Ever wonder how to add some excitement to a bowl of bland carrots?  Oddly enough, I have.  In fact, that very quandary landed me in Chef David Kamen’s flavor dynamics class at the Culinary Institute of America last weekend.  Through lectures, tastings, and hands-on cooking sessions I learned the “physiology of taste and development of flavor.”  I also found out how frying, grilling, roasting, sauteing and poaching can alter a food’s flavor and change my humdrum carrots into a sexy side dish. 

This was neither my first food enthusiast’s class nor my first encounter with Chef Kamen.  Last spring I had taken Chef Kamen’s day-long “Food Affinities” session.   There the students delved into what foods and flavors complimented and paired well with one another.   We also got clued into a fantastic resource, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page’s “Culinary Artistry.”  My secret weapon when conjuring up recipes, it devotes hundreds of pages to what foods work well together.  

 After a 2-hour classroom lecture, complete with tastings and discussions, our 15-member class had broken up into teams of three.  Each group was assigned a food basket filled with ingredients from which it constructed several entrees.  My team chose clams.  Creating the recipes as we went, we whipped together grilled clams with lemon-butter, clam fritters with a dipping sauce and a salad of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, scallions, mint, parsley and lemon juice.  

Around 1:30 we assembled our dishes for the class to eat and then streamed through the buffet line and into the basement dining room.   After an eclectic lunch we returned to the kitchen to critique both the presentation and taste of each offering.   A great exercise in thinking on your feet as well as accepting constructive criticism. 

In last Saturday’s flavor dynamics we all worked with the same foods — chicken, carrots and mashed potatoes.  What differed was how each team prepared these foods.  My group roasted three whole chickens that had been seasoned with a mixture of Bell’s poultry seasoning, Old Bay and kosher salt.   We also fried carrots that had been dipped in a tempura batter and infused mashed potatoes with a merlot reduction.  The latter resulted in an eye-popping purple mound of potatoes.   Shocking to the eye but a pleasure for the palate. 

Other groups poached chicken breasts and topped them with a tarragon cream sauce, stir-fried or roasted carrots, and pureed or made mashed potatoes from baked, rather than boiled, potatoes.   Sauces accompanied most dishes, such as the sauteed chicken Provencal and fried chicken with salsa cru.  Herb butter enlivened the grilled chicken. 

As for the carrot conundrum, my favorite method of preparation turned out to be boiling.  Topped with chopped chives and a bit of butter, boiled carrots were tender and flavorful.  Carrots roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper ranked a close second for me while those stir-fried with minced garlic, ginger, scallions and hot bean paste tied with our carrot tempura and another team’s steamed carrots for third.          

What did I get out of this class as well as the others taken at the Culinary Institute?  Along with the chance to cook in a professional kitchen, with its powerful convection ovens, stainless steel workstations and eight-burner, gas cooktops, I got to work alongside classically-trained, professional chefs, to learn first-hand what I can’t glean from a book and to stretch my skills as a home cook.  That, a free apron, chef’s toque and the answer to how to turn my boring root veggies into a delicious dish.  No wonder I keep going back for more!

 

Roasted Carrots – from Chef David Kamen’s Flavor Dynamics course
Serves 6

Ingredients:
1 lb. carrots, diced
olive oil, as needed
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Toss the carrots lightly with the olive oil, salt and pepper.

Place the carrots on a sheet pan and roast in the oven until tender.

Serve hot.