#53 - Tea Party (then pigeons)

Or - In which more dramas ensue but no one killed anyone else (we left our knives back in our lockers)
Too tired for much commentary. Long day yesterday (but not as long as scheduled). We started early in the morning - everything was more or less made so it was a matter of getting the decorations done (and in my case, cutting straight). Occasionally felt like too many cooks in the kitchen. I suppose that's bound to happen when you have almost 30 people (including our teaching chefs) crammed into a couple of kitchens normally meant to hold 11.

A friend from Masters (law school) days in town for work - got to come to the Tea Party (yippee!) and his office was very glad for the goody box he got to take with him. We caught up for dinner after all the cleaning up at school - and his office got more treats because they needed homes. After all the sugar, butter, flour and chocolate, was a relief to have savory food - really yummy Indian food down near the egg-shaped faceted thing somewhere near Bank / Leadenhall. May have finally found the time to take up the standing invitation to visit Cologne to see him and meet his family, of whom I have heard so much but never met.
So - photos...done fighting with the formatting...

Pigeons
We then had an 8am practical on the following morning.  Pigeon wrapped in cabbage (breasts), stuffed legs and a mushroom tartelette.  I am not a big fan of the whole butchering small birds (or anything, actually) first thing in the morning.  The thing about the pigeon is that it has a strong smell, the skin doesn't come off as easily as with quail or chicken and it has a lot of gross things inside.  Like the heart.  And the liver (maybe I should have cooked its liver too!)  and various other spongy bits and pieces.  I forgot to put on gloves - don't think I'll forget again.  Yes, I should be used to it by now.  Is it indicative that I'm not yet used to having blood and guts on my hands first thing in the morning?

Anyway - long practical.  Tomorrow morning at 8am:  St Pierre en Croute de Chorizo, Mille-Feuille de Grenouilles aux Amandes (John Dory with chorizo crust, frog legs mille feuille with almonds).  Photos then.

We had our cheese lecture today after a demo for tomorrow.  It is late and I have to review my notes, so must go.

Until next time - good night, sleep tight.

#52 - Bath & Harrods

aka "In which Bath does not include a tub and No One goes inside Harrods"

First - Bath
On Saturday morning LM and I went up to Bath.  She said she hadn't been there in years (not since a trip during an exchange in high school) and I had never been there.  I didn't get my coffee from the place I like when I have time (Sensory Lab, 75 Wigmore Street, W1 - http://www.sensory-lab.co.uk/) because - oh, the horror! - they don't open until 10am on weekends.

I suppose that's a civilized hour but I had a train to catch.  The cafe doesn't open early because most normal people have been out the night before and only start to venture into the streets a bit later.  I suppose there's no point in opening early for a lone early bird.  So feeling quite sorry for myself (but not too sorry) I had a Gingerbread Latte from Starbucks instead.  It bore testament to my oft repeated phrase "put enough milk, sugar and other crap in it and it won't taste anything".  Anyway, there was the usual quick walking to the trains once we arrived at Paddington Station, then waiting for our platform to flash up on the screen.  No, it wasn't Platform 9 3/4.  I guess they rounded up, it was Platform 10.

The train ride passed quickly, then it was a meander around town.  LM already had a couple of places in mind so by the time we hit all of the things on the list and the things that caught our eyes as we passed, it was dark.  There was the Pump Room and all the Bath Spa things (Temple of Sulis Minerva), then what were the Assembly Rooms (think Jane Austen times) which is now the Fashion Museum.  One of the things I love about the old buildings is that they have these really high ceilings.  There's something about the height which gives such a light feeling.  Even if there isn't much space horizontally, the vertical space always makes it feel like you're in less of a shoe box (or tomb or whatever).  The age of the stones here reminded me a little of Castel Sant' Angelo in Rome.  There was even a similar wet stone smell in some of the rooms as we went through.

Second - the Fashion Museum
High ceilings were also a big part of the upstairs rooms at the Fashion Museum.  The ceilings to the rooms where the exhibits were were a bit lower, unlike upstairs which I assume used to be the public gathering rooms upstairs - I associate with them with older (but not old) buildings.

I think I must be even more fashion challenged than I ever thought - there was a wedding dress display (yech), then fashions up to the 19th century (ooh, fun - think period dramas). Then there was the more recent fashion stuff (20th century and on) - most of which I didn't understand and most of which I couldn't picture anyone wearing.

