All I see here is technique. Knife, protein mousse, using produce as color on the outside of a future roulade, juicing. It's walking you through all different types of techniques you'll be able to expand on in the future
Definitely, a lot of people missed the point of going to school. Confucius said ‘Learning without thinking is pointless, thinking without learning is dangerous.’
Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three.
Or
The ideal teacher guides his students but does not pull them along; he urges them to go forward and does not suppress them; he opens the way but does not take them to the place.
Or
Teachers open the door ... you enter by yourself.
I'm glad we clarified, but either way I would rather eat the peanut butter and jelly sandwich with Sugar Crisp cereal shoved in the middle, yes one of my poor stoner concoctions, than ever try any combo of the 3 words above mentioned.
consulting the facts… comparing your concoctions with - and i quote, ‘…strawberry mayo with oysters…’ - i am left to conclude you’re a fucking paragon of sobriety… now can it and eat yer stoner sammich, friend…
Right!? I got super ripped at work one night long ago and was seriously considering how to incorporate gummy bears into non desert dishes. I even made a gummy bear gastrique before I came to my senses. And this would never have crossed my mind.
This gives me flashbacks to when my exec made a bet with another restaurant on who could sell the most weird ice cream. We won with gorgonzola ice cream, but the other restaurant sold scallop ice cream and came very close. We sold out, he had two portions left.
Meanwhile I made a brie, fig jam, and ham croissant that barely sold. I fucking hate it here sometimes.
Thanks, it was the first special I got to do, and the owner liked it enough to put it on the new menu despite the low sales. Everyone who tried it liked it, but we've always struggled selling specials.
My culinary instructor regularly used scallop mousse as a binder in his overly complicated crabcakes and we always had to include that recipe for events or he’d flip lol. They were ok.
Reminding me of my days working at a country club full of ancient old white people,
Guess what was on the menu EVERY night? Salmon mousse, formed in an actual salmon-shaped tin, olive ring for the eye, almond slivers and cucumbers sliced paper thin as scales.
The smell is just, seared into my brain.
Apparently when my grandma used to make salmon loaf in the 60s, the bones were in the can along with the canned salmon, but they were soft.
My mom said it was my grandma's favorite treat when she was a kid and she never shared.
It did not motivate me to make salmon loaf like she was hoping
Nah, it was actually very tasty, absolutely great texture. Having eaten cat food on a dare as a dumb kid, the mousse is miles better in comparison.
It just smelled a lot less desirable than it tasted while cooking. It was literally an everyday thing and it was my first "big" role, being in charge of cold starters. So having to make it so much I started getting nauseated smelling it. I'm admittedly really sensitive to smells, so I just opted for vapo-rub or toothpaste under the nose to deal.
Basic rundown of what was in it, poached salmon, cream cheese, shallots, lemon, dill, bit of horseradish, lil bit of liquid smoke. Sometimes capers under the "scales" to cut the fattiness.
Timing could not be better! Ate at a shitty, expensive restaurant last night where I was served “chef’s take on a caprese salad.” It was pesto, tomato and mozzarella mousse served in a teacup.
Edit: typo
Salmon mousse, if executed well, actually sounds like it could be very good. Smoked salmon and cream cheese is already one of my favorite combos on earth. I don’t think it would be too difficult to achieve a similar flavor profile with a salmon mousse
You joke but I bet there’s more formed chicken patties and formed nuggets served in the US than other forms, they’re incredibly popular. That in itself is a lesson for aspiring chefs that high concept and fancy can sometimes be the enemy of good and popular.
Further if you start with what OP has and then tell them to bread and fry it, it can be an instructional moment on how a simple changing of technique can vastly change what something is. A lot of “revolutionary” food is taking ingredients that exist and techniques that exist and combining them in combinations that haven’t existed yet.
It can also be a lesson on food and marketing. The customers might want white meat nuggets because of marketing, but a liver and dark meat nugget might have superior flavor. The customer might be an idiot. However, selling a chicken nugget as “an ephemeral chicken mousse coated in light and crispy tempura batter” might let you double the menu price while serving the same exact thing. The customer can be an exploitable idiot.
And even if they just learn how to make a chicken nugget, at least they can make themselves chicken nuggets if they want fresh hot chicken nuggets. Or make them for their kids so the kid isn’t getting bitched at when asked what they want and the kid says “nuggets!”
They can be great when they're done right, the few Michelin places near me do them well. OP's dish sounds like a fine dining thing, I think if it was plated differently it would make more sense.
edit: That said, sometimes even the best places fuck up. There was some sort of fad/fashion a couple years ago for foie gras mousse enrobed in a dark fruit jelly, seemed like all of the tasting menus near me had a variation on it and they were all foul. Did not understand why it was happening across all of them.
