Weekly Update: End of June 2023
Perfecting Chicken Salad!
This week, Chef Ryan, Molly Kimball, and I brainstormed ideas to try and take an ordinary chicken salad to the next level. We felt that the chicken salad sold at the FUEL Cafe + Market in the Ochsner Fitness Center needed more flavor and depth.
Chef Ryan and I started by creating an aioli with garlic, egg whites, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and oil. This aioli already improved the chicken salad tremendously because of the added garlic and lemon juice. After comparing this recipe with other chicken salad recipes (such as Whole Foods, Rouses, and Roberts), we noticed that we could add some sort of sugar-free sweetener (to stay within the guidelines of Eat Fit), and maybe horseradish.
Chef Ryan and I took the chicken salad we made with the aioli and split it into 4 containers to test what it would taste like if we added allulose (sugar-free sweetener), horseradish, and both. The first container was the plain chicken salad, the second container added allulose, the third container added horseradish, and the final container added allulose and horseradish. Chef Ryan and I tasted all 4 chicken salads and agreed that the 4th container (the addition of allulose and horseradish) resulted in the perfect balance of sweet and tart.
European Butter in Crossaints?
I have made croissants a few times in the past year, always with the same recipe. They always came out good, but never great. They were very buttery and had a great texture, but they didn't have the crispiness of a croissant you buy at a bakery.
Here is a picture of the croissant made with the original recipe:
My curiosity made me want to try an alternate recipe. In this recipe, it called for European butter so I bought “Plugra Premium European Style Unsalted Butter”. I followed the recipe and noticed that this dough was a little bit thicker than the previous recipe I had tried. All 3 folds went well, and I shaped the croissants. I turned my oven on to 200 degrees and opened the door to try and give my croissants a warm place to proof before baking. I let them proof for two hours and double in size as the recipe said, but this is where problems started to emerge because as they rose they began to fall over and look lopsided.
When I took them away from the oven to spread an egg wash on them, the croissants flattened. When I baked them they came out a little flat and deflated in comparison to when they were being proofed. After tasting and researching a little, I came to the conclusion that I over-proofed the croissants, meaning I let them proof for too long at too high of a temperature. Also, regarding the European butter, I noticed that the croissants did not taste as buttery as my previous recipe.
Below is a picture of one of the “better” croissants from the batch:
Chicken and Waffles for Dinner?
This week, members of my family rotated who cooked dinner every night. On my night I decided to cook chicken and waffles. This was my first time frying chicken by myself, and I was excited to take on the challenge! There was a learning curve on how to keep the oil hot but still cook the chicken all the way through. Once I figured that out, I was able to fry all of the chicken well. My sister helped me make the waffles with a simple Belgian waffle recipe. The dinner turned out amazing and I had a lot of fun making it!
