TUESDAY!

Hey everyone,

Today with chef Emma we finished our moist heat cooking methods and went on to our dry heat cooking methods. First thing we got to do was my personal favorite method, Braising. Before we started cooking we all watched a demonstration on a dish called beouf burginone. It is a classic french dish composed of stewed beef chunks marinated in red wine, mushrooms, bacon, pearl onions, and herbs. If anyone would like a recipe I can post it (it takes 2 days to prepare)

BROWNING OF BEEF IN BACON FAT FOR BURGINONE


After this demonstration we also watched a braised short rib demonstration with 2 variations, One braised with stock, and the other with just water. Also in the braise was red wine, mirepoix, thyme, and tomatoes.

SEARED SHORT RIBS FOR BRAISE

Both of these processes took 2-3 hours so before i talk about the taste of those recipes ill go on to discuss what I personally made while waiting (rather impatiently because they were so tempting)

So we had the option of brasing either short ribs or chicken legs. I chose chicken legs with some inspiration of seeing marsala wine on the shelf. Here was my recipe:

Maple Marsala braised Chicken (this one got me a high 5 from Emma)

2 Chicken Legs
1/2 onion medium dice
1 small carrot medium dice
1 stalk celery medium dice
3 cloves garlic halved
2 sprigs thyme
1/2 c. marsala wine
2 C. Chicken stock
1/4 c. maple syrup (i used grade B)
~2 T. Lemon Juice
2 T. Buerre Manie (uncooked roux 1 part butter or fat and 1 part flour kneaded together)

Season your legs with S & P then sear in a hot pan. Reserve on the side. Add mirepoix and cook until slightly browned. add Marsala wine and reduce until au sec. Add maple syrup and chicken stock and thyme. Bring to a simmer, then add back chicken, cover with fitting lid, and place in oven at 300 degrees for 1 hour. Once finished remove from oven, remove chicken pieces, and add lemon juice to taste, s & p to taste, and buerre manie to thicken. Make sure you add enough lemon juice to give some sharpness to the dish so its not overly sweet.
MY FINSIHED CHIX WITHOUT SAUCE

While this was going me and two others were put in charge of making some fresh pappardelle pasta to eat with the burginone while the rest of the class was tasked with mashed potatoes. I got to use my pasta machine again! that has been proving very valueable at school. (Everything we cooked today we would eat as our lunch) Any way I mixed up the dough and then rolled out one sheet of pasta, cut it and passed the rest over to the others in the class. once the pasta was rolled out It was cooked and then it was tossed with butter, salt, pepper, and fresh chopped parsley. It was a perfect accompaniment to the heavy braise. The short ribs were amazing, they fell apart in the pot, on the fork, and in my mouth. Their sauce coated my whole mouth and made my stomach very happy. The Burginone was also incredibly tender, and the red wine sauce surounding it was delicious, sweet, savory, and very rich.


UNCOOKED PAPPARDELLE

Once all of our braises were done we all went upstairs into the dining room with our food, and ate our Spread (Emma says this now since I said the word smorgesbord was funny with a british accent.)

MY PLATE (BURGINONE)

MY PLATE (BURGINONE, SHORT RIBS, CHICKEN)

Thats all from frost bitten Montpelier,
Love,
Saul