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My Culinary Adventure
By Courtney Wright

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Table of Content
Lentil Ragout with Greens & Pasta Salad Wonton Salad & Pear salad Green Bean Jicima Salad & Caesar Salad Wonton Soup & Hot and Sour Soup Spicy Dan Dan Noodles & Jelly Fish Salad Dinner Rolls & Challah Lamb Pita & Club Sandwich Meat Platter & Chaud- Froid Platter Pot De Crme, Crme Brulee, Flan & Napoleon Cinnamon Bun & Fruit Tart Glazed Pears & Chocolate Mousse Caramel Crepes & Choux pastry Ceviche & Frijoles de Olla Orecchiette with Artichokes and Pancetta & Bruschetta Frozen Salmon & Baked Salmon Chindbettisuppe & Puff Pastry with Meat Filling Bacon & Egg Risotto Page 3 Page 4 Page5 Page6 Page7 Page8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19

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Lentil Ragout with Greens: Ragout refers

to any highly seasoned main-dish stew. Green lentils hold their shape better than any other kind of lentils and also cook more quickly than other legumes. Lentils have an earthy, nutty, and mild flavor to it.

Pasta Salad: Served

with carrots and topped with broccoli. This dish is prepared with one or more types of pasta, usually chilled, and most often tossed in a vinegar, oil or mayonnaise-based dressing.

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Wonton Salad: Crispy fried wonton cup filled with grilled chicken top lettuce and almonds. Then its finished with a delicious sesame seed dressing.

Pear salad: The pear salad has blue cheese, sliced pear, creamy avocado, and crunchy candied pecans are all pulled together with vinaigrette.

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Green Bean Jicima Salad: A simple

green bean jicima salad with clean blanched green beans mixed with pieces of jicima.

Caesar Salad: This is a picture of a Caesar Salad that was made in my Garde Manger class. It was made with romaine lettuce, homemade croutons, parmesan cheese, eggs and anchovies. This salad was made by a man named Caesar Cardini. He was a Mexican chef working in Tijuana in the 1920s.

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Wonton Soup: The

wontons were stuffed with a mixture of pork and shrimp seasoned with soy sauce and ginger root are gently simmered in chicken broth. The soup is garnished with green onions. The name won ton means swallowing a cloud and the wonton floating in this popular soup are thought to resemble clouds.

Pot Stickers & Fortune Cookie: Traditional

recipe is from the area of Northern China. Wonton wrappers are stuffed with finely chopped vegetables and pork, then fried and served with a dipping sauce. A fortune cookie is a crisp cookie usually made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and sesame seed oil with a fortune wrapped inside.

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Spicy Dan Dan Noodles: Also called Dandanmian is a classic dish originating from Chinese Sichuan cuisine. It consists of a spicy sauce containing preserved vegetables, chili oil, Sichuan pepper, minced pork, and scallions served over noodles.

Jelly Fish Salad: The

dish was served as a salad with vegetables like in the picture or it can be served shredded with a dressing of oil, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar. The jellyfish were desalted by soaking in water overnight and eaten cooked or raw.

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Dinner Rolls: Heres

a fresh batch of dinner rolls. I learned how to knead and proof my dough. We also learned about dry and active yeast. We baked it and garnish the rolls with sesame seeds.

Challah: Here is
Jewish egg bread that was made in class. It was braided for a beautiful presentation. Then the challah bread was topped with sesame.

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Lamb Pita: Stuffed

whole wheat pitas with grilled paties of lamb and a cool cucumber, and yogurt tzatziki sauce for a fresh and flavorful meal from the Mediterranean.

Club Sandwich: Also

called a clubhouse sandwich it is a sandwich with toasted bread. It is often cut into quarters and held together by hors d'uvre sticks. It has two layers separated by an additional slice of bread. The classic ingredients for a club sandwich are turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise.

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Meat Platter: We
learned how to make different kinds of sausages this week and learned how to put the meat into their casings. Typically, a sausage is formed in a casing traditionally made from intestine, but sometimes synthetic. Some sausages are cooked during processing and the casing may be removed after. Sausage making is a traditional food preservation technique. Sausages can be preserved by curing, drying, or smoking.

