Under the Table (9 page)

At last we were ready to begin churning out fries like a bunch of line cooks at McDonald's. Once we had enough potatoes cut and soaked, we dried them thoroughly—water must never come into contact with hot oil. Not only do they not mix, but water actually causes the hot oil to “jump” out of the fryer, and all over the kitchen, and sometimes all over an unsuspecting chef. The potatoes must be bone dry before they hit the hot grease, not only for the taste of the finished dish, but also because it might save one's skin.

The best oil for frying potatoes, or indeed any food, is one that has both a high smoke point and a very mild to no flavor. Vegetable oils are a good choice and peanut oil is particularly good. The oil should always be hot before the food to be fried is added—if the oil is not hot enough, the fat will be absorbed by the food, which will become soggy, sopping with grease, rather than ethereally light, with that crunchy texture that makes fried foods so delicious.

The peanut oil filled our heavy cast-iron kettles halfway (any further and the oil would bubble over when the food was added) and was heating on the stove. As Tucker and I wrung out water-logged potato sticks, we kept a wary eye on the temperature gauge, checking it every fifteen seconds or so to make sure our oil was not too hot. Chef Jean had begun the lecture on frying potatoes by instructing us what to do in case a grease fire broke out in the kitchen. His tone was grave, and the spark customarily in his eyes, even when he was berating one of us, was absent. Nothing is more dangerous in the kitchen than a grease fire, as it quickly spreads throughout the hot, confined space of the kitchen, propelled by the wind from the giant exhaust fans. In case a grease fire did actually break out, we should immediately alert Chef, and get as far away from the flames as possible without stampeding like frightened cattle. We were not
to try to put out the fire with water, as nothing exacerbates a grease fire more quickly than some jackass throwing water on it (Chef 's words). We were not, under any circumstances, to be one of those morons. It would look bad for Chef if one of his Level 1 students was the one to burn the school down. In case of a dire emergency (I wondered at what point a roaring fire in the kitchen went from a regular emergency to a dire one), we could attempt to quell the flames with a snowstorm of flour. While flour can catch fire, it is considered to be flame retardant, and would, in mass quantities, work to smother the flames. I tried not to picture the mess that would result from such an incident, especially after the chemical fire extinguishers were triggered and drowned us all in foam.

With Chef 's warning still ringing in our ears, we watched the heavy-duty temperature gauges immersed in the oil like nervous hawks. At last, we had some very dry potatoes, and our pot of peanut oil was just the right temperature. We dumped in a batch, and watched with something close to panic as the oil bubbled up, almost over the blackened sides of the pot, before at last subsiding. I stood with the strainer known as a spider clutched in my hands (which smarted very slightly from a few grease spatterings—the potato sticks hadn't been quite as dry as we had thought), while Tucker stood with a sheet pan lined with paper towels and kosher salt at the ready.

As we watched the matchsticks go from waxy paleness to golden perfection in their second dip in hot oil, our stomachs began to rumble. I hadn't eaten fast food in years, but suddenly there wasn't anything I craved more than one of those little crispy spears. We scooped them from the hot fat and shook them out onto the tray, making great haystacks of fried potatoes, crystals of salt settling gently on their surfaces like snowflakes.

Without even waiting for Chef 's inspection of our efforts, we began to shovel them into our mouths. They were burning hot, but absolutely divine. Soon our salty fingers were scraping empty plates,
and we eagerly began to work the mandolines to create more. We weren't the only ones, either. All around us our classmates wore greasy grins. The lure of fried food suddenly dawned on me—this heavenly lightness, earthy crunch, and satisfying starchiness spoke to some long-buried instinct, the hunter-gatherer gone to the food court. But these potatoes were so much better than the ones traditionally served in little paper sacks or cardboard containers, often only lukewarm and limp. Nothing beats the taste straight out of the deep fryer!

After gorging on what seemed like basketfuls of
pommes frites,
we were ready to undertake the
pommes soufflées
. There is no American cousin to the French souffléed potato, perhaps because there is no way to take a shortcut in its long preparation.
Pommes soufflées
are the only potatoes that require a three-step frying process. The potatoes are sliced thin, less than an eighth of an inch, and then cut into decorative shapes. Unlike other types of fried potatoes, these slices should not be washed and drained before being fried. The extra starch left clinging to the potatoes is partly responsible for their eventual, dramatically puffed appearance.

