The Silpat

The Silpat is a non stick baking mat that is made of a silicone material that is often used for baking, it's widely used in the industry and one of my most used pieces of equipment. The Silpat is manufactured by a company based in France that was founded in 1965 by a man named M. Guy Demarle. The silpat is used world wide from home cooks to 3 Michelin stared chefs. The Silpat falls into the category of a product because it can be bought and sold. M. Guy Demarle was looking for a better way to make baguettes at the time and created the first no stick baguette moulds and from that he created the original Silpat.I think its an important kitchen tool because of its versatility, from breads to cakes, to polenta, when its used the product comes out much better. Not only dose it make the product better but it also saves you time because its easy to clean and helps prevent burning food witch in return can help save money as well. This product has affected me in such a positive way, when i was interning I had to bake cakes on a regular basis and the Silpat always helped my cakes come out clean and not burned, other than that example I use it almost on a daily basis and it gives me an extra sense of security when baking.  

Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian

Being a vegetarian isn't as straight forward as you might think it is. there are many variations and personal choices people make that can differ their vegetarian  diets from on an other. For this week I chose to be a lacto-ovo vegetarian, that means that other than eggs and milk I would not consume any other animal by-products. This is a fairly common diet among people in India, and since im of Indian decent i thought i would give it a try. 

lets start by talking about a typical day for me in terms of the foods i would eat.

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs on a toasted English muffin topped with sautéed portabella mushrooms and sprinkled with fresh chives.

Lunch: Vegetable biryani served with cucumber ratia .

Dinner: Black chickpea curry served with roti, salad and mango pickle 

Recipe for  Open Faced Breakfast Sandwich

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

20 g sliced mushrooms of your choice

1 english muffin

15 ml 2%milk

25 g unsalted butter

3 sprigs of chives 

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. In a small sauté pan melt 10 g of butter and add in sliced mushrooms, cook on medium heat until mushrooms have released most of their moisture and reserve

2. in the same pan add remaining butter and add in the eggs that have been beaten lightly with the milk. Add salt and pepper,stir constantly until you have reached your preferred doneness

3. Toast english muffin and top with eggs, mushrooms and freshly sliced chives.

Next let me tell you about my daily experiances throughout the week.

Day 1: Today was the day I started my lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. The only other experience I have had with a diet that resembles this is a lacto vegetarian diet I did for a couple of month in 2013, at that time it was very hard for me health wise so my doctor recommended I go back to my regular diet. I started my day with some cereal and milk and a cup of coffee, I had cucumber sushi for lunch witch was extremely unsatisfying and just left me craving real sushi. For dinner I had sagg (Indian spinach dish) and some roties.

Day 2: My friends and I decided to go out to a pub since it was half off wings, at my favourite wing place. I had an order of onion rings and was kind of sad that I couldn't have any wings. My friends weren't very supportive and kept taunting me the whole time we were there.

Day 3: I had a really satisfying breakfast sandwich witch had eggs and mushrooms in it, it was really yummy. I found myself thinking alot about what I could eat that would leave me not wanting more. I got my dad to cook me up some vegetarian briyani with cucumber ratia, it was good but could have used some chicken.

Day 4: Just had coffee in the morning. All day i was craving a bacon poutine, sadly I have 3 more days of this. For dinner I had dall (lentil soup) with steamed rice

Day 5: I had to taste my food in lab (chicken liver parfait) so i think I've broken the rules of the diet but I'm going to continue to follow it to the best of my ability.

Day 6: I had a super fresh croissant from the local cafe and it made me really happy and gave me hope for this diet. I tried to get vegetarian sushi again this time but opted for the yam this time... it was somehow worse than the cucumber roll. For dinner I had an Indian squash dish called tinda sabzi with roti and yoghurt, it was really spicy so I didn't eat to much of it.

Day 7: Being the last day I thought it would be a good idea to make something that I've never tried. I made fresh pasta with a mushroom and leek cream sauce. This is a recipe from Gordon Ramsay's YouTube channel and it turned out okay, it was lacking in flavour I think. 