Chaud- Froid Platter: Once the

chaud- froid has hardened. Different types of foods can be arranged on the chicken.

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Pot De Crme, Crme Brulee and Flan: Pot De Crme is a

loose French dessert custard dating to the 17th century. The name means "pot of custard" or "pot of crme", which also refers to the porcelain cups in which the dessert is served. Crme Brulee Also known as burnt cream, crema catalana, or Trinity cream is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel. It is normally served cold. Flan caramel, flan, or caramel custard is a custard dessert with a layer of soft caramel on top, as opposed to crme brle, which is custard with a hard caramel top.

Napoleon : Also known

as mille-feuille cream slice, custard slice. The napoleon dessert is a pastry of French origin. Traditionally, a millefeuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry, alternating with two layers of pastry cream. The top is glazed with icing or fondant.

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Cinnamon Bun : Is a sweet

roll served commonly in Northern Europe and North America. It consists of a rolled sheet of yeast-leavened dough onto which a cinnamon and sugar mixture is sprinkled over a thin coat of butter. The dough is then rolled, cut into individual portions, and baked. This construction method is used because it would be impossible to mix in cinnamon flavor into the dough, as it would kill the yeast.

Fruit Tart: Fruit

Tart has a sweet pastry crust that is filled with a rich and creamy pastry cream and topped with seasonal fresh fruit. Then its topped with a demi-glaze.

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Glazed Pears: Glazed pears are sauted on the stovetop in butter and sugar. The butter and sugar creates a glossy and sweet substance that coats the pears. While pears have a naturally sweet taste glazing them creates a dish that you can serve individually or with a meal.

Chocolate Mousse: Also

known as French foam is a prepared food that incorporates air bubbles to give it a light and airy texture. It can range from light and fluffy to creamy and thick, depending on preparation techniques. A mousse may be sweet or savory. Dessert mousses are typically made with whipped egg whites or whipped cream, and generally flavored with chocolate or pured fruit.

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Caramel Crepe: It is a type of very thin pancake usually made from wheat flour. While crpes originate from Brittany, a region in the northwest of France, their consumption is widespread in France and Quebec. Crpes are served with a variety of fillings, from the most simple with only sugar or elaborate savory fillings.

Choux pastry Swans, Paris breast, Chocolate clairs Choux pastry or pte choux is a light
pastry dough It contains only butter, water, flour, and eggs. Instead of a raising agent it employs high moisture content to create steam during cooking to puff the pastry. Paris-Brest is a French dessert, made of choux pastry and a praline flavored cream. clairs is an oblong pastry made with choux dough filled with a cream and topped with icing.

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Ceviche: It is a
seafood dish popular in the coastal regions of the Americas, especially Central and South America. The dish is typically made from fresh raw fish marinated in citrus juices, such as lemon or lime, and spiced with aj or chili peppers.

Frijoles de Olla: Pot Beans:

Frijoles de olla means pot of beans in English. Its a pot of delicious stewy beans.

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Orecchiette with Artichokes and Pancetta: The

artichoke is in the thistle family. In this dish you saut the heart of the artichokes, pancetta, and onion. Once its sauted you can make a sauce with it and mix with the orecchiette.

Bruschetta: It consists of toasted bread rubbed with garlic and topped with extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. The recipe we used is outside of Italy it contains basil, fresh tomato, garlic, onion and mozzarella.

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Frozen Salmon:
Here is a picture of the salmon before it was baked. We learned a salmon can be cooked in many different ways, including grilled, baked and smoked salmon.

Baked salmon: Baking

salmon in a lowtemperature oven slowly melts the fat between the flesh and leaves the Fish incredibly moist and tender. Garlic, light olive oil, basil, salt, pepper, lemon juice and parsley were rubbed on the fish for mild seasoning. That perfectly enhances the fish flavors.

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Chindbettisuppe:
Chindbettisuppe translates to "Childbed Soup". It is basically a cream of chicken soup, over a bed of carrots, celery, corn, and leeks.

Puff Pastry with Meat Filling: The puff pastry is shaped into a heart. Then once the pastry has finished baking its filled with meat balls, gravy, and raisins.

