Day 1 Journal
From the very beginning of class I was able to tell that this was different from the rest of my culinary labs this year. It was tough waking up at 5:20am to be in class by 6:00am, but once we started class I was fine.
We then had a demo in which we learned how to cut a whole chicken a certain way. We first cut airline chicken breasts which still included the bone. Chef said the reason it can be cut that way with the bone in is for plate presentation purposes. We also cut off wings, legs, and thighs. We did a few of those cuts with each chicken and then we had another demo on more chicken cuts. This time we had to cut boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and boneless thighs. I was kind of surprised to debone a leg. Whenever I think of chicken legs I always picture someone eating it right off the bone, not boneless. I enjoyed cutting up chicken because it is a great protein to work with and is very versatile when being prepared in a kitchen.
Last but not least, I was glad I learned how to use the vacuum packing machine to seal up all the meat. I thought it was interesting how we had to seal it and then label it by product and weight. There was also a price on how much it costs by weight, just like in a grocery store. Besides the fact that I was freezing the whole day, it was a great first day of class!
Day 2 Journal
Today our lecture was all about beef. I learned quite a few things, like the grades of beef. Unlike yesterday in which the grades for poultry are A, B and C, the grades for beef are prime, choice and select. Prime and choice are grades that are most often used in restaurants. Something else that stands out to me in the lecture we had was about Kosher and Halal beef. I honestly didn’t know what that meant. Chef told us normally cows are stunned in the head and then the throat is cut. Kosher and Halal beef doesn’t have the cow stunned but just has the neck cut off. They want the least amount of blood lost as possible. Only the front half of the cow is used for these kinds of beef.
Production today was with chickens again. I learned how to truss a chicken, which I was pretty happy about! I want to be able to roast chickens at home, now that I know how to. We also worked on more cuts. We cut a double lobe of chicken breasts. After it was cut, it looked like a heart!
Day 3 Journal
Today during lecture we learned about more cuts of beef. We might have learned yesterday what the round was but now I know that’s at the leg of the cow. Since we are learning more and more about meatcutting, I‘m starting to familiarize myself with what names go with what parts of the animal. Hopefully by the end of this class I’ll be able to pinpoint what cuts of meat go with which part of the body! We also watched a video about a beef meatpacking plant. It was very descriptive but not gross. The video showed all the steps that go into beef products, ranging from herding the cows to hanging them to release all the blood, to cutting them open to packaging them. It was interesting to also learn all the by-products of beef and the many uses it has outside of the food industry, including pet food, soap, medicinal uses, and much more.
Production was very cool today, both literally and metaphorically. Chef started out by cutting all different part of the carcass on the band saw and started giving us all a piece of meat to work on. He had us debone and cut off fat and silver skin. The part of meat he gave me first was top sirloin. It only had one bone so it was easy to work with. The second part I was given was from the round, which is right next to the sirloin on the carcass. During the second cut of meat I was working on my hands started to get numb. I was afraid I was going to cut my finger without even realizing it! I ran my hands under warm/hot water if it got bad.
Day 4 Journal
To start off, the lab was extra cold today. As soon as I walked in at 6:00am I was chilled! We learned about veal today. It’s a lot like beef but some of the classifications and grades are different. The definition is a male dairy animal (females baby cows are used for their milk) of less than 4 months of age and up to 375 pounds. The other two kinds are market/average veal, which we use in class, and special-fed or formula veal. What I didn’t know about when cows are kept in barns is that the reason they are kept in the dark is because animals eat more in the dark, so they will gain more weight. This results in a better end product!
We got a whole side of veal shipped to us for production today. I was given sirloin to fabricate and after that I cut up part of the leg. The reason I cut it up was to get all the meat off it and then it was to be grinded. Instead of having it all grinded, I cut it up and packaged it as veal stew meat. That part of the animal must’ve been less-tender therefore would be great for stews.
Day 5 Journal
Lamb was the meat we worked with today. All the other times we had all parts of an animal but they weren’t together. Today, we had a whole lamb carcass! The only part that wasn’t on the carcass was the head, thankfully.
