How to cook when you don't know how: READ!

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
Yesterday was gorgeous here in Seattle.  Because we do get so much rain and clouds, the sunny days are precious and everyone does their best to soak it all in.  I love that about Seattle.  I took the opportunity to walk through the arboretum, and it was simply lovely.  To celebrate the sun and Summer Solstice, some people in my building hosted a BBQ.  And guess what?  Jamie finished his garbure and brought it out to the potluck party!
 
We finally ate the garbure!!!  That means it actually got finished, hallelujah!

Yesterday, while I was at Lily's soccer practice, Jamie put the finishing touches on the soup/stew all by himself.  When I arrived home, I sunk my ladle deep into the garbure and served myself a hearty bowlful.  The flavors were rich, with a depth that I did not expect from a chicken broth.  I think it was from the initial step of cooking the broth with all those veggies and then straining to reserve the flavor without the added bulk over overcooked veggies.

Bravo, Jamie!  Well done!

I asked Jamie some questions about his first cooking lesson and here is what he had to say:

• Read the recipe completely.  Prep your ingredients before starting to cook.  Read the recipe again.
• Now I understand what you have said before, that if you can read a recipe, you can cook anything.
• Reading the recipe was extremely helpful, that cookbook is really well written.
• I made the mistake of reading about blanching when I was needing to do it, instead of reading it ahead of time.  I would be more prepared, and read through the extras that are referred to in the recipe.
• Like everything in life, you gotta be prepared.  To have a good gig, you need to practice.  To paint a house well, you need to be good at the prep work.  To raise kids, you have to...wait?  Who knows how to prepare for that one!

I am guessing Jamie think reading the recipe is a good idea.  Don't ya think?  

I also asked Jamie what he thought of me as a teacher.  Since, I recall him having some apprehension over my skills in that area.  Here's what he had to say about that:

• She was very sweet the first night.
• The other nights, she was hands off, but there when I needed it.

Sounds like I didn't do too bad after all!  And neither did he.  

Maybe tonight we'll be back in the kitchen, if that chalkboard stays empty.  Indian?  Lasagne?  Enchiladas?  What do you think we should tackle next from Jamie's list?

Recipe: Spring Vegetable Garbure

Tired chef, adoring wife.

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
After nearly a week, the garbure is going to be finished today!

Jamie was cooking all night last night, and everything is ready to be assembled and warmed to a delicious eating temperature.  I have to admit, I did give him quite a challenge for his first cooking lesson.  Thomas Keller has a way with taking every ingredient and lovingly shaping it to the culinary perfection it was grown to be.  And what that translates to in our tiny kitchen, is loads and loads of pots and pans all going at once, all over the place.  Add in the tater tots I had to cook when I realized we were having yet another garbure-less night, and our kitchen was a gorgeous chaos of food!

Here is the long awaited recipe...adapted, of course, form the amazing cookbook Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller.

spring vegetable garbure
3 tablespoons of canola oil
2 cups thinly sliced carrots
2 cups chopped leeks
2 cups coarsely chopped onions
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
parchment paper
8 cups chicken stock (we used "Better Than Bouillon No-Chicken")
1 pound of mixed baby potatoes
2 sachets
2 culs oblique cut carrots
1 teaspoon agave nectar
8 oz. pencil thin asparagus
1 cup English peas
1 cup thinly sliced green beans, cut on a diagonal
1 small head of cabbage
2 cups cooked cannellini beans
Champagne vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
Flat leaf parsley

English peas, or fava beans?
I have no idea because I did not mark the bag,
and they both looked exactly the same on the inside!

Heat the canola oil in a 8-10 quart pot over medium heat.  Add the first 2 cups of carrots, leeks, and onions, and stir to coat in the oil.  Season with salt and pepper.  Lay the parchment paper (loosely cut to the size of the pot) down over the vegetables, pressing it down so it rests on them. Cook, lifting the parchment lid and stirring occasionally, for 30-35 minutes. Remove the parchment and discard.

Add the stock and increase the heat to medium high.  Simmer for 20 minutes.  Strin the broth into another pot and discard the vegetables.  (We saved them for use in another dish...maybe in a marinara cause I was thinking.)

Meanwhile, halve the baby potatoes and place in a pot with 1 sachet and 2 teaspoons of salt, cover with water and bring to a simmer.  Cook until potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes.  Drain and spread on a tray to cool.  Discard the sachet.