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Bacon & Egg Risotto: Is an Italian rice dish cooked in broth to a creamy consistency. Then the risotto was topped with a sunny side up egg.

Bacon & Poached Quail Eggs: First dish I made in art culinare. It is an appetizer dish with Blanched quail eggs topped with sauted, tomatoes, bacon, and chives.

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My Carvings

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Table of Contents
Watermelon Carvings Fruit Platters Watermelon Carriage & Fruit Patter Turnip Carvings Turnip carving 22 23 24 25 26

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This is my first watermelon carving it is pretty bad but it means a lot. Every time I look back on this picture it shows that my carvings are getting better. It also shows Im learning a lot.

Flowers I carved for the Art Institutes graduation ceremony.

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A beautiful fruit platter I helped carve for a party we planned In Garde Manger. So our family can see all the stuff we learned.

I made this fruit platter out of different kind of fruit. The swan is carved from a watermelon and the rest of the platter is sliced cantaloupe, pineapple, honey dew and watermelon

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Here is a picture of a carriage I carved for the Art Institute graduation. It took 3 watermelons to make the carriage.

I made this fruit platter out of oranges and used birds I made for the center piece.

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This is a rose carving I made out of a turnip. I didnt add any coloring to this one. I wanted to keep this one simple and natural.

I carved this flower out of a turnip also but I added color to it. I added coloring on the tips of it to make them stand out, and look more realistic.

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I carved this flower out of a turnip also but I added color to it. I added coloring on the tips of it to make them stand out, and look more realistic.

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Chefs Demo

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Table of Contents
Chef Tucker first carving demonstrations Chef Tucker watermelon flower carving Chef Tucker food processor & meat grinder demo Chef Tucker Chaud- Froid demonstration Chef Tucker ice sculpting demonstration Chef Tucker lobster demonstration and Buffet picture Chef Tucker hot oil technique & Meat Chef Cook Kneading and rounding the dough demo Chef Acuna Fish demo & Chef Acuna fish fillet demo Chef Tucker pumpkin carving demo & Chef Hanna Beef Wellington demo Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38

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This is the first fruit carving demonstration Chef Tucker showed us. He showed the carving club how to carve a beautiful flower into a watermelon .I saw all of this neat stuff in his carving club I went to every Friday.

In this picture Chef Tucker is showing us what carvings we can do with a cantaloupe.

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Chef Tucker is showing the class how to make the center of a flower carving in Garde Manger.

This is a picture of Chef Tucker showing the class different carving techniques. He showed us how to carve pedals in the inside of the watermelon. So he could make a beautiful flower out of it.

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Chef Tucker showed the class how to use the food processor. We used it to make stuff like chicken gelatin or to just cut up herbs like cilantro.

Chef Tucker is showing the class how to use the meat grinder. He also gave us some safety tips when we were using it.

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Chef is showing the class a technique called Chaud-Froid. Chaud-Froid is a jellied sauce used to decorate serving platters or to coat chicken breasts or other cooked and cooled items.

Chef Tucker was showing the class how to decorate our chickens.

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Chef Tucker is showing the class an awesome ice carving demonstration. He is making the swans body.

Part of the swan carving finally completed. He made sure there was a stable structure for the swans head.

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This is a picture of Chef Tucker entire ice sculpture. I got to watch him carve the pillar, swan and the Ai logo. Chef Tucker made it for a graduation at Ai. We served over a thousand people.

Chef Tucker is showing all of the volunteers a technique that allows us to keep a lobster tail straight while cooking it.

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Chef Vasquez showing the class how to make certain breads using really hot oil.

Chef Vasquez is showing all of the students how to tie a large piece of beef.

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Chef Cook is showing the class how to knead the dough. She also told us how to not over work the dough.

Chef Cook was showing the class how to round the dough.

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Chef Acuna is showing the class how to de-scale fish with our chef knife.

Chef Acuna is showing the class how to fillet the fish with our fillet knife.

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Chef Tucker is showing the club how to carve a pumpkin. He is making leafs in this photo.

Chef Hanna is showing the class how to fold a beef wellington.