#84 - Sebastian the Lobster, Interactive dining and the Little Mermaid

But first - a lobster, half a beetroot and some ratatouille
Friday was our lobster and ratatouille practical.  For some reason, people seem to dislike beetroot, sometimes before they've even tried it.  I was guilty of this particular dislike until a few years ago.  I had always been put off by the color and the fact that beetroot seems to stain everything it touches so I'm not sure what possessed me to try it that nameless day sometime in the distant past, but try it I did.  It was love at first bite.  It has a firm, but soft texture if that's possible, similar to eating a skillfully cooked turnip but much sweeter.


So the dish was a pan fried lobster, but only at the last minute.  We had to (mostly) cook it in the shell so that we could remove the shell first, to use to make something almost like a bisque - cooking off the shells and making a bouillon, then clarifying it with beets and egg whites.  Somehow getting the lobster out of its shell was a lot harder than I remember and this one had a ton of eggs.  It was actually kind of disgusting because they got everywhere and I kept having to clean my board, knives and work surface.  Plus I accidentally cut through the meat on one of the claws and completely mashed the other one.  Sebastian (yes, I know it's a boy's name) got some of her own back when one of her knuckles twisted in my hand while I was deshelling her - so there is a puncture on my left thumb and a slice on my right thumb (no idea how I got it).


I have yet to have a practical class in Cuisine where I haven't boiled something over - on Friday, it was the court bouillon to cook the lobster.  The clarification was quite nice although I had to discard some egg white part way through because it looked like there was too much egg.  Not enough sauce left to make an emulsion foam at the end, but the dish finished on time and the beetroot consomme was surprisingly good.  The ratatouille was pretty yummy, but we ran out of olive oil so I thought it was missing something.  I tried it at home after adding a little olive oil and it made a huge difference - part of the reason why I don't cook with extra virgin olive oil unless I am looking for the flavor.  It also took a little while longer than I would have liked to cut all the vegetables because I had to spend so much time trimming.  It's easier to get even cuts if you cut off the top and the bottom of the bell peppers and since none of the veggies had flat sides, you had to trim off and discard quite a bit.  Chef EB didn't say anything about them but I bet if I hadn't gotten them pretty similar sized, he would have noticed and said something.  As it was, he could tell I hadn't added the basil chiffonade at the right time.


Lobster was followed by a trek down to the pub, a fine after-class tradition which is not quite as regular as back when we were in Marylebone Lane.  A definite must though, after a Friday class.


Minor rejoicing
And finally, the biometric scan for my finger works!  I've forgotten, but one of the gates works to let me in and a different one (and those ones only) work to let me out when I scan my finger.  Suffice it to say that the working finger is not the middle one.  And it finally worked at the cafe so my prediction that the scanner will never work during my time at LCB will not stay true.  The new ID card is a different story and I'm still not sure that I will learn everyone's name in my group before the exams.  We're still working on remembering who's actually in the group.


Practicing...and bloody pigeons

Saturday was a practice session with JE.  We met at Borough Market because we needed some ingredients (pigeons, baby onions, a few other bits and pieces).  And of course, we both got a delicious toasted cheese sandwich.  JE was actually going to get something else, but a look at the steam rising in the air from a bitten corner of the sandwich and a tiny little bite convinced her that she wanted one of her own.  I remember ages ago when LM and I went to get one, we shared it and I thought it was so delicious that I could eat a whole one by myself.  Well, no, as it turns out.  I got most of the way through but the cheese was so rich (and I'm pretty sure there were lashings of butter on it) that I was defeated before I got to the end.

Spent part of the time practicing turning turnips.  I remembered that I wasted a little time during the mock exam doing extra ones (obviously losing some time there) but reminded myself that there would only be a couple of backups during the actual exam so some time should get picked up there, as well as the vegetable cooking.