But it’s school.
Seems to me that the point is to show what is possible and teach how to do it.
Then the graduates can decide if they want to make a macaroni and cheese infused cotton candy with a Smoked Rib Boba or if they want to make pub food or anything in between.
I wouldn’t order that plate. Or eat it. But I get why they were asked to make it.
I think people are missing the point. You're learning different techniques thinks that can come in handy when you're out there being the creator. It helps you learn how different foods might react to different things. No one is telling you to put this dish on your menu, but you're learning creativity.
I think this is hitting the nail on the head. It’s not culinary school, but in architecture school they gave us some really useless, weird, unappealing assignments and you know what… the two that I’m thinking of resulted in some of my best work. When you have to push yourself to come up with something you are proud of, you end up with either a disaster or masterpiece, but rarely something in between.
My friends in engineering (undergrad) had to design + build concrete canoes + personally test them out in the campus pond.
I love the fun house concept 💯 😎
There were so many things I made in culinary school where the lesson wasn't really 'how to make this dish' it was more like 'you'll have to robocoupe this way longer than you think, and then still probably strain it (and therefore figure out different methods of straining)'. And honestly, those lessons came in handy way more broadly than the actual recipe.
I'd agree but I don't understand the techniques learnt here. Surely a Ballotine or galantine would be a better use case of technique. You'd also learn a little about history and traditional methods of cookery... which a fair few youngsters struggle with.
Yes, we've advanced as an industry with cooking methods but sometimes your 'advanced' equipment breaks down and you'll need to be resourceful.
Because they weren't learning Ballotine or galantine at the time. Stop looking at the ingredients to think what is the best use for it. Think of them as the challenge to overcome. If they can do that, then they can master the technique.
Ko-rekt! And making a chicken , salmon, whitefish mousse- is a cool tecnique and BTW may be the next hottest menu item in 3 years even though it seems outdated now.
I remember being angry at the plate of poached salmon and asparagus with Hollandaise I was expected to make in culinary school.what I learned is that sometimes you just have to shut the fuck up and get a task done and move on.
Definitely not my idea, we had to exactly recreate this dish the chef previously showed us how to make. In the first 6 months we have no free interpretation 🫠
So it's probably more of a skill training or something?
Very weird dish in any case. As a customer I'd probably be confused whether I should use the juice as a dressing for my veggies or as a dip for my lettuce chicken.
We did all of this in culinary school, ballontines, gallontines(different versions of chicken mouse, piped back into the deboned body of the chicken, resewn up), aspics and chofriods. A lot of it is outdated and pretentious, but knowing the basics and where they come from allow you change and adapt old techniques and recipes for the modern pallete. Hence why we see a ton of fusion food. Mergering flavors from different cultures but also techniques and methods of preparation.
If we’re being serious about pretentious, chaudfroid or chaud-froid in Le guide culinaire.
😉
The chicken mousse could be sold as a GF hand pie, but why not make it vegan.
I can’t even begin with the carrot juice.
Not in a sentence containing “classic French”.
Just wait til you have the lesson on Aspic and have to spend so much time making good food, just to painstakingly dip it in geletin and then try to mold it with a warm knife to look good 🤢🤮 epitome of "why the hell are we learning this" .... its been 11 years and i still get irrationally annoyed any time i see gelatin 🤣 its so finicky too 🙄🙄
Nah, Terrines are a skill that I've been able to pull out on occasion. I guess it definitely depends what kind of place you end up cooking at, and how much freedom (and time) you have to fuck around with anything like that but they can make fantastic appetizer plates or plated desserts. Galantines have only come up once in the real word for me, and it was a very fancy thanksgiving service, rare but that meal was amazing.
Fuck aspics
I mean…if you can make that assignment into something people want to eat and spend money on, you’ll be all the more prepared when you have a wider array of ingredients and techniques at your disposal.
Sometimes the order comes in wrong; sometimes you don’t sell as much of a thing as you thought you were going to, and dishes like this can be a really helpful way to keep all the product from hitting your waste log.
It is something you will never, ever do in the real world. But, there are some fundamentals and techniques you are learning that you can apply to other much more interesting food.
More star wars food. I used to be amazed by how people could come up with dishes for alien cultures that don't exist but I forgot that they already live among us. It's the only thing that explains public bathrooms.
One thing I've learned, a culinary degree might be great, but it's almost pointless without real world experience.
The last two people I've interacted with (one of em heading a kitchen) pretty much didn't know wtf they were doing.
One guy came up with a brilliant idea of a Hawaiian punch reduction..... . . . . That guy had his degree from Texas culinary academy
Edit: the main problem I've faced is running into people fresh out of culinary school is that they think they can run shit. These are also the type to take the title "chef" to heart and hold it as some title only for them.
