Independent Component 1

• LITERAL
• I, Desiree Zarate, completed my Independent Component which represents 35 hours of work. 
• Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component.

• Stevens, Molly. All About Braising. New York. Gentl & Hyers: 2004. Print.
• Ramsay, Gordon. Gordon Ramsay's Home Cooking: Everything You Need to Know to Make Fabulous Food. New York. Grand Central Life & Style: 2012. Print.
• Dornenburg, Andrew, Karen Page. The Flavor Bible. New York. Little Brown and Company: 2008. Print.
• Ruhlman, Michael. Ratio: the Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. New York. Scribner: 2009. Print. Pgs. 177-181.
• Recipes
• Garten, Ina. "Garlic Roasted Potatoes." FoodNetwork.com. Barefoot Contessa Parties, 2001. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.
• Drummond Ree. "Pots de Creme." foodnetwork.com. Food Network. n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.
• "Apple Stuffed Pork Loin With Cider Sauce." williams-sonoma.com. Williams-Sonoma Inc. n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.
• "Apple Cider Vinaigrette." myrecipes.com. Time Inc. n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.
• Over the last couple of months, I planned and hosted a 7-person dinner party. I also spent time crafting and then writing down the recipes used the night of the party. The party required research on season, dinner party hosting, flavor combinations, and recipes. I also looked at the night of the party and thought about how the food could have been made better, then spent the last week recreating my two least favorite foods at the party to create more flavorful food. I ended up with a much more flavorful stuffed pork tenderloin and better-textured potatoes.
• INTERPRETIVE
• My work was important because it helped me understand the craziness of a professional kitchen; it showed me how much work goes into feeding a table of people. Beyond that, it taught me the importance of planning and how much goes into cooking; to create a good meal, it is important to appreciate that more then a couple hours of chopping and frying was involved. This is what my Lesson 1 was all about. I also gained confidence in cooking and found support for potential EQ answers (more information on this is found below, under APPLIED). My work proves to be more than 30 hours of work, as is reflected under Independent Component 1 in Senior Project Log. I was able to reasearch on four separate occasions, shopped during four different market trips, spent over 6 hours on five different occasions making blog posts (a total of 7 posts) and internet-documents (logging in Senior Project Hours and Independent Component 1: Dinner Party Planner) to record my progress and what I learned, and cooked on 5 separate occasions. The cooking definitely took up most of this time, as I made each course twice and one course three times. However, it only makes sense that cooking food would take up the most time, as my project is on Cuisine.
• Evidence can be found throughout my blog, as I posted recipes and updates regularly. Most posts include pictures, and all are detailed. Here are links to the articles in the order they were posted on my blog:
• My First Dinner Party
• Stuffed Mushroom Recipe
• Spinach-Cranberry Salad with Apple Cider Vinaigrette
• Some Revisions
• Apple-Stuffed Pork Loin Recipe
• Sides
• Dinner Party Dessert
• Here are pictures from my final day of cooking, which took place February 4th:

  

  Pork loin roast, already salted, in the process of being stuffed.

  
  

  

  Pork loin roast in the process of searing! The outside it slightly darkened.  I  didn't have enough
  kitchen string for the roast, so I used toothpicks instead.

  
  

  

  Here is the finished roast! The cider helped carmelize the outside of the roast, which
  became a slight problem, as the fat ended up burning; thankfully, though the appearance
  of this roast isn't the best, the taste was not affected.

  
  

  

  The potatoes, post boil/dressing, pre roasting. You can see the minced garlic and the soft
  outter edges. The center isn't completely cooked, because that will be taken care of during
  the roasting.

  

  My beautiful roasted potatoes! Color-wise, they could have benefitted from longer
  oven exposure, but other than that I was satisfied! Well seasoned, still crisp, and
  pefectly creamy within.

  
  
• APPLIED
• Having to pay attention to everything from forming a list to plating showed me how long the process of cooking can be. This in itself is the basis of cooking: knowing what you can cook, when, and your ability to do so. I created a meal to a schedule with practice, which was season appropriate, balanced, and even. Also, in evaluating myself and my food, and reading multiple articles and book entries on creating proper flavor combinations, textures, or a certain dish itself has made me feel much more confident in creating those items. For example, the idea of stuffing anything but a turkey terrified me a few months ago, but after stuffing a pork tenderloin and it coming out perfectly white and still juicy, I now know I have the proper skills to stuff almost anything. (Here's a hint: BASTE! The loin was too fat to retain all the juices on its own.) I also had never made a vinaigrette before, and even though it took a couple tries, the outcome was delicious and well-balanced. Re-making the potatoes and pork tenderloin allowed me to test certain methods I read about after the dinner party or had forgotten about before; some of these theories. Overall, this meal has given support to my answer 1 (the fact that one taste balanced another, sweet stuffed pork and salty seasoned potatoes. This also reminded me that my question is on a dish, not just a single piece of food, meaning the different parts of a meal affecting one another is part of my answer) and gave support to two potential answers: salt enhances flavor (which was salting the meat and letting it rest, then cooking it) and that cooking (using heat) allows flavors to be melded and married, producing better, more developed flavors than before (which was the searing of the meat, meant to lock in the flavor before baking the loin).