#76 - Substitution please!

No pigeons
I forgot pigeons are out of season for another little while.  Luckily there's a rather good butcher (reflected in the prices) just up the street.  They were kind enough to order in some large quail - I figured it would be kind of similar to pigeon in size (although I didn't have to look for birdshot so hopefully that won't affect the timing during the Cuisine final).  The options were to get smaller quails (6 in a packet) or the larger ones (the 4 in the packet below).

So you may ask how it went and the answer is...gloves are the answer.  They keep the blood from sticking to your fingers and any worries about anything yuck being stuck under your nails - it still feels like there's crap under the nails even after scrubbing under them several times with a nail brush.  Ugh.  I'm ashamed to say that there was a little bit of distressed squealing when the tube-y things in the quail wouldn't come out easily and there had to be some yanking and pulling to get it out.



Anyway - there's a bit of an ick factor because you have to get all the spongy bits out of the ribs and things so that they don't cloud the sauce and make it taste yuck.  The wine tonight is from a drier year - about twice the alcohol content of the one from last night, although it's the same grape and the same vineyard.



Ok - enough bitching and moaning. Back to the quails...the lucky (?) guinea pigs are my neighbors downstairs. They both had plans Friday night bu the quails had to be cooked so the plan is to have the plates and dinner the next night...  the good butchers also had some duck fat - very nice, very clean - and expensive, of course.  Luckily you can reuse the fat as long as you clean it so the plan is to filter it through coffee filters (I can't find the muslin cloth), then store it in the refrigerator.  It's a pretty good incentive to make confit anything when you have the right fat.

It was kind of a tight fit to get the 8 legs into the pot but everything eventually settled down and the confit smelled quite nice, especially considering that I don't think quail tastes that nice.


Forgetting almost everything
So I had to check cooking times again because it's been so long since I cooked anything.  The timing is for pigeon, so I have a feeling the legs are a bit over - the meat was kind of falling off the bone, which isn't quite the aim.  Soft, but not falling apart...so will have to rethink the timing again.  On the other hand, the rest of it seems to be on track.  Somehow it's a lot harder to focus at home - so many distractions (laundry, dinner...Harry Potter and a quiddich match, etc. etc.)

Bloodless dinner
Given the blood from the quails (and having to clean out the spongy bits from inside) dinner was perch, hapa rice and broccoli. In case you didn't know, hapa rice is what my sister and I (I think we got it from in-laws) call the white rice/brown rice mix. The white rice is because it tastes better, the brown rice is a nod towards being healthy. I'm not sure how effective it actually is, but it doesn't feel so much like the husks from the brown rice get stuck in your teeth and it cooks faster.

A Saturday Lunch

I promised my friend JB that I would cook for him a while ago.  It's taken us a little while but we finally managed to get ourselves organized.  He tends to eat quite healthy so I had to think a little bit about what to make which would fit in the healthy, not too heavy (it was a hot afternoon) and edible meal.  He said he would be happy with whatever I cooked, but since we both ended up laughing at the possibility of my making him beans on toast, a decision was made to have something that required just a little bit of technique.  We ended up with stuffed mushrooms and garlic shrimp (prawn) starter, sauteed zucchini and pan fried salmon main and a burnt fig and caramel ice cream with mango for dessert.  I didn't make the ice cream but I did play with it a little...

There was a moment of panic when the acetate wouldn't come out of the mould with the ice cream and I could see the ice cream slowly starting to ooze.  Luckily we got it out and took off the acetate (I remembered this time).  Normally I don't like mango, but it went surprisingly well with the ice cream and the mint.

We ate on the balcony, looking down to the water - sorry, somehow I didn't manage to get a photo but a lot of sailboats were out.  The sun has since moved on and the clouds have rolled in.  Perhaps the forecasted rain will still arrive.

Dinner
It seems the reheating can take quite a while - the fondant potatoes were giving me conniptions.  It seemed to take at least another 15 minutes longer than I expected.  The guinea pigs (AC and VB) were good choices - as they are both familiar with French food, I got a nice comment that it tasted like France.  There was a bit of panic over the confit legs because the flesh kept falling apart so that I had difficulty getting a nice piece for presentation.  Baby onions weren't available so I didn't plate them (or the green - parsley? - garnish) and I forgot to buy green olives so it wasn't an olive sauce.  So far it seems like the dish will be ok - except the timing needs a bit of tightening up.  Or a lot of tightening up...

