Blogging Over Thyme

practical Two: Behind the Scenes

2012-02-26T18:46:10Z

As I mentioned in some of my previous posts, this last week ended with our second practical and theory exam! Since I didn’t provide lots of details on my last exam, I figured I would write up a detailed post on the whole experience. A play-by-play, if you will…

Before I even started culinary school, the entire idea of practical exams were a bit foreign to me. I had a vague idea of what they might involve, but that’s about it. And since every school does them a bit differently, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Our first practical exam mainly consisted of various components, such as hollandaise, knife skills, vinaigrette. But not an actual dish! This past week’s second practical exam was a three course meal. Pretty different, no? And a lot more intimidating!

Luckily, leading up the exam, we get a lot of clear hints about what dishes we will be expected to produce on the big day. Comforting, but still nerve-wracking! Here’s a rough idea of how the day goes to any one curious out there! Here’s what we had to make:

Potage Parmentier (Potato & Leek Soup)

Pan-Seared Chicken Breasts (wing bone-in) with Madeira Sauce

Potato Darphin

Floating Island

6:00 – 7:00 AM

Right before class, we set up the classroom for the exam. Since everyone is working individually and responsible for the organization and cleanliness of our station, each of our tables is divided in half with tape to mark our space! Everyday items, such as salt, butter, cutting boards, and a utensil holder are also allowed to be set up. Everything else we need has to be grabbed by ourselves throughout the exam!

7:00 – 7:30 AM

We all congregate in our classroom to get a break down of the day’s exam! We also turn in our recipe notebooks for grading—which the other day included 82 new recipes! In just eight weeks, we have filled it with a little bit more than 139 recipes!

Since this practical involved many more components and techniques, the whiteboard was filled with our grading criteria! For each dish, we get graded on multiple components, such as “consistency, temperature, execution/technique, presentation, & seasoning/taste

When each of us are done cooking all of our food, we tell our assistant, Ashley, who writes our names in order on the board at the front of the kitchen. Since we all could and (inevitably) do finish roughly around the same time, a lot of names get can up on the board quickly! This adds in the tricky part—holding—where you need to figure out a way to keep all your food hot (and not let it overcook or dry out) before plating it together once the chefs come over to evaluate your dishes!

My stomach is always full of nerves at this point in the day! Once they explain the menu, they give us our deadline time (we have three hours to complete the menu) and we all grab our knives and head into the kitchen!

7:30 – 10:30

Right when we get into the classroom, we all pretty much head to the dish and equipment area to grab everything we need for the day’s menu! My general strategy involves getting everything I’ll need for plating – dishes, cutlery, glasses, & napkins/straws – and putting it out of the way on the bottom shelf of my worktable.

I still find it really amazing how much more organized we all are since those first days of French onion soup and simple salads! At that point, we were completely lost and grabbing all those important things at the last minute! I definitely know now that you should try to make the last 30 minutes of service go as smooth as possible (since it is always hectic) by not putting those types of details off.

Practical 2: Chicken Breast with Madeira Sauce & Potato Darphin

Our biggest lead item of the day was getting our mise en place together for our main course. This involved cutting up mirepoix, putting together a bouquet garni (sachet of parsley stems, peppercorns, bay leaf, & thyme), and breaking down our individual chickens.

While our chicken breasts were going to wait for the last minute to cook, the madeira sauce involved cutting up chicken bones, searing them over high heat, and deglazing with mirepoix, Madeira wine, and eventually adding veal stock before letting it reduce and thicken in the oven.

This picture wasn’t actually from exam day, but pretty close in concept!

To go with our chicken dish, we also had to make pommes darphin (basically potato pancakes), made by julienning potatoes and cooking them carefully in little pans with clarified butter. These are trickier than they appear, because they can easily color too quickly (and not cook all the way through), become gray or discolored with oxidation if you wait too long to get the potato to the pans, and also get greasy or mushy, depending on how you hold them.

You also have to carefully season them, because you can’t really taste test as you go!

Another item that I put together at the beginning was our potato and leek soup, which luckily can be made and put aside until service. I wasn’t too worried about this dish, but it does involve being careful with the ratio of potato to leek (and cream) and not over processing too much to add too much starch to the final product!

Practical 2: Potato & Leek Soup –after my chefs dug into it a bit!

And last, but not least, our dessert of floating island, which is poached meringue on top of crème anglaise and drizzled with caramel! Since crème anglaise needs to be served cold, this was another component that I put together at the beginning, so I could allow it to cool in the fridge. The trickiest part of making crème anglaise is getting it to be the right consistency---not too thin and not too thick.

Though it sounds like a lot, the three hours go by extremely quickly!

As seems to be the theme of all practical exams, the first two hours go relatively smoothly and I initially feel pretty organized about the amount of time left to finish and plate everything. Then all of a sudden, I end up glancing at the clock to realize that I only have 45 minutes left to the deadline and I still haven’t:

- - starting to make or poach my meringues
  - started to cook or sear my chicken breast (which takes about 20-25 minutes in total to cook roughly)
  - make caramel, hold it and reheat to plate
  - get my work station cleaned of everything and set up for plating

Practical 2: Floating Island

As you can tell, this is the most nerve-wracking period of the whole exam! The component I was most worried about at this point was my chicken breast, which I had already seared, but wasn’t cooking through quickly enough in the oven. I also had to make time to let it rest before slicing and serving. Though I was worried I might end up over-doing it, I ended up running to grab another sauté pan and seared it again on both sides to help speed up the process.

