#31 - A New High...

I have heard the saying "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."  Well, we are living that saying - yesterday was a new high in class - we had the first practical at 8am (41C/105.8F) and the second practical at 3pm (45C/113F).  But as always, I am getting ahead of myself and need to go back a few days.

Busy Wednesday
After the focaccia and other breads, we had a practical for patisserie which included a skills test.  Yes, mini-test on making more pastry shells (the pate sucree from the apple tart back in Basic) and piping.  I am not going to bore you with photos of substandard work which might only be of interest to people who are into technical-ish pastry type things, so I'll move right along to the food.

Later that same day
We are starting to do a lot more in classes.  As I've said, the course is cleverly constructed so there isn't really any way for us to stand around and do nothing.  On the rare days when we finish early, I think it has been noted for any future amendments to the curriculum.

Surf and turf
Our schedule has also changed so we occasionally have days when we don't cook (two days this week) but we make up for that with double practicals on the other days.  On Wednesday, we started with mouclades which is a regional mussel dish from...near Normandy, I think (I haven't checked my notes).  It appears that the defining difference between that and the moules mariniere, which is the one more people are familiar with (white wine, shallots, etc.) is the addition of curry.  Yes I know - curry and cream sounds so not right, but it's actually really good if you can get the balance right.  The demo one Chef FB did was really good - mine had a few things that weren't quite right about it.


Anyway, we did the mouclade and a lamb stew as well.  Somehow I got lucky and the lamb was actually tender, even though we only had a couple of hours to do it and the mussels turned out pretty well.  I don't know if it's the heat that killed the other stew that we did last week or whether it was the cut of meat (or the age of the animal?) but the lamb stew which was made with a secondary cut, was much more tender and delicious than the beef one.  So if you are looking for hints about stews and things, use the cheaper cut with more connective tissue - it's a much better dish!  I also checked with one of the chefs - don't use bad wine.  If you can get a good one and it's not expensive, great.  I think a good rule of thumb is that if you won't drink it, don't cook with it.  Which goes with the mantra "one for the stew, one for me..." which I have been thinking about suggesting in class.

Then we had a cheese lecture on Thursday - Tom the Cheese Guy is as entertaining as ever and we got some really good cheese.  I still am not a fan of the bleus and I don't think I ever will be.  The smell really puts me off and the texture of the mold cultures in my mouth - kind of grainy and raspy against the smoothness of the cheese itself - is not for me.  Kind of like having seared fish or seared meat where you can really feel the difference in textures, as opposed to when the flame has only just kissed the fish or meat and you get that delicious smokiness but otherwise you wouldn't know it had been touched by flame or heat.

Super hot Friday
It's kind of hard to feel fresh and clean when you can feel your clothes sticking to you.  The 8am class wasn't so bad, it was still cool outside and there was a bit of a breeze which came through the open windows and doors (until we had to close the doors so that we wouldn't set off the fire and smoke detectors).  Again it was a double dish class:  warm asparagus salad with walnut vinaigrette (my asparagus died when I reheated it for service).

Then we did a fillet steak (mine was just on the verge between rare and medium rare - they wanted medium rare).  I couldn't remember what time I put the steak on the stove, so I just poked it with my fingers - I thought it would be slightly over, which just goes to show how much we have to go before we know.  We served it with roast potatoes (or rather fried in lots of clarified butter - mine weren't brown enough), broccolini and wild mushrooms.  It would have been a really good dish except my mushrooms and broccolini got cold by the time I got the dish to the chef, even though the broccolini had been really hot when I stuck them on the plate.  Makes you wonder why we bother.  It is now all sitting in my refrigerator in containers and since I have to reheat the meat anyway, I suppose it's perfect because it won't be overcooked unless I do it that way.  I find it amazing that meals on a student budget include prime cuts of meat and amazing food (as long as we don't mess it up).