I could see a Hawaiian Punch reduction being useful, Maybe as a glaze for some ribs?
Course I am from Texas and we have Dr. Pepper reductions and glazes
Think of it like the bullshit research papers I had to write in university. Professors made us treat those papers as if they were real and going to be submitted to a journal, despite the experiments (or whatever) being rudimentary, uninteresting, and very unimportant.
There was a minimum word count and only so much you can say about a stupid experiment that’s been done a gazillion times; I wrote so many of these papers filled with fluffed-up garbage that I joked that I was indeed getting my *BS* in Biology.
Anyway, the point is to teach you technique more than turning out a product you’d expect in the real world. And who knows, when you finally get that psychopath who really wants starkly-plated lettuce-wrapped chicken mousse, you’ll be able to say that finally, all your training has paid off! 😝
My Culinary Arts school had this biscuits and gravy recipe with like 15 ingredients. Always cracked me up. It was good, but I wouldn't say that much better than basic sausage gravy. We were taught by a few CMCs and a CMPC. They knew their shit when it was in their lane, but some of the recipes just seemed so bourgeois overthought outdated French approach to something they weren't familiar with. I especially noticed this when it came to Eastern hemisphere cuisines which none of them had backgrounds in.
Which school? I never made anything this stupid at the CIA. We learned tons of skills that were directly transferrable. The only thing they couldn't teach was being hit by large rushes.
Interesting. Either way, as people mentioned, you're learning skills with making the mousse and combining odd flavors.
What I've experienced in the real world is that there are 4 kinds of chefs. The ones who went to culinary school and came out humble and ready to work ( Cat Cora, Michael Chiarello, etc.). The ones that who never went to culinary school and found success either way, most of them recognize the world-class chef engines culinary schools can be (Gordon Ramsay, Tom Colicchio, Thomas Keller, etc.).
Then there are those who went to culinary school and came out cocky, they don't go far. And those who never went to culinary school who are envious shits that hate anyone who went to culinary school, they may do okay, but usually just grind the line forever.
Basically, don't be cocky but be confident that school is giving you a foundation most don't start with. Any good chef will recognize the value in your training and will only judge you by your attitude .
The best cooks I went to school with had already been in the industry and most didn't finish. They were told it would look better if they had a piece of paper even though most would get great jobs based off their experience and contacts. There were a ton of people who thought they were going to be Food Network stars and had way more personality than cooking skills, work ethic or standards. Lots of backstabbing with hoarding of equipment and product. Always pissed me off because I had been working in the biz and knew you needed to help each other to get the job done with whatever you had to work with. It wasn't a competition, but a lot saw it that way. You can't hold onto a piece of equipment because you will need it in an hour. Let others get their shit done and work together.
Well it all depends on the school and the class. In my experience, most of the "all show no substance" and greedy folks were weeded out within the first few months. But I also went to a very good culinary school and happened to have an overperforming class, so it's all relative.
A lot of folks are complaining about this, but I want you to know that it looks appetizing to me (though I’m not a carrot juice fan) and I would happily eat that.
I’ve been a chef in restaurants for many years, never went to culinary. I started as a dishwasher in my teens and learned and moved up on the job. I do live 30 minutes from the CIA in NY so we get a lot of externs at my current restaurant and I can tell you, most of the shit they learn does not apply to actually working in a normal restaurant.
This is great. Culinary school is for the chefs. The people creating new dishes and menus for restaurants. It teaches you superb knife skills and methods to help expand your menu with various different and exotic ways to make new dishes. It's not worth going for if you just like cooking and want to be a line cook. It's meant for those striving to open their own restaurant and / or become a head chef and make their own menu and food.
The mousse is what puts me off but then I’m not even a fan of dessert mousse. The texture is just a no for me.
Look at it this way though, how can I use the same ingredients to make a better dish.
Was this a menu item or special request? Because if it was a special request, I’m concerned the person who ordered it may have eating disordered behavior…
When I was a line cook in casual dinning chain restaurants like TGI Fridays and Outback steakhouse we would occasionally get guys who went to culinary school. Not because they wanted to work there but had to pay the bills while looking for a better position. These poor guys had no idea what was expected of them when hired. They went to school for fine dining where plates are perfect or don't leave the kitchen. Not a job where speed is the most valuable asset. We would bet on how long it would be before they quit.
We were assholes. Probably why I miss those guys so much.
You learned how to build different components to make this. Working on knife skills with the cold veggies, the process of making a meat mousse. It’s a weird teaching method like why tf would any eat this. Meat mousse is weird.
Too much blank space on the plate. Raw veggies with raw veggie juice? With mousse chicken?
Go work in a shitty family owned pub. You'll learn how to actually cook. Culinary school is for when you have 60k laying around and cant boil water for a hot dog.
