#47 - The nightmare before the Student Event (and brrr!!!!)

(Note:  This was written over a course of several days so the change in tenses is entirely accurate, even if possibly grammatically incorrect.

Teamwork
Part of the Superior Cuisine course is to put on a Student Event dinner - I think I may have mentioned this before...

As much as the event is about the food, it is also about our ability to work as a team.  (Personally I have a suspicion that it's also a clever piece of marketing for those students who haven't yet decided whether they will continue on to Superior Cuisine...)  It's a fast sell out -where else can you have a multi - course meal for £15, which includes canapes, a cocktail (champagne?), a glass of red and white wine each and petit fours?

There are 2 dinner events each term - one by the 2 groups containing the Grand Diplome students ("GDs") (and a few other students to round out the complement, if there are fewer than 20 Grand Diplomes, as in our case), the other dinner by the remaining groups of students in Superior Cuisine.  There is a rivalry which becomes apparent during the discussion over the breads and dessert planning session, mainly because the GDs want to take advantage of having learned more complicated things in Patisserie than the desserts taught in the Cuisine courses.  We will see on Thursday night whether we over reached or whether we calculated our abilities well.

On Wednesday morning we will start our mise en place, then we cook from 12noon on Thursday until 6pm (or so says our schedule).  Given that dinner starts at 7:30pm, we will be plating / serving our desserts around 9 / 9:30pm.  Then there's clean down, possibly a mini-debrief (I've forgotten, it's somewhere on the schedule) then people will retire to the pub for a drink or ten.

***After the event...***
Our group is lucky - we don't have class until noon tomorrow(although we started Thursday with a demonstration).  The other group has their first planning class for their entremets (the design your own dessert) which we had a the Saturday before last.  It has definitely put a damper on their anticipation for drinks at the pub as they will need to be awake quite early.  The school's rationale is that this is a small taste of what it might be like to work in a restaurant.  According to Chef FJ, the day we did lobster was a small taste as well.  Someone tole me we finished an hour late.  Time flies when you're having fun, I guess.  I thought we finished an hour earlier - so much for thinking we had been more organized than the other groups.  There has been some consideration as to whether they remove one of the dishes from that particular class.  I seem to remember that when we were in basic, the Superior group ran quite late - and the reason I remember this is because it was a day when we had to do puff pastry (Day 1 of the allumettes de fromage, I think).  Hmmm, same kitchen as well, now that I think of it.

The weekend just past

Trying out various ways
to plate dessert

So the whole point of this narrative safari is:  we spent the weekend playing with food.  Perhaps it doesn't sound serious when I say play, but that's what it felt like.  Saturday started quite late - we had all had a fairly big week and we had to try out a couple of things.  We had a few ingredients we didn't have enough of and we couldn't find it at the store, so we had to make a substitution.  It never occurred to us that we wouldn't be able to find more icing sugar (aka confectioners sugar aka powdered sugar) when there were 3 stores within walking distance.  So my friands (aka finaciers) seemed a bit odd - not what we remembered.  Then TN tried her hand at them since she is slated to make them on Thursday.  One of the guys who came a bit later brought the correct sugar, but there was still something not quite right.  My suggestion was that it might be a result of us not using the correct moulds because we don't have them.  Hopefully that is the case because we are running out of time.

We also had a try at the tea-scented macaroons.  Um, no - they didn't work.  Something wasn't quite right, so we ended up scrapping that idea and doing a variation of it (I think the tea is going to go into the filling, rather than the biscuit part).  See right for practice photos.

Sadler Wells
The baby pears were poached and prepared for the next day.  I'm not sure what else we did, besides discuss, plan, bake (a bit) - I had to go because I had plans to go see the Birmingham Royal Ballet at Sadler Wells Theatre.  The Sadler Wells had been on my list - part of the whole ballet revival in the UK and all that.

I went with one of the girls from my group, AM (from Argentina).  She had been to see Swan Lake (Royal Ballet?) before, so hadn't had much exposure to ballet.  This was one I hadn't seen before:  La Fille Mal Gardee.  It's a light, fluffy, old-fashioned ballet - the story is quite clear from the dancing.  It's a problem I find with more modern ballets - quite often they don't have a story, in which case a person who hasn't had enough exposure to see and appreciate the nuances in technique might find it boring.

