#50 - Plated desserts, fish, lamb and a looming mystery

This week has gone by in a flash.  One minute it was too early on a Monday morning and the next moment the week is ending with the Mystery Basket looming over us.

Starting at the middle

Leaning Towers of Ricotta...

Because you already know the beginning.  We did our identical plated desserts - was it only yesterday?  According to my camera, yes, it was.  We had another class to practice tuiles and chocolate (worth quite a points in the final exam as they count towards technique, presentation, balance, taste and, possibly, texture).  This was then used to decorate our ricotta bavarois (kind of like a mousse, but a mousse is not necessarily a bavarois - analgous to how a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square in geometry - fancy schmancy technical terms you know, so that we sound really cool when we talk shop).




Plated desserts

Leaning Towers of Ricotta with
2-tone chocolate latticework

I was of two minds about a piped chocolate decoration which I eventually left off because I thought it was too heavy (above).  Chef NH made a suggestion that I trim them (hence the 2-toned chocolate lattice triangles - right) but that was after he marked the ones I presented.  I admit it looks a bit more impressive but whether or not I can work quickly enough to pull it off on exam day remains to be seen.  It will require some practice sessions to get the timing/texture and piping down so that I can get it all done in 5 minutes - especially if it's a warm day like yesterday so that it takes so much longer to do chocolate and there's much less time to get the tuiles done.  The raspberry coulis is a bit of a disaster but all in all it was a good learning and experimental day.

Cuisine - Who knew Mustard is salty?

Then it was on to Cuisine and today.  2 practicals sandwiching a demo - all I can say is, it might be 14C outside, but it's still pretty tropical inside.  The first class was a seabass confit this morning.  It seemed under control until I had to add mustard to the sauce - after which, the sauce tasted terrible.  Why?  Because it was too salty.  Hands up everyone who knew mustard is inherently salty...

I apologized to Chef JB about the sauce before he took a taste.  Sad - the dish started out so well (good fish, good lentils...) and then the sauce, which made him make a face.  He told me how to fix it (basically start over and do things to it - like bringing back a split Hollandaise).  Too late for this dish, but possibly useful in the future.  (Not a bad day, according to Chef JB.)  In the meantime, no, I haven't tasted the dish.  We confited (is that how I say it in English?) in duck fat.  There was double cream in the sauce (which I tasted and didn't like - very mustard-y).  I liked the lentils (had to check the cooking point and the seasoning) which were quite easy to make.

Hit and miss lamb

Then this afternoon:  lamb a couple of different ways and split pea puree.  The pea puree doesn't sound very appetising, but I found it surprisingly yummy - especially the bacon-y goodness which came through after I added quite a bit of salt to the dish.  The things that tasted so salty to me were ok for seasoning.  It might have tasted ok but the cooking was a bit unfortunate for this one.

Comments:  The fondant potato could have used a little more cooking (but Chef, my potato fell apart!)

• The petit fillet of the lamb is blue - so that's not good and needs work.  (Yup.)
• The fillet is cooked med/med-well.  A bit unevenly cooked as well.  (Yup...)
• The confit lamb needed more time.  (If only class were longer, Chef.)
• The pea puree was good.  (Yes Chef - because you made the puree for us.  I just added more salt.)
• The presentation is...ok.  (Yes Chef - I'll work on the whole making it pretty.)
• The sauce is good - tastes like red wine sauce.  (Hmmm, good to know you didn't see me almost burn it away and have to revive it so many times.)

Looming Mystery

Tomorrow is our mystery basket.  We each get a basket of supplies and have our usual class time in which to come up with something.  Everything goes except that some things don't go together (i.e. pasta and pastry), it has to taste good and it has to be pretty.  Oh, and whatever technique we use has to be done properly.

Surreal life

Wish us luck - this is probably the most like a TV cooking show scenario (except for the countdown during exams).  Odd - as much as it sucks to mess up a dish, this is still the most fun I've had on a daily basis in quite a while. I'm living in my own little fantasy world of personal interactive cooking show (we get to taste! Almost every day!) and we get to learn - plus we get pictures and we get to take the food home. I can't imagine when school will ever be so much fun again, seeing as how I can't seem to stay away from classrooms. For the moment, my life is a little bit of a combination of Bridget Jones (from Diary days, not the sequels) + Iron Chef/Master Chef/Top Chef [insert name of your preferred cooking show here] + Ally McBeal / Legally Blonde [although the Ally McBeal / Legally Blonde references are not mine).  Must admit I had to check my hair color a couple of times after I spent an entire week thinking it was a day later than it actually was and again today when I couldn't find my camera which was in my bag because it wasn't in the right place.  (Everything might have its time and to everything a season, but when they have their time and place, it gets very confusing when they switch around.  What's wrong with organized chaos?  I never lose things more often than after I tidy up.)

So until next time - would you be able to make a dish (or a meal) based on a list of ingredients?  Happy thinking / planning / dreaming!

#33 - Peace, man...

Well it has been a few days since the last post so here's the rundown.  There has been a lot of food, some baking, riots (more later) and enjoying London's summer.

