Teamwork
Part of the Superior Cuisine course is to put on a Student Event dinner - I think I may have mentioned this before...
As much as the event is about the food, it is also about our ability to work as a team. (Personally I have a suspicion that it's also a clever piece of marketing for those students who haven't yet decided whether they will continue on to Superior Cuisine...) It's a fast sell out -where else can you have a multi - course meal for £15, which includes canapes, a cocktail (champagne?), a glass of red and white wine each and petit fours?
There are 2 dinner events each term - one by the 2 groups containing the Grand Diplome students ("GDs") (and a few other students to round out the complement, if there are fewer than 20 Grand Diplomes, as in our case), the other dinner by the remaining groups of students in Superior Cuisine. There is a rivalry which becomes apparent during the discussion over the breads and dessert planning session, mainly because the GDs want to take advantage of having learned more complicated things in Patisserie than the desserts taught in the Cuisine courses. We will see on Thursday night whether we over reached or whether we calculated our abilities well.
On Wednesday morning we will start our mise en place, then we cook from 12noon on Thursday until 6pm (or so says our schedule). Given that dinner starts at 7:30pm, we will be plating / serving our desserts around 9 / 9:30pm. Then there's clean down, possibly a mini-debrief (I've forgotten, it's somewhere on the schedule) then people will retire to the pub for a drink or ten.
***After the event...***
Our group is lucky - we don't have class until noon tomorrow(although we started Thursday with a demonstration). The other group has their first planning class for their entremets (the design your own dessert) which we had a the Saturday before last. It has definitely put a damper on their anticipation for drinks at the pub as they will need to be awake quite early. The school's rationale is that this is a small taste of what it might be like to work in a restaurant. According to Chef FJ, the day we did lobster was a small taste as well. Someone tole me we finished an hour late. Time flies when you're having fun, I guess. I thought we finished an hour earlier - so much for thinking we had been more organized than the other groups. There has been some consideration as to whether they remove one of the dishes from that particular class. I seem to remember that when we were in basic, the Superior group ran quite late - and the reason I remember this is because it was a day when we had to do puff pastry (Day 1 of the allumettes de fromage, I think). Hmmm, same kitchen as well, now that I think of it.
The weekend just past
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| Trying out various ways to plate dessert |
So the whole point of this narrative safari is: we spent the weekend playing with food. Perhaps it doesn't sound serious when I say play, but that's what it felt like. Saturday started quite late - we had all had a fairly big week and we had to try out a couple of things. We had a few ingredients we didn't have enough of and we couldn't find it at the store, so we had to make a substitution. It never occurred to us that we wouldn't be able to find more icing sugar (aka confectioners sugar aka powdered sugar) when there were 3 stores within walking distance. So my friands (aka finaciers) seemed a bit odd - not what we remembered. Then TN tried her hand at them since she is slated to make them on Thursday. One of the guys who came a bit later brought the correct sugar, but there was still something not quite right. My suggestion was that it might be a result of us not using the correct moulds because we don't have them. Hopefully that is the case because we are running out of time.
We also had a try at the tea-scented macaroons. Um, no - they didn't work. Something wasn't quite right, so we ended up scrapping that idea and doing a variation of it (I think the tea is going to go into the filling, rather than the biscuit part). See right for practice photos.Sadler Wells
The baby pears were poached and prepared for the next day. I'm not sure what else we did, besides discuss, plan, bake (a bit) - I had to go because I had plans to go see the Birmingham Royal Ballet at Sadler Wells Theatre. The Sadler Wells had been on my list - part of the whole ballet revival in the UK and all that.
I went with one of the girls from my group, AM (from Argentina). She had been to see Swan Lake (Royal Ballet?) before, so hadn't had much exposure to ballet. This was one I hadn't seen before: La Fille Mal Gardee. It's a light, fluffy, old-fashioned ballet - the story is quite clear from the dancing. It's a problem I find with more modern ballets - quite often they don't have a story, in which case a person who hasn't had enough exposure to see and appreciate the nuances in technique might find it boring.
The Sadler Wells is quite a different atmosphere from Covent Garden. For one thing, it's not as opulent - to be expected, I think. In some ways it's a smaller and more intimate space - closer in terms of width and you end up looking down at the stage so that you can see the patterns much more easily. The company has its own orchestra who tours with them. The conductor (leader?) was sensitive to the dancers and could cue the music accurately enough to have the orchestra end with the dancer's last flourish after a variation - something which can lend a bit to the performance and sometimes help to disguise timing that is slightly off.
It was quite sweet to have the couple on my left discussing the performance between themselves. AM enjoyed herself as well and after the fiasco of getting to the theatre (she had a problem with the trains so we watched the first act on the screen, by the bar) it was pretty much smooth sailing for the rest of the night. We went for a late dinner down by Tottenham Court Road on a little street whose name I always forget. Then it was home to bed. She was ready to go out for a little boogie, but I had to meet my group on Sunday. We were going to try the plated dessert as well as have another run at the macaroons and GL had a couple of things he wanted to try with the bread.