I'm not sure if you've ever smelled duck fat.  If you haven't, let me just say that it's quite a strong smell - so much so that before I was even finished cooking, I didn't feel like eating much.  The result - some vegetables, confit potato (turned for mine) and a quail leg - for a taste.  Actually it tasted quite nice, but I still didn't want anything heavier.  Lucky for me, AC made a delicious salad and I ended up eating most of that instead.  Then grapes for dessert - I think such heavy scents made the salad and fruit seem much more appealing because they are so much lighter.

Verdict - could be better, could be worse.  Timing needs a bit of work and a few details need to be refined.  Hopefully it will be a smooth run for the mock exam.

So until next time - may you be able to enjoy the meals you prepare with your friends and loved ones (instead of just meal times).



#72 - Adventures in cooking

So here are some photos from cooking at last.


Apparently technology and I are still not on great terms because I thought I got the photos earlier but found I hadn't put them on my computer after all. Oh well...so - still work to be done but getting better.  Initial try was a basic roast chicken dinner with some salad, stuffed mushrooms, jus and rice. Rice - because this is Hawaii and my audience prefers rice instead of potatoes. As do I. Looks like the Asian roots of Hawaii are coming out!  I had a little problem with the julienned snow peas, but I now know that it's because I tried to julienne them after I had cooked them (when they were slippery inside) instead of before.  Note to self for the next time...


I couldn't find decent chicken stock.  They keep selling chicken broth so I thought I'd try one out.  Ick - the stock wasn't good until I added a ton of wine to the jus, at which point it tasted good enough that eventually people just ate it on the rice.  The list of ingredients on the "broth" had chicken flavoring and some kind of sugar extract and all kinds of other stuff on it.  I just wanted to see chicken, some veggies and water.  Is that so much to ask???  At the moment it looks like I will have to make my own to get what I want, but it just means I have to plan at least a day in advance so that I have enough time to make some stock.  I got a mock-horrified look from the guy at Tamura's (a local wine store who also sells some specialty ingredients and yummy food) when I  mentioned the chicken stock wasn't my onw.

Some other sights...
-just another day at the mall...Ala Moana Centre Stage.  So nice to see hula while waiting for them to finish making my coffee.  This seems to happen most days - I think it's around noon or 1pm or something.  It's nice for the tourists because they get a little show and it's nice for the dancers because they get an appreciative audience.  For me it's just one more thing that makes home, home.

A Saturday afternoon in the winter...our view while we had our lunch by the water just off Diamond Head.  On men's canoe, one women's canoe.  It was kind of nice - we got the vicarious thrill of watching some skilled paddling while eating by the water.  Is it possible to claim someone else did your exercising for you???



Welcome back dinner for the parents:
Prep = 4 hours.  Cooking the amuse bouche - 3 minutes.  Cooking the appetisers - 10 minutes (while we were eating the amuse bouche).  Cooking the main - 8 minutes.


I read Anthony Bourdain's updated edition of Kitchen Confidential and I finally found out that I am not crazy for getting pissed off when people mess with my stuff in the kitchen.  It's called mise en place for a reason and I had to try to keep my cool while fending off my mom's well meaning but incredibly annoying attempts to help.  (Yes Mom - I know I can use that pot.  I chose this one for a reason.  No thank you - I want the shrimp shells, I need them to infuse the oil for the dressing/salsa.  Yes, you may watch and I am happy to explain what I am doing.  No, don't touch that bowl!  No, please don't try to help me plate - they all need to look the same.  Yes please to helping put the plates on the table - careful, they're hot and they need to face the same way.  Thank you!)


Apparently it has something to do actually organizing our minds - in which case mine is still messy.  Organized chaos is not acceptable in the kitchen so I have to think a lot harder because I sometimes forget things are there if I can't see them.  It helped to separate the things into the various courses.  I think I used most of the small pots in the kitchen and we went through a lot of plates.


