Thursday, May 28, 2009

The Cooking with Class Story

Chef Frank Terranova M.C.F.E.

The Cooking with Class Story

It is my pleasure to share the story on how the cooking segments known as “Cooking with Class” (CWC), seen on NBC 10, came to be. The whole thing started when Barbara Morse came to Johnson & Wales University (JWU) to shoot a little food segment, and I just happened to be at her disposal. The school asked me if I would like to do some tapes for Channel 10. They said it would be about a years worth of work, so I agreed. Well, in June of this year it will be our 14th year. Time flies when you’re having fun! LOL! It has been great so far. First of all, I’d like to clear up something:  I don’t work 2 minutes per day as some of you might think!  At JWU I have 15 courses that I teach during the school year. CWC is an extra responsibility for me outside of the classroom. What people really don’t know is that it’s all student-driven and mostly by culinary students. This is how it works:  first we develop the recipes. Then the student with the most seniority who knows the routine sets up the show’s taping order. Most people think it’s a professionally set up show. All of our equipment such as the pans, china, utensils, ovens, and dishes are owned by Johnson & Wales University. The University is totally behind the fact that we do this, because it gives the students an opportunity to earn student wages and still learn. The most asked question I get that viewers want to know about is what happens to all of the food. Well, the camera guys enjoy a few tastes, but most of it goes back in the kitchen. To a college student, receiving all the extra cooked food is like having an extreme benefit package! We have a list of students wanting to work on CWC, but we can only have six at a time.

Each student usually picks out a recipe they want to prepare. They go over it, discuss it with the supervisor (in this case, Linda, who is a pastry student), understand it and sign off on it. While Linda makes sure all five segments for the week are lined up, the student sets the completed plate to be photographed and is completely responsible for the set up of each segment. Maddy (from our Communications and Public Relations Department) keeps me on a strict time schedule, but I usually don’t listen anyway!  LOL!  We usually tape between 15 and 20 shows in one day.  If there are 15 shows or segments, then there are 30 prepped dishes. One is already prepared (that’s the one I show you at the end of the segment), and one I prepare on camera.

Along with this comes the cleaning of the TV kitchen which is one of the best in New England. We have a gas stove top; grill; steamer; inset fryer; two ovens which can bake, microwave, and dehydrate food; a combination oven which can steam and bake simultaneously; and a pizza oven. The Amphitheater, where we tape, can seat 175 people in auditorium-style levels. It has built-in TV screens and ceiling projectors which are used for visiting chef demonstrations, so it has two valuable purposes. Our recipes on CWC reflect the idea that people enjoy cooking for their families and friends, but without cleaning out their wallets. All the recipes are tested three times prior to the public being able to download them. We on CWC are very proud of what we do, and my students have a tremendous amount of pride in their work.  Many of them have gone on to work for culinary magazine companies, or become executive chefs and dietitians. Two actually did their co-op with the Food Network. As of now we have approximately 4,000 cooking/pastry tapes. We have the best of the best in our faculty who make their presence felt on the show. Everything we have used from day one comes from our own labs, such as the pastry and bread labs. As far as NBC 10, they have been nothing less than wonderful and very complementary to myself and the University. Just for the fun of it we do the NBC 10 Turkey Hotline each Thanksgiving. You have probably seen us on the phones; we handle over 500 calls in the three days we do this fun event. I see many people outside of school in stores while they are shopping and they are all great to chat with. I have figured out in the years that I have been doing the show that usually a loaf of bread equals about an hour of cooking questions! I think we have sent recipes to 75% of Rhode Islanders. I even received an email from a woman from Colombia telling me she downloads our recipes. Well, I just had to explain how our little segment on NBC 10 has impacted the use of our recipes. And that brings me to this last bit: as of January 1, 2009 through April 1 2009, the web hits for recipes hit 80,995. And that’s only in the first four months of this year! Not bad for a little state and a major culinary university. So hopefully I have made heads or tails of our segment and how it works.

As always “That’s Cooking with Class”.

Friday, May 22, 2009

The American Lobster

Chef Frank A Terranova M.C.F.E.

The American Lobster

I don’t know of anyone who dislikes lobster:  whether it’s boiled, stuffed, baked or whatever. It’s indisputably tasty, but lobster has a rather unsavory reputation. Lobsters have been called cannibals, aggressive fighters and scavengers.

The reputation is only partly deserved. Cannibalism- especially the eating of soft helpless lobsters that have just molted (or shed their old shell) is common among lobsters kept in crowded conditions such as an aquarium, but it appears to be uncommon in nature. American lobsters are aggressive and will fight for possession of rocky cave shelters. As for their diet there is no evidence that lobsters are primarily scavengers. They eat mainly live food, small crustaceans, and mollusks.

Interestingly enough lobsters, crabs and shrimp constitute the order known as decapods. As the name implies, all decapods have five pairs of legs. There are two commercially important families of edible lobsters. The American homarus americanus which have one pair of large claws and are found in the northern Atlantic Ocean. The spiny lobsters also called rock lobsters lack large claws and have spines all over their bodies. They live in tropical oceans.
Did you know what makes lobsters turn red? Live American lobsters are usually greenish olive or green-brown, though dusky orange and even blue lobsters are sometimes found. Diet, heredity and exposure to light all affect a lobster’s color. The major pigment in a lobster’s shell, astaxanthin, is actually bright red in its free state, but in the lobsters shell astaxanthin is chemically bound to proteins that change to a greenish or bluish color. When lobsters are cooked, heat breaks down these bonds, freeing the astaxanthin so that it reverts to its normal red color.
There are very few lobster hatcheries. One I know of is in Bar Harbor, Maine. Lobster was an expensive luxury but now, with controlled harvesting, they are to the point of being easy to access and the prices are excellent. I, for one, go to the boats where the lobsters arrive fresh from the ocean; I prefer not to go to a fish tank in a store because they are kept in a salt-like chemical which controls their PH and actually flushes the lobster’s body of that sweet, salty taste. So take a nice drive to Galilee down to the docks and purchase the freshest lobsters. When you cook them you will know right away why they are a true fine New England treat.
So I will order mine boiled, maybe lightly stuffed; or maybe a nice lobster roll with fresh homemade mayo, with chopped fennel instead of celery.  If I grab a bib and lots of butter, make sure you sit well away from me because this could get messy. Also there isn’t anything that beats a smooth, rich lobster bisque. With my love for hot dogs it may become a face off between lobster vs. hot dog.  Wonder who will win?