At this time, I had already gotten the rest of my dish components completed (besides plating) and called my name, which ended up being third on the list. Then comes the waiting game…

Luckily, I was able to pull it all off in time and ended up finishing third in my class with about 7-8 minutes to spare. Next up was the evaluation…

Practical Results

I wasn’t sure of how I did when the Chef Brian & Chef Somchet came over to evaluate my dishes! I felt like I had cooked my chicken well (which I was felt very relieved by, given the fact that I had to scramble and improvise to even get it cooked in time), my soup was relatively good, and I felt fairly confident in my dessert.

Honestly, I had no idea how my potatoes were going to taste, other than the fact that they were colored pretty evenly on both sides!

Overall, I ended up being very happy with how I did on the exam! I was happy with my first practical results, but definitely beat up myself up for my mistakes on the last one, so it was a nice feeling at the end of the day. Chef Brian actually said that my potato darphin was one of my best ones he has ever had! And the chicken breast, which I was most worried about leading up to the exam, they said was cooked perfectly. Chef Somchet even went back for more and kept talking about how moist it was!

In terms of criticisms, Chef Brian did suggest chopping up the pistachios—served with the dessert—(something that honestly didn’t even cross my mind, but makes perfect sense in hindsight), that my soup could have used a tiny bit more salt, and that my Madeira sauce may have been a bit too Madeira-y, which is pretty much how I felt about it.

They also both told me that my attention to detail for presentation is very good. This is was another really nice thing to hear as well, since its an aspect of cooking I really enjoy. We’ll find out our official grades next week!

After cleaning up the kitchen (another task evaluated as part of our exam grade), we took a short break before taking out second theory test! Luckily, it ended on another good note, because I felt confident at the end of the day.

Hope you all enjoyed this behind-the-scenes peek into our monthly practical exams. Have a great rest of the weekend!

Day 29: Mussels, Steak Fries & Brussels Sprouts

2012-02-24T22:56:23Z

I have officially survived the second practical exam and am back to update you all on Wednesday’s class! I must admit, once I got into the kitchen, I realized that I had forgotten to put my camera in my pocket, so I don’t have any “in-process” photos, but it was still an eventful day!

When I arrived on Wednesday, bright (actually its completely pitch-black outside…) and early, I was hoping that the day’s menu might be a little short, to give us a little breathing room for the next day’s exam. Nope! Guess again!

Our daily menu was even longer than usual and involved a lot of components that needed to be finished a la minute (at the last minute) before service. As Chef Brian explained in class, this is something we will become all too familiar with as the weeks go on…

Our first dish of the day was mussels! This was our first time cooking them in school and we made a very simple preparation with leeks and celery (finely sliced) cooked with white wine. I’m not sure I was a huge fan of the celery addition, but apparently it’s a classic. Luckily, this dish required little attention and not a ton of preparation.

However, our main dish was the exact opposite. We used some of the pork (butchered in the previous day’s meat class) to make pan-seared pork medallions, served with a jus made using pork bones, mirepoix, sage, and other aromatics, white wine, and veal stock.

Right before service, we made a quick pan sauce with shallots, garlic, sage, white wine, dijon mustard, and a little bit of apple cider vinegar. To this, we added in the strained pork jus and allowed it to reduce a lot!

With our pork, we served three different things:

Glazed Turnips – which we had to tournee! This was very difficult because the turnips we used were a little spongy on the inside and this made it very difficult to shape it well. We cooked these by adding them to a saucepot with a little bit of butter, salt, and a very, very small amount of water, covering it with a cartouche (parchment lid) and allowing it to cook over very low heat. This cooking process is called etuvee. Again, simple in theory, but tourneeing 15-20 turnips takes more time than one might think!
Steak Fries – known in French as “pomme Pont-Neuf”, named after the bridge in Paris for their shape!
Sauteed Brussel Sprouts with Bacon – this was a simple preparation, but required par-cooking the brussel sprouts ahead of time. To ensure that the sprouts cooked consistently throughout, we scored the bottom of the sprouts and par-cooked them in a very salty boiling water.

And for dessert, and extra practice for the following day’s exam, we tried our hands at making floating island once again! Though this dessert involves a lot of components and needs to be plated at the last minute, I felt a lot better about it after the second time making it. Our caramel was a tad too dark, but I personally liked it because it helped cut the sweetness of the rest of the dessert.

Our afternoon was filled with a review for the next day’s theory and practical exam…which I will tell you all about in an (upcoming) future post!

Happy Friday!

Day 28: Braised Duck Leg, Vicchyoise, & Souffle

2012-02-22T02:27:35Z

Due to my upcoming test this Thursday (which I am becoming more and more anxious about), I’m going to keep this post very brief.