I hate pigeon - the meat actually smells kind of vile.  After we thought it was cooked, I poked the meat when we roasted the crown and one felt pretty close to medium while the other one still felt really rare.  When I carved my pigeons, the parts that felt medium were medium, but the part close to the bone was still not cooked and even though it didn't bleed (much) when I carved it, blood got in the sauce when I put the sauce on the plate.  I'm not sure how I'll get the whole pigeon crown to medium at this stage because it looks like if the part by the bone is cooked, the rest of the breast might be overdone.  It's not quite as serious to be slightly under with the pigeon as it is with chicken (they want the pigeon medium, chicken has to be cooked through) but it can't be good if I can't roast the stupid thing.

We did manage to get the braising liquid from the lettuce sufficiently reduced to get a glaze and plate most of 2 plates.  No second lettuce and we skipped the chicken mousse because it's a component which is hard to mess up once you learn the tricks of the trade.  However, not particularly happy with the result of our practice and have to remind myself that conditions at home are very different from te ones at school.  For one thing, I'm not sure anyone has 7 pots at home and we spent part of our 4 hours washing up.  We did mark time for when we expected to be doing other elements during the exam (i.e. the chicken mousse for the lettuce, the poached eggs, spinach and Hollandaise sauce) but all in all it didn't turn out too badly, other than the pigeon which is still causing me problems.  Perhaps a longer sear - I'll have to ask the chef because the whole bleeding on the plate thing doesn't work for me.  The picture on the right above looks like one of those find the difference games they have for you when you're a child, the purpose being that the plates presented during the exam ought to be identical.   JE was unhappy with the sauce but I thought it was pretty good, taking into account we used the wrong stock (we didn't have veal and I haven't been able to find it) and the wrong wine (we didn't want to open a nice bottle of red wine and we had only gotten white wine from when we did the Hollandaise earlier in the week.

Made the tartlet but not the eggs, spinach or the Hollandaise.  For one thing, we ran out of pots and pans - they were all in use for the various components of the pigeon dish.  For another, JE had a little trouble with her dough and we don't know why.  And the moulds we used yesterday were a bit bigger than the ones we use for the exam so this was actually meant for practice lining and baking the tartlets anyway.  Not necessarily perfect (we don't know why the potatoes tasted better the last time we did them) but we learned quite a bit so it was definitely not a wasted day.

Dinner

There's this restaurant on Regent Street that I've passed by quite a few times and each time it seemed like one I would like to try.  Luckily one of my friends here had heard from someone that it was good so he booked 4 of us in.  It had interactive tables so we all had fun playing with it - it's pretty much like having a video screen of a computer screen on your table via projector and you can order food, drinks, ask for service, there's a Chef Cam which I thought was really cool (a bit blurry but watching the kitchen was kind of fun), each pair sitting across from each other played Battleship, you can flag down a waiter and change the decor on your table, to name just a few highlights.  I was going to take photos but the boys pooh-poohed the idea.  Well, they said boys don't take photos and I didn't want to embarrass them.  Food on the whole was good but my miso fish wasn't - couldn't taste the miso if there was any (really - but there was plenty of Thai sweet red chili sauce) and it was dry and super overcooked, so a little disappointing.  The fun factor pretty much made up for it though and we had a lot of laughs discussing whether it was a good idea or a bad one for a first date - consensus being it could be either one, depending on the date.

The restaurant had been described as a "funky Asian fusion" place so I put on pretty shoes to go out.  They were fine when I first put them on, but have come to the conclusion that they are more of the "sit there and look pretty" variety than "run down the street in high heels" kind.  We stopped by a bar on the way home, saw some wild gyrating in the direction of a hen's night (bachelorette party, for those of us not from the UK or Australia), then walked home.  By the time we got home, my feet were hurting.  Maybe it's just being out of practice walking in heels, but I suspect not.  I did think that perhaps this was the Little Mermaid's problem (the Hans Christian Andersen version, not the Disney one - where the price for being human was the loss of her voice and feeling like she was walking on knives while she followed her heart to her Prince and her death) - I bet she was wearing pretty but uncomfortable shoes.