We had lunch at a little cafe called Cafe Rouge (a chain, but not a bad one - I love their fries!), then a certain amount of time at a store called Kitchens.  Given that LM has finished Patisserie and I am (hopefully) finishing it, there were a lot of things we wanted in the store.  Somehow having managed to curb ourselves (we would have been pretty happy to have most of everything in the store - I told her I would need to have a house with a very large kitchen one day) we then ended up at another kitchenwares shop (Lakelands?).  It was a bit more pricey than Kitchens.  Having exercised a bit more self control, we had a look at some shoes (I bought comfy boots - on sale), then more Starbucks.  It really is insidious...

We were exhausted after such a long day so the chatter was a bit more subdued on our way back to London.  However, we did get to enjoy some of the fireworks for Guy Fawkes Day.

Actually studying...
Sunday required some work.  I met up with one of the girls who is taking a little break before finishing Superior Cuisine next term.  Then it was study time with AM in South Kensington.  It was kind of a drizzly and cold day so pretty good for studying if you couldn't curl up in front of an open fire with a cup of hot chocolate (yes, corrupted by Patisserie!) a good book and a warm, fuzzy blanket.  Instead, we were ensconced with our laptops in front of us and discussing (having a difference of opinion) over some of the methods / procedures.  Got the braised lettuce sorted out today but it was cause for a little discussion yesterday.

Then LM and I had dinner at this funky little sushi bar / club in Knightsbridge.  It was so funky that we couldn't find it.  We approached from different directions as she was coming from work and I from studying.  The result:  wandering up and down the street.  I happened to be passing when a couple in front of me happened to stop in front of a couple of bouncers and I heard the name of the restaurant.  I followed them in and down these stairs - it was dark and dimly lit with a mirror facing the stairs as you came down from the street level.  Enough to make you check your step a bit.  We forgot it was supposed to be kind of clubby - until the music turned up all of a sudden near the end of the meal and we could no longer hear each other talk.  The people over by the bar loved it though - they were having a little boogie as we were leaving.

Avoiding the Labrynth known as Harrods
There had been discussion of doing the tourist-y things we hadn't done yet (or hadn't done in a while).  The result:  a stop for photos by Harrods's windows.  Luckily Harrods was closed but the windows are still very pretty.  A lot of the stores have put up their lights - although I find the different songs at each window at Selfridges off-putting because you can hear the song from the next window when you are standing at a different window and since they are all audible, more often than not you are hit with a cacophony of sound.

I say "lucky" about Harrods being  closed because last April, a girlfriend and I had gone to do a little bit of shopping and to do a lot of gawking.  Shopping accomplished, no gawking took place because we kept getting lost when we were looking for the exit.  There were a couple of stair cases and doors which became awfully familiar and I think we passed the Diana and Dodi memorial at least 7 times.  It was an almost inescapable loop - perhaps Harry Potter's moving stair cases were inspired by an inability to find one's way out of a shop.  In any event, I am now afraid to set foot into Harrods if it involves leaving the sight of the street for fear that I will spend the rest of my life returning to Diana & Dodi's memorial.

Tea Party (Minus the Mad Hatter)

Tomorrow is our Tea Party.  We spent today making the majority of the desserts and the decorations for them.  It was one of those days - I kept spilling things and ended up wearing a great deal of chocolate.  I must have been splashed more after the break at the 3-hour mark (when we took this photo).  The second 3-hour session found me wearing quite a lot of raspberry (from making the jam) and looking a bit "disheveled".  Not surprising, given that I got a recipe where I had to make an anglaise with just egg yolks and raspberry puree.  Not having done one like that before, I went on autopilot and ended up with sugar in my egg yolks.  Only thing is, there was no sugar in that component of the dessert, so I had to start again.  FYI, 480g of egg yolk is about 24 eggs.  Now imagine separating 48 eggs (because you messed up the first 24) and knowing the mousse has to be spread on a cake, then freeze for a while.  First big screwup in a while...but it got fixed and all seems well.

Some of the desserts will require some last minute tweaking (i.e. filling the eclairs, glazing some of the cakes, etc. etc.)  We finished on time and the decorations don't look terrible.  Photos tomorrow (or possibly the next day) - in the meantime, it's time to go to bed.  Laundry is making noise as I wash off the dirt from the dirtiest practical ever.  Must remember - clumsy and neat don't always go together.  Am falling asleep so...

Until next time, may you also have a nice tea time.  And good night.

#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.

#50 - Plated desserts, fish, lamb and a looming mystery

This week has gone by in a flash.  One minute it was too early on a Monday morning and the next moment the week is ending with the Mystery Basket looming over us.

Starting at the middle

Leaning Towers of Ricotta...