Today involved a little bit of review, but mostly new dishes! The first dish on the agenda was Vicchyoise, which sounds fancy, but is really just a potato and leek soup, served cold. We have made hot potato and leek soup—during Week 2—and we will also be responsible for making this (hot) on the upcoming exam, in addition to other dishes.

Vicchyoise is simple, but if you get the wrong ratio of potato and leek, or over work the starch in the potato, you can easily make a soup that resembles wallpaper paste. Not appetizing. But when done correctly, it comes out smooth and creamy with just the right amount of potato/leek flavor. Once this is pureed and finely strained, you stir in cream and allow it to cool in the fridge. Since cooling food diminishes the intensity of flavors, you usually have to add in more cream and salt at the end to compensate for the change in temperature!

This soup was very good, but very rich too.

To continue our duck week theme, we made braised duck leg with cabbage. We also served these with pommes darphin (another exam dish), which are basically potato pancakes made with julienned potato.

Our duck leg was prepared very similarly to most of our other stews of Phase I, by searing the meat and deglazing the pan with mirepoix, white wine, several other flavors, and adding in veal stock at the end. Our meat went back into the sauce and went into the oven for about 2 hours roughly to become very tender.

The duck was served with a cabbage mixture—made from bacon, onion, cabbage, carrot, and apple. To this, we added apple cider vinegar. It was really good! I wasn’t expecting to like this that much, but it went very well with the duck.

For our dessert, we made Grand Marnier Souffle. This was our first time making souffle, which requires a bit of technique and must be baked right before serving. It basically involves making a bechamel, whisking in sugar and egg yolks, and then right before service, folding in whipped egg whites.

In all fairness, the one pictured above—made by the master Chef Somchet--came out a lot better than ours! But I guess we will have a lot more practice with making all kinds of souffle (spinach, cheese, chocolate, etc) in the future—so we will have some time to get this technique perfected.

We served our souffle with almond, pistachio & cranberry biscotti. I’m not a big fan of biscotti—or really any seriously crispy cookie—but these were probably some of the best I’ve had. .

And, like all Tuesdays, we ended the day with another meat lecture on PORK. Chef Francois, the director of the program, always leads these lectures and today, broke down an entire side of pork. Butchery truly is an art, and also very fascinating—especially as someone who didn’t come into the program with a lot of extensive knowledge of meat.

During the lecture, he broke down several pieces into familiar cuts—such as pork loin (boneless), pork chop (Frenched—which means to clean the bone—and not Frenched), pork roast, tenderloin, and a few others—I believe T-Bone or Porterhouse cut…my brain is blanking at the moment.

Overall, it was a good day with relatively few hiccups. I also got in a workout by cleaning out the stock pot once again! It’s been a while, but it felt all too familiar…

And…with that I am off to do more studying, before I officially call it a night!

Back in a few days with lots of updates on tomorrow’s class, my second practical exam, and more!

Day 27: Seared Duck Breasts, Risotto, & Sponge Cake

2012-02-21T00:22:09Z

After having our open house on Saturday, this past weekend disappeared and by the time I arrived at school this morning, I felt like I had never left! Which was probably a good thing, because today’s menu was very ambitious. And by ambitious, I really mean crazy. Here’s what we had to do…

Our appetizer for the day was a Zucchini & Tomato Tart, which I was excited to make and will appear on an exam in the future. Despite its appearance, it is actually a very simple tart to put together, because all the filling ingredients are raw. However, we still had to make pate brisee dough by hand, have enough time for it to chill, plus blind bake it!

I’ll definitely post a recipe post about this tart, because it is one of my favorite things we’ve made so far. My kind of food! Not to mention, it tasted very fresh and light. This tart must be even more delicious in the summer months when tomatoes are in season!

The tart is assembled with basil, garlic, zucchini and tomato and then topped with a small amount of gruyere and parmesan cheese. I almost didn’t want to top it with anything because it was so pretty!! Here was the final product once it was out of the oven:

Our main course was also very involved, because we basically had two main dishes to produce: Mushroom Risotto & Seared Duck Breast with Orange Gastrique Sauce. I’ve made risotto at home before a few times, so I felt fairly confident about this dish. However, our method at school was slightly different than my at home versions. We used four different types of mushrooms for ours, which each had to be sautéed separately beforehand.

Today was also our first day cooking with duck! I’m pretty sure this is Duck Week actually. To make our seared duck breasts and gastrique sauce, we each broke down a whole duck (slightly trickier than a chicken). We then used the spine, back and neck bones (chopped) to make a jus—by searing them over high heat, deglazing with mirepoix, and adding veal stock. This simmered away until we were ready to start our gastrique….

A gastrique is a classic vinegar sauce and is often paired with rich, fatty meats (ie. duck). The acidity of the vinegar not only helps cut the fat, but also was thought to help aid in digestion.

The process starts off with making caramel (sugar & water) and adding in acid, we used sherry wine vinegar. Once this was put together, we combined the gastrique and strained duck jus. Because we were making an orange gastrique, we also added in orange juice, julienned orange peel (which we had to finely julienne and blanched three times), and eventually garnished with orange segments.

