Carrots the Plague of My Existence

Carrots the Plague of My Existence

As a culinary student, one of my main tasks right now is cutting carrots. Many of the dishes that I make in class require carrots and the large majority of my homework involves cutting carrots in different ways. Most of the time the carrots used in the dishes and sauces sweeten the flavor. Carrots can also add color and texture to the dishes. Some sauces, like tomato sauce, use carrots to reduce the acidic flavor even though the carrots are not tasted in the sauce.

The tomato sauce I was making in class the other day called for a classic mirepoix; the combination of onions, celery, and carrots. This really confused me because carrots are not common in tomato sauce. I asked Chef if we were going to substitute leeks for carrots. She said no because the recipe called for classic so it must be carrots. Confused and skeptical, I did what Chef told me to do. I cut the mirepoix and the other ingredients for the sauce. Chef gave us the option of making the sauce regular or vegetarian. I chose to make mine regular. The recipe called for nine different ingredients which included salt pork, mirepoix, tomatoes, tomato puree, a sachet, salt, sugar, white stock, and pork bones. Our class has a vegetarian so we did not use the pork bones or the salt pork out of respect. Chef also gave us the choice of vegetable stock or chicken stock. Vegetable stock is basically vegetable soup minus the vegetables. Chicken stock is vegetables and chicken bones boiled together and strained only for the juices. I chose to use chicken stock because of the flavor it adds. We prepared the chicken stock the day before and refrigerated it. A thick layer of fat was covering the stock when I took it out of the refrigerator. This did not help with the appetizing nature because it made it look disgusting.

I added the remaining ingredients into the pan that I had been simmering my vegetables in and started making a sachet. A sachet is a piece of cheesecloth with whole spices wrapped in it. When I finished the sachet I added it to the pan and then proceeded to add a quart of cold, fatty chicken stock. The result at first horrified me because the stock did not mix and the conjugated fat