As we began this class for the semester, we started tasting and learning about basic ingredients. This week, the topics were various dairy products and eggs. Chef Mark, who is new to Northern Arizona University this year, brings in a lot of fresh and unique ingredients for us to see and to sample. Often times he goes about this by setting out a bunch of unmarked items and my fellow students and I go around and taste these things and guess what they are! Here is the dairy version of this exercise:
So, when you look at this picture it just looks like milk. And milk, and milk, and milk. I will be completely honest, I probably thought half of the bowls were filled with milk (which should reveal how well I actually did on this exercise). The bowls present--a lot more than shown here--were filled with everything from 2% milk, to crème fraîche and sour cream. I will say I am proud of the fact that I was able to correctly identify things such as buttermilk, half-and-half, and goat's milk, but I cannot really say how many of these things I got wrong (quite a few, whoops!).
After Chef revealed to us what all the contents of these bowls were, I returned to the front of the kitchen to re-taste and commit to memory the things that I missed! With any luck if I ever have to identify dairy products again I will do much better than I did here. After all the milk that wasn't really milk was cleaned up, Chef began to tell us about eggs. First, he showed us the differences in appearance of a fresh egg, and a not-so-fresh egg:
After Chef revealed to us what all the contents of these bowls were, I returned to the front of the kitchen to re-taste and commit to memory the things that I missed! With any luck if I ever have to identify dairy products again I will do much better than I did here. After all the milk that wasn't really milk was cleaned up, Chef began to tell us about eggs. First, he showed us the differences in appearance of a fresh egg, and a not-so-fresh egg:
Obviously if one of your eggs smells awful, you already know that it's not fresh. With any luck you don't get to that point of discovery, I apologize if you do. If you hover over the photos, you will see that the egg on the left is labeled 'Fresh Egg'. This is because, as I have learned, the white is firmer and makes that oval-shape around the yolk. The not-so-fresh egg's white is much more runny and is losing it's gelatinous shape (if that makes any sense at all).
Shown here is the Chalaza, which is shown because
1. That is a really cool word, Chalaza
2. I've always wondered what that was. You know the little white string-thing that is attached to the yolk inside the egg? It's called the Chalaza. It's apparently like the umbilical cord of the egg and holds the yolk centered.
3. It is a really cool picture.
Shown here is the Chalaza, which is shown because
1. That is a really cool word, Chalaza
2. I've always wondered what that was. You know the little white string-thing that is attached to the yolk inside the egg? It's called the Chalaza. It's apparently like the umbilical cord of the egg and holds the yolk centered.
3. It is a really cool picture.
Our final act of the day was an actual act of cooking (yay!). When I discovered we were going to be poaching eggs, my initial reaction was great excitement, and then fear. You see, I've tried many times to successfully poach an egg and failed. Many times. Chef Mark told us to bring a pot of water to just below simmering (about 180 degrees Fahrenheit) and slip the egg slowly into the water using a small bowl. After about 5-10 minutes, we were to remove our eggs and see what had happened. Here is the process and results:
So I finally learned how to poach an egg without ruining it! Be proud Dad. I finished off class that day with a wonderful poached egg snack, which would have been much more enjoyed with hollandaise sauce and a slice of canadian bacon. Ah well, I'll take what I can get.