Preparing amuse bouche

Amuse bouche - pan fried scallop and celeriac puree, Thai-ish style shrimp with celeriac puree (right - for the person allergic to scallops but not shrimp...)  I didn't know one of the guests generally doesn't like scallops so it was a compliment to be told that she liked this one.

Starter - stuffed mushrooms (and bacon bits!) with zucchini spaghetti and tomato concasse.  My plating on the left, my sister's suggestion on the right...

Preparing main - pan fried ginger and green onion Ono steak, lemongrass and keffir lime shrimp, rice and zucchini spaghetti.  Inspired by the lobster open lasagne in Superior...

Plating the main...

Dinner being kid tested...

Verdict:  yummy.

(Q:  Want some more?

A:  Mmm hmmm.)

There was enough food left which we didn't cook that I ended up sending some home with friends and leaving some marinating in the fridge for the next night for my parents.  This is what my girlfriend KK did for dinner the next night, using her own ideas for plating - wish I'd thought of that.  Nice plating, Ms K!  It's nice that she went to the trouble of making her dinner pretty.  We had a rather entertaining text exchange about the cooking of the fish:
Her:  How do I cook the fish?
Me:  Hot pan.  Oil.  Fish in pan.  Cook.
Her:  I can do that.


No photos of dessert - lemon crunch cake (the remaining half from my birthday dinner a couple of nights before)...I hadn't made dessert because I didn't feel like it - between various food restrictions, gluten, eggs and to some extent, lactose were out which makes it a little difficult to make dessert.  Fruit salad had been done rather a lot, but something was missing so out came the leftover birthday cake.  Even the non-dairy/non-gluten/non-egg people had a teeny tiny bite which rounded out dinner nicely.


A gray, rainy, overcast winter day (left) and the same winter day an hour later (right).  Lunch at the Plumeria Beach Cafe (Kahala Hotel).

A no-no of presentation - crap sprinkled on the plate rim.  My sister said maybe it was their way of presenting their plate.  I told her it was wrong...probably it didn't help that I wasn't a huge fan of the food (tasted like leftover steak) - the batter or whatever it was supposed to be suffered from being super soggy.  The roasted salmon belly salad was good although it would have been nicer if they had removed the skin.  I found out why the dish was part of a prix fixe menu for lunch at what looked like a discounted price.  I'm still of the opinion that it's one thing not to waste food or to find another use for it in a dish, but I would have thought you wouldn't want the customers to be able to tell.  I mean really, if you look at the ingredients of each dish and break it down, this option was actually more expensive because you can't really serve the components as anything and they would have gone in the rubbish bin anyway.


Anyway, this trip home has been a great one to study what other people make and serve.  There was so much to learn and appreciate about the local food here (yum - time for dinner now, bye!) and what we like to eat.


So until next time, happy eating.

#24 - In which people have started to panic...

I see that my last post was almost a week ago.  It's a good thing my computer and phone keep track of what day it is - I have lost track of days and had to check with people 3 times yesterday that what day it was (Tuesday, the day that follows Monday, which was the day immediately before).  Also - thanks to those of you who have gently prodded me to get my act together and update.

Apologies as these become a bit more sporadic as a cooking frenzy takes over the next 2 weeks of my life - there will be more tarts, cakes and eclairs than I will ever want to look at again - except we will need to do them, but with much greater refinement and complexity as we progress up the levels.  I found out what the Superior Patisserie students have to do as their Practical exam last night - they have 6 hours of cooking and it incorporates everything they have learned from basic on through to where they are now - I recognized elements from our week 2 in Patisserie. 

Last week

So - recap since last post:  we had a wine technical class last Wednesday (18 May).  I tasted all 6 wines and predictably didn't like any of them.  They all made my mouth feel puckered up inside (apparently that was caused by the tannins).  I also accidentally swallowed some wine (the first Chardonnay we tried).  It's a good thing that class was scheduled for our last class that day, it would not have been good to go into a kitchen and have to cook after that.