The final sauce has a slightly bitter, sweet, and acidic bite to it. By itself, I wasn’t a huge fan, but it paired with the duck breast really well actually. I was surprised I liked it!

As for the duck…the breasts were placed skin-side down in a sauté pan and cooked over low-medium heat to slowly render the fat and get it crispy. Keeping the heat low is key, because otherwise the fat will get trapped and it won’t become crispy at al! We then seared the other side quickly (so that was slightly pink inside) and let it rest, before thinly slicing.

And last, but certainly not least, each of us were responsible for making a roll cake. See what I mean by there being a lot to get done?!

Our sponge roll cake, known as a ROULADE, will also make an appearance on a future exam, so I paid close attention and tried to make sure I was doing it properly. My mom used to make us sponge roll cakes for our birthdays and special occasions all the time! I love them—I think this recipe was slightly different than my mom’s but still quite good. To make it simple and practice our rolling technique, ours were simply brushed with simple syrup and filled with raspberry preserves. Eventually we will fill them with buttercreams, whipped creams, and lots more!

Roulade Cake starts off by whisking together egg yolks and sugar (slightly warm from a bain marie) until they ribbon and become very pale in color. In a separate bowl, you put together a French soft meringue, by beating egg whites and slowly adding sugar.

At this point, you slowly start folding the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture. To this, you gradually fold in well-sifted cake flour and a very small amount of melted (clarified) butter. This has to be done carefully to avoid losing the incorporated air!

After baking for barely 5-7 minutes, you get a sponge cake! The trick is not to over bake, because it will become impossible to roll up if it is dry. We placed our baked roll cakes on a kitchen towel, lightly brushed them with simple syrup, and spread on a very thin layer of thick raspberry preserve. Then it was rolling time!

The cake was tastier than it appears! And I love the versatility of a sponge cake—the possibilities are endless and I’m looking forward to making more at home in the future.

Somehow, we managed to serve all of this and get it plated (seven plates of everything!) by around 12:30, which was technically late.

The afternoon was filled with a quick lecture on preparing duck confit,, which I will talk about in a future post! It basically involves curing duck legs and cooking them in rendered duck fat—which we started grinding in the massive meat grinder (seen below) today. It was an interesting and slightly disgusting process!

As Chef Brian says, “No duck fat left behind!”

On that note, I am off to go study for my second practical and theory test, which is this coming Thursday!

Day 26: Thai Day!

2012-02-17T18:09:44Z

Thursday’s class was a lot of fun and something we all have been looking forward to since starting the program. It was officially Thai Day—a special tradition that each Phase I class gets to experience. The entire day’s menu was filled with traditional Thai foods, taught to us by Chef Somchet. We also made chocolate chip cookies (obviously not Thai—although Chef Somchet did say that one year she accidentally put in soy sauce instead of vanilla extract when demonstrating)….just because.

Before we even got into the classroom to start lecture, we actually finished putting together our Challah Bread—which we had started the day prior. Challah bread, which is similar to Brioche, is an egg bread that contains sugar and butter. It makes excellent French toast, bread pudding, and lots of other things.

The best part of the day?? I got to take this massive loaf home with me! It seriously is the size of a small child and barely fit into my notebook bag. French Toast is definitely in my future…

Our dishes for the day included Pad Thai (which contained tofu & shrimp), pork satay with peanut sauce, chicken coconut soup (Tom Kao Gai), and a cucumber salad. The highlight, in my opinion, was the soup, which we all got small bowls of during demonstration and gobbled down at 8:00 am. It was the perfect definition of Asian food blending spicy, sweet, sour, acid, and salt flavors together. It is actually a very simple dish to make, but must be made right at the last minute, like most Asian dishes, to best flavor. It really doesn’t look all that great, but it was very good. Ingredients included galanga (similar to ginger), lemon grass, oyster mushrooms, coconut milk, fish sauce, thai chili, lime juice, and lots of other things.

I was also excited to learn how to make Pad Thai. As Chef Somchet says, Pad Thai should really be served according to the customer’s palate. Therefore, change the amount of spiciness, sweetness, and acid level depending on what the person likes. It should also not be oily or too sweet, like many you find in restaurants nowadays.

To go along with our other dishes, we also served Pork Satay with Peanut Sauce and a cucumber salad (combination of cucumbers and shallots marinated in lime juice, sugar, salt, fish sauce, rice wine vinegar, and a bit of diced chili). We started marinating our pork the previous day to improve the flavor. I wasn’t in love with this…and would have preferred chicken. Win some, lose some. Everything was served buffet style, which was a fun change of pace and definitely made service easier.

And simple (massive) chocolate chip cookies, fresh and piping hot from the oven to finish…

During the afternoon, we started prepping our buffet lunch for the open house, which I will be heading back to school for tomorrow morning. We were each broken into small teams of 2-3 people and are responsible for serving and making a dish. My group is assigned to smoken salmon canapes. Yum!