I overslept and got there a bit late, but I arrived with supplies. The others got the bread started, I wrote down a couple of recipes and I can't remember what else I did. Is it possible I did nothing? No...I remember being in the kitchen quite a bit. At some point we all had to get lunch - dim sum at a place down the street...then back to cooking, although by then we were all ready just to lie down and have a nap. I believe someone made that suggestion, only to be teased mercilessly by the rest of us for his choice of words (something about sleeping with several people).
So this was Sunday. Again I had to leave - I was supposed to have dinner with a friend. I'm not sure what was going on with the transportation this weekend - I arrived at her house almost an hour after I wanted to be there. Luckily for me she had already cooked so we could just sit down, chat and eat once I had settled in. My contribution to dinner: roasted red, yellow and orange bell peppers, marinated in olive oil, garlic and some salt (see the last post).
Dinner finished, LM and I had a chat about various things, then she showed me a couple of bits of a show - I think it's called Top Chef - Just Desserts - or something like that. Then I had to go home and go to bed because I had class at 8am on Monday.
Bread, more bread and still, more bread
Monday morning almost didn't start well. I remember waking up and thinking it odd that my alarm hadn't gone off. Except...it had been going off for almost an hour by the time I woke up. Somehow I managed to rush out of bed, finish packing my bag and get to school within 10 minutes or so. Got up to the boulangerie - chef CB had started, but not by much, thank goodness.
Then it was back to business as usual. He told us to time ourselves so that we could plan our times for the final exam. We all forgot when we put the brioches in the ovens, but hopefully we will remember that for tomorrow. My brioche had a few problems, but I think I know what they are. Tuesday morning is an opportunity to try again.
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| Ciabatta and baguettes |
There was a restaurant dessert demo after breads, before I got to go home. I wish we'd had it before our entremets class - there are so many things I could have done better but just didn't know (or rather, I'd forgotten them). There was a fire drill right before the end of class...so I took the opportunity to take a photo of us going back to class... |
| Some of the other breads (Campagne, complet and more brioch) |
Tuesday was one of my favorite days, mainly because I looovvvveee pain au chocolat. We had made the dough the day before and let it rest overnight. I had mixed the flour (half soft, half strong). Maybe we all know how to handle our dough better, maybe it's something else. For whatever reason, everyone agreed that this was a much better tasting croissant and pain au chocolat than those that we did in Intermediate (only just over 3 months ago now...) It's just so hard to beat the gooey, flaky goodness of a pain au chocolat fresh out of the oven. It leaves crumbs absolutely everywhere but is completely worth the extra clean down. Besides, it gave us something to do while we were waiting for various things (like the brioche attempt #2 to prove).
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| It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye |
We also finished off a couple of different types of bread, among them our hedgehog (aka Pain Surprise).We had to cut off the top of the bread, cut out the middle in one piece, slice the piece into thin discs of bread and make them into sandwiches. I had taken in some of my favorite sandwich fillings because I'm not a huge fan of salami (school supplied salami, ham and smoked salmon). I managed to get enough slices for 4 layers of sandwiches, then clapped the lid back on. My hedgehog supplied several people with dinner (he went to some friends the next night as dinner).
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| Dinner - Tuesday |
I have to admit that that night I just wanted lots of salad as we had already sampled Chef CB's hedgehog in class (with a glass of wine, for those who wanted some).
Wednesday was preparation for the Superior Cuisine event - doing the preparations and such. It was all starting to come together from the sound of things. I had unfortunately overslept - thank goodness ML called me to see where I was. I arrived there soon after and managed to get most of what needed to get done, done. There was a bit of unexpected (like burning the lemon juice off altogether because I was in a hurry and turned the burner up high, then forgot about it...whoops!)
We also had a demo for class, but didn't actually end up cooking food (as opposed to dessert) so when I went home, I ended up using the rest of the puff pastry in my fridge along with the poached pears and syrup from last week. SH, who was taking the hedgehog, loves poached pears and I needed the space in the fridge. I used the scraps to make palmiers with some caramelized madamia nuts as well - so it worked out for everyone. The only bad thing is that my oven is so uneven (gas flame, unevenly distributed) that it overcooked my palmiers a bit and killed the bread I was trying to bake with what was leftover from class.The Event
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| Canapes |
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| Amuse bouche |
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| Starter - plating seared scallops |
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| Main - Partridge 2 ways |
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| Cheese course - brie de Meaux |
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| Plating the dessert trio |
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| Pear & Chestnut mousse entremet, poached Baby Pear and Armagnac Parfait |
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| Petit fours: Lemon Butter Logs, green Earl Grey tea Macaroons with salted caramel and Financiers |
So this is our week so far. Class tomorrow from 12 - 9pm, then I think I will come home and sleep a long time. Nothing but sleep and coffee on Saturday, possibly. Can't face being on my feet for long - didn't dare sit down after 6pm tonight for fear that if I sat, I wouldn't get back up again. Feet are protesting the unaccustomed amount of standing, walking and running they did around the kitchens and up and down the stairs.
Any errors are entirely the result of exhaustion and being unable to see straight. I hope you enjoyed the photos. I definitely enjoyed the food!
So until next time, may you feel and be rested.
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