Essential Skills 2 Vegetables - Blanching, Steaming and Sautéing

The feel of Friday was in the air once again. Everyone had a skip in their step, especially Chef. He began the morning by passing back our written final. I got a 100! I think everyone did pretty well. We went over the test, and then he told us all to get in our aprons and hats and come into the kitchen. He started giving everyone random tasks like: "cook this bacon," and "crack a flat of eggs;" "cut up some baguettes, grate some cheese." Then he said "Do you guys see what's going on here?" We were all a little confused, thinking were supposed to start vegetable cooking this morning.
"We're making breakfast. I'm hungry," he declared. This made some of the boys in our class very happy.

It felt like a class party. As everything was being set out, a couple of pastry angels came in with fresh apple muffins. It became a joint party with the class next door! We had a great breakfast, mixed it up with the pastry class (no pun intended) then began our first lesson on vegetables.

I learned more today about cooking vegetables than I have in all my years of cooking.

Chef had pots of water boiling, each with a different additive. Alkaline (baking soda) in one, lemon juice in another, salt in the other. It was so interesting to learn what all the different type of vegetables needed to cook properly, retain their color and stay tender.
All my life I have blanched green beans in salted water thinking it would add to their flavor. Wrong. Salt water will make them tough. I always wondered why it took so long for them to sauté after I had blanched them.

We made cabbage turn blue, green beans turn dingy. Cooked and sautéed cauliflower and brussel spouts. (The troublesome and unpopular vegetables.) After properly cooking these vegetables, he finished them off with a quick sauté, creating some wonderful little sauces as he did this. Quickly and effortlessly.
The cauliflower was perfectly roasted, after a quick blanch in acid to retain its white color (instead of turning yellow) then finished by sautéing in a little butter with some caramelized onion, pear vinegar and toasted pine nuts. Delicious.
It was like Chef was just playing with different vinegars and seasonings, and just happened to create these beautiful sides of vegetables in mini Beurre blancs. Effortless.

He sent us off to kitchen with a challenge to come up with the best cabbage dish and best cauliflower dish. We worked in teams of two. We could use anything we found in the refrigerator. He gave us 30 minutes.
We all had a ball. He blind tasted them all them gave us his reviews. Laurie and I did well with our cauliflower but created a pickled cabbage with some leftover jalapeños from breakfast that came out way too hot! We almost made it work.
It was a fun day.

Goodnight.