Hopefully I can share a few pictures of the day with you! The rest of the weekend will be filling with studying, practicing dishes, and hopefully a bit of relaxation…

And hopefully a new recipe post for you guys! Stay tuned…

Day 25: Veal Vennoise, Caesar Salad, & Floating Island

2012-02-16T22:29:11Z

Wednesday was full of many classic and traditional dishes….starting with homemade Caesar salad (which is not French, whatsoever, in origin). It’s funny—Caesar salad used to be one of my favorite things to order at restaurants when I was young, but I haven’t had it in years, mainly because I find most to be mediocre or over-dressed.

The best caesar salad of my life was, without a doubt, one I ordered when I went to the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles with my family many, many years ago. Very memorable!

But homemade Caesar salad is a cinch to make! The dressing is basically a variation of a mayonnaise—started with egg yolk, dijon mustard, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce, and emulsified with olive oil. The addition of parmesan, freshly made anchovy paste, and garlic take it to the next level. One nice addition we added was very finely chopped parsley, which gave it a very nice color.

We also made homemade croutons with butter, minced garlic, and a little bit of parsley as well over the stovetop. They were good!

Our main course of the day was ESCALOPE DE VEAU VIENNOISE—Veal Scallop with Viennoise Sauce. In layman terms, it is breaded veal topped with demi glace and a caper, lemon juice, parsley, and butter sauce—basically another derivative of meuniere--to which we add chopped hard-boiled egg--and a classic garnish of lemon rondelle and an anchovy-wrapped green olive. Pretty fancy, huh?

This whole dish sounds really, really weird in concept (and to describe)—but when you had a bite of everything, including the garnish, it came together beautifully and is really delicious. I was surprised too!

Traditionally, Veal Viennoise was served banquet style with the garnishes separated by color to resemble the Neapolitan battle flag.

Besides the garnish and getting our mise en place together, this dish wasn’t cooked until the last minute. We thinly cut the veal (butchered in the previous day’s class) into scallops, which are slices no thicker than 1/8 of an inch. It is a tricky thing to do perfectly, but I ended up doing well for my first try!

We served our veal with another new potato dish—GRATIN DAUPHINOIS. Bring on the heavy cream, butter, and cheese! Seriously.

After using the mandolin to cut our potatoes into thin slices, we layered (overlapping) them on a greased baking sheet and proceeded to cover each layer with a lot (and I mean, a lot) of heavy cream, gruyere and a little bit of parmesan cheese, nutmeg, and salt & pepper. For gratin dishes, it is really important to use a very starchy potato to ensure that it holds together well!

Our Chef told us that you could make a variation of this gratin with part turnip slices too. It was very rich, but very good. We used biscuit cutters to plate this!

And to end the meal, we made a very unique and technique-intensive dessert, called L’ILE FLOTTANTE AU CARAMEL or “Floating Island”. This dessert is on our next practical exam—so I’m going to be practicing it a lot over the next week because it is very time-sensitive and requires a lot of careful attention to detail.

Check out the sugar-caramel basket!!! That was so much fun to make and even though our chef explained that we weren’t required to do it, my partner, Turner, and I tried to squeeze time in at the end to at least try. These type of elaborate presentation details are more emphasized during Phase II of the program.

But it was a lot of fun to learn! And not nearly as difficult as it appears.

Floating Island dessert comprises of hard French meringue—which is shaped into a quenelle (a new technique of the day) and poached in water at the last minute—served on top of crème anglaise and drizzled with caramel and sliced almonds and pistachios.

The poached meringue must be made at the last minute to ensure that it doesn’t lose body.

To make our caramel baskets—we drizzled hot caramel with a fork very quickly over the bottom of a lightly greased ladle and allowing it to cool slightly. Once it cooled, the whole thing comes off perfectly shaped! Another blog video idea, perhaps?!

This weekend will be very eventful! Saturday, I will be heading back to school for our open house, where we will be providing a buffet to prospective students and our families, and the rest of the weekend will be spent preparing for my second exam and practical, which is next Thursday. Lots to do to prepare for that!

Day 24: Artichoke Salad, Chasseur, & Napoleon

2012-02-16T02:58:06Z

Right now, I’m sitting in bed, fighting off sleep, but attempting to keep my eyes open in an effort to tell you all about yesterday’s class! I try to stay on top of my posts as much as possible, because I remember so many more details if I post immediately after class. Here’s hoping I don’t forget anything!

Yesterday’s menu involved a stew, a salad, and a classic pastry dessert. Hmm…that sounds like most days!

Our salad of the day included artichokes, specifically the ones we turned the afternoon prior. The official name of the dish was LA SALADE DE FONDS ARTICHAUTS A LA GRECQUE, which is a marinated artichoke salad primarily flavored with coriander seeds.

This dish involved sweating red onions in a large amount of olive oil (since we were basically making a vinaigrette) and adding in lemon juice, white wine, and coriander seeds. We added in the sliced artichoke hearts and let them marinade until service.

This was served over watercress (pretty much any delicate green would do). It was very pretty, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the vinaigrette—perhaps a bit too oily for my liking.

Our main dish was another stew, this time involving chicken legs and thighs, called LE POULET SAUTE CHASSEUR. The word “chasseur” means hunter of small game. The dish is flavored with chopped tomatoes, tarragon, and sauteed mushrooms—which apparently are very good flavors for this type of meat. I don’t think I’ve ever made a dish at home with tarragon before this!