As always that’s “Cooking with Class”. 

Monday, May 18, 2009

How Much Salt do we Need

Chef Frank Terranova M.C.F.e.

How much Salt do we need?

Here we are in the food business. As chefs, we make a living at making food taste great. What is the secret ingredient to make these little dishes taste so good? Well it’s the number one used seasoning/spice we have:  salt. One of the problems we have now is that all prepared foods contain massive amounts of salt. In most cases we are used to it. Just take a stroll down the snack aisle in the supermarket; it’s the largest section in the store and totally salt-ridden. But this isn’t the problem:  it’s the food we consume that is either prepared or from restaurants. In this sagging economy, restaurants have to keep lowering food prices to attract patrons.  This is usually done by the fast/casual food places. The more salt used, the cheaper the product is to compensate for lost flavors. McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Burger King all advertise food items as low as 89 cents.  But if you consume them, the sodium total will scare you.

Here is a good way to reduce salt consumption without sacrificing taste. Use a seasoning that contains no sodium or small amounts of sodium and use it to replace regular salt. You can do this for anyone with health concerns when flavoring foods. Salt substitutes are available but they are just a chemical addition to food. Here are a few tips to flavor and reduce salt consumption. Dry herbs mixed together work well. There is a product called Mrs. Dash’s savory seasoning. It’s a pretty good product and when added to food, it gives a nice savory addition to the dish without the salt. Seasonings to use are cayenne, summer savory, dill, basil, lemon or lime juice and zest, paprika, coriander cloves, and thyme, just to name a few. When combined they will give a savory flavor to foods. However, since each person has a different taste and sensitivity to various flavors, these salt substitutes may provide varying degrees of acceptance as a replacement product.

As we continue to evolve in the flavor of food it’s the simplest thing to remember:  moderation, moderation, moderation.  Sounds easy, huh? HMMMMM. Wonder if it works..?

As always “That’s Cooking with Class”.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

The Debate Rages

Chef Frank Terranova M.C.F.E.

What is true BBQ

The Debate Rages
What is True BBQ?

The debate over the origin of the American barbecue is one that will probably never be resolved. By defining barbecue as a process by which meat is slow cooked over a low fire with smoke opens up the history of barbecue to prehistoric times.
First of all, let’s separate grilling from smoking. While they may appear similar, the equipment and techniques are two very different ways of cooking. Grilling is a hot and fast cooking process. And while you can get the introduction of smoke and fire, you don’t get the same results that you do from smoking. The smoking of foods is a slow process, sometimes taking more than24 hours to complete.
Now while people will refer to cooking a steak out on the barbecue, buying a new barbecue grill or attending a barbecue where hamburgers are served isn’t a barbecue. THIS is grilling.
Moving forward to nail down what true barbecue is, it’s time to look at the regional variations. In Texas we have beef that is partially brisket. In the Carolinas we find pork, either whole hogs or pork shoulder. As you start to move towards Kansas City you will find ribs which are generally pork, but beef isn’t unheard of. Out in western Kentucky you will find mutton. The thing that all of these traditions have in common is low cooking temperatures over a long period of time and the introduction of smoke to flavor and tenderize. They all start out as a tough cut of meat and end up as a tender pull-apart delicacy.
Let’s look at the different cuts of meat in true barbecue.
Brisket:  Usually Texas style. Once you have tried this cut properly cooked, its one of the best tasting cuts of beef you’ll ever have.  It’s also one of the toughest pieces, but when cooked properly it’s tremendous.  Especially when served with lots of thick smoky BBQ sauce.
Pulled Pork:  Probably the original American BBQ. This delicacy was enjoyed by our founding fathers. Slow smoked pork from either the whole hog or selected cuts become so tender it is pulled apart by hand, dished up on simple white bread or buns, and topped with a vinegar sauce.
Ribs: This is the most popular form of barbecue; you don’t know what you are missing until you’ve had them the traditional way. There are many variations on how ribs are smoked but typically pork ribs are cooked in whole racks and served up with the thick sweet/tangy barbecue sauce.
Believe it or not in olden days you could have been lynched for misspeaking about barbecue! For the sake of this conversation you need to know the difference between eating barbecue and attending a barbecue. If you have not been to a true barbecue then you owe it to yourself to go out and find some, because when it’s cooked right it will melt in your mouth. I have been to some of the best barbecues in the USA as a corporate chef for a major smoke house company.  I have sampled it in Texas, Kansas City, Memphis, St Louis, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, just to mention a few. It’s too bad that here there are not any really good places to have real barbecue. Even though many places advertise it in New England, it’s just not the real thing.  You could compare it to trying to find a really great Maine lobster dinner in South Dakota. So hopefully you will research and create your own barbecue.  Just one last reminder: “long and slow is the way to go”.  Make sure you have plenty of chilled beer and have a blast.
As always “That’s Cooking with Class”.  