Day 9 PCA II – Cheese Burger, Cheese Burger, Cheese Burger (old Saturday Night Live reference)

For being such a simple night we were busy! On the menu was pan seared ribeye steaks and grilled hamburgers. The steaks were easy as they were already fabricated and in cryovac bags. The hamburgers we ground ourselves. Well half of the class worked on the hamburger meat the other half worked on peeling, slicing and blanching the French fries…er…steak fries. I was on the latter. Once the potatoes were done we got to see a fabrication of where we cut the ribeyes from.

Then it was time to grill the burgers. These things where thick! And I think the part that bothered me the most was; we had to cook one medium and one well. I’m sorry anytime I have ground meat I want it cooked well. I do not want any pink meat in my hamburger. (luckily we get to take them home and I’ll just cook it up a bit more to fix that) Oh let me give you a GREAT tip on how to make your hamburgers taste FANTASTIC! If you like bacon on your burgers get that bacon cooked up nice an crispy. Pour off some of the bacon fat, but keep it, and just leave enough to coat the bottom of the skillet. Then take your mayo and smear it on the buns and then place them mayo side down into the skillet till they are golden brown. Then flip them to give them a little glossy color on the other side. This makes such a difference in the flavor!

Before we started the burgers I was sent on the task on taking burger orders from all the Chef Instructors. I had to sell my soul to Chef Greenspan to get some bleu cheese for my burger. But it was worth it. I also had the task of cooking my 2 burgers from presentation along with 4 other burgers for the Chefs. Eddy volunteered to help me out, he’s hellacool. So between the two of us we got 8 burgers knocked out. Then it was time to present. We had to get ours ready and of course by the time we were done all the fries were gone, but luckily we didn’t get dinged for that. Carrie and Lindsey saw Eddy and I getting our burgers ready and said “You guys haven’t presented yet?” “Nope I replied…” and before we could say another word they took the Chef Burgers from us and said you guys get your stuff done we’ll finish up these for you. What a TEAM!!!! So bless them they made up all the custom orders for the Chefs so Eddy and I could get our food up for grading.

I mean everything seemed so simple but it amazes me still how time can get away from you. But it was such a fun night.

After all was done a few of us decided to have a tailgate party. We walked to the local store (lol we had like 5 minutes to spare) and bought (well Carrie bought and snacks too) the beers and munchies. She and Lindsey were smart, they wrapped their burgers in foil and kept them warm in the oven so they could enjoy them with the beer. So there we all sat in my car drinking a beer, laughing, talking smack and here comes the security guard. Well we’re not drinking in ‘public’ but we are on ‘private property’ Ok everyone look normal! Which in turns makes us look guilty as hell. We decide it’s time to move on. No no not end the party but move the car. Great so now we’re drinking and driving and have open containers in the car. I’m going to hell. We only moved up one level and what a view! We were on the top of the structure now looking at the LA skyline. Very lovely since there was no more rain.

Anyway it was a great way to close out a busy week.

On Monday we’re whipping up New York Steaks and Filet Mignon…YUM!


Until Then….