#13 - (full) Week 1 finished

Each of the things that we have been given in the past week (raw salads, cooked salads, mayonnaise, vinaigrettes, boiling eggs, making custards, etc.) would have taken one of the chefs about 30 minutes.  To be fair, they did things a bit more slowly in demonstration so that we could see what they were doing, but they also demonstrate other things (which we don't have to do in the practical).  It's like watching my own personalised cooking show every day.  No wonder I don't need a TV at home...

Works in progress (aka you didn't do that very well)
Oh thank goodness for comment sheets.  At the end of each practical, we get feedback from our chef (what you did well, what you didn't do well, what needs work).  So far I have to work on the consistency of my cuts (still haven't figured out how I get curved edges with a straight blade when I am trying to cut straight - maybe I should try to cut curved???) and how quickly I work.  Because I am S-L-O-W.  Yesterday was our practical class on custards.  Thank goodness we worked in pairs or we would never have finished on time.

Custards
Baked (i.e. in a water bath in the oven - creme brulee and creme caramel) and stirred (i.e. cooked on the stove) custards.  One of the girls had a mishap with her creme anglaise mixture and it turned into scrambled eggs.  Chef N was sorry he had missed it.  She had chucked that one out and made another one and still finished before I did.  Not such an issue for the moment - the school allows us plenty of time to start to get into the groove, but it may be a problem later on when we have more complicated and time consuming dishes (and they have to be served at a certain temperature - that gets marks too).

Ludovic, our lovely porter who makes sure we have enough clean bowls, measuring cups, paper towels, etc. assures me that we will all get faster.  He comes from the somewhere in the south of France (he didn't say where) and lets me practice speaking French with him.  He also got the brulee with the perfect crust (not in the presentation dish, so not the one Chef marked!) and I piped Merci on it with chocolate (no, not a traditional accompaniment to brulee).

Piping - also needs work.  Must buy non-stick paper so that I can practice piping.  The chocolate was only for the practice because it is thicker.  The coulis was too runny still to be able to pipe anything (unfortunately I tried).

Decorations
The sugar and tuile patterns were fun but the tuile only allows a short window (8 - 30 seconds, depending on which chef you ask) after you take it out of the oven before it sets and cracks.  The flowers I made over the patterns were lopsided and goofy.  The ones I tried to do freehand were...well, here are some pictures of the various ones I've done:


Sugar spiral (which I made!)



Tuile and sugar decorations



 Chef N has a different method for making the tuile mix than Chef M (who did the demo) but at the end of the day, it's 4 ingredients that you mix together, make into shapes and then bake for a few minutes in an oven.

Creme caramel and creme brulee...


Creme brulee with more practice decorations



Creme caramel with piping practice,
tuile, sugar drop and spiral





 





My custard was too light - too much air in the yolk.  Apparently these are one of the few things we want a bit heavier.

(Think all this in a French accent)

Messy plate (caramel) and piping "too in your face".  Brulee - not enough sugar, so no crack and never, never put coulis on brulee.

I have to say, hearing something is always nicer when it's in an accent.  Given that everyone here seems to have an accent of one kind or another, I am finding chatting with people enjoyable.  Of course, I can't remember anyone saying anything unkind anywhere, but who knows, that may change.

Not pretty yet, but hopefully things will look better by the time finals roll around in May.  I have a list of things to study/practice for the finals.  Apparently it's both written and practical.  I have visions of Meryl Street as Julia Child sitting the written exam with recipes running around in my head.

So much to do, so little time...
So we have lots of practicing to do:  piping, dicing, slicing, mixing (whipping the eggs for mayonnaise and the creme anglaise?  yikes!).  There's a certain physicality to some of this, which means that we will all have to build up stamina.  Mayonnaise is particularly trying and I have to say, after feeling the burn, I'm not looking forward to meringues.  Yes, yes, we get the big balloon whisks, but I'm all for using the machine if one is available.  I suppose it's something of the philosophy of knowing how to do it by hand - what if the machine breaks?  But if the machine breaks, somehow I don't think you're going to be making 600 meringues for a banquet?  I'll have to ask a chef.

I can't believe all of this was in our first week!  They did have to move up the schedule a bit in terms of what we were going to learn and when, but still, this is usually only in week 3 or 4.

Must go and fix up my notes now, so a hui hou (until next time)!