum!) key lime bars, and brownies. The highlight of the day for me, though, was the Chipotle brownies. Holy carp, were they good: spicy, smoky, sweet and chocolaty.

Next was two days of working with Cindy Salvato. Unfortunately I was not able to attend class on Wednesday. But, on Thursday we delved into the dark, delicious world of chocolate. In addition to learning all about the types and properties of chocolate, we spent Thursday morning performing a chocolate tasting. We tasted twelve different chocolates, evaluating each for appearance (color, shine, etc.), flavor (bitter, sour milk, spicy, sweet, etc.) and texture (hard, smooth, crumbly, waxy, etc.) It was quite interesting to compare the differences between the brands and to see just how much variance there really was. The range of textures (from waxy to smooth) and flavors (from sweet to bitter) was really eye opening. If you have the chance, I recommend doing a chocolate tasting, in addition to being enlightening, it is also fun.

In the afternoon, we took what we learned about chocolate into the kitchen and made all things cocoa. Among other things, we made molten chocolate cake and truffles.

Molten Chocolate Cake

Man are truffles a pain-in-the-behind to make. Not to mention, very messy. The most important trick was to try to keep the chocolate on the truffles:

Catherine's Chocolate Hand

Ok, now back to Monday. We started the week by working with chef Thomas John of Mantra restaurant in Boston. The menu was: Parantha (flat bread) with a spicy potato filling, Tandoori chicken, shrimp curry with coconut and lemon rice with peanuts.

Being that I love Indian food, this was an enjoyable day for me. I think if I was forced to eat only one type of cuisine for the rest of my life, it would likely be Indian. I just love the range and richness of flavors. Besides, I am a spice-head (both in the sense of spicy flavors and heat) and so I could feed my need in this regard. Anyway...

Even though I had not heard much about Mantra prior to this day, working with chef John was a real pleasure and the food was really good. One of the most interesting parts of the day was listening to chef John reinforce how much the style of cooking and the ingredients change between the various regions and religions of India. In reality, the food we think of as being "Indian food" is really the cuisine of only one region of India. It would be as if the rest of the world thought of southern food or TexMex as "American" food. These are certainly part of the American culinary landscape, but to us they are considered as regional cuisines rather than a national cuisine.

Tip o' the week: The next time you make brownies, add 3/4 of a teaspoon of Chipotle powder.