First, food...
We've done a lot of seafood in the past few weeks. Most of it was good, some of it was not.   Examples: Stuffed seabass Nicoise - good.   Fish guts at 8am - bad.   Seafood risotto - good.   Stove not working - bad.  Super hot kitchen and mouthing off at the chef - very bad. 

Apologizing to chef the following week and having it graciously accepted - very good.

Then dinner for 6 on a Sunday - practice run at salmon fillets stuffed with sole and scallop mousse, then dessert (another run at the tuile with fruits/berries and sabayon).  Lots of guinea pigs (thanks JB, RK, Vicki, Jess and JP!)  No fish stock to be had - all out at the grocery store.  I am guessing people are practicing their exam dishes!  The fish store told me to let them know the day before and they will keep the fish bones for me so that I can make my own stock.  For the practice, used vegetable stock.  Still tasted ok, but was missing something (fish and a couple of other herbs and spices).








then baking...
Sponge cake with poached pear (in caramel), chocolate mousse and chocolate decorations followed by white chocolate mousse cake with pistachio dacquoise/succes biscuit, redcurrant jelly, glacage and chocolate and berry decoration. 

So - decorations are supposed to be prettier if they are finer/thinner.  The thing is - they can be too thin - so I only had a few rectangular pieces that came off the textured sheet for the side of my mousse cake.

It was pretty hot when we did the two cakes - the chocolate mousse with the pears set ok because of all the chocolate.  The white chocolate mousse, which had less support...well...it looked ok when we finished class and it was straight out of the refrigerator.  By the time I got home half an hour later, the cake/mousse was bulging out by the sides.  I don't have a picture of the bulging sides but they are forever emblazoned in my head.

and more cooking...
There was a ballotine of chicken - basically a chicken leg that has had the thigh bone removed, the thigh removed and made into a stuffing and stuffed into where the thigh would have been...with sauce.  The chef and I have different ideas of what constitutes cooked chicken (I say not pink - he said overcooked).  Sauce was ok but we were "all too shy with the seasoning".

Then - pike.  We had to make what was essentially a choux pastry (similar to the evil choux/eclair from basic patisserie) and make a fish mousse with pike.  FYI, pike does not smell good.  Anyway, had to mix it all together with other stuff (eggs, butter, etc. etc.) - and the mixture is supposed to rest.  6 hours is good, overnight is better.  Our classes are 2 1/2 hours long - um...so the comment from our chef was "the dough needs to rest more".  Anyway, these are really ugly - I couldn't get them to hold their shape (supposed to look like a 3-faceted oval).  The sauce was pretty good (crayfish sauce) but getting there was a little too much excitement.  The crayfish were alive (good) - and very active (bad).  We didn't cover them in people's refrigerators.  I'm not sure if any managed to crawl out of their bowls, but I used my tongs to put them into bowls from the huge plastic tub because they were too lively for me.  I can handle live crabs but...

Followed by stuffed cabbage - essentially a sausage mix in a cabbage leaf-lined mould.  Chef FJ said this wasn't very sexy or exciting so we should layer the meat and sauteed cabbage inside to make it more interesting (below right - the only thing I did right).  I couldn't make the carrots grow, so he told me to make the turnips and onions smaller next time.  Of course, I got marked down in the Basic Cuisine final for doing that (the onions were too small)...

We finished early last Thursday, so I went to a dance class.  So nice to be moving again - something more than running around in a kitchen.  Then class again on Sunday morning.  Of course it hurts to move now...

I was asked if cooking is still fun. I have to say, yes it is. There are days when I don't feel like going to class but as soon as I set foot in the kitchen, somehow the enthusiasm returns.

Grace and coordination
Of course being tired can sometimes affect how motivated I feel. Also how clumsy I am...so far I have managed to cut my finger (with a thread, while doing laundry!) and yesterday I ended up wearing my Coke rather than drinking. Drinking was attempted but grace won out over coordination - with the result that I had to be excused in the middle of class to go change into a clean (and dry) uniform. Apparently from behind, it looked like I had had an accident of a different nature. Anyway - the Coke didn't come out completely. I was concerned about the caramel coloring they put in it - hopefully it will eventually come out with continued washings...

Outdoor movies
Sunday night (again) - picnic and outdoor cinema in the park by Houses of Parliament.  Can't think of a better venue - it had rained quite heavily during the day but cleared up by evening.  There were 9 of us and of course everyone brought way too much food.  The movie was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - kind of a depressing movie, actually.

London riots
Anyway, during the movie, we heard police sirens quite a bit.  At one point two cars went screaming past the park, lights flashing, sirens blaring - and in opposite directions.  I'm still wondering if one car radioed the other car to say, "you're going the wrong way!"

Riots are ongoing and our 6pm class today was cancelled - something about potential trouble in the area.  Have taken the opportunity to update this blog, go over some notes for finals...and contemplated going back to school to fetch my knives so I can practice a cake tonight.  Have decided against cooking in favor of continuing my enormous book A Dance with Dragons (George RR Martin) - 960 pages of happiness await.

So until next time, peace...