Purple Potatoes

Claire Raposo
May 14 2018
Claire Raposo
May 14 2018
I am currently allowed to make stuff on my own. During lunch service I have been working the garnish station and fry station, all while making bread, which is proving very fun. Unfortunately, the new modernist bread focaccia we are trying to make is a little finicky and we’re on the 4th attempt today after letting it prove overnight. It’s ok though because I’ve been doing everything else. I smashed hundreds of potatoes yesterday, made sauces for the lunch menu, learned how to make hollandaise, and I’ve also been making more donuts. The salads are easy, and I’ve been doing a beet salad with red quinoa, a smear yogurt sauce, sherry vinegar, and frisee– and probably some other stuff I forgot. That salad is set up on the plate extremely specifically, with the yogurt on the opposite side of the plate from the eater and the salad set up in a flowing pattern. I also made fennel top puree, which is extremely delicious. Working in a restaurant is giving me a huge new palate for vegetables especially. In the last few days I’ve started eating and started enjoying squash, turnips, wild carrots, sweet potatoes, purple potatoes, and fennel, carrot, and turnip tops in various forms. I think there’s a lot of delicious veggies out there that I should probably learn more about.
I also have been reading about bread, not just making it. The Modernist Bread series is very detailed and I have yet to actually do one of their recipes perfectly, but I’ve learned a lot about the chemistry behind bread making and rich cultural history woven into any bread recipe. I’ve been using a water roux (cooking a portion of the flour and water together before mixing), which is an asian technique for keeping water content in bread longer so it stays fresh. Instead of using this on traditional Asian breads though, we’ve been using it with focaccia. It makes the bread fluffier and retains the moisture better. I’ve also been learning how to use bakers’ percentages, which are basically the only way to make bread in bulk without screwing up the measurements. Volume measurements have become the plague of my existence, and I’ve been entirely converted to using a scale for everything. Bakers’ percentages are how you write a bulk recipe so that you end up with the same result as a small batch, by calculating all the ingredients mass in proportion to the flour instead of their own volume. I guess this has been a crash course, and I think I’m getting good at making bread because for the last week I’ve been making all of the restaurant’s bread on days when I’m there.