Learning to Cook French Steak @ Shermay's Cooking School

Date:  Dec 11, 2011

I went to learn how to cook French Steak from Patrick Heuberger @ Shermay's Cooking School.  Patrick is an award-winning Executive Chef & Part-Owner of Le Bistrot Du Sommelier.  This is one of the restaurant I will always go and have good French Steak and good French wine.  I go Mortons lesser now.  :)

Related Post:  "Learning French Steak :)"http://miniliew.blogspot.com/2011/12/learning-french-steak.html

If you want to know some tips and my comments of the class, you can skip and read the last section.  Tips & Class Notes.

This is the first time I attended such cooking class.  It is a Demo class where every one sit there watching the Chef explained and cook.  And it followed by "Substantial" Food Tasting.  Whatever he cooked, we get to taste it all.

Recipe

What is he teaching today?  4 Steaks and 4 Potatos

1.  Onglet Steak with Shallots and Garlic Confit (Onglet A L'Echallotte)

2.  Beef Tenderloin with A Peppercorn Sauce (Steak Au Poivre)

3.  Angus Beef Prime Rib with Red Wine Sauce (Cote Du Boeuf)

4.  Steak Tartare (Tartare De Boeuf)

5.  Braised Potatoes in Brown Stock and Onions (Pomme Boulangere)

6.  Bake Potatoes Slices with Cream and Cheese (Gratin Dauphinois)

7.  Mashed Potatoes (Pomme Puree)

8.  Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream and Chives (Pomme Au Four Et Creme Aigre)

Bonus:  Matchstick Fries (Pomme Allumette)

And We get to eat all of above today.  Not bad for a price of $137 for the class.  Learn and eat!

For those who wants the recipe, I can let you read my copy.  Yes!  Everyone gets a copy of the recipe.  Sorry, I will not put it online.  As I need to respect my friend here.  Every pages has the following:  (Damn!  It's so hard to read)

"Copyright © Patrick Heuberger.  All rights reserved.  No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author."

Classroom

The classroom setting is nice.  With warm lighting.  There are three huge TV to show what the chef is cooking.  There is also a whole row of overhead Mirror gives you the entire kitchen bench.

Oh, the Kitchen Smoke Extractor is so Porsche like.  Press of a button, and it is slowly will come up and start sucking the smoke away.  Found that smoke extractor from google...  http://www.dedietrich.com.au/au/others/homes-of-de-dietrich/cyprus---grecian-bungalow-213.html#/others/hoods/DHD7000X/ Wow!  Looks expensive.

The Store & the Ingredients

From time to time, they will passed around the ingredients for you to see, and remember.

This is the Veal juice, it is used to make the sauce or confit.

So, this is how the nutmeg looks like.  One of the main ingredient to make the sour cream for the baked potato.

And of course, you need the tools.  And they have it all in the store.  Not cheap!

Good quality of sea salts, you can get it here too.

To prepare your Tenderloin, you may need this good quality string to tie it.

A visit to the toilet, and guess what, the soup and lotion is nice.  And it is available for sale too.

There are lots of things you can buy here.  So, don't forget to check out the store.

http://www.shermay.com/retail_nordic.htm

The Ending

I love the ending, as it is the taking photo, and the SUBSTANTIAL FOOD TASTING.

Lots of food here!

This is the Beef Tartare.  It is raw ground beef mixed with a lot of herbs, lemon juice, and tomatoes.  It is served on bread.  I don't really like this dish.  But I learned something new, always cut your tenderloin beef into small slice and cubes, to make your own ground beef.  The one you get from Cold Storage is always "Wet".  No good.

Patrick is reheatingthe Pepper Corn beef.

This is the Onglet.  I was wondering what do you mean by "Butter-cut".  Will, you take the Onglet Beef slice, and cut it in the middle to the near edge, and when you open it, it is like a butterfly.  That's is what they call Butter Cut.  Learn something in this class.  Usually Onglet is one of the cheapest and tasty cut of the meat.  So, you don't overcook it.