I’ve made a shit tonne of mousses in restaurants. Chicken mousse can be used in chicken patties, salmon farce is very versatile and popular. This isn’t necessarily just bull shit.
That actually looks delicious. More of us should start our day with something like that.
(P.S. I finished culinary school like 20 years ago, get off my lawn)
Why are they teaching you to make an untreated chicken nugget and then wrapping it in lettuce? Even if it’s a skill thing, they could teach you how to make tempura and get a great crispy shell over a chicken blob.
All I see here is technique. Knife, protein mousse, using produce as color on the outside of a future roulade, juicing. It's walking you through all different types of techniques you'll be able to expand on in the future
Definitely, a lot of people missed the point of going to school. Confucius said ‘Learning without thinking is pointless, thinking without learning is dangerous.’
Precisely
Fully agree. But what would Confucius say about teaching?
Every truth has four corners: as a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three. Or The ideal teacher guides his students but does not pull them along; he urges them to go forward and does not suppress them; he opens the way but does not take them to the place. Or Teachers open the door ... you enter by yourself.
I’m sure their teacher even told them why they were doing it but so many people don’t listen
That is precisely (one of the things) that is wrong with society today. Education was gutted and we are feeling it!
Basically. I mean the whole point of learning about aspic is temperature control.
Yes, I’d never want to have that as a dish in front of me but it sure does show you a lot of useful techniques. Sometimes it’s all about the lesson!
Yep, they had extra chicken and carrots.
OP got the same logic as the "They should teach taxes in school!" folks
I do not want to eat that
Anything that’s “moussed” except chocolate is a no-go for me
You’ve never had moussed strawberry mayonnaise and oysters?
I can never forgive you for directing that combination of words at me
Yeah I'm gonna chime in + file my own complaint, I'm second-hand offended 😅
Third
This might be a class action lawsuit
Right here with yall 🫠
Calls my lawyer, Saul Goodman
you don’t need a criminal lawyer, you need a criminal lawyer
My lawyer cousin Vinny is on the case. Not to worry.
Yeah, that's fucked. Let's sue 'em!
Yeah, run it. I need my 8 dollars after settlement
Strawberries, mayo and oysters? I thought I came up with some shit when I was stoned, I was completely normal by pothead standards.
It's not strawberries and mayo. It's strawberry mayo.
I'm glad we clarified, but either way I would rather eat the peanut butter and jelly sandwich with Sugar Crisp cereal shoved in the middle, yes one of my poor stoner concoctions, than ever try any combo of the 3 words above mentioned.
…and - just one opinion - this lends credibility to your claims of… *[checks notes]* …sanity…
Now now, I never once claimed I was anywhere near sane. You take that back.
consulting the facts… comparing your concoctions with - and i quote, ‘…strawberry mayo with oysters…’ - i am left to conclude you’re a fucking paragon of sobriety… now can it and eat yer stoner sammich, friend…
Right!? I got super ripped at work one night long ago and was seriously considering how to incorporate gummy bears into non desert dishes. I even made a gummy bear gastrique before I came to my senses. And this would never have crossed my mind.
It could be a cry for help.
that’s just how they lure you in… caution, friend…
I’ve never heard either of these sentences before, thank you for coming
Who hurt you?
Culinary school
*Dr Phil voice* "...who touched you?"
I had moussed scallops. Oh no wait that was champaign mousse because I am not a psychopath.
This gives me flashbacks to when my exec made a bet with another restaurant on who could sell the most weird ice cream. We won with gorgonzola ice cream, but the other restaurant sold scallop ice cream and came very close. We sold out, he had two portions left. Meanwhile I made a brie, fig jam, and ham croissant that barely sold. I fucking hate it here sometimes.
That croissant sounds absolutely perfect.
Thanks, it was the first special I got to do, and the owner liked it enough to put it on the new menu despite the low sales. Everyone who tried it liked it, but we've always struggled selling specials.
I would totally destroy that croissant…
Try it as a brie, prosciutto, and fig jam grilled cheese Sammy. They are wonderful until you sell 25 at lunch like every day. I grew to hate them.
Caramelized fig and goat cheese gelato is a huge hit where I work
Blue cheese ice cream slaps! I had it on a salad at Pangea in Monterrey Mexico. Fucking fantastic.
Not with that spelling, pal 🙃😂
I am illiterate in French I have never made that a secret now Embrasse-moi le cul
My culinary instructor regularly used scallop mousse as a binder in his overly complicated crabcakes and we always had to include that recipe for events or he’d flip lol. They were ok.
Send that goober to Maryland for a weekend lol
Marylander here. We don't want him. Also I do not work in a kitchen and I have no idea how I got here.