Chef did a demo on how to break it all down. He then gave us different parts to fabricate. Paige and I were given a chunk of meat to make Denver ribs. We made a marinade for that and I’m sure Chef will cook that up for the class tomorrow! After that, the whole class had to fabricate a rack of lamb. Chef showed us the proper way to do that and then we gave it a try. I was happy with how mine came out. Like I never knew what went behind making that look so appealing, but now I know! Then for cleanup I was put to work grinding the meat. I was happy to grind the meat because that was new for me. Now I know how to set up the meat grinder and to push the meat and/or fat through twice, which makes for a great product.
Day 6 Journal
This morning, at 6:00, a whole pig was lying in front of the class. It was definitely a wakeup call. I have seen a whole pig since when my family did a pig roast this past fall. When we did that I was really grossed out, but being in meatcutting has made me less scared or disgusted of raw animal parts.
For production today, I had to cut off spare ribs, leaving some meat on the bone. With the rest of the meat that I cut off, I trussed it for a roast. It was cool learning how to truss a roast. I did not know how to do that until today. Now when I’m home I want to practice and make a pork roast for my family! I got a good amount of practice trussing because I had to do that for three different roasts. I always watched, but never extracted the tenderloin. Today I did that and was happy how it came out. I tried not to waste too much meat and if I did, it went into the grinding meat, which I worked with today. Pork seemed easier to grind than lamb was yesterday. It’s a good job besides that fact that it takes a long time to process the meat and fat twice.
Day 7 Journal
I was happy to be in class today because I love to eat fish and it’s great to know how to work with fish and make fillets out of a whole fish! In the beginning of class we learned a lot about fish in the lecture. There are two structures of fin fish: round and flat. A round fish would include salmon and a flat fish would include halibut, which we worked with today. I didn’t know that flat fish have both eyes on the same side of the body! That surprised me for sure. A flat fish has four fillets, two on each side of the body, while a round fish only has two fillets, one on each side of the body. The way we received the fish was drawn, which means the insides were taken out but everything else was still attached. It’s weird to see the fish with both eyes and mouth open. They look mad when they are just lying there on the table.
Chef did a demo for us and showed us how to fillet both the halibut and salmon. He then showed us how to skin them. When we went to our benches he gave every student one halibut. The halibut was pretty easy to work with, except chopping off the head. The bone was really tough to get through. But filleting was easier than I thought. I was expecting the flesh to be slippery and hard to work with, but the knife went right through and worked out well! Chef gave us the salmon already with its head chopped off and body cut in half. I worked with the easier half and had to cut out the ribs and take out the pin bones. The pin bones were a pain, especially without a nicer tool other than a paring knife. Once I got the hang of it, I was fine and was enjoying myself.
For clean-up I did the grinding of the excess fish. The grindings were turned into little fish patties that were flash frozen and then vacuum-packed. One student in the class made blackened salmon with some of the fish we worked with. It was so delicious; I could’ve eaten the whole plate. Luckily, I was able to stop myself because we were about to go to the dining room for lunch.
Day 8 was sausage day! The whole class was split up and worked on certain sausages, including chorizo, breakfast sausage, hot Italian sausage, two kinds of bratwurst, and a few others. I was with Laura and we made Baravian bratwurst. The meat was already ground up for us from previous days so we had one less step than other groups.
Our sausage was made with 7 lbs of ground veal and 3lbs of veal fat. We mixed that all together with spices such as mace, salt, pepper, sugar, coriander, ground caraway seeds, and marjoram in a stand mixer. We also added shaved ice to it so when it melted it gave the meat the right consistency and kept it cold. While that was happening, Laura was working on the casing for the sausage, which was pig intestines.
After that, we used a big machine that makes sausages. While Laura cranked the lever to push the meat out, I was guiding the meat into the casings. Once the sausage was at its desired length, I quickly twisted it and then kept going to make sausage links! We then had to poach the sausage and it was ready to eat, or packaged up for later use.
The last day we had our practical. It was very simple, doing basically what we learned on day one with chicken. The hard part of my last day was the identification quiz. We were given pictures of meat and we had to identify the animal and the name of the cut. It was difficult for me. The main thing is I’m happy to be out of that cold room! My next class is a cooking class; Food Service Production. It should be nice and toasty in there!
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