Next on the agenda - writing out my recipes for the Patisserie exam runs this week and working on the portfolio.  I wanted to go to ballet this morning but am not sure whether my feet have forgiven me for subjecting them to high heels for an entire evening after weeks of sneakers, soft boots and kitchen shoes.

So until next time may your endeavors be more successful than our adventures have been thus far.

#83 - And down the stretch they come!

Entering the home stretch
Somehow it's sinking in that two weeks from tomorrow, it will all be over (assuming all goes to plan).  I can't believe that I have been in class for almost 2 weeks now.  In some ways it's like I never left and in other ways, I still feel a little like a headless chicken.  Hopefully that feeling will abate prior to exams, although there's a mild panic at the thought that my cuisine final will take place in a kitchen where I have never set foot (except to get a couple of band-aids).

Today's dish was the rabbit trio.  I was a little traumatized when Chef JB asked in demo who had had pet rabbits as a child.  Several hands went up - the most common name being Fluffy. Chef JB then dubbed his rabbit "Fluffy" before proceeding to dismember it into several pieces.  I named mine Peter (obviously whoever caught him was more successful than Mr MacGregor of the Beatrix Potter story).  Marinated the wrong legs for the confit so I got a little behind this morning - the thing is, you can't get flustered when something goes wrong or you lose a lot of time.  I got a little flustered so to hell with French trimming the rack of rabbit - it's a lot of work for a tiny rack, especially since the bones are so delicate.  I didn't serve it, but I did cook the racks.  The final dish had a few slices of roulade, confit, a braised leg and some baby artichoke.  There was also, of course, a sauce - a bit over-reduced, but according to the chef, still tasted good.  I wouldn't know, I didn't actually taste the sauce.  Or the rabbit.  Or the artichokes.  Actually - nope, didn't taste anything at all.


I packed half a rabbit with sauce and veggies for a friend from Cuisine who is now doing Basic Patisserie.  I notice the order of some of the desserts have changed.  Anyway, he likes rabbit so some of Peter went home to become breakfast (or so I was told).  I packed a bit more of the rabbit and brought it home for other people to taste.  I've had enough of it to know that it doesn't taste as bad as I thought the first time, nor does it smell as strong - maybe it has something to do with the fact that this time we cooked it a little after noon instead of first thing in the morning.


Anyway, we then went out to dinner to celebrate GS's birthday from earlier this week.  It was an early night - he wanted to hang out a bit more with NH (who also finished Cuisine last term and is doing Basic Patisserie this term) and me, but I was too tired and I think so was she.  We've actually had quite a lot of hours in class and I have been falling asleep for the last couple of days in the middle of the day.  Dinner was at the Senior Citizen hour of something close to 6pm...


Cooking with your heart
The chefs used to tell us that if you are happy, your food is happy.  If you're not happy, your plate will reflect that as well.  Maybe it's knowing that the worst (not being able to finish) has already happened or maybe it's something else - it doesn't feel like much has changed but somehow the cooking seems to have improved.  "More love, less passion" as one of our Patisserie chefs likes to say.  I mentioned this to other friends who finished Cuisine on time and they said they noticed the same thing - on the days when there was unhappy conflict in the kitchen, their plates were invariably "shit".  Hopefully things will continue to improve - we only have a few more classes to go before we hit finals.  I have been using classes as an opportunity to strengthen my hand as well - somehow there's always a little adrenalin rush - maybe it's the knowledge that there's continuous assessment every day, maybe it's that exams are almost here and the time is fast approaching when things will be over, one way or the other.  In any event, it will be a relief once it's all over - I have a feeling that there will be a few tears of tension finally receding when we have presented our pieces.  There's definitely a plan for people to get together and get some dinner after the 6-hour Patisserie marathon.  Still seriously considering whether to get Astronaut diapers - you know how it is, you always have to go to the bathroom at the most inconvenient time.  My current time plan does not have a bathroom break built in because I have used that time as a cushion against something going wrong.  Too much information?  I wonder if anyone has ever done it - I've heard of people who complained they didn't have time to go to the bathroom...


