Course #2 Sauces, Stocks, and Soups

This is class is a complete turn-around from my previous class. I’m actually learning the basics of what I was cooking in my previous class! We used plenty of sauces, stocks, AND soups in that class plus so much more. Now in this class it is all about perfecting the simple things.

So! I made a soup last thursday with my group. It was cream of wild mushroom soup! I prepared the roux (a thickening agent made with melted butter and flour whisked together) so the soup would become thick. We added stock to it, but it wasnt thick enough so we had to add more roux. Eventually it came out nice! Our chef actually had a bowl of it after my classmate had him taste it because he thought it tasted good!  I was proud. Then yesterday my group made a split pea soup. It tasted alright. I’m not the biggest fan of split pea soup but I liked how it was presented!

I also was glad I got to be a part of making the beef stock. We had A LOT of leg bones and had to roast them to get all the fat off. We put the bones in a huge stock pot after they were in the oven and roasted the mirepoix (carrots, onion and celery) seperately in the fat. We deglazed it with red wine and added it all into the stock pot. Then cold water and a boquet garni was added to the stock and left to simmer the whole night.

I’m coming to realize how much all the culinary classes work together. We borrow stocks to other classes that need stocks to prepare a dish, we receive bones and trimming from the meat cutting class for our stocks, my class dines in a dining room and get served from a front of the house class that is working on proper serving at a fine dining restaurant, and they are serving food from a french cuisine class!

We also receive rolls in the beginning of our meal which I’m assuming is from a Baking & Pastry class. Dessert follows the meal which is also from the Baking & Pastry class. I feel like my class gets the biggest benefit from all of this because all we have to do is get served and eat properly! I do want to take pictures of some of the food I’m being served like Escargot, Caviar, or the beautiful desserts they present us with, but I don’t think that would be very proper. I’d probably get in trouble. But anyways, it does not feel like class at all! Fine dining for 9 days. I feel like I’m cheating with being a college student…I mean aren’t college students supposed to have a horrible diet and want home cooked meals? Not to brag or anything but I say I have it made. At least for these 9 days.


By the way, these are some knife cuts I made. For the final we need to have these perfected! We’ll see how that goes!