I’m not sure if I love it…but it did go very well with this dish.

The dish was made in a very similar fashion to all our other stews—by lightly flouring the meat and searing it, before deglazing with mirepoix and red wine—and eventually adding in a large amount of chicken stock. The meat was then put back into the sauce and allowed to get very tender in the oven until service.

The drumsticks and thighs work beautifully for stews like this because they become very tender and fall off the bone!

We served ours with a POMME DARPHIN, which is basically a potato pancake of sorts that is made with very finely julienned potatoes. We used very small pans (maybe 2 1/2 inches in diameter) to make ours, but these could easily be adapted to any size. Once we seasoned the pans with clarified butter, we added a hefty amount of seasoned potatoes and flipped them once golden brown. The trick is to brown them perfectly and cook them through! They were delicious and could be used for so many dishes!

They will also be on our next practical exam—eek!

Though we’ve been hand-julienning everything up until now, we finally were introduced to the mandolin (see in action above). I’m not sure how I feel about it though—obviously, it is a life saver for tasks like this, but its very scary to use! The school has no hand guards, so you really have to be seriously careful with this thing.

For dessert, we made a very fancy Napoleon, using puff pastry, pastry cream (with gelatin added for stability), and toasted almonds.

We started by rolling out our puff pastry thinly (we made another batch on our own time yesterday) and docking it, and lighting dusting it with sugar. This went into the oven to bake and once cool, got sliced into three equal lengths.

We then added pastry cream between the layers and coated the sides with sliced, toasted almonds. The top was dusted with powdered sugar and then came the fun part…

We used skewers (which we heated over a gas flame) to scorch and make marks along the top (X). Not only does this add an interesting element for presentation, but by literally burning the sugar, you are basically making dark caramel, which adds a nice bitterness to the dessert and cuts the sweetness a bit.

This was a fun dessert to make, but we definitely had to throw it together at the end of service to get everything done in time! We served ours sliced on top of strawberry puree (made into hearts) for Valentines Day!

As is the case with every Tuesday afternoon, we ended the day with a meat lecture, where we watched Chef Michel (instructor in Phase II) butcher an entire leg of veal. This thing weighed 55 lbs and he broke it down completely. Apparently he used to be able to do all of this in just 20 minutes!!

Butchering is something that L’Academie focuses a lot of attention on because it isn’t taught in many culinary schools anymore (or that substantially) and it can save you TONS of money in the industry or your own personal business one day. Not to mention, it is an incredibly valuable and important skill to have when you go into the industry.

For example: I believe this entire leg of veal cost about $350 dollars (roughly $6/lb)—and by the time Chef broke it down, he explained that you could easily make up to $3000 dollars by portioning it out accurately and costing it effectively on a menu. And this was simply from the most tender cuts of the meat from the leg! Pretty crazy. If you ordered all of these cuts already fabricated, your costs would be significantly higher.

And on that note, I am off to bed! Tomorrow is another exciting day in the kitchen—but I’ll wait to share over the next few days. Let’s just say that we are taking a major departure from traditional French fare…

Day 23: Tilapia, Carrot Soup, & Bread Pudding

2012-02-15T02:05:23Z

Besides accidentally leaving my (priceless) notebook at school, Monday’s class was a relatively straight-forward and smooth day in the kitchen. It is always a bit of a relief when I look at a manageable menu on the whiteboard in the morning, but also a bit nerve-wracking, because I can’t help but wonder what the next day has to offer!

Lecture and production combined new and (revisiting) some old techniques. Our main dish was another variation (known as a derivative or small sauce) of meuniere, which is a pan sauce made from whole butter, which is lightly browned, finely chopped parsley, and finished with lemon juice. So far, we have made grenobloise, which has the addition of capers and croutons.

The day’s variation, called AMANDES, is identical to meuniere, but has the addition of sliced and toasted almonds. And lots of them! Instead of working with trout and flounder, we worked with…tilapia! This dish continues to be one of my favorites so far in the program, so I was happy to see it on the menu again. I am looking forward to making this at home—but need to figure out a way to make demi glace, which is proving a bit difficult.

With our tilapia, we also served ratatouille, which we learned how to make for the first time last week. Our chef wanted us to make a more rustic variation and make lots of it—because we are using the leftovers for this Saturday (an open house at the school—with lunch provided) and a required make-up day for us.

In addition to our tilapia, we also served a new soup—specifically a POTAGE CRECY. We have already made several different potages (a refined soup that is started with leeks), but this was probably my favorite so far. As you can probably guess from the color, it was a carrot soup, which was flavored with lots of ginger. Specifically, ground, fresh, and crystalized ginger, which was pretty interesting!

It all ended up being pureed in the blender and passed through a chinois to make extra smooth. Right before service, we added in a small amount of heavy cream to add a touch of richness. The color was beautiful and it really was a very simple dish, but full of great flavor.

Last, but not least, we made a PAIN PERDU (bread pudding). Except it wasn’t just any old bread pudding, but one made with leftover brioche bread that we learned how to make last week.