We also had our patisserie classes - getting on to slightly more advanced cakes now.  Thursday night was the Chocolate Almond Sponge cake (aka Sachertorte) with a marzipan rose.  The masking at the end was a bit problematic on the sides of the cake, but it looks pretty from the top and according to reports, it tasted good.  I had a tiny taste from when I cut the cake into halves/quarters and gave it away to various people - I liked it, but the crumb was more than enough.

Then on Friday night we did our last potential exam dish - the Genoise Spongecake with buttercream frosting and raspberry jam.  We had to make our own jam (piece of cake!) and apparently the frosting that Michael, my partner, and I made was really good, so I feel a little more confident about trying the whole thing at home on my own.  The problem with doing things in pairs in class for something like this is that when it comes to the exam, we will have to do all the components on our own:  the batter, the jam, the soaking syrup, the frosting, cut, trim, fill, then assemble it all and complete it with piping.  I only remembered when I had to pipe the chocolate on top of the frosting piping Chef G's comment that it is easier to pipe smaller patterns because any uneveness is not quite as apparent.  Whoops.  This cake also went to other people who would be able to eat it.

We had a cuisine practical on Saturday  morning at 8am - more chicken butchery - taking apart all the pieces and skinning it.  It was Supreme of Chicken (i.e. chicken breast) stuffed with chicken mousse and herbes de Provence, poached and served with a Tomato Butter sauce (mine was too thick - more a coulis) and courgette spaghetti- zucchini sliced on a mandolin and sauteed with some garlic and butter.

Life actually
I even made it to a movie - maybe 4 weeks ago?  I'm not sure...it was the most recent Scream movie.  I should not go to those - as silly and stupid as it was, it still scared me.  Total movies seen in London:  2.  Total cultural experiences:  1 ballet (Covent Garden), 1 concert (Southbank) and...do visits to markets count?  No museums yet.  They are still on my list but are always lower on the list of priorities as the kitchen and related things take over my life.

There is a lot of ground to cover and I realize that I have forgotten to include much in the way of social life.  There hasn't been one as such, but I have managed to catch the odd dinner with friends who are not LCB related (MA, who is in town from Hawaii for work for the next 3 months or so) and JB, who is currently posted to Rome during the week (also for work), SO who has the cutest little daughter (they live in Oxford) and my dear PC who was in town over the long weekend in April.

There have been a couple of trips to Kua'Aina burger in Carnaby Street - yesterday I made a mental note of the days when they serve the Lion Vanilla Macadamia nut coffee and now have forgotten them in the exhausted haze which has dogged the last few days.  Most of my other friends are from LCB, a couple of whom have had little parties, as they had to move after the course started.  Unfortunately I didn't take many photos of the one from the week (two weeks?) before,  but here are photos from Saturday:

Recognize any of the food?

Our hosts - Pedro & Angela

 

 

I think most of the people there were from those who are enrolled to do the grand diplome.  Apparently some of the people in the other group are a bit more comptetitive - they have more people who have industry experience, whereas my group doesn't seem to have reached that stage.  Yet.  Who knows - tempers have been known to run hot in the kitchen when ingredients go missing.

The girlfriends/husbands/etc. who also came may have been a bit overwhelmed with the shop talk, but that only came later.  We were all concious of wanting to talk anything except food for the first little while.  We have spent all these weeks together, but as most conversations revolve around organizing some fun time or discussing class, people are still getting to know each other.  I am sure that lifelong friendships will be forged during the next few months, but I am equally sure that lifelong antipathy may develop as well.  There is no way that we can all spend so much time together and not get on each other's nerves and given the strong personalities and wide age ranges involved, I am sure that cliques are already starting to form.

In the meantime, the girlfriends/husbands/etc. are finally understanding what their respective other halves are talking about when it comes to a bad day or things that went wrong.  They said they can put it into context - and they have good naturedly tried to support their tired, grumpy and hungry chefs when they get home.  ("Look honey - I just spent the last 2.5 making this and this is what went wrong and...just try a bite!")  Apparently they have also started to go to the gym, if they haven't already, and those who do exercise, have to do more.

And this week...fish and seafood

8am Monday - butchering a whole Lemon Sole, including gutting, filleting and skinning...rolled with a mushroom duxelles - the one on which I cut my finger somewhere in week 3 and poached in a fish fumet (fish broth) which we had to make from the bones.  We are all hurrying more in the kitchen now and can't believe there was a time when it took us 2 1/2 hours to cut up some vegetables and make a salad with dressing.  Now we are stressing out that it took 20 minutes to take apart the stupid chicken instead of 10.