Patrick & his assistant serving the meat.

Just look at the pink color Medium raw meat.  Very nice and juicy.

More meat here.

This is the bonus.  It is the bone marrow.  I cannot described the taste as it is so good!  I love this!

This is the bacon onion garlic confit.  Very very nice bacon bits.  I like it.

This is my plate.  So much meat.  And it is very nice.

We also are served with a small glass of Punch, alcohol drink.

The biggest secret of cooking steak is to use French Butter.

Oh boy, learning a lot from the cooking class, and eat a very nice meaty meal.  And buy some good ingredients home too.  I love this class.  If you have not done it before, you should try.  It does not necessary make you a good cook, but at least you learn some basic from the class.  A good cook need to have a bit of talent and instinct.

Tips & Class Notes

Usually, what you will learn in the class or watching Youtube is to

1.  I love Patrick's Mashed Potatoes.  It is very nice silky texture and yet rich in taste.  So, the potatoes is the US Russet that you can get from Cold Storage.

You got basically three kind of potatoes.  Those with high starch content, is such as Russet.  It is great for baking and frying.  Because of their starch, they don't hold together very well but are absorbent so are best paired with something to absorb (think butter and sour cream).  They are decent based, but care must be taken not to over work them, else you will have a gluey mess.  A starchy potato excretes a milky film onto the knife when sliced.  The other two type is the less starch Norland Red potatoes and the in between starch and non-starncy Yukon Gold.

2.  When you do seasoning, always use UNSALTED BUTTER.  And try always use the French Butter from Elle & Vire).  The reason is because you don't know how they process the salted butter, so, it may not come out well.

3.  When you cook the Mashed Potatoes, remember you always cook it from the start with cold water and potatoes in the pot.  Do not boiled the water and put the potatoes in it.  The potatoes need to be slowly cooked.  I am inconsistent in this, sometimes, Most of the time, I love to bring the water to boiled then, cook the ingredient.  I guess that is my Chinese way of cooking.

4.  When you need to use a potato smasher, you must smash it while the potato is hot.  Do not rinse cold water.  When you need to add butter, you add COLD butter, not warm, soft or melted butter and then you whip it and mix the butter so that it gives very nice silky texture.

5.  As for the Braised Potates in Brown Stock and Onions, you will need a Red Potatoes.  You cannot use US Russet because it breaks up during cooking.  You can also use Fingering Potatoes too.

6.  When baking potatoes.  After you cut the potatoes (US Russet), do not wash it with water.  You want as much starch as possible when you bake it.

7.  When you bake potatoes, the Aluminum foil, only cover the potato with 1 layer.  Not to cover it with more than 1 layer of Aluminum paper.  Otherwise, it is hard to bake.  You usually bake it for 1 hour at 180 degrees.

8.  You do not need to marinate Good Quality Beef.  (This is so true!)  If you really want to cook a good steak, spend the money to buy the expensive cut.  Don't buy low quality beef.  With good quality beef, basically, you don't need to do anything.  No matter how you cook it, it will turn out to be good.

9.  Last Saturday, during my party, I made a mistake.  I took out the steak too soon, as some of my guest have not arrived yet, the steak is defrost and water start coming out.  That is why my steak was too easy to cooked. (where it not suppose to).  So, the correct way of doing the seasoning is when your cooking pan or steak pan start to get hot, then, you do the seasoning.  i.e. Black pepper, and Sea Salt.  Remember, you don't have to marinate a good steak.  The steak has to come out from the fridge (cold compartment, not freezer).  I got to remember this.

10.  OK.  Patrick used a lot of his French butter.  Basically, he pour little Olive oil and then put a lot of Cold Butter onto the pan.  And let the butter melted and turn brown.  i.e. Browning the butter.  Well, he does it on a pan, so its easier for him to scope the boiling butter over the steak.  Also, he is using a induction stove.  So, there is no fire.  For me, I have stove with huge fire.  So, I don't think I can do it his way.  I still like the way how I cooked my steak on  a steak pan.  The only problem is how do I get the French Butter to coat fry the steak.  I will think of some way.

