#114 - Adventures in cookery...

In which not all attempts at adapting recipes are successful

I didn't want to have to convert ratios from my lemon and white chocolate mousse recipe so after some consultation with a few friends, I used a white chocolate ganache recipe...

The result:  Disaster!  The ganache was fine but not enough lemon (so it was sickly sweet).

Trying to make it not look boring by adding cocoa powder to the short crust pastry - which looked ok, but placing the lined tart mould on a tray to bake instead of directly on the wires resulted in an undercooked pastry shell - just on the very bottom. I  didn't realize what had happened until after I had filled the tarte and the tartelettes.  And sticking it in an over for an extra 5 minutes?  Well, no - the chocolate boiled (which isn't good) and the shells still weren't cooked.  So tick that off the list of potential fixes.  The thing with pastry is, after a certain point, you can't fix it unless it is a cosmetic error.

Making raspberry coulis from frozen berries?  Bad idea.  4 layers of muslin and a super-fine sieve only took out most of the seeds.  The seeds left over seemed fine - but trying to pipe it when the seeds clog up the tiny little hole in your piping bag, then all burst out in a big clump, ends up looking something like this (see right).  Trying to disguise the disaster didn't work so well either and everything ended up in the kitchen rubbish.  Lesson learned: don't put your tarte cases on a tray to bake if you don't have to!  (Yes, I can see there's shrinkage in the tarte cases...)

Travels with friends
There was also a trip to Adelaide, South Australia.  Overnight trip and one of the weirdest time zone changes ever (30 minutes).  I happened to love it but what's not to love when you're partying with friends?  And eating.  Lots and lots of eating.  Exemplar of a typical dish at any cafe / restaurant - trio of dips (beetroot, hummus and baba ganoush for this one) - suitable for the vegetarians.  The others ordered drinks and I ordered...this.

Also - glow chairs!  Fun party and we were all in our pretty clothes in a pretty city - uncrowded, unpolluted...

They call Adelaide the City of Churches - I was only there overnight the sound of church bells each time they rang didn't get old.

I've been told there isn't much in Adelaide and perhaps there's more to be seen (certainly surrounding regions are well known for wine and good food) - well, there's always next time!

#55 - Tired, confused...and a little cooked

Cause for celebration
My memory stick adaptor may have gotten laundered, but 24 hours in a plastic bag with some rice grains seems to have dried it out and I can get photos off my camera card!  So on with the post.

A little cooked - Monday - Day 1 of sugar, Session 1...
Everyone said to be ready to get burns and blisters when we started our sugar module.  I was lucky enough to get away today with a couple of minor burns (but stay tuned - we don't finish until next week) when we did our poured sugar.  I forgot to grease my measuring cup for the sugar fountain, so it stuck to the sides.  One of the porters saw what I had done wrong, so he whispered that I should also pour the sugar down the centre of the ice cubes, not the side of the measuring cup for my coral.  I thanked him profusely and got a wink in reply, especially when Chef CB told me the same thing a few minutes later, although his language was a tad more colorful.  Yes, I am forgetful.

Anyway - sugar duly poured, I have quite a few things to work on for next time.  A few unintended things happened, but over the next few days a design should take shape because we have to do one of these for our final exam - a minimum of 2 - 3 platforms because our petit fours (the truffles and sable biscuits) are supposed to be able to rest on these.

Session 2 - The Rose
This is the one where we had to pull out our gloves.  I had bought mine last term while getting other supplies.  Even better, I remembered to take them to class!  So while some of the guys were whimpering from the heat, the girls who had gloves were happily pulling our sugar to make it satiny and shiny.  The final part of pulling the sugar got to be a bit of hard work - I had to basically lay over my hands over my sugar in order to press it after I'd pulled it.  We had to make sure it was shiny and silvery, keep it under a heat lamp, then pull bits off of it to make a rose and some leaves.

Eggs and potatoes
Also, as promised in the last post, here are a couple of pictures from the poached eggs and Hollandaise yesterday - oh, and the fondant potato.  A small piece of potato (well, we'll have to cook two pieces) slowly confited in an obscene amount of butter and only enough chicken stock to keep things from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Not that the poaching of eggs needs a lot of practice, but I forgot a couple of things so now I think I'm set.  The only thing is the potato - AM and I cooked them for about an hour and twenty minutes - and they still could have used a bit more cooking.  Thank goodness the final exam is 4 hours long.  I have to say, the egg could have been worse.  Still not my favorite with the runny yolk, but surprisingly edible.

We are all tired and confused.  I'm a bit sad because I hate being confused - I hope it passes soon because we've still got a fair amount of work left to do and I think this is when we will really need to dig in and work hard.  I'm trying to think the last time I shed a few tears over exams - hm, not since Intermediate when I wasn't sure if I'd make it through the practical exams, actually.

