#106 - Every Day Food

Feeling Guilty
There's this TV show in Australia called My Kitchen Rules.  Sometimes it's inspiring (I can do that, why don't I?) but mostly it's annoying (seriously, what's with the whining?) and I feel guilty for not making anything more complicated than rice with seaweed.  Hey, I'm not cooking for anyone else so I can have what I want for dinner.

Fresh Ingredients
The problem with having yummy fresh ingredients drilled into you is that it makes crappy food no longer enjoyable.  If the list of ingredients is longer than the blurb of the ingredient / mix / whatever, I don't use it.  If there are numbers in the ingredient list or unpronounceable chemical-ish sounding names, I also don't use it.

Unfortunately no photo of my chicken soup, but I figure you already know how to make it and you don't care about the chicken soup.  All that's left to say is that fresh dill is delicious and makes it super yummy. I have to admit that I cheated and used an already made chicken stock because it takes a lot of time to make my own.

As you know, I don't really do midnight snacks.  Or rather, my idea of a midnight snack is probably a bit more substantial than what most people would have at midnight.  Case in point: the avocado on toasted ciabatta bread and a tomato/cucumber salad with fresh mint and cilantro (coriander for those of you who speak the Queen's English).  Totally inspired by lunch with some friends who happen to be vegan.  The fresh herbs were so delicious you don't need anything else.  Otherwise I would have added  salt or extra virgin olive oil and possibly some garlic.

Easy Dinner - No Excuses...
Because I can.  And also because as I may have mentioned, I was feeling a bit guilty for not cooking something slightly more complicated than rice.  Hence - fresh deep sea perch a la meuniere (slightly altered), seared scallops and broccoli.  Sorry, couldn't get the flash to work for a brighter picture.  Anyway, no excuse for you not to do this at home on grounds that it's too complicated - 7 steps for 4 parts.  10 minute prep (if that) and 20 minutes to cook (while the rice is cooking).

Traditionally you're supposed to dredge the fish in flour before you fry it but I don't think that's necessary and this way it's gluten-free friendly.  Also, I sprinkled parsley on the fish after I cooked the sauce instead of adding it to the sauce while still cooking it.

Ingredients
1 fillet of fresh fish per person (perch is delicate - you might want snapper which is a bit firmer but still flaky and light)
Fresh scallops (as many as you want - 3 per person seems about right)
Unsalted butter - at least 50g (1/4 stick)
Broccoli - cut into florets
Chopped parsley
Steamed rice

Method
1.  Cook your rice.
2.  Salt your fish.  Melt butter in a hot pan and fry your fish fillets - skin side down (or bone side down first, if your fish has been skinned).  Baste with the melted butter as it cooks.
3.  Meanwhile, cook broccoli in boiling, salted your water.  Drain and put in ice water until ready to finish the dish.
4.  Remove fish and set aside.  Add a bit more butter to the pan if you need to - cook until you see some brown spots.  Squeeze in some lemon juice and pour over the fish just before you serve.
5.  Salt scallops and grind some fresh white pepper on it.  Fry in screeching hot pan until they're just warm through the middle.  Remove and set aside.
6.  Toss broccoli in melted butter until warm.
7.  Serve and eat.

So until next time, happy cooking!  If you try the recipe, let me know how it worked for you.

#81 - Practice, practice, practice...

Hopefully not where they shop...

Yesterday I was meeting a friend to go make a practice schedule for our exam dishes.  While I was waiting, I happened to notice one of the ubiquitous sights we all take for granted.  However, the noticing ended up in a rather icky place - the street pigeon was just strutting his stuff on the sidewalks of Sloane Square.  Which is fine, except I was thinking of the cuisine final, saw this thing walking around and had the horrified hope that this was not where they source our pigeons!

I found out last night that it was one of my hosts' birthdays so what was going to be a pretty plain Sunday night dinner gave me an excuse to start practicing my plated dessert.  For the moment I was just practicing a couple of elements - got some good feedback so now the recipes need to be adjusted a little bit.

Sunday dinner

The main and starter had nothing to do with exam dishes for anywhere.  It was freezing today so a nice Sunday roast seemed to be in order.  Then because it was a birthday and I wanted to make sure there were some veggies in evidence, I ended up making a starter.  Good thing I had a couple of different kinds because one of the people isn't a huge fan of smoked salmon.  I've come around gradually to the cold smoked one but I agree with her - the flavor and texture isn't the nicest if you're not a fish person.  I am, but I still prefer the smokiness of hot smoked salmon.  Luckily I had enough greens to make more salad so everyone got to eat something they liked.

Then it was on to the mains.  I bought the beef at the farmer's market this morning from one of the butcher guys there - I think they had 3 or 4 guys.  Anyway - this was a nice, dry aged (29 days, I think) beef, still on the bone.  They had taken the fat rind off, which was a bit of a shame, but it still turned out ok.  I also did roasted vegetables - personally I'd rather have my roast beef with rice but I'm in the UK so I did as they do here.  The butcher had given me some meat trimmings because he didn't have any good bones and he couldn't sell the pieces he gave me.  Nice jus although it was a bit heavy - I didn't have veal stock so I tried a beef one instead.  It came out tasting kind of strong, but still good.  The meat was rested while we had our starter so even though it was cooked to about medium, I would describe it in the photo as closer to medium well.  Drat, missed the cooking point!

Playing with dessert
Not a happy camper - I couldn't do a joconde for various reasons and the genoise recipe is not meant for this.  Even worse, I hadn't thought it through very well and let me tell you, genoise doesn't seem quite appropriate for this dessert.  I didn't spread it well and it overcooked so it was hard to make it line up enough when I lined the moulds.  Had a bit of a problem with the which chocolate mousse when the chocolate hadn't melted enough by the time I needed to mix it with the angalise for the mousse so I had to warm it carefully so that I wouldn't kill the gelatine.