Final Thoughts: It was really hard. I was thinking of meat the whole week and was just daydreaming about what I would eat the second it was over. I also started thinking about people who don't have the luxury of eating meat whenever they please. Even though I'm of Indian decent and a lot of Indians are vegetarians I don't ever think that I could be a vegetarian for more than a couple of days at a time. I think for a chef to be a vegetarian would be difficult considering that they would have no choice but to taste the food there making 

, for a chef to be able to do this would have to work in a vegetarian restaurant in my opinion. I think I could follow this diet but first I would have to gradually eat less meat rather than going cold turkey.

  

Lamb Chops

The cut of meat I have selected is lamb chops. The reason I chose this cut is that the meat from this cut is both extremely tender and flavourful when prepared correctly.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/02/raw-meat-mono-diet-nutritionists-comment

Lambs are domesticated farm animals and are believed to be some of the earliest animals to become livestock. The terms lamb is used for sheep that are under one year of age, Sheep older than one year are commonly refereed to as muttons. 

http://www.clovegarden.com/ingred/as_sheepc.html

 The lamb chops are cut from the back area refereed to as the rack, behind the shoulder but in front of the loin. The Lamb chops are often sold as a rack of about 6-8 ribs and are best when cooked whole. Lamb chops are quite pricey I looked on line for a grass fed lamb and found a farm that is selling a rack of lamb for about $53.00 per pound, this is extremely premium meat and I am sure that tastes wonderful but the usual price for a non grass fed rack would be around $26.00-$32.00 per pound. The best way to this would be a quick sear on the to lock in the juices and then to cook it to a medium rare, anything over medium doneness I believe would ruin both the texture and flavour of the meat.

Gordon Ramsay has a great lamb chop recipe that show cases the flavours and the techniques stated above.

Lamb Rack recipe

Channa

I chose to make channa for my soup because I'm trying to learn more about home style Indian cuisine. I had a really good time making this soup because I was learning to make it from my mom,

Ingredients:
1 lb dry white chick peas (soaked over night)
3 L water
200 ml vegetable oil
1 tbs cumin
2 1/2 heads of garlic roughly chopped
3 white onions diced
3 tbs finely diced ginger
5 small tomatoes
6 green chilies finely chopped
salt to taste
1 1/2 tsp red chilly powder
1 1/2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp gram masala
1/4 bunch fresh Coriander

Method: Start by rinsing soaked chickpeas and placing in 3 liters of water in a pressure cooker and approx 2 tsp of salt. while chickpeas are cooking make the tharka. Heat oil in a deep wok (kadhi) add cumin and toast for approx 1 min or until fragrant. Add in garlic and fry for approx 2 minutes or until very lightly browned, add in onions and saute for approx 8-10 mins or until golden brown. Stir frequently to avoid burning. Once onions are golden brown add in ginger and cook until onions have browned completely. Add in tomatoes and fresh chilies, and approx 1 1/2 tsp of salt to break down tomatoes. Continue to stir, cook on medium high heat for approx 7-10 mins or until tomatoes have broken down. Add in spices and continue to cook for 5 minutes. Once chickpeas have fully cooked add tharka into the chickpeas (do not throw away cooking liquid from chickpeas). Continue to cook together  for 15 minutes on low, adjust consistency by adding water. season to taste and garnish with fresh coriander once completely cooked. Serve with roti.

Before cooking 

Frying garlic

Sauteing onions and garlic with cumin

Add in ginger at this point

Fully browned onions

Adding tomatoes and chilies

Fully cooked tharka

Adding tharka to cooked chickpeas

Done

Served with roti

I was really happy with the way this came out considering it was my first time making it. The smell from it was amazing after adding the fresh coriander it had turmeric coriander smell. It was nice golden reddish colour with speck of green through out. The taste was slightly spicy with hints of ginger and coriander but it could have used a bit more salt according to my father. Texture wise the broth of it was quite runny and the chickpeas were cooked but not mushy.