Essentially an egg-filled bread dipped into a rich eggy custard = rich and very delicious. The addition of rum soaked raisins made it extra special. Despite being great, my jaw did kind of drop when I saw that we would be using more than 2 cups of half and half (literally 50% whole milk; 50% heavy cream) to make the custard. Holy arteries!

This all went into the oven and got baked in a water bath for about 25 minutes. We have already made so many forms of custards—it is pretty amazing when you think about what the simple combination of eggs, sugar, and milk/cream can accomplish.

Once we served lunch, we got to work cleaning the kitchen before having another quick lesson in the afternoon. The day’s agenda was learning how to turn artichokes, which simply means how to remove the heart and clean it nicely for presentation.

As you can probably tell from the picture below, the left artichoke is completely intact and the one at the right is a artichoke heart that has been removed carefully with a pairing knife (lemons were kept on hand to prevent oxidation/browning). I’ve only cooked artichoke whole in the past, so this was a pretty fun technique to learn how to do.

After removing the hearts, we cooked them in a BLANC, which is a classic method for cooking and storing artichokes. A blanc is simply a combination of water, flour (roughly 2 tablespoons) and lemon juice for acid.

The blanc makes the artichoke hearts tender—and the flour prevents light from hitting the artichokes, as well as supposedly improves and adds flavor. Since we weren’t going to be using our cooked artichoke hearts until the next day, we stored them in our blancs in the fridge overnight.

Chef Brian also did a quick demonstration on how to break down a whole salmon (this one was about 8 lbs). Apparently in Phase II, at some point, each of us will be breaking down an entire salmon ourselves, but for now, it was simply to show the technique.

Pretty cool to watch the whole process! Unlike our flounder bones, salmon bones are not suitable or saved for stock-making.

After fileting the fish, Chef Brian rubbed them with equal parts kosher salt and brown sugar, which prepares and cures them for SMOKING—yes, we are actually smoking this entire fish to serve at the open house! Hmm…I love smoked salmon.

Luckily, I have completed my paper ahead of time (which is due Thursday), so I’ll be back soon with another update on today’s class.

Hope you all had a great weekend and Valentine’s Day!

Day 22: Grilled Scallops, Madeira Sauce, & Palmier Cookies

2012-02-12T00:03:57Z

Sorry for the long delay with my Thursday update! But I’m back with all the details. Thursday’s menu was packed full of new dishes and was quite a hectic day in the kitchen, but luckily we all did a pretty good job managing our time. I also got the chance to work (for the second time) with Tasha, which was lots of fun.

I’ll start with the day’s dessert, which was very simple. We learned another petits fours sec in the form of PALMIER cookies, which are traditionally made with leftover puff pastry trimmings coated in a mixture of sugar and ground cinnamon. Because we had leftover trim, these were very simple to make. The process began with rolling out our puff pastry and sprinkling both sides with cinnamon/sugar.

This was then rolled in a scroll type shape and then cut into 1/2 inch widths to form these beautiful little butterfly cookies. This all went into the oven for about 20 minutes—flipping sides halfway through the process.

When they came out, they looked like this (see below)! We served ours with a sabayon, which is basically a wine custard, made by whipping egg yolks, (in our case) sherry wine, and sugar over a bain marie until it is very thick. We then folded in a very small amount of hand-whipped cream.

This was spooned over a fresh fruit mixture and then lightly torched. It was good, but very rich.

As for our main course, we made seared chicken, which was served with a mushroom madeira sauce. This process started with us breaking down whole chickens, removing the breast (with the wing bone still attached for flavor—this is called an airline breast, because it was traditionally served on airplanes).

We reserved the rest the chicken legs for another time—meanwhile, we chopped up the spine and back of the chicken into very small pieces, which were then seared over high heat (and removed), followed by deglazing the pan with mirepoix and madeira wine (notice a theme?)

At this point, we added in reduced veal stock, placed the chicken bones back into the pan, and let this reduce and develop flavor in the oven.

Our chicken breast was cooked to serve, which was a little tricky, because it requires cooking a specific way in order to make sure that all parts of the breast are cooked evenly and no part is overdone. This involves maneuvering the pan and maximizing the heat on the thickest portions of the breast and vice versa.

This dish is going to be on our second practical exam, so I’m very nervous and want to practice making this at home a lot before then to get it right. Ours turned out pretty well, but was slightly overcooked!

Our chicken was served with POMMES RISSOLEES (there are so many types of potato dishes!), tourneed potatoes that were lightly blanched, followed by sautéing them in clarified butter and allowing them to brown evenly on all sides.

We also served plain broccoli on the side. I’m always happy to see green veggies at lunch that aren’t drenched in butter.

Scallops were also on the menu for the first time! In class, we learned that there are dry-packed vs. wet-packed scallops. Dry packed scallops are the preferred (and more expensive) product, because they are dry (duh) and not packed in a seafood preservative (as opposed to wet-packed scallops, which are generally stored in water and better for mousses, etc).

Dry packed scallops are obviously preferred for grilling or searing, since they are less likely to stick and boil (due to the water content), and get mushy when cooked over high heat.

We grilled our scallops—rotating 90 degrees to develop those classic grill marks—and served them with a bit of sautéed spinach and beurre blanc sauce.