The Sadler Wells is quite a different atmosphere from Covent Garden.  For one thing, it's not as opulent - to be expected, I think.  In some ways it's a smaller and more intimate space - closer in terms of width and you end up looking down at the stage so that you can see the patterns much more easily.  The company has its own orchestra who tours with them.  The conductor (leader?) was sensitive to the dancers and could cue the music accurately enough to have the orchestra end with the dancer's last flourish after a variation - something which can lend a bit to the performance and sometimes help to disguise timing that is slightly off.

It was quite sweet to have the couple on my left discussing the performance between themselves.  AM enjoyed herself as well and after the fiasco of getting to the theatre (she had a problem with the trains so we watched the first act on the screen, by the bar) it was pretty much smooth sailing for the rest of the night.  We went for a late dinner down by Tottenham Court Road on a little street whose name I always forget.  Then it was home to bed.  She was ready to go out for a little boogie, but I had to meet my group on Sunday.  We were going to try the plated dessert as well as have another run at the macaroons and GL had a couple of things he wanted to try with the bread.

I overslept and got there a bit late, but I arrived with supplies.  The others got the bread started, I wrote down a couple of recipes and I can't remember what else I did.  Is it possible I did nothing?  No...I remember being in the kitchen quite a bit.  At some point we all had to get lunch - dim sum at a place down the street...then back to cooking, although by then we were all ready just to lie down and have a nap.  I believe someone made that suggestion, only to be teased mercilessly by the rest of us for his choice of words (something about sleeping with several people).

So this was Sunday.  Again I had to leave - I was supposed to have dinner with a friend.  I'm not sure what was going on with the transportation this weekend - I arrived at her house almost an hour after I wanted to be there.  Luckily for me she had already cooked so we could just sit down, chat and eat once I had settled in.  My contribution to dinner:  roasted red, yellow and orange bell peppers, marinated in olive oil, garlic and some salt (see the last post). 

Dinner finished, LM and I had a chat about various things, then she showed me a couple of bits of a show - I think it's called Top Chef - Just Desserts - or something like that.  Then I had to go home and go to bed because I had class at 8am on Monday.

Bread, more bread and still, more bread
Monday morning almost didn't start well.  I remember waking up and thinking it odd that my alarm hadn't gone off.  Except...it had been going off for almost an hour by the time I woke up.  Somehow I managed to rush out of bed, finish packing my bag and get to school within 10 minutes or so.  Got up to the boulangerie - chef CB had started, but not by much, thank goodness.

Then it was back to business as usual.  He told us to time ourselves so that we could plan our times for the final exam.  We all forgot when we put the brioches in the ovens, but hopefully we will remember that for tomorrow.  My brioche had a few problems, but I think I know what they are.  Tuesday morning is an opportunity to try again.


Ciabatta and baguettes

Bread went on until 2pm.  We had an early break because there were things which needed to rest (like the baguette dough).  Lunch was a ciabatta roll, which was delicious.  We all ended up shaping 2 baguettes (Chef made the dough) - I gave one to Michael and Rufus, but I took the other one home and had it for my 2nd dinner with smoked salmon and cream cheese.  Yes, I said 2nd dinner - the 1st dinner was leftover risotto from last night (thanks, LM!) with some marinated roasted peppers, a little fish and some chilli.  The chilli didn't go with the risotto, so that was my bad.  I had to wake myself back up to get ready for bed - I kind of passed out for a couple of hours on the sofa right after dinner.  I really wanted to go to bed but it was something like 7pm - sad...

There was a restaurant dessert demo after breads, before I got to go home.  I wish we'd had it before our entremets class - there are so many things I could have done better but just didn't know (or rather, I'd forgotten them).  There was a fire drill right before the end of class...so I took the opportunity to take a photo of us going back to class...