The potato shapes are fried gently in 280°F oil for approximately five minutes, until the interior has softened. They are then transferred to oil that is slightly hotter, 350°F. The little potato slices will puff up like tiny starchy balloons but should still be very pale, with no color. Next, they are drained, where they will deflate. Just before serving, the potatoes are immersed once again in the hot oil where they will reinflate and turn golden brown.
Pommes soufflées
must be served right away, as they will lose their delightful puff when cool. These potatoes are really the essence of frivolity, meant to amuse the eye and delight the palate, but only for a fleeting moment. From peeling to final immersion in oil, they entail hours of work when prepared in large batches, but are meant for a mere second's enjoyment. This, too, is a very French
truc,
or trick, that serves to constantly amuse and baffle the Francophile gourmand. Because
of the detailed nature of the recipe, Chef Jean demonstrated to us how to perfect the
pommes soufflées
without setting all twenty-four of us at it. We were not yet ready to be trusted, it seemed, with this particularly tricky feat of culinary legerdemain.

It did seem like magic when, from the bubbling fat, Chef produced the perfect little souffléed potatoes, so different from anything we had ever seen, and so different from the potato's humble brown and lumpy beginnings.

The Most Decadent Potato Puree

This recipe calls for a potato ricer, which really does make the final puree much lighter. If you haven't got one, use a masher or a whisk. Do not use a food processor! You will end up with a gummy, sticky mess.

 

4 large Idaho potatoes, washed and peeled (about 2½ pounds)

Kosher salt

1 cup heavy cream

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more if needed

½ cup cream cheese (½ of an 8-ounce package)

White pepper

1. Dice the potatoes into 1-inch cubes and place them in a large pot with enough very cold water to cover. Add salt—the water should taste briny, like the ocean—and bring to a boil. In the meantime, preheat the oven to its lowest setting.
   
2. Once the potatoes are easily pierced with a knife, they are ready. Drain the potatoes thoroughly and spread them out on a sheet pan covered with paper towels. Place in the oven to dry out the potato chunks well.
   
3. Meanwhile, bring the cream to a boil in a saucepan and simmer until it has been reduced by half. Add the butter and cream cheese and blend until smooth.
   
4. Put the potatoes through a ricer and then spread them out once again on the paper-lined sheet pan; place in the low oven to dry briefly. The potatoes should not cook or brown even slightly; they should merely give up any lingering moisture.
   
5. Place the potatoes in a bowl and whisk in gently the butter-cream mixture, incorporating lots of air. The potatoes should not feel dry or mealy, but moist and rich. If they are not quite moist enough,
   continue to add butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Adjust the seasoning with salt, and add a generous grind or two of pepper. If not serving immediately, keep warm in a bain-marie in gently simmering water until needed.
   

Serves 6

T
hough it was as hot as ever, as June slid into July we passed the halfway point of our first level and began to really pick up steam, moving from endless days of dicing vegetables and whisking eggs into omelets to more substantial fare. At last, we were to learn about meat and fish, beginning with poultry.

All birds, whether tiny quail or gigantic turkeys, are built the same way. Legs, wings, thighs, breasts, wishbones. Learn to dismantle and prepare one, and you could handle them all. We were starting out class one morning with a giant, economy-size box of chicken carcasses—chickens are by far the cheapest poultry, not to mention the most plentiful. The stray feather or two stuck to the box was a sign of freshness, surely. But these little pluckers weren't the sort of chicken I was familiar with. Forget the plump, pale yellow skins of the Oven Stuffer Roaster, or the superhealthy pedigree of the organic chickens bought from the Greenmarket in Union Square. These were industrial chickens, and once we had separated them into individual specimens—they came out of the waxed cardboard carton in a solid three-foot-square block—we noticed that some had unique physical characteristics. Ricki picked up a carcass that was missing its left leg—not just the last leg joint and claw, which are always removed at the processing plant here in the States—but the whole leg, up to the thigh joint. Jared pulled out a chicken with an abnormally short wing. But despite the few with mutant defects, most of the chickens were whole, and we plopped them on our cutting boards, waiting for instruction, like first-year medical students ready to open up our first cadavers.

Unless you are killing your own chicken, the specimens available for sale today all have some basic level of preparation already done to them. By the time they reach the store, they have already been trimmed of their head and neck, and as mentioned, the last leg joint and claw have been removed. This is a step that isn't done in other countries, and I remember my initial confusion when looking for dinner at an open-air market in a small village in France. All the chickens looked
different
to me, somehow, and it took me a moment to realize they all seemed to have
very long legs
. Also, traditionally, American chickens' body cavities have been cleaned out and dressed. The internal organs have been removed and the cavity rinsed of any remaining blood and viscera. Depending on the chicken, some of the internal organs, including the heart, gizzard, and liver, are returned to the now-empty cavity. Lastly, the feathers have been plucked, leaving the pale skin intact.

Even with this prepreparation, there are a few additional steps that should be taken to ensure that the poultry will cook evenly and have a beautiful outward appearance. The wings should be trimmed at either the first or the second joint (depending on how the chicken will be cooked). The wishbone is also usually removed, making carving easier if the bird is to be roasted whole, or just to make further dismantling of the carcass less of a hassle.

