The end of June had Pithivier (right) and Mille-Feuille cake (left), both made with the Evil Puff Pastry from Hot Monday (aka the first day of Intermediate) - and I was so tired by the end of the day that I got the two mixed up on their labels when I put the photos up on Facebook.Then we had three practicals for Cuisine - a (too salty!) pumpkin soup and Flemish style beef stew with braised endives on Wednesday, a Dover (?) sole with seafood and cream sauce on Thursday and a braised salmon fillet roulade with sole and scallop mousse, turned mushrooms and broccoli on Friday. The salmon dish, by the way, is one of our potential exam dishes for cuisine this term.
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| Braised endive with Beurre Meuniere |
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| Pumpkin Soup |
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| Braised fillet of Sole with seafood sauce |
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| Salmon stuffed with scallop and sole mousse, mushroom cream sauce and steamed broccoli |
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| Carbonnade of Beef |
FYI, it was 39 degrees in the kitchen on Thursday and on Friday it was 40 degrees.
Saturday was a lovely day of nothing, ending with a delicious meal (Lebanese?) in Islington. I don't think I've been there before, so it was a nice little adventure. Then came Sunday and the highlight of my week - a cruise down the Thames followed by a pub lunch and a long walk in the English countryside.
I was invited by a friend of my eldest brother (from their university days). There was some unfortunate miscommunication at Paddington station involving my asking for the next train to my stop, the lady (it appears) not knowing and telling me that the trains only run once an hour to that stop (they don't) and my arrival much later than originally planned.
Anyway, I arrived and we took the canal boat from Abingdon to...I've forgotten the name of the little town. During the trip we went through a couple of locks and I got to steer for a little while. I gave back the rudder when we approached the first lock, mainly because it required steering in a straight(ish) line and my steering had the boat basically waggling along down the river.
We saw lots of swans, coots which look like ducks a little, ducks and gulls with black heads. There was a cricket game going on - it wasn't over when we came back 5 hours later - and we passed by little village churches, under various bridges and past fields of wheat and barley. The wheat has already started to turn golden but the barley is still somewhat green. In the meantime, I had Sting's Fields of Gold running through my head. Until we arrived at the second lock, anyway.
KTQ hopped out of the boat to push buttons to open the sluice gates or the lock gates to adjust the levels of water so that we could get into it, T had the rudder and one of the big ropes and I got to play deckhand and loop the rope around one of the things on the side of the lock while they lowered the water.
We made pretty good time and stopped by the bridge of this tiny little village where I didn't even know which direction was the town center. We had lunch by a pub which had delicious looking food. I couldn't go past the traditional roast beef (very traditional beef!), Yorkshire pudding and some vegetables. I feel bad I couldn't finish the potatoes but we had a lot of walking to do and we were starting to feel tired from all the food.
Then came week 2
There was baking - lots and lots of baking. We did various buns, pastries, more fish and for the first time, quail. Quail is a lot harder to carve once it's cooked because it's so small and you don't want to mess it up - bones aren't nice for anyone. I'm so happy that there are more vegetables on the menus this term. I'm not sure if it's because we have to work faster or if it's more advanced stuff, but depending on the day, we sometimes make a starter and a main in our cuisine classes. It will take too long to write about all the food, but here are the pictures:
Patisserie
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| Hot cross buns |
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| Brioche |
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| Croissants and Danois |
I couldn't find my camera to take photos of the roast pork filet with prunes that we did the day before the quail so I don't have any photos for that one, unfortunately. They are starting to do desserts in our cuisine classes as well, hence the souffle.
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and braised lettuce |
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| Vanilla Souffle |
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| Roast quail with glazed veggies, potato rosti and jus |
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| Selle sur cher with glazed beetroot, grape and poppyseed vinaigrette |
Also, finally made it to the British Museum on Saturday morning. There are just as many tourists as I feared there might be, but I did get to see things I haven't seen before. Last time it was most of Ancient Egypt (the ground floor part) and part of Assyria. This time it was some of Ancient Egypt, then on to Ancient Greece and Rome with a wander through the Celtic region and Britain during the Iron Age. It's amazing how so things have survived, virtually intact, for a few thousand years. Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of eeling through hordes of people who stop in the middle of a sidewalk to check their maps. You tend to run into them if you're walking quickly and then they give you a dirty look and you just have to smile sweetly and apologize.
Yesterday was bread day...I officially have bad boulangerie hands. The dough for the rye (pain de siegle) kept sticking to my hands.
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| Baguette viennoise, pain de siegle and focaccia |
No cooking today, but tomorrow it will be back to two classes in the kitchen. Wish us luck - we start going over our exam cakes next week.
So until next time, may the tourists not be with you.
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