Some of the
other breads
(Campagne, complet
and more brioch)

Tuesday was one of my favorite days, mainly because I looovvvveee pain au chocolat.  We had made the dough the day before and let it rest overnight.  I had mixed the flour (half soft, half strong).  Maybe we all know how to handle our dough better, maybe it's something else.  For whatever reason, everyone agreed that this was a much better tasting croissant and pain au chocolat than those that we did in Intermediate (only just over 3 months ago now...)  It's just so hard to beat the gooey, flaky goodness of a pain au chocolat fresh out of the oven.  It leaves crumbs absolutely everywhere but is completely worth the extra clean down.  Besides, it gave us something to do while we were waiting for various things (like the brioche attempt #2 to prove).

It's all fun and games until
someone loses an eye

We also finished off a couple of different types of bread, among them our hedgehog (aka Pain Surprise).

We had to cut off the top of the bread, cut out the middle in one piece, slice the piece into thin discs of bread and make them into sandwiches.  I had taken in some of my favorite sandwich fillings because I'm not a huge fan of salami (school supplied salami, ham and smoked salmon). I managed to get enough slices for 4 layers of sandwiches, then clapped the lid back on. My hedgehog supplied several people with dinner (he went to some friends the next night as dinner).


Dinner - Tuesday


I have to admit that that night I just wanted lots of salad as we had already sampled Chef CB's hedgehog in class (with a glass of wine, for those who wanted some).


Wednesday was preparation for the Superior Cuisine event - doing the preparations and such.  It was all starting to come together from the sound of things.  I had unfortunately overslept - thank goodness ML called me to see where I was.  I arrived there soon after and managed to get most of what needed to get done, done.  There was a bit of unexpected (like burning the lemon juice off altogether because I was in a hurry and turned the burner up high, then forgot about it...whoops!)



We also had a demo for class, but didn't actually end up cooking food (as opposed to dessert) so when I went home, I ended up using the rest of the puff pastry in my fridge along with the poached pears and syrup from last week.  SH, who was taking the hedgehog, loves poached pears and I needed the space in the fridge.  I used the scraps to make palmiers with some caramelized madamia nuts as well - so it worked out for everyone.  The only bad thing is that my oven is so uneven (gas flame, unevenly distributed) that it overcooked my palmiers a bit and killed the bread I was trying to bake with what was leftover from class.

The Event

Canapes

Today was the Event. I have to say that when I saw the plates, I was impressed by what everyone had achieved. I can't believe how far we have come in a few short months (and we're still just under half way through this portion of our course). I am too tired to write too much about all the food, but here are the photos. I will add what the dishes are later, but for now...


Amuse bouche

Starter - plating seared scallops

Main - Partridge 2 ways

Cheese course - brie de Meaux

Plating the dessert trio

Pear & Chestnut mousse entremet,
poached Baby Pear
and Armagnac Parfait

Petit fours: 
Lemon Butter Logs,
green Earl Grey tea Macaroons
with salted caramel
and Financiers






So this is our week so far.  Class tomorrow from 12 - 9pm, then I think I will come home and sleep a long time.  Nothing but sleep and coffee on Saturday, possibly.  Can't face being on my feet for long - didn't dare sit down after 6pm tonight for fear that if I sat, I wouldn't get back up again.  Feet are protesting the unaccustomed amount of standing, walking and running they did around the kitchens and up and down the stairs.

Any errors are entirely the result of exhaustion and being unable to see straight.  I hope you enjoyed the photos.  I definitely enjoyed the food!

So until next time, may you feel and be rested. 

#46 - The best laid plans, a first and Not-the-End-of-the-World

(Warning:  long, rambling post...don't say you weren't warned)

I think the last post ended with a plan for my dessert idea.  Well...it didn't work out quite as envisioned.  In some ways this is a good thing because I now know what won't work.  On the other hand, it wasn't good because (a)  I probably got a bad grade on that set of classes and (b)  I now have an idea of just how far apart Chef CB's and my tastebuds are (something on the magnitude of from here to Pluto).  Which is to say, he said it was "tasteless as hell" and I thought it was way too sweet.  My proposed solution?  Add copious amounts of alcohol somewhere, but make sure it doesn't destabilize my mousse or jelly.  By the way, writing about mousse - I looked at the recipe I had written down for a "pina colada mouse".  Now that might have been an interesting dessert!  So - to start at the beginning (for once):