Now, everything comes down to whether you will be using the poultry whole or in pieces. Whole birds are used mainly for roasting, and whether it is a turkey or a Cornish game hen, all birds cooked whole should be trussed. Trussing ensures that the bird will maintain a compact shape and retain its neatly symmetrical appearance for service. It also ensures that the bird will brown and cook more evenly than if it was left to loll in the roasting pan like a fat man asleep on a beach chair.

There are two ways to truss a poultry carcass: using kitchen twine and a trussing needle, or using kitchen twine on its own. We were to learn how to truss birds with a needle. Chef Jean was
adamant that we were not to learn the shortcuts in preparing anything, including chickens for roasting.

“Even if you have to prepare a hundred chickens, I want you to use your trussing needle on all of them. Practice, and get quick with that needle. You should be able to truss a bird in thirty seconds!” Chef obviously had high hopes for us working in a chicken joint.

I imagined being faced with a whole carton of chickens to prep, truss, and roast every morning, and vowed that wherever I went to work, they would not be serving rotisserie chicken.

A trussing needle is a very handy piece of kitchen weaponry, and can be used not only to prepare poultry for roasting, but also for many other finicky tasks. It is a good eight inches long, with an elongated eye at one end and a flattened point at the other. The tip is flat so that while the sharp point easily pierces through flesh and sinew, it leaves a minimal tear in the skin. And boy, is this needle sharp. I was bent over my chicken, trying to wrestle the wishbone out of the breast without breaking it in two and cutting myself with the razor-sharp bits of bone, thereby introducing salmonella directly into my bloodstream, when I was stabbed in the ass with what felt like a white-hot poker. I am ashamed to admit I shrieked “like a total girl,” as Tucker informed me.

I whirled around and confronted my attacker. To my shock, it wasn't one of the usual suspects—Angelo practicing his version of flirting, or Tucker, out to jokingly sabotage my progress, or even clumsy Junior. Standing before me, brandishing his poultry needle with an incredibly wicked grin on his face, was quiet, unassuming Ben. Ben, who had said less than twenty words in class all semester. Ben, who shared the kitchen island with Tucker and me. I didn't know he had it in him. Angelo or Tucker? Sure. Ben? No way! But the miscreant stood before me, still brandishing his razor-sharp weapon.

“Ben?” I couldn't believe it.

“I gotcha!” he chortled. “You should have seen the look on your face!”

I could only imagine, as my face went redder at the thought of the noise I had let out, like a squealing piglet. And then I suddenly felt a breeze, a breeze that seemed to be blowing right across my bare cheeks. No, not the ones currently stained scarlet with embarrassment, the other ones. I was trying to get a glimpse of the damage done to my chef 's pants when Chef Jean finally intervened. He didn't even have to utter his customary “What zee hell are you doing?” He just grabbed the sleeve of my jacket as I spun around in circles, trying to get a good look at my ventilated ass, and marched me out of the classroom.

“Find a new pair of pants,” he hissed before slamming the door behind me.

I slunk off to the women's locker room, where I used the full-length mirror to survey the damage. Not only was I bleeding from a puncture wound on my right cheek, the speedy exit of the trussing needle had ripped a large hole in the seat. Apparently, the chef 's pants that cost sixty dollars—more than a decent pair of Levi's—were made to withstand little more than grease splatters. Every move I made caused the rip to get wider and wider, leaving a nice peek-a-boo view of punctured posterior. I quickly opened my locker, searching through the drifts of dirty socks and sweaty tank tops for my spare pair of pants. Then I remembered. Like an idiot, I had taken them to the cleaners, after a particularly messy class—only a professional would be able to get all that caked-on egg splatter off. Which is where they still were, no doubt clean, pristine, and of no use to me whatsoever.

I didn't have the technical abilities or the inclination to jimmy anyone else's locker open, and searching through lockers full to bursting with sweaty underwear, old issues of
Gourmet
magazine, and extra measuring cups wasn't very appealing. But I could feel the moments ticking by, and I knew that if I wasn't back at my station soon, not only would I miss out on learning how to properly truss my poultry, but I would be in for a public tongue lashing from Chef. I would have to think of something, quick.

Thank God that at one point in my career I had worked at a totally dead-end office job. While my typing skills never really got a lot of use, and my understanding of the ink-stained inner workings of the copy machine was hazy at best, I had managed to pick up some useful skills. I could use a FedEx packing slip to remove all the cat hair from my cashmere sweater. I could also, with the aid of my trusty Swingline stapler, mend falling hems. This was definitely a fashion emergency of the first order. I fled the locker room in hot pursuit of office supplies.