11.  For really big huge steak.  Such as 1KG or 2KG Prime Rib.  You will really need a longer time to cook the steak.  After you fried it, you still need to roast

it inside an oven.  Now, one of such important step is you do not want to let your steak to cool down any time, so, you have to pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees and then, put the pan into the oven.  So, you will need a pan with metal detachable handle with no plastic parts.  OK.  I never cooked a 1KG beef before, so, I will need to learn to cook that beef this way.

12.  What is a good quality beef.  Get either Dry-aged or Wet-Aged beef. In Singapore, 99% of the aged beef is wet aged beef.  What it means is the beef is aged in a vacuum sealed bag to retain its moisture.  It take less time to age and the weight is not lost in the process.  If you touch the aged beef, it is very firm.  The beef is actually more tender.  Of course, you buy those that is aged for 60 months to 80 days.

most of the time, you can get the beef from the recommended Huber's Butchery.  I tis at NTUC Bukit Timah, or Friven & Co, or Dempsy Hill.  And don't worry to buy the beef with more fat.

13.  The other day, when I cooked the steak during my party, I used a 400 days grain fed beef.  Wow.  What does that mean, grain-fed means, it will have more fat.  More fat means more tender.

14.  Aiya… Patrick just remain us about something.  If you are doing the Steak Tartare, as the ground beef has to be eaten raw, you should really use a GRASS-FED beef instead of GRAIN-FED beef.  Because a Grain-fed beef is not a Natural way. Hello!!!!  Cow eat grass.  In Europe most of the cow eat grass.  Only in Japan, those Kobe or Wagyu eat grains.

A search on Internet, and I found this.

No need to say anymore.  hahahahaha OK.  I will have to rethink about my Steak Eating Habit.  But Wagyu and Kobe is such a lovely steak.  :(

See what I learned from the class.  This is very useful info for me.

15.  By the way, If some one selling you a Ribeye and it comes with a bone.  You are being cheated.  hahaha.  A Ribeye has to be boneless.  It is the same as Prime Rib without bone.  I didn't know that until now.

16.  Another info.  Veal juice/stock is thinner, and lighter than the beef stock.  So, always use a Veal juice if you want to have nice silky sauce.  For example, the Brandy Cognac + Veal Juice + Garlic combination.

17.  The Red Wine Sauce.  WOW!  He use one full bottle to boiled and slow cook until the shallots and wine become very little.  And then, slow cook with the Veal Juice.  WOW.  I got to try this.  But what sort of Red Wine?  Expensive or Cheap?

18.  OK.  Now comes with the resting meat part.  Once you have cook and roast your steak, you will need to REST the STEAK.  OK.  The way I like to do it is to use a Aluminum foil to wrap it.  So that it can continue to use the remaining heat to slow cook it.  But I learned another way today.  Patrick, simply rest it out side.  Hmmm… Interesting.  But no matter how you do it, it should only follow this same rule.  If you cook your meat 20 minutes, then, you should rest your meat for 20 minutes.  (This is only applicable to 1KG and above meat la).  Like what I cook, 200g or 300g, I will need only 3-5 minutes to cook the steak on each side.  So for this, I have decided to use back my own method.

19.  Cooking is like a skill.  Once you have the skill, you don't have to follow exactly what the chef ask you to do.  You should try on your own method.  From the cooking demo, I learned quite a fair bit of new knowledge as I seldom cook Ang Mor food.  But now I start to appreciate of doing it.  As I like to cook what I eat!

Wow… I do really pay lots of attention to the master chef teaching… look at my notes… its on every page, and got drawing some more… hahahaha Next … I may attend his Chocolate dessert class in Jan or Feb.