The concept was sound but the execution was...
We spent Monday morning and afternoon making the components for our entremets.  Tuesday around noon we finished assembling the desserts.  The tuiles had to be put back in the oven to crisp up because they had gotten soggy overnight.  Consequently the ones which had previously been bent into twirls and things snapped when I tried to bend them back after the second baking.  Whoops.  The chocolate was not good to begin with - Monday was so cold in the Patisserie that it had pretty much set by the time I had spread it, before I got around to making patterns and bending it.  Note to self - must work even faster for the final...and I can hear Chef NB laughing in my head as I write this.

lacking...
I had misunderstood my brief a little bit.  Since this was (I thought) part of our restaurant dessert module, I had planned on plating the thing - the plans including making a couple of different sauces and decorations.  Ok, an entremet is always served on a cakeboard.  No day in which you learn something is wasted and I have been learning a lot!  On the other hand, my alcoholic pina colada sauce was a hit downstairs with Reception and the Administration office upstairs, or so I was told.  Anyway, here are the photos of my unsuccessful dessert (fyi, Chef CB thought it was mango jelly - it wasn't).

These photos represent 4 class sessions:  planning (session 1), making components (sessions 2 & 3) and assembly, presentation, critique and filling out paperwork (session 4).  Given the results from this week, I now have a slightly better idea of what might work and what clearly won't.  It may require quite a bit of tweaking for the final dessert plate idea, so I am glad that I hadn't started the portfolio yet.  Sometimes procrastination does pay off!

In which we puzzle Chef FJ
Then it was straight on to a Cuisine practical, which was a bit unusual.  We usually have Cuisine Wednesdays - Fridays.  This one was particularly long.  I thought we finished on time, or a little late which only goes to show how bad my sense of time is.  In any event, one of the guys in my class burned his hand very badly on a pan handle (we had been roasting lobster shells in the oven) and had to go to the hospital.  I had a couple of smaller burns on my left hand (same silly mistake) but they are mostly healed now.

My tomatoes got too vinegared in my dressing because I put them in too early and my lamb's lettuce was "burned by the dressing".  Hence the reason why you always do it later - so the leaves don't go translucent and lose any crispness they may have.  The celeriac salad was yummy, but only after I went home and added another whole spoonful of mustard (we made remoulade - pretty much mayonnaise - by hand in class) and a lot of salt.  Yes, it would have been good if I had done that in class, but such is life.  Still learning all the time.  Chef was a bit unimpressed with the time and wanted to know why we couldn't get it done on time.

So the tips

• Don't dress your salad too early unless you like limp lettuce;
• Don't grab a hot pan (duh! to quote one of the Patisserie chefs);
• Don't put your tomatoes in the dressing too early or they will be "not tasty";
• When in doubt, add a bit of salt;
• When in doubt, don't add vinegar;

Wednesday - a first (but not the end of the world because it wasn't close to perfect)...
I had to go to an osteo because I had tweaked a rib - but the appointment was for 2:30pm (can't be choosy about the time on such late notice).  My practical was slated to end at 2:30, so I went to see Chef FJ (who had also had us the day before).  I thought I would skip class.  As Chef FJ laughs, hahahahaha.  He said I would do class and leave at 1:30pm, but he gave me a break on the assignment - only do the risotto and the stuffed pepper.  I thought about it and asked if I could also try the veal.  Given how slow I am in the kitchen, he thought it was a big risk and was doubtful...so this is what I ended up presenting at the 1hr 34 minute mark (4 minutes over - "You're late!  What am I going to do with you?")

In which Chef FJ was (a little) impressed - still not quite the end of the world
And yet, when I showed him the plate, everything was there except the Bayonne ham (because they didn't have any in the production kitchen).  He wanted to know if I had done everything myself.  Yes, Chef!  I did...obviously not pefect, but I'm not sure I will ever get even close.  A few things wrong with the timing, but it wasn't horrible, or so I hope.  Others in class started to plate (and I assume present their dishes) soon after - but it was a nice feeling to get it all done and everyone was very encouraging as well.  I have found out the secret to saving some time...which is not to worry about wasting a little bit.  They threw out that little bit of carrot so I may as well use it to get the perfect little cubes rather than using as little as possible.  The less wastage will come later (I hope).  The chefs have been saying to treat our class days as we might an exam - given the nerves, shaking hands and nausea since I had to finish and go, I can only say that the Stanislawsky (sp?) school has something to say for it.  Anyway, I still had to clean up before I could leave.