Clutching my rapidly unraveling pants tightly to my rear end, I sped down the halls and barreled through the double doors that segregated our classrooms from the civilized world of the support staff. We were not allowed much interaction with this segment of the school population, and every office seemed to be occupied by an unfamiliar, unsmiling, and definitely unsympathetic face. Then, around a corner, I finally found a familiar face: Rose, the very pleasant lady who had shepherded us through orientation what seemed like years ago. I hoped she remembered me; I was about to throw myself on her mercy.

“Rose! Hi!” I plastered a big grin on my face, so that she wouldn't think I was totally out of my mind. “You don't happen to have a stapler, do you?”

Rose looked up from her computer screen and, after a moment, connected the name embroidered on my chef 's jacket with our previous encounter. “Oh, Katherine…hello. Er, ah, yes, I do have a stapler. Do you need it? For, er,
class
?”

I snatched the implement from her desk without waiting for her to ask any potentially embarrassing questions. “I'll bring it right back!” I shouted over my shoulder, as I sped away to the bathroom to do a quick repair.

I returned to class triumphantly, just in time to truss. No time to mete out vengeance to Ben, but I kept up a running volley of dirty looks over to his side of the cooking island, just so he knew he
wouldn't be getting away with this, not by a long shot. First, though, we were busy roping flaccid chicken carcasses. All of us were waving our deadly trussing needles, though they were now being used for their proper purpose. Threaded through the eye was almost a yard of kitchen twine—actually unbleached no-nonsense cotton string—and we were ready to begin the operation.

The only problem was, none of us seemed to have the firmest grasp of chicken anatomy. As Chef shouted from his position at the front of the room “STAB! Through the right wing, neck skin, back fat, back fat, neck skin again, and OUT through the other wing! Pull hard!” we stared down at the suddenly uncharted chicken territory before us. I knew damn well which wing was the right one, and neck skin I also had down, but back fat? Which part? How could I see back fat when I was busy petting the thigh of my chicken absently, as if to reassure my patient that this wasn't going to hurt a bit? Thankfully, I wasn't forced to ask the latest in a long series of stupid questions—some other moron out there in the class beat me to it. I was secretly reassured to see that my partner, Tucker, had no real idea of what he was doing either, and though he had taken the plunge (literally) and stabbed the right arm of his chosen target, the bird seemed to be suffering from a mere flesh wound.

Chef seemed to finally notice the sea of perplexed faces staring back at him because he stopped playing cat's cradle with
his
chicken, quickly untied her, and started over, much more slowly, so that the rest of us could catch up.

Once we finally got our chickens neatly pinioned, all that was left was the actual roasting. Led on once again by Chef, soon we were all searing and salting and then slipping our little chickens in the ovens. In about an hour, we each had a perfectly roasted chicken ready for lunch.

As I followed Chef 's instructions for carving my chicken, I was struck with the perfect plan for revenge on Ben. We were using a boning knife, a big curved monster of a blade, and a carving
fork—what my grandfather called a “pig sticker,” a stainless steel fork with six-inch tines of wicked sharpness. Even sharper than a trussing needle. As the prongs gleamed under the bright kitchen lights, I thought to myself that vengeance was mine. Dutifully I cleaved the thighs and drumsticks from the body, and gently sliced down each side of the breastbone to separate the breast meat from the carcass. Then, I sliced each breast in half, one half with the wing bone, one half without. Every chicken was inspected by Chef, to make sure that the chickens were properly cooked, our slices were even, and there were no bits of bone lingering in the meat. Then, it was all ours to eat for lunch.

While everyone was eating, enjoying the fruits of hard labor, I struck. Feigning innocence (not easy for me), I casually ambled over to Ben and Junior's side of the kitchen, the carving fork concealed in the folds of my apron. When Ben turned toward his plate, which sat on his carving board, I struck, jabbing the pig sticker squarely into the seat of Ben's pants. His squeal was music to my ears. While Ben danced around the classroom clutching his rear end, the whole class exploded in laughter.

Finally Ben calmed down and came over. I was bracing for the worst, and eyeing the various knives spread around the room with some trepidation—had I started a war I couldn't win? But Ben was smiling, and held out his hand (the one that wasn't gingerly rubbing his bottom).

“Truce?” he asked.

“Truce,” I answered, shaking his hand.

“Beer?” Ben asked, a twinkle in his eye.

“I'll buy,” I replied.

The least I could do was buy a round—after all, Ben was the one eating crow.

Perfect Roast Chicken

This is the secret to those golden brown, crispy-skinned chickens that seem beyond the grasp of the average home cook: The chicken does not go into a hot oven pale and uncooked. It first must be browned in vegetable oil in a hot, hot pan. Even better, if you have the time to let your chicken sit overnight in the fridge without its wrapping, the skin will dry out and be even crispier when roasted.

 

1 chicken, preferably organic and free-range (about 3 pounds)

Kosher salt

1 small onion, roughly chopped

1 stalk celery, roughly chopped

1 medium carrot, peeled and roughly chopped

Freshly cracked pepper