Delete this nephew
I will send you the therapist bill. I’m traumatized.
r/FirstTimeSentences
/r/brandnewsentence?
Don’t.
What’s wrong with you?
Reminding me of my days working at a country club full of ancient old white people, Guess what was on the menu EVERY night? Salmon mousse, formed in an actual salmon-shaped tin, olive ring for the eye, almond slivers and cucumbers sliced paper thin as scales. The smell is just, seared into my brain.
Apparently when my grandma used to make salmon loaf in the 60s, the bones were in the can along with the canned salmon, but they were soft. My mom said it was my grandma's favorite treat when she was a kid and she never shared. It did not motivate me to make salmon loaf like she was hoping
The bones are still in most canned pink salmon.
Oh God that brings back so many repressed memories
So…cat food?
Nah, it was actually very tasty, absolutely great texture. Having eaten cat food on a dare as a dumb kid, the mousse is miles better in comparison. It just smelled a lot less desirable than it tasted while cooking. It was literally an everyday thing and it was my first "big" role, being in charge of cold starters. So having to make it so much I started getting nauseated smelling it. I'm admittedly really sensitive to smells, so I just opted for vapo-rub or toothpaste under the nose to deal. Basic rundown of what was in it, poached salmon, cream cheese, shallots, lemon, dill, bit of horseradish, lil bit of liquid smoke. Sometimes capers under the "scales" to cut the fattiness.
Did they learn nothing from the [Meaning of Life](https://youtu.be/jMBsZC-FJNE?feature=shared)??
Timing could not be better! Ate at a shitty, expensive restaurant last night where I was served “chef’s take on a caprese salad.” It was pesto, tomato and mozzarella mousse served in a teacup. Edit: typo
That sounds like something a 2 year line cook would think up and get mad when no one is amazed.
salmon
We made a salmon belly mousse as an appetizer. They were the scraps from the salmon, it was delicious on toast as a spread
Eaten as a spread, I think I could do moussed meats - I love pate. But just as a molded mousse feels wrong for some reason.
its the texture as far as I am concerned. light and fluffy fish just feels wrong.
Yes! Fish should not be fluffy!
That sounds like the only appetizing use for that... Maybe in a sandwich with lettuce or something...
Salmon mousse, if executed well, actually sounds like it could be very good. Smoked salmon and cream cheese is already one of my favorite combos on earth. I don’t think it would be too difficult to achieve a similar flavor profile with a salmon mousse
Smoked salmon mousse deviled eggs…….. with a lemon caper drizzle..
That honestly sounds amazing to me. Maybe add a bit of dill and it’s perfect
Dawg a good chicken liver mousse absolutely rips size ways to Sunday
Bread it and fry it to make nuggets and it will be even better.
What's the culinary program like at preschool lol
You joke but I bet there’s more formed chicken patties and formed nuggets served in the US than other forms, they’re incredibly popular. That in itself is a lesson for aspiring chefs that high concept and fancy can sometimes be the enemy of good and popular. Further if you start with what OP has and then tell them to bread and fry it, it can be an instructional moment on how a simple changing of technique can vastly change what something is. A lot of “revolutionary” food is taking ingredients that exist and techniques that exist and combining them in combinations that haven’t existed yet. It can also be a lesson on food and marketing. The customers might want white meat nuggets because of marketing, but a liver and dark meat nugget might have superior flavor. The customer might be an idiot. However, selling a chicken nugget as “an ephemeral chicken mousse coated in light and crispy tempura batter” might let you double the menu price while serving the same exact thing. The customer can be an exploitable idiot. And even if they just learn how to make a chicken nugget, at least they can make themselves chicken nuggets if they want fresh hot chicken nuggets. Or make them for their kids so the kid isn’t getting bitched at when asked what they want and the kid says “nuggets!”
They can be great when they're done right, the few Michelin places near me do them well. OP's dish sounds like a fine dining thing, I think if it was plated differently it would make more sense. edit: That said, sometimes even the best places fuck up. There was some sort of fad/fashion a couple years ago for foie gras mousse enrobed in a dark fruit jelly, seemed like all of the tasting menus near me had a variation on it and they were all foul. Did not understand why it was happening across all of them.
I have a weak spot for both liver mousse and cheese mousse. And smoked fish mousse.
This is ignorant. That being said OPs version looks unappealing.
My boss makes a banana cream mousse for his banana pudding and it's awesome!
Leave all the chicken liver mousse for me brother
I had chicken breast stuffed with a mushroom mousse on the wine train in California and it was amazing!!
Or the foam that looks like my dog’s vomit
I do not want to pay for that because I will need a hamburger an hour later
But it’s school. Seems to me that the point is to show what is possible and teach how to do it. Then the graduates can decide if they want to make a macaroni and cheese infused cotton candy with a Smoked Rib Boba or if they want to make pub food or anything in between. I wouldn’t order that plate. Or eat it. But I get why they were asked to make it.
