Culinary school: Just cut, don't think

Day 9: Wednesday, June 23, 2010

I sheared strips off my potato wedge in swift movements, trying to shape it into a bullet. We had to form four cocottes, or 5-centimeter long potatoes, in roughly 20 minutes— an exercise Chef X made us do when we were done with our food preservation lesson. I dropped my first cocotte in a bowl filled with water to prevent the potato from turning brown. I buzzed away on my second one.

The day before, my classmate Henry had given me some tips on how to do tournage. It was all in the thumb, he explained. As I held the potato wedge in my left hand, I had to turn it down with my right thumb so my knife could make a curve on the potato. The shaped vegetable had to roll on the cutting board. If it didn’t roll, then I would have a difficult time browning the potato on all sides in a sauté pan.

Henry and I practiced slicing and dicing an onion and carrot. Gillian, my partner in class, had told me I needed to hold my knife against the knuckles of my other hand. I found I cut a lot straighter after that since my knuckles supported my knife.

As I watched Henry cut the carrot with ease into cubes and sticks, I realized I thought way too much when I cut my vegetables. I had kept trying to do a “steam-train” motion, making sure the tip of the knife stayed on the board as it slid through a vegetable. But that’s hard to do when you’re cutting a large onion. I just needed to cut and not think about it.

In class, when I held the potato wedge, I shaved off potato strips without trying to be perfect. My goal was speed.

Chef X walked to our station.

“How are you girls doing?” Chef asked.

“Better,” I said.

“Show me,” he said.

My shoulders tightened as he stood next to me, but I focused on cutting my third potato. It looked like a fat bullet and I was trying to get rid of an uneven cut.

Moments before, Chef had warned the class not to cut away too much or our potatoes would be too thin.

“Stop,” he said.

When I lowered my arms, he had already disappeared. I dropped the cocotte in water. I formed my last one.

“You have two minutes!” Chef X said.

I was already done. I grabbed my shaped potatoes and my scraps and stood second in line.

“Good,” Chef said. “See? You will never forget how to do this.”

Henry came up as I headed back to my station.

“Look!” I said, holding up my potatoes and grinning.

“They look good,” Henry said.

Class went well that day. Gillian and I had made a brandade, salt cod mashed with potatoes. We had spread the brandade on croutons—small bread slices that had been dried out in the oven. We drizzled olive oil over them and garnished them with minced parsley.

When we presented the brandade appetizer to Chef X and Chef L, Chef X took a crouton and drove a knife through it. If the crouton were soft inside, he would have yelled at us. But his knife made a crunch as he cut a piece for Chef L and himself.

“Good,” Chef X said after taking a bite.

“Mmm,” Chef L said. “I really like that touch of olive oil.”

Gillian had worried about how much olive oil to drizzle on each crouton. It was just right.

We took bites of the brandade-covered croutons back at our station. The brandade was very salty because of the cod. But it was delicious, especially with the heavy cream and the olive oil mixed in with the mashed potatoes.

I took the dish home as if it were an award.
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Other posts:

FAQ about Culinary School posts

Why I'm going to culinary school
Panic before my first class at culinary school
Day 1: Who said cutting vegetables is easy?
Day 2: Cutting, boiling and sauteing vegetables in 35 minutes
Day 3: Culinary class leftovers
Day 4: The dreaded Tournage
Day 5: Making Stocks
Day 6: The Salt Experiment
Day 7: Emulsified 
Making my own hollandaise sauce
Day 8: It just gets worse