Coq au Vin and Week #3 Culinary School adventures

CULINARY SCHOOL: This week's Culinary School class covered French cuisine. Our teams had to make Coq au Vin, Ratatouille, and Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin in a little over two hours. The textbook recipes are just a springboard for us to dive into creative interpretations of the dishes. So, one team made their ratatouille in an innovative fashion--towers of the grilled vegetables that would normally go into a classic recipe, piled high and topped with a tasty tomato sauce. I made ratatoille cooked in butter and served with a harissa sauce of chili, garlic, salt and olive oil. (note: see Feb. 24, 2010 entry for recipe).
Teammate Kyle made his awesome Coq au Vin (the recipe below is my own tried and true home recipe) that wowed the other student judges. It's bit hectic getting one's dish prepared in the intricate dance of a commercial kitchen with a dozen chefs weaving past each other to get to the stoves, ovens and sinks, so there was no time for me to get his exact ingredients but the potatoes were braised in a separate cream sauce and the chicken was nice and juicy. Our team won a Gold Medal again this week! My favorite dish out of all the class dishes was Marguerita's version of the Tarte Tatin. She formed individual tarts with melt-in-your-mouth pastry and plated them with brandied whipped cream--top notch!

TAMA'S COQ AU VIN WITH ROASTED POTATOES:   
2 small roasting chickens cut into eighths
approximately 1 cup flour
1/4 tsp. thyme, in two parts
1 tsp. marjoram, in two parts
1/2 Tbsp. garlic salt
1/4 lb. butter
3 Tbsp. cognac
1 dozen pearl onions, peeled
1 dozen button mushrooms
2 cups dry red wine
1 bay leaf
ROASTED POTATOES:
1 dozen fingerling potatoes of approximately the same size
spray olive oil
2 tsp. dried parsley
1/2 tsp. ground rosemary
Arrange your oven racks so you can accommodate a baking sheet and a heavy, lidded pot (like a Dutch oven). Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Mix the flour with 1/4 tsp. of the thyme, 1/2 tsp. of the marjoram and the garlic salt. Dredge the chicken parts in the flour (discard any leftover flour mixture). Melt the butter in the pot over medium heat then brown the chicken on all sides. Pour the cognac into a separate bowl, then into the pot (not directly from the bottle to the pot) and flame it by lighting it with a long handled match or bbq lighter--be careful not to get burned as the cognac will suddenly flare up for a few seconds. Add the pearl onions, button mushrooms, red wine and bay leaf, then stir, cover tighly and put in the oven.  To make the potatoes: peel and tourne them, if you want a more French presentation, or leave the skins on for the vitamins and mineral nutrition. Spray with olive oil and sprinkle with the parsley and rosemary. Place on an oiled baking sheet and put in the oven an hour after the Coq au Vin went into the oven. Turn the meat over in the Coq au Vin pot so the meat is braised in the juices evenly. Continue baking the coq au vin for another 45 minutes, turning over the Coq au Vin once more and the potatoes once during that time. Remove the potatoes when they are cooked through and lightly browned. Serves 6-8 people. Pair with the 2005 Curtis Heritage Cuvée.
For a more elaborate recipe using mirepoix and no flour--see 10/18/11 post.

FOOD POISONING AND FOOD SAFETY:
To take the "Modern Food: Design and Theory Class",  I'm required to take Food Safety which is everything you didn't want to know about food borne pathogens. (it would be so much easier to still believe in the "ten second rule")
Test your knowledge:
1. what is FAT TOM?
2. can you safely eat a baked potato that has been on the counter all day?
3. if you cook fish thoroughly, does that mean it can't make you sick?
Basically, there are bacteria and viruses everywhere--in the air we breathe, the water, the soil. They normally don't cause problems because our immune systems can destroy them if they enter our body, but when our immune systems are weakened or the pathogen population has proliferated, then we get sick. FAT TOM is an acronym for: Food, Acidity, Time, Temperature, Oxygen and Moisture. Pathogens thrive when the PH balance is neither too alkaline nor too acid (PH between 4.6 to 7.5); when the temperature is between 41 degrees (refrigerators are below this) and 135 degrees;  when there is sufficient moisture (over 85% is optimal for growth) and when there is oxygen (though botulism can grow without oxygen in food such as garlic/oil mixtures and improperly canned food). Time is a huge factor. For instance, Salmonella won't grow much for the first two hours poultry or dairy is at room temperature, but after that, Salmonella growth is explosive and the population will be doubling every 20 minutes. After four hours, foods sensitive to Time and Temperature pathogen growth should be thrown out! Not all foods fall into this time and temperature sensitive category--for instance, crackers are alkaline in PH and low in moisture, so they don't foster pathogen growth. Uncooked rice is similar--but cook rice (adding moisture and changing the PH) and it becomes vulnerable. Fish, ground meat and chicken are particularly dangerous if handled or cooked improperly because their meat is porous, allowing bacteria to move into the center parts. Slabs of beef, such as steaks, are dense. If the outside is cooked to a temperature high enough to kill bacteria (as on a grill) then the inside can safely remain rare (ground beef has to be cooked to an internal temperature of at least 140 degrees).

Fish is doubly problematic because it can harbor parasites. I think of the years when I used to go out fishing with my boyfriend and make ceviche from our fresh catch. Even the lime juice and salt won't kill the parasites on the interior parts of the fish pieces. I'm so relieved I never had the symptom mentioned in the textbook: coughing up worms! One interesting bit of information is that Japanese sushi fish is always flash frozen then rethawed to avoid parasites. Sushi bars in the US are often owned and run by non-Japanese who have not been trained well. I'm half Japanese so I recognize Korean sushi chefs (most Americans can't tell the difference). I've even seen a Hispanic sushi chef and when I queried him, heard what I was sure of from the outset--that he was never trained in the Japanese method. In Japan it takes years of training, sometimes ten years, before an apprentice can move up to making sushi--in the meantime he makes the rice and learns from the master how to inspect and treat all the ingredients so no one contracts a parasite or illlness. I never eat sushi unless it's from a Japanese chef I trust. Anyway, toxins in seafood cause illnesses like Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning. They're not bacteria or viruses but substances created by bacteria or by the fish themselves or by the algae they have been eating--they can't be smelled or tasted or cooked out. The only way to avoid these toxins is to buy fresh fish from reputable sources who buy from fishermen working in unpolluted water, something becoming more difficult in this stressed planet. Buy good quality food from reputable sources, keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot. And never pick up food from the floor--your shoes could have stepped in dog doo outside and tracked a trace of it onto the floor that's too small to be seen by the naked eye--drop something that picks up the Hepatitis A and pop it into your mouth? I don't think so!
Links:
Center For Disease Control: Food borne illness
USDA Food Safety: Clean, Separate, Cook, Chill
*the most complete and organized site for Food Safety: TLC Food: Food Safety Tips