Spring break off from school. Our homework from Chef Gary was to cook. Try new recipes, stretch our comfort zones out, challenge ourselves.
So far, I have made French onion soup, which had a deeper brown color to it than the French onion A and I made in class. Then, I made chicken soup, and it tasted like chicken soup is supposed to taste like. That's a nice step forward for me, making things that taste just like they are supposed to taste. Used to be I'd make something and try to create an original taste or texture. Now I just want to show due respect to preestablished flavor profiles and execute flavors as they are meant to taste.
Chef Porter said that our goal should be to learn how to cook correctly, then learn how to cook correctly fast. I think learning the established flavor profiles is part of correct cooking.
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A chef I work with at WFM always says, "We don't need to reinvent the wheel," when she has a new team member trying to change delicious established recipes.
ReplyDeleteRight on. One of my chefs, Chef Gary, keeps hammering home that the old greats already did the hard work for us - how'd they invent these great sauces, great pastry ideas, execution -- and we just have to learn how to follow their directions and make them. Later on we can experiment, but even then we'll find that our experiments build on the classic profiles and ideas.
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