Then - duck.  Our class started really late because the class before us was still there at 3pm (they're supposed to be finished half an hour before we start).  They were finishing up their asparagus with walnut dressing and their steaks.  We were wondering what took so long because I'm still the slowest one in my class and we pretty much finished on time in the morning (except for me cleaning up my knives and dishes).  Someone stuck their head in and had a look at the clock to see how much time we were losing and reported back that it was 43C/109.4F - all the stoves were off.  By the end of class, when we had left most of the ovens off and only used the stoves, it was the 45C/113F that I reported at the start of this post.  I think almost everyone had lost some weight by the time class ended and one of the girls in Superior Patisserie joked that she was considering cuisine as a weight loss method.  A lot of people have been desperate to go home and wash their uniforms - which I like because the locker room can be a bit...fragrant on a hot day.  Also - flame retardent clothing isn't that cool...

Butchering a duck is very much like butchering a chicken except for the fact that it is a lot more fatty so your knife gets greasy and slippery and you have to be much more careful to clean all the handles well.  Oh, and the feather shafts are much more stubborn so I feel like it took too long to scrape them off, take off the legs for the confit next week (a little harder to see the oyster by the hips on a duck) and to get the meat off the breast so that it is boneless.

It's meant to be served pink (or medium rare - yech!) and we had to do roast vegetables which weren't really (we parboiled them in water and shook them around in butter just before service) and sauteed fruit (apples and pears) and things with oranges and lemons.  The sauce from the demo was much too sweet for me so I put in much less sugar in my sauce.  Chef FJ, whom we hadn't seen since orientation (he had the other group more in Basic) didn't like my sauce because it was too sour.  It turns out I roasted the bones too long - but it took a few questions to figure out where I went wrong.  I think I have the wrong palate for French cooking - I always seem to have not enough salt (except for that pumpkin soup) and now, not enough sugar...

Also, I had my dish evaluated by another student - nerve wracking, to say the least.  I'm glad Chef was there to overrule him because he thought my vegetables were undercooked (they weren't) and there was something about my duck (which was exactly the way the chefs want it - and exactly the way I wouldn't eat it, so that's always a good measuring stick for me).  I agreed that the sauce was greasy (maybe adding the juices from the duck after I'd degreased it wasn't such a good idea...

So the difficulty was also in making the dish pretty.  I have to say that I don't think it's pretty at all but I also had to get the various bits and pieces onto the plate.  You know how it is, you run into a situation and 6 hours later you think of what you should have said or what you should have done.  I have some ideas for next time, but I find creativity for presentation tends to flee when I am under pressure.

Hopefully next week will be cooler.  We start our exam cakes in Patisserie and I haven't looked at Cuisine.  There's a duck confit in there - we marinated the legs yesterday and rinsed and dried them off - they ought to be in their little vaccum packs by now and waiting for us to do things to them next week.  As for the rest of the week...well, I suppose I will know tomorrow when I start getting organized.

Anyway, it is now a rainy Saturday afternoon and I have slept quite a bit.  On the agenda for this afternoon:  finding a home for the duck (I think the 2 Michaels are a good place to start), a snack and some coffee, then Harry Potter in 3D this afternoon.  A reward for the hot kitchens and doing laundry on a Friday night...

Sneak peeks and previews
I am looking forward to going to the Tea Party by the Superior Patisserie students and the Supper Party by the Superior Cuisine students.  Unfortunately the Supper one is only open to students at the school, which is sad because I have friends who would love to go.  The Tea Party (at the Mandeville Hotel on Marylebone High Street) is open to the public but you have to book in advance because it tends to sell out really quickly.  It's also harder for people to get to  because it's held in the afternoon - 3-6pm and most people work.

It's a good chance to get a preview of what we will be doing next term, assuming we all pass this one.  I am still of the opinion that it's something not to be taken for granted, but a lot of people are finally starting to feel like they are no longer so lost in class.  Superior students have said that Superior is mostly spent in consolidating, refining and putting together everything that went before.  Apparently Intermediate was the most work - which makes me gulp a little in alarm.  There is still a lot to learn and given the shake up of various groups (and some new additions) people are still on their best behavior.  After all, Monday signals the start of only the 4th week of Intermediate - and we already have mid-term assessments.

Well I must go and find a home for my duck - it has not found a loving home at my place, so until next time, I wish you cool or warm weather, according to your preference.  If you are cooking, may your sauces be grease free and your pastries happy with the relevant temperature and humidity.