Although there are many ways you can make beurre blanc, we made the classic method—made by combining red wine vinegar, shallots, white wine, garlic, thyme, peppercorns, parsley stems, and a bay leaf and cooking au sec (until liquid is nearly gone). At this point, we added in a very small amount of heavy cream and proceeding to slowly whisk in cold, cubes of butter to create an emulsification. This was all strained at the end!

Beurre blanc was interesting, but definitely not something I was a very big fan of, personally. Although I’d be curious to try more modern interpretations.

Our afternoon was filled with learning how to make CORNETS—which are small parchment cones used to very finely pipe chocolate—which are a lot more difficult to make then they sound. We also took a trip to the Phase II pastry classroom for a huge and very impressive PETITS FOURS buffet!

They had spent the last three days of production making all of this and had spent that morning lining them all up perfectly with rulers. Each student was responsible for making several different varieties! Just to name a few, there were baklava, lemon tarts, pound cakes, mini layered carrot cakes, and (handmade) chocolate shells filled with coffee creams.

There were almost too much to choose from to try!

In addition, there were these really special and unique candied fruit (below). According to the instructors, these were dipped in sugar that was at a specific temperature stage (I’m pretty sure “hard crack” stage), where they become coated in a very hard, shell that cracks when you bite into it—but is not gummy at all. This method has a specific name, but I’ve already forgotten it unfortunately!

Very, very cool! And unlike anything I’ve ever had. I loved the orange segments, in particular, because the tartness of the orange cut the sugar a bit.

Lots more to get accomplished by Monday’s class, including starting my second paper which is due at the end of this week.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone!

Day 21: Homemade Ravioli, Scrambled Eggs & Brownies

2012-02-09T01:33:49Z

Today was an another exciting, menu-packed day! We made homemade ravioli for the first time, which meant we got to practice making homemade pasta once again. I’ve made ravioli once at home (not incredibly successfully), so I was excited to learn a better method for it. Unfortunately, at home, I used a ravioli mold, which doesn’t give you as much control over the final product. In school, we learned how to make it by hand.

Our filling was very unique—and included finely chopped raw shrimp (that was deveined), chopped basil, shallot, garlic, and a bit of cold butter that was mixed in. We also added in a small amount of Tobasco sauce for a bit of heat. As you can notice from the picture above, the white specks are butter.

Once we rolled out our pasta dough, we staggered the filling on one sheet of pasta, which we brushed lightly with egg yolk. We then carefully lay down the top sheet of pasta directly on top—crimping the filling as we went. We used a small round biscuit cutter to press down and help form, followed by using another larger biscuit cutter to cut and then pinched the edges with our fingers. As Chef Brian told us, good ravioli should be very thin pasta and really be all about the filling.

We served our pasta with a LA SAUCE CRÈME AU BASILIC, which is basically a basil cream sauce that we made by lightly sauteeing the shrimp shells (to add extra flavor), more shallot, garlic, and basil. To this, we added white wine and cooked au sec, which means until dry. Before serving, we added in heavy cream and more chiffonade basil and parmesan cheese.

It was good and our ravioli came out well and very plump—but I tend not to be a huge fan of cream sauces and would have preferred to just have the ravioli with a bit of butter and cheese. This dish could easily be adapted with raw lobster meat, chicken, pork, what have you. I’m excited to make more homemade ravioli in the future!

Despite not really going hand in hand, we also learned how to make scrambled eggs—however, not in the way that you might imagine. It is basically a lesson on how you can really make a protein tender by cooking it over low heat and slowly.—and results in a very creamy, custardy scrambled egg, without adding any other ingredients

To do this, we whisked together lots of eggs, strained them, and put them in a large stainless steel bowl over a bain marie (water bath with lightly simmering water). Basically the heat of the steam cooks the eggs incredibly slowly—i.e. it took us roughly 40 minutes to cook these—so it is not something you want to throw together at the last minute. It also requires constant stirring with a spatula, so my partner, Lindsay, and I had to switch off between other tasks around the kitchen.

Our scrambled eggs were served with a topping of tomato concasse, which is essentially a tomato sauce made with onions, fresh and canned tomato and not put through a food mill. It is supposed to have texture!

If the cream-laden ravioli and eggs weren’t enough, we also reviewed the technique for making homemade POMMES FRITES (French fries) once again to go along with them.

For our dessert, we made basic brownies, which were accompanied with cigarette cookies (these will be on Exam #4 apparently and require extremely quick action to assemble!) and fresh ice cream, which was made (by Chef Somchet) with our leftover CRÈME ANGLAISE.

Cigarette tuille are made by putting an extremely thin layer of batter in a mold and immediately removing after baking and rolling using a wooden spoon. Except you have to work extremely quickly or they become brittle and will crumble before your eyes!

On a side note, Crème Anglaise makes a wonderfully delicious vanilla ice cream. So rich, but very good. And simple too!

Chef Brian reminded us today that tomorrow officially marks the halfway point in Phase I—how is that even possible?! Time is really flying…

Hopefully DC’s small dusting of snow doesn’t disrupt my early morning commute! Be back soon…