Put the oblique cut carrots, agave, second sachet, and a pinch of salt into a medium pot, cover with water and bring to a simmer.  Cook for 5 minutes, or until carrots are tender, but slightly resistant to the tooth.  Drain and discard the sachet.

Bring a large pot of salted water (1 cup of salt/gallon of water) to a boil.  Prepare an ice bath.  Meanwhile, hold the asparagus and bend to break each piece to remove the tough bottom end.  Trim all of the asparagus to the same length and cut into 1 inch pieces on the diagonal.  Working in batches, blanch the asparagus (1 minutes), green beans (2 minutes), cabbage (until tender) and English peas (1 minute).  Using a fine mesh strainer, place vegetables in the strainer, set into boiling water and remove when bright green.  Immediately after removing, place into ice bath and then on a towel to dry.

Bring the broth back to a simmer.  Add the carrots, potatoes, cannellini beans and stir in the vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, bring the soup to a simmer, add the blanched vegetables, and warm to desired temperature.  Remove from heat and serve, drizzled with olive oil and garnished with parsley leaves.

What's next???
Hear from Jamie in my interview with him on what he learned during our first cooking lesson...
And find out what I though of his finished product!

Jamie's in the kitchen!

Ran across this magazine while shopping for the class,
how appropriate!

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
I was determined to have the cooking lesson with Jamie last night.  Even though the gig he said was on Wednesday, turned out to be on Thursday!  The very night of our first lesson!  You know what?  He totally erased my marks on the chalkboard and wrote "Gig" in the same spot.  Oh no you don't, Jamie.  If his gig ended at 8:30pm, then our cooking lesson would begin at 9:00pm.

The lesson for "Spring Vegetable Garbure" began with Jamie reading through the recipe I had chosen.  After the first time through, he walked out of the kitchen looking bewildered.  I wan't quite sure if it was from the recipe or how late it had become.

Getting the goods.

"There were like four words that I have no idea what they are," said Jamie.  Yes, I supposed it was the recipe after all.  "Blanch, sachet, render?  What?" He shook his head.

I recommended he read it again and use to the cookbook to find out what those things meant.  The way the cookbook is set up, as many good cookbooks are, is there are notes referring you to other pages for resources or definition on what possible new terms might mean.

We started with sachet.  We found a recipe and an explanation for its use in the back of the book.

"Sachets are used to flavor cooking liquids.  A cheesecloth sachet encloses small herbs and spices such as peppercorns and cloves, and works like a tea bag.  Once the contents have added their flavors to the cooking liquid, the sachet can easily be removed and discarded."

What a good slicer!

The contents of our sachet were as follows:  1 bay leaf, 3 thyme sprigs, 10 black peppercorns, and 1 garlic clove, smashed. We made up two of those and moved onto some veggie chopping.  Keep in mind, it is around 11pm at this point.

Jamie was starting to fade, and his conviction to finish the soup before falling asleep was absent at this point.  I totally thought we could get it done, but didn't want his first lesson to wipe him out completely, so I obliged his desire to call it a night after copping the carrots and the leeks.

I demonstrated each cutting technique for the veggies; carrots thinly sliced, carrots cut obliquely and leeks chopped. Then Jamie set off to cutting.  His technique was spot on, but his slices were a little thicker than called for.  But, as I told him last night at the kitchen counter...better to have the technique down and to work on getting thinner.  That comes with practice and time.  The oblique cut was a new one for me too, and so we learned together.  The leeks went smoothly as well, I just made sure he knew that they can be quite a dirty vegetable, and you want to get all of that out so your whole soup isn't gritty and ruined.

Just look at that technique!

Before he was finished with those tasks, my younger two had awoken and need shepherded back to bed.  It almost goes without saying that I never got back up, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out for the night.

So, although, we will not get to Lesson Plan 2 tonight since we will be finishing Lesson 1, we will have worked in two nights of cooking class this week.  And I am very thankful for that.  I can't wait to try the finished product tonight! We only have 6 more veggies to cut and blanch and quickly get into an ice bath...not to mention assembling the whole soup and broth situation.  And I didn't forget the bread...maybe I'll go get that started for him now.

No, no, no.  That's exactly what I do, I step in to "help" and in doing so, take away his ability to learn.  I will not do that this time.  Even if we do break bread way past dinner time.