ACE Class Report # 86 : Culinary Art Part 2, Professional Chef
Begin: 1/6/2025
Finish: 3/24/2025
Title: Culinary Art Part 2, Professional Chef’
Instructor: Culinary Institute of America
Why I choose to take this class:
To learn about the different types of cooking, preparation of ingredients and methods of cooking.
What I learned from this class:
Types of Cuisine:
The cuisines (cooking styles) of many culture begin with ingredients traditionally available in a particular region. Certain combination of ingredients forms the foundation of a particular cuisine. For example, Cantonese cuisine, make much use of scallions, garlic and ginger. Greek dishes often include garlic, olive oil and oregano.
Preparation of Ingredients:
Many ingredients must be prepared before cooking. Some fruits and vegetables must be peeled. Cooks may remove the skin, bones, and fats from meat or shell from seafood. Cooks may also cut ingredient in a variety of ways, including dicing (cutting into small cubes) and mincing (chopping extreme fine). The size of the pieces helps determine how fast they cook, as well as texture of the finished dish. Many cook season food with salt, spices and herbs before cooking. Ingredients must be prepared with safety in mind. Fruits and vegetables should be rinsed to remove any residue from soil and chemicals. Raw meat may contain disease causing organism. Proper cooking usually kills such organism. Anything that meat touches can also become contaminated. They can prevent food-borne illness by using soap and hot water to wash their hands, along with any surfaces that was touches raw meat. Practice good hygiene when working with food.
Methods:
Heat can transform the flavor an texture of ingredients. Browning meat and other ingredients involves complex chemical reactions. Fruits and vegetables contain sugar that caramelized when browned. The reaction in browning protein produces many new chemical compounds and gives it new flavors and aromas. The browned bits of food that sticks to a pan are called Fond, a French word meaning bottom. many sauces make use of the rich complex flavors of fond. Browning can only occur at temperature above the boiling point of water which is 212 degree F. However, cooking at high temperature for too long removes moisture, turning the food dry and chewy.
Cooking With Dry Heat:
Involves exposing food to hot air. As the air moves around the food surface, its heat is transferred to the cooler food.
Roasting – Traditionally involve cooking large pieces of meat – or even whole animal – over an open fire or in a hot oven. Roasting meat or vegetables in a high temperature oven – above 400 degrees F causes the food to brown quickly. But it also dry out food. Cooks sometimes brown meat then finish it in a lower temperature oven to moisture inside.
Baking – similar to roasting, usually refers to making breads, cakes, cookies and pastries. Some dishes that are baked in the oven. Lasagna, whole potatoes and squash.
Grilling and Broiling – Expose food to intense, direct heat from an open flame, quickly browning and cooking it. Grilling usually involves an outdoor gas or charcoal grill, with flame below the food. Broiling, uses a heat source above the food.
Cooking With Fat:
Uses oil, butter, or other fatty substances at high temperatures. Hot fat transfer heat to food more efficiently than hot air does. Cook use oil more than butter because butter starts to burn at a relatively low temperature.
Sauteing – Is cooking food in a shallow pan – such as a skillet – coated with small amount of fat. Moisture quickly evaporate, the food can brown. Crowding the skillet with much food prevents browning because not enough moisture can evaporate. Cooks often saute large cuts of meat first to develop browning than finish cooking in oven. Some cooks coat food in flour or bread crumbs before sauteing, adding texture. After sauteing, cooks add small amount of liquid to the hot pan and scrape up the fond. This process, called deglazing, is used to create flavorful sauces. Sauteing is similar to stir-frying. But cooks typically stir fry in a wok.
Frying – involves cooking food in large amount of fat than sauteing. Fat must be 350 degrees F or hotter. If fat is not hot enough, the food may absorb too much of it, becoming greasy. In pan frying, fill a shallow pan with fat halfway up the sides of the ingredients. The ingredients are cooked on one side then usually flipped to cook the other side. In deep frying, submerge entire ingredient in a pan fill with fat.
Cooking With Moist Heat:
Make use of hot water or such water-based liquid as broth or wine to heat foods. Water can only gets as hot as 212 degrees F which is too low for browning food. But moist heat method can heat food more gently for longer periods.
Boiling – Cooking food in rapidly boiling water. Cook pasta, broccoli and peas. usually salt is added for flavor and to boil at higher temperature. Meat is generally not boiled it can become tough and chewy.
Simmering – Cooking in liquid that has reached boiling point of water but not bubbling vigorously. Use to boil rice, potatoes, poaching eggs and stews. Simmering breaks down stringy connective tissues in tough meat, making them tender. In some stews, meats are first sauteed to develop flavor from browning. A Fricassee is a light colored stew often made with veal or chicken, typically without browning the meat. Braising is similar with stewing, but the ingredient are only partially covered with simmering liquid.
Steaming – Cooking food with water vapor and it does not brown food. Food typically placed on a rack or pan with holes so only the steam touches the food. Steaming can preserve nutrients that would leach out in simmering or boiling-steaming for vegetables, dumplings and pork ribs.
Other Cooking Methods:
A Latin American dish called Ceviche uses acid from lemons, limes and other Citrus fruits to cook seafood.
Microwave Cooking – Inside a microwave oven, food is bombarded by microwaves. Moisture inside food absorbs the energy from microwaves, turning to steam. This process cook food quickly, without browning. People use microwave to heat beverages, leftovers and frozen food.
Vacuum Cooking – Sous-vide cooking of food in sealed plastic pouches. These pouches are submerged in warm water, cooking the food slowly gently. It preserve the food’s flavor and moisture. But some microorganisms, such as bacteria that cause food poisoning botulism, can survive in a vacuum.
How will this class contribute to my success upon release:
Culinary classes will help me tremendously as it will allow me to work or volunteer in the food industries. The knowledge learned from this culinary class together with my ServSafe Certifications will allow me to work an volunteer in communities that serves food.