Because you already know the beginning.  We did our identical plated desserts - was it only yesterday?  According to my camera, yes, it was.  We had another class to practice tuiles and chocolate (worth quite a points in the final exam as they count towards technique, presentation, balance, taste and, possibly, texture).  This was then used to decorate our ricotta bavarois (kind of like a mousse, but a mousse is not necessarily a bavarois - analgous to how a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square in geometry - fancy schmancy technical terms you know, so that we sound really cool when we talk shop).




Plated desserts

Leaning Towers of Ricotta with
2-tone chocolate latticework

I was of two minds about a piped chocolate decoration which I eventually left off because I thought it was too heavy (above).  Chef NH made a suggestion that I trim them (hence the 2-toned chocolate lattice triangles - right) but that was after he marked the ones I presented.  I admit it looks a bit more impressive but whether or not I can work quickly enough to pull it off on exam day remains to be seen.  It will require some practice sessions to get the timing/texture and piping down so that I can get it all done in 5 minutes - especially if it's a warm day like yesterday so that it takes so much longer to do chocolate and there's much less time to get the tuiles done.  The raspberry coulis is a bit of a disaster but all in all it was a good learning and experimental day.

Cuisine - Who knew Mustard is salty?

Then it was on to Cuisine and today.  2 practicals sandwiching a demo - all I can say is, it might be 14C outside, but it's still pretty tropical inside.  The first class was a seabass confit this morning.  It seemed under control until I had to add mustard to the sauce - after which, the sauce tasted terrible.  Why?  Because it was too salty.  Hands up everyone who knew mustard is inherently salty...

I apologized to Chef JB about the sauce before he took a taste.  Sad - the dish started out so well (good fish, good lentils...) and then the sauce, which made him make a face.  He told me how to fix it (basically start over and do things to it - like bringing back a split Hollandaise).  Too late for this dish, but possibly useful in the future.  (Not a bad day, according to Chef JB.)  In the meantime, no, I haven't tasted the dish.  We confited (is that how I say it in English?) in duck fat.  There was double cream in the sauce (which I tasted and didn't like - very mustard-y).  I liked the lentils (had to check the cooking point and the seasoning) which were quite easy to make.

Hit and miss lamb

Then this afternoon:  lamb a couple of different ways and split pea puree.  The pea puree doesn't sound very appetising, but I found it surprisingly yummy - especially the bacon-y goodness which came through after I added quite a bit of salt to the dish.  The things that tasted so salty to me were ok for seasoning.  It might have tasted ok but the cooking was a bit unfortunate for this one.

Comments:  The fondant potato could have used a little more cooking (but Chef, my potato fell apart!)

• The petit fillet of the lamb is blue - so that's not good and needs work.  (Yup.)
• The fillet is cooked med/med-well.  A bit unevenly cooked as well.  (Yup...)
• The confit lamb needed more time.  (If only class were longer, Chef.)
• The pea puree was good.  (Yes Chef - because you made the puree for us.  I just added more salt.)
• The presentation is...ok.  (Yes Chef - I'll work on the whole making it pretty.)
• The sauce is good - tastes like red wine sauce.  (Hmmm, good to know you didn't see me almost burn it away and have to revive it so many times.)

Looming Mystery

Tomorrow is our mystery basket.  We each get a basket of supplies and have our usual class time in which to come up with something.  Everything goes except that some things don't go together (i.e. pasta and pastry), it has to taste good and it has to be pretty.  Oh, and whatever technique we use has to be done properly.

Surreal life

Wish us luck - this is probably the most like a TV cooking show scenario (except for the countdown during exams).  Odd - as much as it sucks to mess up a dish, this is still the most fun I've had on a daily basis in quite a while. I'm living in my own little fantasy world of personal interactive cooking show (we get to taste! Almost every day!) and we get to learn - plus we get pictures and we get to take the food home. I can't imagine when school will ever be so much fun again, seeing as how I can't seem to stay away from classrooms. For the moment, my life is a little bit of a combination of Bridget Jones (from Diary days, not the sequels) + Iron Chef/Master Chef/Top Chef [insert name of your preferred cooking show here] + Ally McBeal / Legally Blonde [although the Ally McBeal / Legally Blonde references are not mine).  Must admit I had to check my hair color a couple of times after I spent an entire week thinking it was a day later than it actually was and again today when I couldn't find my camera which was in my bag because it wasn't in the right place.  (Everything might have its time and to everything a season, but when they have their time and place, it gets very confusing when they switch around.  What's wrong with organized chaos?  I never lose things more often than after I tidy up.)

So until next time - would you be able to make a dish (or a meal) based on a list of ingredients?  Happy thinking / planning / dreaming!

#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.