A whole fish resulted in 4 little pieces of fish (you only plate 3 because it looks better on the plate) with a piped mashed potato border and the sauce...

Yesterday morning we got to do it again, this time with a rainbow trout.  Luckily I already knew how to gut a fish, but it wasn't done in demo and they didn't mention it so I was a little unprepared to have to gut the thing at 8:15 in the morning (well, we had to scale it first).  The butchery went pretty smoothly, but after class we all got together in our little huddles and had our own little debrief.  It appears which chef you have in the kitchen also determines how you season your food.  Oh - and my hollandaise sauce split.  Whatever the reason, I'm sure we'll have to do something like it again at some stage.  So - the trout a la meuniere, which I'm sure my dad would have loved but for the very burned butter...this is what the dish looks like just before I take it to the chef for feedback.

This is what my workstation looks like in the aftermath of the flurry of plating (no time to clean!) and things haphazardly pushed wherever - after feedback.  Ugh - first time I overcooked my fish!

Tonight we have to kill a crab (yes, it has to come to us alive) and make a stuffed crab in its own shell and a dish of mussels (moules mariniere).  That is one that many of us are looking forward to, although there is one unfortunate student who is allergic to certain shellfish, mussels being one of them.  He is in the other group, so I am guessing someone will go to class prepared with a baguette and stick a bottle of white wine in the fridge for after!  Some people are not enthused with the idea of putting a live crab in boiling water - we can't freeze it because our fridges aren't cold enough (especially as they will have been opened and closed so many times during the preceding 9 hours) and we can't use our knives to kill it because we need the shell intact for the presentation.

It is a late start today - 12pm - for which I am grateful.  Some of the girls and I got together after class yesterday to practice turning our vegetables.  The ideal is a football shape (for Americans and Australians) - an oval with points on both ends and 7 even facets.  Right now the chefs are willing to settle for however many facets as long as we don't waste a lot of potato and they are all about the same size.  And now - our practice has been documented...

 






There has been a little consternation from all of us as some of the ingredients we need to practice for patisserie are not available in normal places.  No fondant in the supermarket and the plain flour doesn't indicate whether it is strong flour or soft flour - I suppose I will find out when I try to make my pastry for the lemon meringue tart.  Also - no one sells butter in anything more than 250g (8 ozs).  I bought 12 blocks last night and had to lug them home - each thing that we have to practice uses ridiculous amounts of butter and as pretty as they are to look at, I am not sure I will be able to eat many of these things ever again.

Back to life...
As for life in London - it is, despite my many hours at the school or at home, trying to organize my mind for the following day, still delightful.  We have lunch or drinks out in the sun if there is a break between classes.  The days are still lenthening, so there is light past 9pm - which is perfect for the nights when we don't finish class until then, generally Thursday and Friday nights (and tonight).  The mornings are still cold - some may say brisk, but those are the ones who like the cold more than I do.  They require a warm jacket and a brisk walk to school.

There is a lot of construction going on in London as it prepares for the 2012 Olympics.  Tube stations are being upgraded, new train line/s being put in, streets having things done to them and sounds of construction going from morning until...well, I'm not sure when they stop since I usually get home later.  Everyone generally wants to wind down from the day at the pub and I think that when the school moves to Bloomsbury Square in January, the local businesses will really notice the difference.  You can tell when there's a break between classes because the streets and cafes are suddenly awash with white jackets emblazoned with the blue LCB crest paired with crocs and houndstooth checked pants.  Starbucks gets a lot of people coming in, desperate for a coffee to keep them awake for the 3 hour lecture coming up (or in progress) after they have already had up to 6 hours of class.

Now I must once again gear up to go to class.  A demo for 2.5 hours - this is the target time for our demo chefs, but classes have been known to run over the allocated 3 hours, which can cause a bit of a scramble for the next class - then a break (nap and review of notes) before being back and ready to go in the kitchen at 6pm.

So until next time, happy resting!