No Recipe

The Culinarian Barbarian gave us a threatening look and raised his big eyebrows.
"Those are tonight's recipes folks, BUT, you don't necessarily need to follow them. You know the techniques right?" No one disagreed, it was the calm before the storm. "Everything in the kitchen is fair game, if it's special it'll be marked. GO!"
And with that, the cooking part of my third class, "Stewing and Braising" began. There were lots of great dishes on the bill. Meditteranean Seafood Stew. Doro Wat and Mesir Wat (Ethiopian Chicken, and Lentil Stew, respectively.) Bayou Style Spicy Greens Gumbo. Longevity Noodles, and more.
And Osso Bucco.
Osso Bucco. Say it. Now say it in a low husky voice. Gets you right there doesn't it? Just the sound of those two words and I see a dark haired woman stretched on a sofa in some crumbling Venetian villa.
I know it's just long cooked veal shanks with a nice thick sauce, but when I saw that in our recipe packet, I knew that would be the station I raced to when Mike's lecture was over and the cooking began. But true to his promise, he'd thrown a wrench into our routine. Instead of finding all the ingrediens laid out on hotel pans, leaving only the measuring and cooking, lots of things were AWOL. Some stations were almost bare. He sensed our confusion.
"Folks, the first two classes you shoulda got the lay of the land," he sounded like a football coach at the halftime of a losing game, "now get in there and play around, see what happens. Most cooks don't use recipes, I never do. I might check 'em out for flavor combinations, but I know the technique. So do you, go for it."
Okay. The Osso Bucco station was pretty naked. There was no veal. There was no carrot. There was no celery. My dark haired woman rose and left abruptly.
I found a bowl of lamb hunks in the fridge and claimed it quickly. I nabbed a red bell pepper from another station, plus a few sprigs of parseley, a stray onion.
"You're gonna want to cut that into smaller pieces right?" Mike said as he whizzed by my cutting board. He made a point in the lecture that if you wanted the slow, magic meat-softening of a Braise to happen faster, just cut the meat in smaller pieces. So I cut them up, not as uniform as I should have, but into small cubes. I wanted that fall-apart-in-the-mouth magic.
Next, part one of the technique; I dredged the protiens (meat) in flour before browning it. This proved to be very f**ing smart, as it rendered to the stew an incredible gravy-like mouth feel.
So I browned them until I had a bowl of crusty lamb hunks. I removed the protiens.
Step two; I browned my odd veg assortment. I ran off to get some stock for step three. Where the hell are those nice plastic pitchers? Damn this kitchen has a lot of drawers.
"We're burning here Jordan!" Shit.
Mike turned down my pan as everyone looked at the damage on the central 8-burner range top we all shared . Some onions were blackened. Bad, but not ruined. Despite much forehead sweat, I went on to step three.
I Put protiens back in, added my liquid, the stock, so it's about half way up. (For a stew, technically speaking, everything would be submerged in the liquid.)
This was fun. I was free. It wasn't Osso Bucco but maybe I could make something edible, something great even. I remembered from the Sauces class, mike said that tomato paste was a good thickener, has collagen or something, so I found some in a glass at the bottom of the fridge and in it went. A few slugs of wine.
Step four; Bring it up to a boil, then to a simmer, cover, let cook.
I went to clean my station so I wouldn't get yelled at twice in one night, then I had some dead time. Peeked around in the fridge. A little bottle of Martini olives caught my eye. Threw about ten in the stew. A Little cayenne. Tasted it. Hm...ooops, a little too spicy. Crap. But I knew Osmosis would help that heat spread around eventually, becoming more mild. I was definitely making something.
About forty five minutes passed. The pair doing the Longevity Noodles finished and we all tasted that. Incredibly healthy tasting, beautiful brown, soy gingery broth and those toothsome Chinese fresh noodles, accented beautifully by baby Bok Choy. The bar was raised high.
I tasted my meat. Chewy. Oy.
I seasoned, salt, salt, salt. Pepper. I just had to wait.
I grabbed a tangerine, put it on my station. Cut up some flat leaf parseley and some very fresh oregano so even if it tasted like mud I could do a really cool garnish right? Tangerine zest on mud.
Mike tasted the meat. "Chewy. This is when it siezes up. Now it'll start releasing. Look at the clock. Wait, taste again in fifteen minutes. "
Okay. Wait.
After fifteen minutes, we taste again, everyone starts tasting with plastic spoons, bread. The meat is breaking down now, not like butter in the mouth, but not chewy. It's super rich, dark brown and gravy like. That's it. Any more and it'll reduce to nothing. I put it on the buffet. Microplaned some zest on it, garnish with the green.
People liked it. I liked it. It tasted good.
Yes the meat could have been softer. But the stew had an amazing texture from that residual flour, the tomato, the animal fat, the butter I used to saute stuff, all working together. Did I say "stew"?
Mike had a bowl of it, and seemed to enjoy it though he didn't say anything.
It was fun, the most fun I've had in class yet. I created.
No recipe needed.