Community Corner

Culinary Arts Students Delight

Joliet Junior College's Friday Night Dinner series highlights what young chefs can do.

My dinner Friday night began with a chef’s compliment.

An amuse bouche, the parmesan thyme cracker was topped with an asparagus mouse and a piece of sopressata sausage. The best part was the sausage. It was salty and a bit spicy but was a good beginning to what was to come.

Whenever I eat at an event that is prepared by the Joliet Junior College culinary arts students, such as the Friday Night Dinner series, I feel a little like I am in the movie Last Holiday. The film, which stars Queen Latifah, features a chef who is frustrated by the tables that keep special-ordering dishes. He cannot serve the taste he intends because they keep asking for no dairy, no gluten, etc.

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I am fatally allergic to nuts. I am also gluten-free.

A couple years ago, after expressing my apologies for my “special orders,” I was assured by one of Joliet Junior College’s chef instructors that I had it all wrong. The culinary arts students eventually will be serving what they prepare in the real world. They will have diners who have special culinary needs. He assured me that having to create a desert on the fly that did not contain nuts was a good lesson for them.

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With this in mind, I allowed those behind the scenes to choose my dinner for me. They chose the pressed chicken terrine with buttermilk, bacon and dill sauce as my appetizer.

I am always honest about what I am eating. I found the pressed chicken terrine too gamey, for lack of a better description, until it was paired with the buttermilk, bacon and dill sauce. It was a perfect pairing. The side of roasted corn and black-eyed pea salad, corn shoots was excellent. The appetizer was $5.95.

Next a salad came to my table. It was fantastic. The menu listed it as mixed field greens with parmesan herb vinaigrette. It had some of my favorite ingredients – olives, which in this case were roasted in lemon thyme, and pieces of asparagus. The oven-dried cherry tomatoes were great. The flavor was only enhanced by the oven-drying. The salad was $4.95.

My entrée was the sautéed East Coast flounder with an orange white wine butter sauce. It was served with celery root puree and tarragon fresh vegetable sauté. First, the fish. The flounder was light in taste and the orange white wine butter sauce gave it a different feel. It added not only flavor, but also texture.

The celery root puree had the texture of mashed potatoes and the flavor of celery. I liked it a lot, but I could see how it would be an acquired taste. Lastly, I love fresh veggies. But I do not like tarragon. In fact, I asked chef instructor Tim Bucci after the meal if the veggies also had fennel. They did not but the flavors of those spices are similar.

Lastly, although I am guessing, the dish is usually served with toasted hazelnuts. Mine obviously did not have those. But knowing what a nutty flavor is (I am allergic to tree nuts, but I can eat peanuts), I can imagine that the flavor of the nuts would pair beautifully with the orange white wine butter sauce.

My dinner with Stockwell was Friday because I wanted to tell everyone about their Valentine’s Day dinner. For $55 per person (plus tax), diners begin with buttered appetizers at 6 p.m. and conclude with dessert at 9 p.m.

The entree - roasted beef tenderloin medallions port wine reduction & salmon en croute with lemon dill sauce (Salmon wrapped in puff pastry filled with creamed spinach) - makes me want to go back to the Renaissance Center next weekend.

The Renaissance Center is at 214 Ottawa St. in Joliet. For reservations, call 815-280-1404 or e-mail Stockwell at sstockwe@jjc.edu.


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