Cooking Lesson #2

Yesterday, I had my second cooking lesson from Trudy ever! I learned how to cut a roasted chicken and a raw chicken (small incisions/little sawing motion). They use different boning techniques. It's much easier cutting a roasted chicken because it basically falls off the bone, and you could technically use just your fingers. For raw chicken, you have to use small incisions/little sawing motions to gently separate the thigh, drumsticks, and breast sections. Trudy said she suspected I'd be good at that part since I was so good with the tomato rose last time :). I like the cutting part since it's kind of relaxing in a way. You're totally focused, but in a nice way. You also have to break the bones at several places and cut ligaments. You trace the line of the muscle to cut the sections. The raw chicken really makes you aware that you're using meat because it really resembles a chicken (that may seem like a no-duh, but hey).

We made roasted chicken breast, chicken soup, and chicken stock. I practiced my cutting skills from my last lesson on leeks, carrots and parsley. To make chicken soup, you start with olive oil to give the soup a nice, full, rich mouth-feel. You can add butter to raise the smoke-point (when supposedly smoke starts appearing from the pot), and it adds flavor and richness b/c of the fat. Then you can add leeks or onions (leeks are just milder than onions) and saute them (get them brown). Next, you place the chicken thigh and wings (with the bones. you can take the bones out later) in the pot with the skin down so that the fat can come out and add nutrients and flavor to the soup. Trudy adds a box of chicken stock for flavor, although some people find that redundant. Then 1/2 a box-full of water. You just need to cover the chicken and other ingredients in the pot. Then you let the soup reduce a bit, by leaving the lid of the pot a little open. You can add carrots and celery and other ingredients too. We were going to add parsley at the end. Trudy doesn't add salt because you can do that at the end when you're trying to figure out what the soup needs. I'm glad I learned how to make a good, basic soup! Mom says it tastes perfect- rich, full-of-nutrients, great :).

We made roasted chicken breast and put parsley under the skin. Trudy says that chicken breasts (especially boneless, skinless chicken breasts) get really dry because they have no covering or anything juicy around them, so she always leaves the skin on to keep the breast moist. You can always take the skin off later. You can tell when a roast chicken is done in several ways. You can use a thermometer (it should be 165 degrees), or press the tip into the chicken breast to see if the liquid runs clear (no blood so it must be cooked. if it is pink, it needs to be cooked longer), and feel that it is tender.

I also learned how to make salad dressing. Dijon mustard is a great emulsifier (so oil/vinegar don't separate. But if it breaks, then start over and emulsify a lil then add more and more in). You can also use agave honey and lemon and other ingredients. Trudy says the rule of thumb is 1 part balsamic/vinegar/lemon, 3 parts olive oil/other oil (oil rounds out flavor. Learning to make salad dressing is great b/c it helps you refine your palate. We start with the mustard. We purposely started w/ too much vinegar so I'd have to figure out/taste how to balance the dressing with the agave honey. There's a spike in flavor when we tasted it because of the vinegar. We could taste the sourness of the vinegar, and needed to round it out with oil. Now I can take what I learned from fixing salad dressing to other things in cooking like for soups! The basic question is: What do I need to add? What can I do to balance this out?

Great lesson--thanks Trudy!