Monday and Tuesday will be our Patisserie skills test - a run through of the exam pieces.  Recipes will be refined/finalized after chef comments and we will see where we are with organization and seeing how long it takes to execute things.  There's a bit of waffling with a couple of components, but otherwise things look like they are on track.  Then it's the last minute panic of printing out our portfolios.  A bit more to be done for Cuisine, a lot more to be done for Patisserie.


Must go now - it is early but definitely past my bedtime.  So until next time, may your cooking adventures be full of more love, less passion...

#80 - 2 pigeons, a chicken breast, a headless chicken and a mock final exam

It truly sounds like a poultry heavy beginning of a joke, doesn't it?  And it kind of was, except perhaps not in the way you might think.


Studying...kind of (and a day of non-stop eating)
Yesterday we spent getting ready for today's mock final.  Part of the preparation involved getting lunch - always an excellent idea.  Since I haven't been here for the first 8 weeks of term, I was excused (as I understood it) from attending the Patisserie tutorial sessions - there weren't any marks to discuss.  There was some discussion after class and a half-hearted study session.  As you can see, we were working super hard.


I noticed that the LCB cafe had a croquembouche on display.  It was one that had been done by one of our Patisserie chefs the day before - well, the assembly and the decorations had been done the day before.  A croquembouch basically means "break in the mouth" - a reference to the fact that the filled profiteroles are stuck together with caramel, which crunches when you eat it.  There are other variations (like filling the profiterole with ice cream and dipping it in chocolate) but then they are known as something else - I don't know what the something else is.  In this case, the actual profiteroles and the praline base had been done the week before.  So here is an example of something we might be able to do in a couple of hours, once we've had at least 15 years of experience and are talented...I know it's hard to see, but those are pulled sugar roses and sugar tendril-y things.  I tried to do something like that in class the other day when I was putting my ugly sugar sculpture together, but had to take them off because they just looked like mistakes from bad assembly.  Inspirational in the skill displayed, discouraging to know just how far we have to go to even begin to approach this kind of ease and skill.


Anyway, lunch...we went to this yummy burger place called Meat Liquor which is actually on the way home from class - a dangerous location.  I had a private giggle to myself that we spend time thinking of ways to plate fancy food pretty, but given a choice, this is what we go for.  There were a bunch of mushroom and swiss burgers, I had a bacon cheeseburger (see below) and 3 orders of chili cheese fries.  One of the guys liked his burger so much that he finished most of his girlfriend's burger, then ordered a second one.




Several beers (for them) and a coke (for me) later, people dispersed - some to go back to school for a couple of things, some to go home and work on their portfolios (basically the school making sure we prepare for our final exams - you have to write out recipes and methods) and a few of us to do other errands.  I went with a couple of guys to drop off some knives at this Japanese knife shop near the old school where they will sharpen the blades on a stone - a much better result than just using a steel before and after each class.  In fact the fellow did such a good job that I didn't even know I had nicked myself today until way later when I wondered why my finger was stinging.

Dinner in Poland and France
Then I went to meet a friend for dinner.  CL started basic at the same time I did for both cuisine and patisserie.  She decided not to continue on as she had a lot of travelling to do (I can't remember if she did Intermediate - they do say that memory is one of the first things to go with age...) so it was good to catch up and hear what was going on with her life.  We went to this Polish place (I think - she had heard about it from other people) and it was really good.  Her dish was kind of like a fancy version of what I fondly believe to be Hungarian Goulash since it was served with something that resembled spatzle (except made with veal escalopes) and I had a topside beef something-or-other braised in consomme - just what I wanted - a beef and vegetable dinner with a beefy veggie soup for dinner.