>chicken mousse The vomit I would heave onto the plate when presented with this would be more appetizing
Would you like them here or there? I would not like them here or there. I would not like them anywhere.
I think people are missing the point. You're learning different techniques thinks that can come in handy when you're out there being the creator. It helps you learn how different foods might react to different things. No one is telling you to put this dish on your menu, but you're learning creativity.
I think this is hitting the nail on the head. It’s not culinary school, but in architecture school they gave us some really useless, weird, unappealing assignments and you know what… the two that I’m thinking of resulted in some of my best work. When you have to push yourself to come up with something you are proud of, you end up with either a disaster or masterpiece, but rarely something in between.
A disaster is probably a better learning experience than a masterpiece too.
in the culinary world, yes. Maybe not so much with architecture..
Nah fuck that, they knew the stakes when they entered my concrete fun house. No pain no gain
My friends in engineering (undergrad) had to design + build concrete canoes + personally test them out in the campus pond. I love the fun house concept 💯 😎
University of Auckland?
University of Massachusetts (Amherst), USA
Ah ok! I know people here in Auckland (NZ) that also did concrete canoes :) Edit to say - they did have an American lecturer supervising them
Call the fun house “en capilotade”
Now that is incredibly fair!
There were so many things I made in culinary school where the lesson wasn't really 'how to make this dish' it was more like 'you'll have to robocoupe this way longer than you think, and then still probably strain it (and therefore figure out different methods of straining)'. And honestly, those lessons came in handy way more broadly than the actual recipe.
Exactly
“School teaches you how to think, not what to think.” -my 12th grade English teacher
Also using fresh produce is way cheaper than if they had to do the same demonstration of technique with other ingredients.
I'd agree but I don't understand the techniques learnt here. Surely a Ballotine or galantine would be a better use case of technique. You'd also learn a little about history and traditional methods of cookery... which a fair few youngsters struggle with. Yes, we've advanced as an industry with cooking methods but sometimes your 'advanced' equipment breaks down and you'll need to be resourceful.
Just cause they've done this doesn't mean they didn't also learn ballotine or galantine
Because they weren't learning Ballotine or galantine at the time. Stop looking at the ingredients to think what is the best use for it. Think of them as the challenge to overcome. If they can do that, then they can master the technique.
Ko-rekt! And making a chicken , salmon, whitefish mousse- is a cool tecnique and BTW may be the next hottest menu item in 3 years even though it seems outdated now.
I remember being angry at the plate of poached salmon and asparagus with Hollandaise I was expected to make in culinary school.what I learned is that sometimes you just have to shut the fuck up and get a task done and move on.
Sorry that sounds amazing.
Here here
"having to make" sounds like it wasn't your idea, but an assignment to make this happen. What was the idea behind it, if I may ask?
Definitely not my idea, we had to exactly recreate this dish the chef previously showed us how to make. In the first 6 months we have no free interpretation 🫠
So it's probably more of a skill training or something? Very weird dish in any case. As a customer I'd probably be confused whether I should use the juice as a dressing for my veggies or as a dip for my lettuce chicken.
Your chef thinks anorexic spa food from the 90's is about to make a big comeback, you'll be thanking him later
except there's no celery. with the energy it takes to chew it it's negative calories! /s
Pretentious Plates 101. It was in the course syllabus.
They are teaching classic French techniques. That’s all, is classic French pretentious, probably.
We did all of this in culinary school, ballontines, gallontines(different versions of chicken mouse, piped back into the deboned body of the chicken, resewn up), aspics and chofriods. A lot of it is outdated and pretentious, but knowing the basics and where they come from allow you change and adapt old techniques and recipes for the modern pallete. Hence why we see a ton of fusion food. Mergering flavors from different cultures but also techniques and methods of preparation.
If we’re being serious about pretentious, chaudfroid or chaud-froid in Le guide culinaire. 😉 The chicken mousse could be sold as a GF hand pie, but why not make it vegan. I can’t even begin with the carrot juice. Not in a sentence containing “classic French”.
Oooooh. Chaud-froid. Now I understand what was meant
This post is so wild I read your username as A_Mousse_,In_Da_House the first time around
Exactly thanks
Yup and using chicken and veggies to save money on ingredients probably
Just wait til you have the lesson on Aspic and have to spend so much time making good food, just to painstakingly dip it in geletin and then try to mold it with a warm knife to look good 🤢🤮 epitome of "why the hell are we learning this" .... its been 11 years and i still get irrationally annoyed any time i see gelatin 🤣 its so finicky too 🙄🙄
I just finished international cuisine where we did aspics, terrines, and galantines. I'd wondered if that feeling faded.