The biggest challenge for me was getting the chickpeas fully cooked, after i opened the pressure cooker they were still raw so i had to continue to cook them for 20 minutes. Overall it was a success, but if i had to do something differently I would soak the chickpeas overnight. My family liked it, but my brother said it could use a bit more spice and my dad said it could have used some more salt.

I definitely feel more confident making Indian food, making dall has a similar processor to this, I believe I will be able to make many types of dall now

Fermentation

I've chosen to do an Indian style plain yogurt also known dhai. I started with 500 ml of whole milk, I then brought 250 ml of the milk to a boil and poured it back into the remaining cold milk. I then got about 5 ml of yogurt with live cultures and and mixed it with equal parts water and about half a gram of sugar, after stirring  the sugar water yogurt mixture I poured it into the milk and gently mixed it. I then covered it and let it ferment over night, the next morning I placed it in the fridge and it this point it was ready to consume. This is my dads recipe so all credit goes to him. I think this was a very successful attempt the texture was nice and smooth, the taste was just slightly sweet but not over powering, it smelt like every other dhai I've ever had and it was nice and white in color just as intended. I wouldn't do anything differently but I might try and add some flavor to it next time, maybe some honey or maple syrup.

Cold milk

Boiling the milk

final product with fresh strawberries and honey

Sugar water and live cultures mix

Red Wine Tasting

This week in class I had the opportunity to taste red wine for the the first time to be more specific it was a Chateau Ducla Bordeaux Superieur, France.

When i first took a sip of the wine all i could think of was how bitter it tasted and nothing else, but once I got over the overwhelming first sip and started to think about the flavors that were really there, I was presently surprised. The first thing that I noticed was the sweetness of the wine, it wasn't overly sweet but sweet enough to balance out the bitterness of it. I didn't really get any salty flavors and only a bit of sourness right at the end. Going in to it i had smelt it before drinking it and it had quite a earthy aroma and tasted how i envisioned it when I smelt it. As for the appearance it was a beautiful dark red almost purple colour, When I smelled it it kind of reminded me of a damp wood smell. I really liked the taste of it and the only thing that I could really compare it to is organic grape juice witch makes a lot of sense considering it is just fermented grape juice. The mouth feel of it was pretty neat, it made my mouth feel sort of dry and a slightly numb feeling. I wouldn't go as far as saying it was very unique flavor, but for me it was the first time I had red wine so it was a unique experience.

I will defiantly be drinking more red wine in the future, I really enjoyed the intensity of the flavors. I learned that I shouldn't judge on the first taste (pun not intended) and I should try and think about the flavours  of the food and drink instead of just eating and drinking to fill my stomach.

  

About Me

Hi everybody!

My name is Rajat Ram and I'm currently enrolled in the culinary management program (H116). The reason I chose to go to culinary school and become a chef is because it has been my life long dream to one day become the owner and head chef of a restaurant. My passion for food started when I was very young, I loved watching the food network, my favorite shows were the ones that showed not only the food but the culture of the people who cooked it as well. My dad has been a professional chef for over 30 years now, he has had multiple restaurants and worked in many kitchens across the globe, I like to think that one day I could travel and cook my way around the wold as he has done. I worked for my dad at his restaurant for a couple of years and this past summer I worked for Christine Bib Catering as a prep cook. I am not currently working but I still cook a lot at home, I love to try and make foods from around the world but I mainly cook Indian food because that's what my family likes to eat. Food is love. That is my personal food philosophy, I love the way food can bring people together, I love how many different styles there are, I love the way it can instantly make you feel better, I just love every thing about it and there is no other way I can describe it FOOD IS LOVE. I think by sharing our food blogs with each other we can really start to understand each others food personality's.      

"The chef that grew up with the grandma who cooks tends to always beat the chef that went to the culinary institute. It's in the blood."

Gary Vaynerchuk

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/chef.html#6jKhXzzrI0HfIqr8.99