Then we had dessert at CL's favorite crepe place, almost next door to the restaurant.  I got ice cream with chocolate sauce and she got a chocolate and banana crepe.  Apparently the crepe is usually better (this one was kind of crunchy - not good).  Then I had her try the ice cream.  Also not good - there was something wrong with it, it tasted really fake and chemical-y.  A shame really - they had the right crepe pan / burner things that I've seen on the streets of Paris and it smelled pretty good.  I think they must have pre-made CL's crepe and it got dried out somehow.  As you can see, this photo was taken before either of us had tasted the ice cream.  There was an after photo as well, but I freely confess that vanity has prevented me from posting that photo.


4 hours of confusion...
Jetlag may finally be starting to abate - I slept in until 6am or something this morning - whenever it was that my alarm went off.  Of course that may have something to do with being up a little past midnight, getting ready for this morning's cuisine practical.  Rather, a double practical class - because we were running through our 4-hour final exam to see where we were in terms of timing and results.


There were 15 of us in the kitchen.  I've been in the kitchen exactly once before, so someone had to show me where the numbers were on the ovens so that I knew where I was for my station.  They staggered our start times by 10 minutes per side of kitchen so that we wouldn't all pile on top of each other while setting up.  Fine in theory, but in practice - well, there were a few things we didn't know, so we weren't as efficient as we could have been.  Or rather, I know I could have been more efficient if certain things had been clarified earlier on.  Anyway - a demoralizing morning a little bit.  I knew what had to be done with each component, but I kept losing my place and the induction burners have a few tricks with which I was unfamiliar.  This meant I had to stop a few times to regroup and try to remember where I was in relation to where I wanted to be.  I got told by a friend that sometimes it's good not to think.  


Tartlet Florentine avec Oeuf Poche et Sauce Hollandaise (Tartlet with Poached Egg, Sauteed Spinach and Hollandaise Sauce)
The starter wasn't too bad but I messed up the timing a bit.  Things actually take a little while longer in these ovens, possibly because the old ones often seemed to run super hot.  This means that the 10 minutes I allocated to the tartlet shell was insufficient and I was cutting things close so I wouldn't have to reheat - not a good idea until you know how the kitchen equipment works.  (Really - the ovens have a light, but it took a couple of tries to figure out they don't stay on if you take your finger off the button.)  Then being a bit discombobulated and not feeling really comfortable, I missed a couple of very basic things - like seasoning the Hollandaise sauce.  I tasted it, but only after I had presented the plate - ick.  It needed lots of salt and some lemon juice in the worst way.  Also, it was overcooked - I wasn't sure what that meant because it wasn't scrambled, but eventually found out that it was probably because my sauce was too thick (did I mention the lemon juice?) so it wasn't quite the right consistency.  Spinach needs a bit of work - it's the English kind so quite a bit tougher than the Popeye the Sailor Man kind.  You actually have to blanch it now instead of just sauteeing it, which is what we used to do.


Also, the eggs were old.  How do I know?  The whites just bloomed everywhere when I put in the second and third eggs.  The first one was fine - I'm normally pretty good with eggs, even the slightly old ones, but we don't have slotted spoons and I was having difficulties coaxing the whites to envelope the yolks.  I do know that if it happens in the exam, I'm going to request better eggs or something.  And perhaps take them out of the fridge a little earlier, although I think that has less to do with the whites going everywhere than the age of the eggs.


The main
Verdict: deep fried pigeon legs (instead of confit - yummy, but not what they were looking for) and the pigeon crown was woefully undercooked.  I venture to say that perhaps it was still not cooked at all?  I'm unsure whether the chef was going a little bit easy on me because he knows it's only my second day in the new cuisine kitchens - I hope not because it would suck to feel like you're on track only to find out they were easing you in.  There isn't time to be eased in!


