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.
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| Humiliating - Wild Mushroom Tartelette, Braised leg of duck and roasted duck breast with Poached Pear in Red Wine glaze |
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.
That duck definitely doesn't look way under at all.
ReplyDeleteThanks Adam...but it couldn't have been good. Even my aversion to duck doesn't seem to explain why I didn't want to taste it (perhaps the 2 hours of cooking / 9 hours of class might?)
ReplyDelete