Meat. Meat?

Why is it that a site written by a pastry chef has so many photographs and tales with meat as the the main character? When are we going to get to hear about the fancee desserts and the flaky laminated doughs? We would settle for dual component plated desserts. But another meat post?

This is what you're thinking when I travel through the web portal and enter your critical heads.

But the funny thing is pastry chefs crave salt. When we go to restaurants we do not want extra desserts! Please do not comp the dessert menu in its entirety! We want that sultry indulgent foie gras course with the $50 supplement! More meat! Send us raw fish and rosti cooked in duck fat! Sea salt from all the oceans on our great earth! Bring it on!

When I worked at The French Laundry my station faced the first course and meat stations. All night I watched perfectly butchered lamb and beef and foie being seared carefully. The enticing smells jauntily came over to my sweet nostrils. I stared unabashedly at the small pans arranged on the expansive flat-top. In my head I cat-called those cuts like the lecherous men of my urban childhood.

"I want you." "I will do anything to have you."

"How can I tempt the meat cook? Lure him away from his station..."

One night at the end of a particularly grueling summer service I leaned over to his sweaty pork-pink face and said,

"I don't know what's more torturous: me smelling and watching you saute foie all night or you looking over and watching me reaching into the deep freezer to quenelle ice creams all night."

Napa is no fucking joke in the summer. Try this on for size. Weeks of days at 118F and working in a kitchen where a flat-top the square footage of a studio apartment is turned on at 6am. You pull butter out of the walk-in and in 10 minutes it has liquefied and begun to clarify. You never pee even though you drink a gallon of water every hour. The entire kitchen remains quiet until the sun goes down and everyone literally cries with relief.

Except you have no tears because the evaporate before they trickle down your sandpaper skin.

Sorry for the tangent. But as you can see a person who manipulates sugar all day has a thing for salt.

This is why I have signed up for the Fatted Calf newsletter. It tells me what extraordinary big meaty meat special they have for that week. In this way I can learn how to cook more than my two standards: steak and roast chicken. As you know I call up my resident Meat Angel and he calms me with easy instructions.

For this pork loin stuffed with sausage and succulent prunes I just rubbed it with some olive oil and placed it on a little cooling rack in a 1/2 pan (tall sided for roasting) at 350F. I cooked it to 134F even though I was told to take it to 138-140F. But now I have a new thermometer so I won't be making that mistake again.

It didn't kill me as you can see. It was just very tender.

Comments

[Ivonne]

At the moment, I am torn between three emotions:

an overwhelming urge for a piece of meat (even though it's 9:50 a.m. here in Toronto)

extreme jealousy that you have access to Fatted Calf products (and I don't being here in Toronto)

happiness at having taken a few minutes before the full-on start of another busy day to read your post

I'm a baker at heart who loves meat too.

Thanks, Shuna!

[Luisa]

This was fantastic. I loved your description of the kitchen at The French Laundry. And while I never thought of it before, it makes total sense that pastry cooks would prefer a big piece of nicely salted meat than a fancy little tart when dining out! I love prune-stuffed pork - a match made in heaven. And with sausage? Oh boy.

[maura]

This post furthur proves my theory that the majority of pastry chefs-except for those who have bailed from the savory side- never learned how to cook meat!
When I worked at Boulevard I took a poll of the pastry dept- and there were many of us- and NONE of us had skills in the meat kitchen. Vegetables, yes. Meat, no (we all vowed to learn). I've met few exceptions!

[shuna fish lydon]

I am one who bailed from line cooking.

In fact a lot of my desserts owe thir roots and pure inspiration to savoury food.

[maura]

Yikes, have I offended? I didn't mean to, the pork loin sounds wonderful.

[Food Dude]

What a great story!

[King Foodie]

LOL

Working in a kitchen is a special kind of toture...it doesn't really matter what station you're at, good food never fails to make your mouth water. Part of me is glad I'm no longer in the catering biz. I don't miss fealing hungry all the time.

On the other hand...I bless mother earth that my family owns a gourmet smokehouse.

Hallo homemade sausage!!!

[Tania]

Wonderfully written, Shuna. Truly, an evocative post. I could picture the kitchen perfectly ... feel the heat rising from, well, everywhere ... smell the lamb on the grill ... see that pork-pink face. But my favourite phrase? "Rosti cooked in duck fat." YES, PLEASE!!

[santos.]

cheez, miss sfl, after this, the next time i sink into a slab of meat i'll feel like humbert humbert.

[Lindy]

On a non chef level, too, it often happens that cooking or eating a lot of sweet things can lead to cravings for salty, or sour, pickly things or bitter greens or what have you. And we know how often a person, after a large (and completely filling) savory meal will still wish for a sweet dessert.

There are times when you want to eat something very specific only-a grapefruit, or a glass of milk-or a naturally salty piece of really good meat. I guess our bodies are trying to balance things out, or something.

[shauna]

I just finished braising a lamb shank, with garlic, lemon juice, and fresh dill. A year ago, I would have been terrified of a hunk of meat. I was always a baker first. Now, after reading everyone's food blogs, I'm not afraid to experiment. And oh, is it good!

Thanks, Shuna.

[Dr. Biggles]

Hugs.

It was good, wasn't it?

I happen to know you have a lamb leg frolicking in your fridge. Me too. I can hardly wait.

Had to dash on Saturday morning just after 10:10. Wound up in Mt. View, down south. Spent a while in a Wurst Haus. I am in love and want to visit each Saturday. No, it was better than that.

Pure heaven +9,

Xo Xo