I messed up the lettuce a little bit but I think that's an easy fix for next time.  I wasn't happy with the timing (starter was 15 minutes behind where I wanted to be, 10 minutes beyond actual service time and the main was 15 minutes behind the actual service time - a fail if it had happened in the exam).  Luckily there were a few things that did go right - both sauces (the pigeon and the lettuce glaze), the vegetables (although still need to practice turning - dratted turnips!) and the glazes...and a silly oversight - the parsley chiffonade, which is a stupid thing to lose points for in the exam.  Still a possibility of passing the final, which would make me so happy.  I got my review back - they call you out of the room to give you individual comments - I was so unhappy on the way out but it's always good to be told that it's not bad.  Especially from a chef who is as amazing as Chef EB.  I'm not sure if he ever says something is good - usually he says it's ok.  But then again, he may say that to other people - I just don't hear it and that's fine because the day that I hear that something is good is going to be a day when I skip out of school.


There is hope on the horizon and I just have a bit of focused work to do.


As much confusion as there was in my head today, there is hope that it will be so much easier next time.  Who knows, one of these days I might even figure out the induction burners without actually standing over the silly thing.


So until next time, I wish you ease of focus, clarity of mind and satisfaction in what you do.  

#34 - Panic, panic and more panic...

Exams for Intermediate are fast approaching and once again people are starting to sleep less, be a bit more grumpy and buckle down for reviewing and practice.

There have been tears, downcast moods after comments and a happy dance...tears from slicing shallots (practice for the salmon exam dish), downcast moods (overcooked monkfish and dry pork in the stuffed squid) and a happy dance for the St Jacques (scallops) Parisienne - although I can't really take credit for that.  But back to the beginning, for those of you who want the details.  Everyone else can stop here - there's nothing left except a couple of photos.

Due to the Riots
It felt very odd not to have cooked for the first couple of days of the week.  We are usually in the kitchen 5 days a week - occasionally 4, but those weeks have a day with two practical classes.  I just checked next week though...a couple of days where we aren't cooking - that will still feel decidedly odd.

Anyway, they have promised a make-up class for the one that was cancelled last week - truffles.  Which is also good because it involves tempering chocolate, which we might have to do for the exam if we are unlucky enough to get the Sabrina in Patisserie - the one where people tend to fail for going over time...

The riots may have started as a protest against the shooting last week (?) but the looting and violence seem to have extended far beyond that.  Newspaper articles were written encompassing the government/PM being out of touch, disenfranchised youth and a host of other problems.  I only wonder if the message to the government was lost in the tumult of police being deployed, shops emptying and closing early while people pretty much went home and stayed there.

After the rioting
So back to cooking...on Wednesday it was a monkfish stew and a stuffed squid - including cleaning it, taking off the skin, etc. etc.  You know how it is - they like to give us the whole animal - you can always buy it already prepared, but at least this way we know what's been done to it.

I finally get what they were saying about the transition from Basic to Intermediate being quite difficult - we are now occasionally preparing two dishes and they each have several components.  Both the squid and the monkfish were new to me in terms of preparation.

Wednesday
The squid feels really slippery and slimy after you get the skin and all the other bits you don't want off of it.  And of course in my attempts to be organized and have things set aside for later, I accidentally threw out my prepared tentacles and squid wings.  Luckily one of the guys in class had prepped an extra squid so he gave me one set of tentacles and wings, which I could plate with the rest.

The monkfish is an ugly fish.  They only gave us the tail because you buy the thing by weight and the head is almost as heavy as the body and is about the same size from what I can recall during the bouillabaise demo.  The skin peels off pretty easily - no issues.  The silver membrane between the skin and the flesh of the fish is really tough and you have to trim it very carefully because it also looks really ugly, as Chef SD pointed out on my plate.  How lucky - it's a bit harder to see in this photo, but I have to admit that it was not an attractive plate.

There was also a ton of garlic in the recipe - I have to admit I cheated and only used about a quarter of what I was supposed to.  Good comment:  the sauce benefitted from less garlic (the one positive thing about my dish).  They always try to end on a positive note - I think it's so we won't get discouraged when pretty much everything else on the plate is junk.

Then we had to run to our next class.  Patisserie kept right on with its schedule so we were due to temper chocolate and make a centrepiece with it.