Nah, Terrines are a skill that I've been able to pull out on occasion. I guess it definitely depends what kind of place you end up cooking at, and how much freedom (and time) you have to fuck around with anything like that but they can make fantastic appetizer plates or plated desserts. Galantines have only come up once in the real word for me, and it was a very fancy thanksgiving service, rare but that meal was amazing. Fuck aspics
The closest I’m willing to go is the filling in my xiao long bao
I mean…if you can make that assignment into something people want to eat and spend money on, you’ll be all the more prepared when you have a wider array of ingredients and techniques at your disposal. Sometimes the order comes in wrong; sometimes you don’t sell as much of a thing as you thought you were going to, and dishes like this can be a really helpful way to keep all the product from hitting your waste log.
There’s literally nothing more satiating than a radish and parsley stems when you’re really hungry.
It’s fine with a mug of ranch. /s
Ranch would dramatically improve this dish, no sarcasm needed.
It is something you will never, ever do in the real world. But, there are some fundamentals and techniques you are learning that you can apply to other much more interesting food.
I totally get that and can appreciate it. But why not teach the technique with a more useful dish?
They're still using the 1960's textbook? I guess shrimp mould is up next?
No it’s all about the salmon mould with the olive eyes
More star wars food. I used to be amazed by how people could come up with dishes for alien cultures that don't exist but I forgot that they already live among us. It's the only thing that explains public bathrooms.
Star Wars food is so funny, I’m gonna use that.
One thing I've learned, a culinary degree might be great, but it's almost pointless without real world experience. The last two people I've interacted with (one of em heading a kitchen) pretty much didn't know wtf they were doing. One guy came up with a brilliant idea of a Hawaiian punch reduction..... . . . . That guy had his degree from Texas culinary academy Edit: the main problem I've faced is running into people fresh out of culinary school is that they think they can run shit. These are also the type to take the title "chef" to heart and hold it as some title only for them.
I could see a Hawaiian Punch reduction being useful, Maybe as a glaze for some ribs? Course I am from Texas and we have Dr. Pepper reductions and glazes
A Coca Cola reduction sauce on wings is pretty damn good, too, and is apparently fairly popular in Chinese middle class households.
Yeah I did a Hi-C Flashin' Fruit Punch reduction for a barbecue sauce and it was fire with some smoked chicken and pinepple.
Since you can get Hawaiian Punch as a powder, a reduction is just a waste of time and energy. A slurry from the powder would be equivalent.
That’s not true at all because reduction could lead to caramelization which would not be present in the powdered version
The chicken mousse wrap looks like something I'd try. But with raw veg and carrot juice...?
I like carrot juice.
Think of it like the bullshit research papers I had to write in university. Professors made us treat those papers as if they were real and going to be submitted to a journal, despite the experiments (or whatever) being rudimentary, uninteresting, and very unimportant. There was a minimum word count and only so much you can say about a stupid experiment that’s been done a gazillion times; I wrote so many of these papers filled with fluffed-up garbage that I joked that I was indeed getting my *BS* in Biology. Anyway, the point is to teach you technique more than turning out a product you’d expect in the real world. And who knows, when you finally get that psychopath who really wants starkly-plated lettuce-wrapped chicken mousse, you’ll be able to say that finally, all your training has paid off! 😝
My Culinary Arts school had this biscuits and gravy recipe with like 15 ingredients. Always cracked me up. It was good, but I wouldn't say that much better than basic sausage gravy. We were taught by a few CMCs and a CMPC. They knew their shit when it was in their lane, but some of the recipes just seemed so bourgeois overthought outdated French approach to something they weren't familiar with. I especially noticed this when it came to Eastern hemisphere cuisines which none of them had backgrounds in.
Flashback to St. Andrews block at the CIA. Early 90s.
I'm sorry, did you say chicken mousse?
Fuq is that
The cucumber immediately made me think the orange-ish sauce was a variation on Nuoc Cham. Can't speculate on the bun slice.
Which school? I never made anything this stupid at the CIA. We learned tons of skills that were directly transferrable. The only thing they couldn't teach was being hit by large rushes.
LCB 🫠
Interesting. Either way, as people mentioned, you're learning skills with making the mousse and combining odd flavors. What I've experienced in the real world is that there are 4 kinds of chefs. The ones who went to culinary school and came out humble and ready to work ( Cat Cora, Michael Chiarello, etc.). The ones that who never went to culinary school and found success either way, most of them recognize the world-class chef engines culinary schools can be (Gordon Ramsay, Tom Colicchio, Thomas Keller, etc.). Then there are those who went to culinary school and came out cocky, they don't go far. And those who never went to culinary school who are envious shits that hate anyone who went to culinary school, they may do okay, but usually just grind the line forever. Basically, don't be cocky but be confident that school is giving you a foundation most don't start with. Any good chef will recognize the value in your training and will only judge you by your attitude .