Chef FJ thought I took too long cleaning up, but having a look at my station (after I had cleaned away as much that was unnecessary as possible), wouldn't this take you longer than 5 minutes to clean up?  Cleanup duly completed and all my knives cleaned, even had time for a quick shower before getting to the osteo (a little early).  Must go back next week, but am back in working order.

More quail (cute, until they get blood everywhere)
Yesterday we had to make quail again.  Puff pastry, chicken livers, veal sweetbreads...oops, forgot to tell the guys in the real estate agency there are sweetbreads in the puff pastry friands.  I hope they like them.  Or at least don't dislike them.  We also did a mousse with minced chicken and thigh meat from the quail to spread around the quail, livers and sweetbreads to keep them from drying out.  It was fairly warm in the Cuisine kitchen, which kept things a bit tricky with the pastry.

I have the leftover pastry scraps from some of the other students because we had discussed making mini-palmiers as part of our petit fours.  The idea was subsequently abandoned, but I have the scraps in the fridge.  I suppose this means I can used the poached pears to make some sort of puff pastry something-or-other so that nothing is wasted.  Photos later, if I do them.  This is a much nicer thought than what I was thinking while cleaning the quail carcasses for the sauce (yes, we butchered 2 of them).

You can't have blood and organs in the sauce because it will not be nice.  On chickens this is fairly easy to address.  In quails I have resorted to using the back of my knife to scrape out all the spongy (and wormy looking!) bits because it's kind of hard to get quail blood off your hands and the spongy bits feel disgusting.  Plus you can't get all of it out unless you use something to get into those little nooks and crannies.

Switching gears - back to desserts, then ballet, then...
We finished our meeting about the Superior Dinner Event (now less than a week away, eek!) and it was still early enough that I got over to ballet class just in time for some exercise.  It makes it a lot easier to sleep at night since it clears all the food stuff out of your head.  Unless, that is, you're like me and you go grocery shopping at 9:30pm after cooking in class.  I didn't want veal or quail (with livers and sweetbread) but Waitrose was selling a couple of salmon pieces for 30p.  I was going to cook last night anyway, so I bought them.  They were very nice on their own.  They didn't taste as good with my salad dressing - something about the Cajun spices I put on the salmon not quite matching the dressing which tasted really good with the seafood ravioli (relax, only 6 raviolis!) but it was an interesting experiment.

I also roasted and marinated some bell peppers (red, yellow and orange) because they make a nice snack with french bread and we start our boulangerie modules on Monday.  It feels so much more multi-task-y (even if it's just putting something in the oven) to think that you have 2 pots, a couple of bowls and the oven all going on at once, even if it's all easy, simple stuff.  Apparently I am not quite tired of cooking and I knew we wouldn't be cooking at school today.

For now, it is Friday night.  I have put on a load of washing (yes, more laundry - I dropped a piece of quail yesterday and it left marks down the front of my apron), written this entry and am about to go meet several of my London friends for dinner.  We are celebrating a new job and seeing each other again after a while.

There has been a fair amount of sun this week, which always makes things seem so much brighter.  There have been lots of discussions about technique, feasibility of various ideas, potential execution problems, an experiment or three as we prepare for our Student Event.  Tickets went on sale yesterday (or possibly the day before) - today there was a sign up at reception informing students that they are all sold out - quite encouraging.

Have been watching the chefs even more closely during demonstrations.  I think I have counted up to 7 pots and pans going on at once while things are still being done for other preparations.  Way better than watching...is it Masterchef which is full of amateurs cooking?  We can't predict the lines which always makes it more entertaining.

Until next time, may you have as enjoyable a week as I have had with all my classes and phone calls home.  If everyone could have even half as nice a week, what a happy world we would live in.  As it is, people seem pretty cheery and happy most of the time anyway.  Everyone has been telling each other to have a nice day (I heard them) and smiling at each other.