I had photocopied the pocket from my bag and got this.  In case you can't read it, the boy is saying, "Let's talk."  The girl replies, "Let's not.  I'm eating."  I have been accused of being that girl, but let me just say right now - I can eat and have a conversation at the same time.

As you can see, the border is a bit lumpy and uneven.  Chef N told me it was because I was stubborn and hadn't listened to him about my chocolate being too cold.  It's entirely possible - I remember having the conversation, but I can't remember if it was for the border or something else.  And the piping for the blanket is crooked and the decorations were a bit much (the dirt under my coconut tree just looks like a mistake instead of a dirt patch - maybe I should have done Pigpen from Charlie Brown)...by the by, the base is also chocolate - a white chocolate disc poured and cut over painted cocoa butter...

I think this one is close to 750g (or 1.5 lbs?) of chocolate - which I left with the nice guys at the Turkish restaurant which is on the way home from class.  I wanted to stop there to pick up dinner anyway since I didn't feel like cooking any more after 9pm and I had given my dishes from class to a friend as I had no desire to eat either one.

Thursday was trout - filleted, braised and served with vegetables.  There was time built in for practicing our turning of mushrooms - Chef DM said to think of it as peeling the mushroom with...style?  panache?  something along those lines.  Anyway - my mushrooms were undercooked and the sauce was too thick.  It seems the sauces are always either too thick or too thin.  Part of the difficulty is that adding cream changes the consistency and we have to re-adjust the seasoning. 

So under the trout is a bed of green beans which you can just see, and between the two is a layer of spatzle.  They're kind of like mini deformed dumplings or gnocci, if gnocci were made of dough.  We had to press the spatzle batter through the holes in a colander to get the right size - I ended up pulling my sleeves down because the heat radiating from the stove while I was pressing dough was too hot without the protection of the sleeves.  So the things that were good - cooking and cleaning the fish, the green beans and the flavor of the sauce. The things that were not good: not enough salt and pepper in the green beans, spatzle and mushrooms which were also undercooked, plus the too-thick sauce.

You may wonder, how do you know if the mushrooms are cooked?  Apparently when they are soft.  Maybe if you can cut through them with a spoon?  Mine were quite resistant to being cut with a plastic spoon.  Or you could squeeze it - but I'm not sure what that's supposed to feel like since mine were wrong.

TGIF
There was a collective sigh of resignation last night - the week was almost over and we had class scheduled from 6pm.  We needed to make two dishes - it didn't sound that hard and it didn't seem like it would take that long:  make the dough for the tartelette, make the mushrooms while the dough is resting, prepare the scallops for the scallop dish while the potatoes are boiling away, then make the preparations for the hollandaise sauce, poach eggs and hold for later, then finish the scallops.  Right - but it took us the whole time to do it and we worked in teams for most of it.  The things we really had to concentrate on were in the tartlette:  the pastry, the mushrooms (which we've been doing since Basic), the hollandaise and the poached eggs because they (or a variation of them) are all currently part of the Superior Cuisine final exam, which happens to be 4 hours long.

Will need to continue working on the Hollandaise (not enough butter) and poaching eggs.

I'm not quite sure what happened to my egg dish after I presented it.  I was a tiny bit delayed because I broke one of my poached eggs as I was taking it out of the water from reheating and had to do another one - not as pretty, but apparently cooked correctly - which is to say, I wouldn't eat it that way.  All this time at cooking school and I still like my eggs well done, red meat medium well and my salmon either completely raw or completely cooked.

For the moment, it is back to studying and practicing...maybe later - right now it's time for coffee and a lazy morning.

As much as I love seafood, I'm not a huge fan of how the smell tends to linger. I'm not sure if it's still on my hands or in my head, from smelling it in the kitchen - all I know is that I have been washing my hands a lot to get the smell off and there will be more of the same as I practice my salmon paupiettes.

So until next time...may your fish come to you prepared!