Author: Leslie Rasco

Week 1/13 – Students will learn about knife skills.  This will include identifying parts of a knife, a variety of basic knife cuts, knife care, and knife etiquette in the commercial kitchen.

Week 1/21 – Students will demonstrate the ability to cut vegetables in brunoise, small, medium, and large dice. Students will use these cuts to make potato soup.  Students will also learn how to make a mire poix.

Week 1/27 – Students will learn how to oven roast vegetables by making oven fries and learn about flavor profiles through the creation of a dipping sauce. Students will practice making brunoise and small dice through the creation of salsa.

Week 2/3 – Students will learn how to make the mother sauce “sauce tomate” or tomato sauce using classic French techniques.  Sauce tomate will be used to create pizza sauce.  The sauce will used to make pizza.  This will allow students to practice yeast breads.

Week 2/11 – Students will begin learning about quick breads and how ingredients work together through making cookies with a variety of mix-ins and cookie bases.

Week 2/18 – Students will compete in a brownie challenge to demonstrate what they have learned about flavor profiles.  Students will begin planning their pasta lab.  Students will make homemade pasta and learn about the bechamel mother sauce.

Week 2/24 – Students will make homemade pasta and alfredo sauce. Students will learn the principles of cake decorating and begin planning how to create their own miniature cakes.

Week 3/3 – Students will learn how to stack and build small tiered cakes following a theme.

We will be learning the basics of working in a kitchen, both commercial and domestic. We will review food Safety and Sanitation, mise en place, and reading recipes.

This nine weeks will be very busy in the lab.  Students will need to bring in a dozen eggs each.  Practice at home during this nine weeks is encouraged.  Students will be learning basic cookery of breakfast foods.  Egg cookery is the main focus; however, students will also learn to make breakfast breads as well as two mother sauces. Hollandaise is and egg based sauce. Bechamel is a white roux based sauce.

Week 2 (10/22): Students will learn and practice the following eggs: Scrambled (soft, medium, hard, and French) and students will have the option to practice pancakes.

Week 3 (10/28): Students will learn and practice fried eggs (over easy, over medium, sunny-side up, over hard).  They will also learn how to make scones.

Week 4 (11/4): Students will learn biscuits and gravy (white and chocolate), boiled (coddled, soft, medium, hard) and poached eggs and Hollandaise sauce.

Week 5 (11/12): This week students will learn crepes and lemon curd (a derivative of Hollandaise).  They can practice any egg learned so far as well as ask for help for any skill that has been missed.

Week 6 (11/18): Our focus this week will be on cinnamon rolls.  This lab takes all week.

Week 7 (12/2): This is the last week to practice in class.  Students may practice any skill they feel they need help mastering.  Students will also learn quick bread muffins this week. On Friday, student groups will draw for bread.  Bread assignments will determine which day groups will test.

Week 8 (12/9): Breakfast test week. Students will draw an egg at random the day of their test to prepare alongside their chosen bread.  A Sauce must be served as well.  Sauces may be made by the group or individually.

Week 9 (12/16): Finals week.  We will clean and close the kitchen for the Winter Break.

Students will learn about food safety and sanitation.  Over the course of these 6 weeks we will cover:

1.) The Importance of FoodSafety and Sanitation

2.) Good Personal Hygiene

3.) Controlling Time and Temperature (Hamburger Lab)

4.) Preventing Cross-Contamination (Fried Rice Lab)

5.) Cleaning and Sanitizing

Week 6 will be the review and testing week.

Students will present their “Famous Culinarian” research project to their class.  They will then work on giving and following directions.

Students will continue to create a food service industry business.  Each week will focus on specific tasks for completing and presenting the project by May 10th.  Students will choose a presentation date from May 8-10.

March 25-29: Choose concept, name, logo, and location

April 2-5: choose menu options, specific location, business model

April 8-12: Employee handbook, target market, and begin financials

April 15-19: Marketing, slogan, decor

April 22-26: Commercial, work on financials, presentation

April 29-May 7: 3-D model and choose food sample to prepare

May 8-10: Presentations