The end result:  white chocolate mousse (needs flavors adjusted), red wine and blackberry jelly and a raspberry sauce which should have been a glaze.  Need more jelly for the balance of the dessert and I'll need to rethink the glaze because it currently looks like something is bleeding onto my mousse.  So much to do, so little time.


So until next time, happy cooking.

#49 - In which things might be coming together. Or not...

First things first - of course I got the details wrong when I described yesterday's altercation between a guy in our group and some other guy in some other group.  A prime example of how things get garbled in the retelling...
Secondly, I forgot when I wrote the last post that I had actually had a practical since the post before that.  So in order to rectify that oversight...

The aftermath
Last Friday we had a practical for cuisine.  It was after our student event so everyone was pretty brain dead (some more than others, in direct proportion to the amount of partying engaged in after the student event on Thursday night). 

We had been instructed to work in pairs while our chef tried to organize a porter.  It appears that the class before us (who had had their mock final exam that afternoon) had finished a little late.  They had used a lot of pots and pans (someone told me that she when she sat down and planned the 4 hours, she needed 7 pots and pans on the stove at once).  There was no porter so we wondered for a little while if there would be 9 of us piling into the various sinks to wash our pots and pans.

Anyway, we did what amounted to a gazpacho with a marscapone cream, then roasted (?) turbot with mashed potatoes and some veggies. The marscapone didn't taste very nice on its own even after we added all the herbs, more salt, more pepper, then more salt and more pepper.  Then more salt and more pepper, plus a bit more tobasco.  Did I mention salt and pepper?  My partner EA and I had considered sneaking in a little lemon juice but it wasn't on the recipe so we didn't.

When Chef FJ tasted our dishes he said the cream was tasteless.  I asked him what we could have done since adding salt and pepper didn't seem to make a difference.  His answer:  more seasonin (i.e. salt and pepper).  Perhaps we should have put the lemon juice in anyway...

Then the fish - yummy fish.  Yummy mashed potatoes.  According to chef, undercooked vegetables, even though they were more cooked than his were in demo.  Go figure - shows how much things can change in just a few short hours!  So the dishes:

Patisserie - so more laundry (but first - dessert)
In the last post I promised photos.  So the first one here (right) is a shot of all the things we prepared yesterday, except for the things which needed to be frozen/chilled (i.e. the mousses).

Then my presentation plates from today:  a bitter chocolate mousse with Amaretto cream and a Mirabelle Bourdaloue Tarte with Mirabelle Cream Chibouste.  Today's session started quite warm but the a/c finally kicked in, which made the chocolate tempering go so much more quickly.  I had a few problems because this time the chocolate was too thin so the pieces kept breaking while I was trying to peel the acetate off.  However, have managed to try a few different things and may finally have the chocolate cup thing down.

First - the yummy dessert
The bitter chocolate mousse (with a vanilla brulee in the middle) with the chocolate chalice came out pretty well - a pleasant surprise because the chocolate went on a little crooked yesterday when I was bending the acetate strip around the mousse.  We had to decorate the plate somehow (ok, piping decorations will come later) and make it look pretty.  I haven't quite gotten the height of the thing or the lid / base thickness down yet, so will have to work on making those twirls stand up straight.  For the moment I'm just glad they came out ok - there were several doubtful moments.  Hopefully today consolidated a few things so that I can do this quickly tomorrow for our ricotta mousse.

So much work to do and so little time in which to do it!  I have  a lots of things which need to be improved.  Among them is creativity.  It's a lot more difficult if you don't have a clear idea in your head about the decorations and you just hope that the thing you are trying to do works out.  Of course when that doesn't happen, you do spend a lot of time trying to keep your temper.  I can see why the chefs tell us to have everything planned out as much as possible before the exam.  I couldn't even think straight today and we only had to make things for one session.

Second - the not yummy (or, Who Likes This Dessert Anyway?) dessert
I'm not a huge fan of almond cream or chibouste cream, so our Mirabelle tart (Mirabelles are a kind of little, yellow plum) didn't inspire me much.  In fact, probably my favorite part of the dessert was the fruit compote-y thing and the tuiles.  The tuiles are very more-ish - but then again, it's just butter, sugar, flour and egg whites, mixed up then baked golden.  You get this crispy light thing.  Of course the crispy lightness sucks when you are trying to bend it and it snaps.  Or you are trying to place it on the plate and it snaps.  Or you looked at it slightly sideways and it snapped.  I'm not sure many of these ones made it home. 

Bed time - but not yet...
Would love to crawl into bed but my laundry is still going.  2 days with chocolate means I have a lot of washing to do.  More chocolate tomorrow but I don't want to go to class with a dirty uniform.  It looks messy and disorganized and I need help getting organized, not the other way around.

Late start tomorrow, so I will be able to have coffee and hopefully update my portfolio for Cuisine and Patisserie.  The Cuisine one is relatively straightforward - write a few recipes, do a bit of research and price out the cost of each dish.  I'm not sure photos are even necessary.  The Patisserie one is the one that is a bit of a pain (photos, diagrams, lots of lists, many components) and I have had to rethink my designs.  This will affect which recipe I use as well as quantities and thought about building the dessert itself.  More later, but the washing machine is getting near spin cycle so I am off to have a hot shower, then crawl into my bed with soft cotton sheets.

Too soon for nightmares about finals
Woke up this morning, cursing in my head.  I had dreamt that I had presented my plated desserts at the Patisserie final, then turned back around to my station only to find a component staring back at me.  I suppose it's a bit of leftover issues from the Cuisine final where I had forgotten to put mint into the sauce at the end.

So until next time, may you have sweet dreams.