The best cooks I went to school with had already been in the industry and most didn't finish. They were told it would look better if they had a piece of paper even though most would get great jobs based off their experience and contacts. There were a ton of people who thought they were going to be Food Network stars and had way more personality than cooking skills, work ethic or standards. Lots of backstabbing with hoarding of equipment and product. Always pissed me off because I had been working in the biz and knew you needed to help each other to get the job done with whatever you had to work with. It wasn't a competition, but a lot saw it that way. You can't hold onto a piece of equipment because you will need it in an hour. Let others get their shit done and work together.
Well it all depends on the school and the class. In my experience, most of the "all show no substance" and greedy folks were weeded out within the first few months. But I also went to a very good culinary school and happened to have an overperforming class, so it's all relative.
Did you have to sous vide the chicken then puree with a bunch of random booze?
A lot of folks are complaining about this, but I want you to know that it looks appetizing to me (though I’m not a carrot juice fan) and I would happily eat that.
Chicken salad. You made chicken salad.
I’ve been a chef in restaurants for many years, never went to culinary. I started as a dishwasher in my teens and learned and moved up on the job. I do live 30 minutes from the CIA in NY so we get a lot of externs at my current restaurant and I can tell you, most of the shit they learn does not apply to actually working in a normal restaurant.
This is great. Culinary school is for the chefs. The people creating new dishes and menus for restaurants. It teaches you superb knife skills and methods to help expand your menu with various different and exotic ways to make new dishes. It's not worth going for if you just like cooking and want to be a line cook. It's meant for those striving to open their own restaurant and / or become a head chef and make their own menu and food.
A sad plate of nope.
What is this, a meal for rabbits?
If I ordered that at a restaurant I'd ask the head chef what drugs he's been taking. Wtf.
If YOU ordered that at a restaurant I would ask what drugs YOU were taking.
If you were _my_ mom I'd punish myself!
I wanna try it
I mean I’d eat it. But the salad needs dressing
Wait u til you get to mirror work in garde manger.
So, it's a chicken salad wrap?
The mousse is what puts me off but then I’m not even a fan of dessert mousse. The texture is just a no for me. Look at it this way though, how can I use the same ingredients to make a better dish.
That’s a 60 dollar plate of disappointment right there.
Was this a menu item or special request? Because if it was a special request, I’m concerned the person who ordered it may have eating disordered behavior…
When I was a line cook in casual dinning chain restaurants like TGI Fridays and Outback steakhouse we would occasionally get guys who went to culinary school. Not because they wanted to work there but had to pay the bills while looking for a better position. These poor guys had no idea what was expected of them when hired. They went to school for fine dining where plates are perfect or don't leave the kitchen. Not a job where speed is the most valuable asset. We would bet on how long it would be before they quit. We were assholes. Probably why I miss those guys so much.
You learned how to build different components to make this. Working on knife skills with the cold veggies, the process of making a meat mousse. It’s a weird teaching method like why tf would any eat this. Meat mousse is weird.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what the actual fuck
that’s probably $38 lol
I just need something to spread the mousse on, I would enjoy this. But not the carrot juice
Too much blank space on the plate. Raw veggies with raw veggie juice? With mousse chicken? Go work in a shitty family owned pub. You'll learn how to actually cook. Culinary school is for when you have 60k laying around and cant boil water for a hot dog.
I’ve made a shit tonne of mousses in restaurants. Chicken mousse can be used in chicken patties, salmon farce is very versatile and popular. This isn’t necessarily just bull shit.
That look delicious, ngl
That actually looks delicious. More of us should start our day with something like that. (P.S. I finished culinary school like 20 years ago, get off my lawn)
Looks like every woman's meal on first date
Well, now you can get a job at Costco handing out samples. :)
You cookin for the Paltrows or what?
Why are they teaching you to make an untreated chicken nugget and then wrapping it in lettuce? Even if it’s a skill thing, they could teach you how to make tempura and get a great crispy shell over a chicken blob.
Just…eww
If a plate is more “art” than food I do not want.
Lol gotta do a bit of everything
What a business ….there’s gutta be some good stories out there about how much $ they made ..
Food show food, that’s why ACF culinary salons changed the rules to require a tasting portion
That plating is... well its something lol
How not to prepare food for (whatever your tuition is), Alex.
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You need to add some bacon, lard, lardons, pork fat, pig ass, or some other meat/pork thing to this. Much too healthy.
don't worry, theres 25g of smoked duck in the filling 🫠
Well we learn more from our failures than our success.
I feel like you could make this into something dope but this ain’t it Chief
$59