At least I have the comfort that my shortcrust pastry for the exam has the right consistency this time, even though it's still too thick (and it's see through when I line the moulds).  One of these days...
So until next time - may you be less tired and confused than I am.

#51 - Mystery Basket

AKA - thank goodness I have a day job!
Today as our Mystery Basket.  It wasn't actually such a mystery for my group because we had class at 6pm, by which time the first 3 groups or so had already done theirs.  The main ingredient:  duck.

We were given a list of 27 ingredients.  I used 18 (plus substituted one flour for another).  Chef's comment was that I hadn't used that many ingredients.  I'm really not sure how I would have gotten away with putting pasta and potato on my plate when it already had a savory short crust pastry (trial run for the exam - timing will be fine but technique needs a bit of work) and a few other things.

Like a cooking show - but not
This is apparently like cooking competitions.  You have ingredients, you have some time and you cook.  Sometimes it's a compulsory item and sometimes it's do whatever you want.  Which would be fine, if I were an Iron Chef, this might have been a breeze.  Since I'm not...and since we're all students...let's just say that we heard "2 hours" and everyone froze up for a split second.  It's the time aim for our practical classes but because people take time to present their dishes and take comments, sometimes you have a bit more time to refine a couple of things on your plate (i.e. fix your sauce 3 times like I did yesterday).

Lead up to the Mystery Basket
But first - back to the beginning.  Some people had been stressing about the Mystery Basket.  Me, not so much - mainly because I kind of forgot about it until yesterday.  We also happened to have class today from 12 - 6pm so by the time the not-so-mysterious Mystery Basket was on the agenda, I was already brain dead, having half- fallen asleep for part of the 3pm cuisine demo.  Interesting notes...it looks like a chicken walked across the pages and mixed up the methods (wild mushrooms on the scallop dish which doesn't list mushrooms anywhere on the ingredients list).

We'd also had a review of 3 of our compulsory Patisserie pieces for the final (as in, even if it's crap, turn it in.  Otherwise they disqualify you - I assume this means a fail for the course even if everything else is splendid) so that was a bit of a sit-up-and-take-notice time block.

Clueless much?
I have to say, I saw the list and the tray and didn't even think - I just butchered the duck and hoped that inspiration would strike.  Also I wanted to keep things pretty simple - simple, clean, neat.  Well, that was the idea - probably not a bad one.  The execution, on the other hand...not so much.  I braised the legs (not enough time to confit them, although I tried to confit the tenderloins - "try" being the operative word - they were really bad.  As in, I would eat them and like them, so they are definitely not something I would present to the chef) and produced a nice sauce.  The breast pieces felt like they were going over so I took them off.  Nope...way, way under.  And looked very strange.  There was a certain amount of quiet panicking when it was time to plate.  Only idea was about the tarte but the rest of it was all a blur.  They say to diagram it out - but that's a bit hard to do when you have 2 hours to do the dish.

Humiliating - Wild Mushroom Tartelette,
Braised leg of duck and roasted duck breast with
Poached Pear in Red Wine glaze

Learning time - aka "Chef - this is what I won't do for the final"
I finished the tartelette but it was overcooked - so I know what NOT to do for my Cuisine final when we have to do the tarte for the poached egg and Hollandaise sauce.  I totally messed up the Jerusalem artichokes so they didn't make it on the plate (should have made them into a puree like Chef "suggested" at the beginning of class).  Luckily he liked the sauce, but other than that, today was pretty much a write off.  I liked the pears but Chef wasn't such a big fan.  On the other hand, he had been tasting pretty much all day and if even half of the dishes were as miss as mine, it was a looonnnng day for him.  As for me, I am so very glad that I have a day job already.  We laughed at the chefs when they said some people will never pick up a knife again after the course.  I wouldn't go that far, but I have to say that I am not confident enough to cook restaurant style dishes without a recipe.  Certainly you could throw something together, but the questions today were:

1.  Was the technique correct?
2.  Would someone buy this at a restaurant?  If yes, would they eat it?
3.  Chef's personal preference...

"Home cooking" after a long day - a confession
It's almost bedtime and I have my uniforms in the laundry.  To tired to do much of anything except to try to unwind so I can sleep.

So I made 5 minute noodles.  They're actually 3 minute noodles but I had to wait for the water to boil, while cleaning a leak in the fridge and getting out the vegetables for the noodles.  So if you had a vision of fancy food at home, you just heard my deep, dark secret.  Beans on toast with gruyere cheese were on the menu when we did our Boulangerie module a couple of weeks ago.  Very gourmet, non?

Tomorrow:  Bath.  I need a break, then it's on to work on the portfolios for Cuisine and Patisserie with a classmate on Sunday.  On the one hand I can't wait for this to be over.  On the other hand, I am already waxing nostalgic for student days.  I've run out of hands so it's time to say good night and scrub off the day.

Until next time...may you have the satisfaction of a job well done.