a meaty mystery

It's the end of an era. I realize that normally eras last longer than seven weeks, but I feel like using the term nonetheless. I am proud to say that I am now officially Serv Safe certified - an important certification to have when working in commercial kitchens - and I survived my final day of culinary classes with my sanity and a smile. My day was complete with much needed celebratory drinks and dinner with my supportive fiancé that evening. But let's start at the beginning of the end.

We finished off our culinary lessons with my favorite meat of all - steak. Bring on the red meat! Apparently I have less of a problem with bloody meat if the whole thing is red to begin with. Our tasks for the day also included a roast with pork butt and a few slabs of ribs. Well, that was the assignment at least. Due to a mistake by a group of pastry students playing culinary for a few weeks, the most expensive roast ever braised was made in our school's kitchen on Saturday. Here's the start of the roast - any guesses on what kind of meat this is?

If this was really pork butt, then piggy got back. Sir Mix A Lot would be proud. Due to a misunderstanding, a few students grabbed a huge slab of what should have been our New York strip steaks and braised it like it was pork butt. By the time Chef was looking around for the missing red meat later, it was much too late. We had prepared the tender red meat Mexican style by braising it with a bunch of blackened vegetables, tomato paste and spices and wrapping it up with banana leaves before sticking it in the oven for most of the day. Here's the costly result.

The good news is that it was still a delicious piece of meat and made for some amazing tacos, but my mouth is still a little disappointed from the lack of a medium rare steak passing through my lips on Saturday. The ribs made me feel a little bit better about the whole thing. We prepared them with a peppery Mexican style marinade and grilled them for a bit before sticking them in the oven a few hours. They were worth the wait.

Then it was on to our practical exams. First, we had to complete our knife skills practical and slice up a potato into julienne and batonnet cuts. I did well on this and definitely feel like my knife skills have improved over the last seven weeks. Next up was potatoes anna. We were able to use the mandoline to slice up our potatoes. A side note of happiness: the mandoline is now one of my favorite kitchen tools. Easy to use, nice thin slices and less chance of cutting my fingers off - what's not to love?

My potatoes anna turned out great and I give most of the credit to the mandoline. Oh mandoline, you are my new BFF.

At the end of the day we took our written exam and then I hung up my culinary kitchen hat. I enjoy cooking at home, but I'm glad my savory days in the school kitchen are over. Actually I have a small break from the school kitchen while I focus on a term of food math and purchasing. Don't worry - I promise not to post pictures of fractions. I am going to take this time to bake at home and will still be sharing happiness with you every week. Yeast cinnamon rolls are on the list...any other tasty ideas?