Hard Core Chef
One of my brothers has a friend who went to cooking school. By profession she does something very impressive and her standards for cooking are equally so. (As in, she is much stricter about things like making her own stocks, which take 3 days to make, etc etc.)
Unfortunately she broke her wrist not so long ago and is still recovering from surgery. I told her I would be her sous chef since we had discussed cooking together. Somehow we were volunteered to cook Christmas dinner before we knew what had happened. You can imagine how impressed I was, and how tough she is, that she did the bulk of the cooking for Christmas dinner for...14? 16? A lot of people anyway - more than I can count on just my fingers.
I got a telephone call Monday morning - it was early for me, as I was still jet lagged and sleep deprived (I had had an argument with technology the night before, which I won but only at 4am). I wanted to go back to sleep but woke up when she said it was to discuss Christmas dinner - specifically, the size / weight of the leg of lamb and the number of people which had grown to 13 people within less than 24 hours. I think only cooking nerds may appreciate how we managed to talk about the right stock (and how we didn't have any) for the jus, before we decided on a cheat version because we were the only ones who would care. By the way, the jus turned out well.
Preparation, Preparation and Preparation - Christmas Eve Day
'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the houses, creatures were stirring to get a lot of food organized for a lot of people.
Luckily Chef DC is very organized. We got our list of who was doing what. She and I discussed what was missing / logistics / timing. It was all good and under control. Nothing too complicated - but a bit of thought required given physical constraints with respect to counter space, refrigerator space, over and stove availability and our low tolerance for crap in the kitchen.
My prep was very basic - shopping, parboiling potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, mire poix for the sauce...some salad stuff, extra shopping for the more gourmet ingredients (thank you Williams Sonoma - no, this is not product placement, it's giving credit where credit is due - and letting you know shortcuts are not only ok, they can be really good).
Rock 'n roll
I'm not sure how or why it is a chef thing but it must be - I have heard this phrase so often and it's almost always in preparation for fun in the kitchen. Though somehow it's very different to hear it in a strong French accent than in our American one.
Chef DC also did a black rice dish, a cauliflower and chickpea curry which may sound not that good to those who don't like any of those ingredients but all I can say is, wow! (I actually hate chickpeas but I packed a whole container of this curry away for tomorrow, that's how good it was.)
Also brussels sprouts - although there are many who don't like them, these were so good my 4-year old niece not only ate them, but she told us how much she liked them as she ate them.
And Kabocha squash (Japanese green squash). And a butternut pumpkin / carrot puree. And a Caesar salad dressing. From scratch. Which was totally delicious (and I have the rest of the bottle in the fridge for tomorrow, hooray!)
and then today I just made a vinaigrette and the 2 salads. FYI, the Veal demi-glace from Williams-Sonoma made a very acceptable substitute in the absence of having a good veal stock to hand and it cut out a few steps. We had a nice sauce about 45 minutes after we started - not a bad record...
In which we have a very merry cooking party - Christmas Day
DC showed up today with a written time plan. I had one but it was all in my head and pretty easy. (As in, from time we planned to serve, onions - 1.5 hours; confit garlic - 1 hour; roasted veggies - 30 minutes.)
The lamb went into a portable convection oven which is just amazing. It came out a bit over for those who like their meat still moving but it was perfect for me. We were on time with DC's plan (we thought we were 15 minutes behind until we remembered that we had trimmed off a lot of fat and bones) and all went well.
We had an addition in the kitchen near the end of the day - a friend is the Yorkshire pudding Queen so she made a gluten-free and a regular Yorkshire pudding (yum!). They had different cooking times which was interesting for the person who made them, and we had to reshuffle our cooking timeline a bit to allow for the Yorkshire puddings to cook because they have to be last minute.
DC and I had a great old time - she actually fixed the leg of lamb because the butchery was done by machine so it didn't follow the joint (instead, the saw cut straight through the bone). She gave me the piece attached to the hip so I separated it and we had a nice little loin-ish roll. Which we forgot to cook. But it gave some really nice trimmings which made the sauce really good and one of the girls actually took home the meat and the veggies because she said it was like stew but without as much juice. She (DC, not our Yorkshire Pudding Queen) also put this really good rub on the lamb - an olive tapenade with a few other things thrown in - as you do.
Starters (aka Round 1 when I eventually got around to eating): cheeses, prosciutto, a few other things and sashimi (which we sliced at home).
Main (aka Rounds 2 and 3): Roast leg of lamb au jus and fresh mint, roasted root vegetables with rosemary and sea salt (yellow and purple carrots, fingerling potatoes, onions and garlic confit), black rice, cauliflower and lentil curry, butternut squash / carrot puree, roasted Kobacha squash and brussel sprouts with butter.
My plates: there isn't a whole lot of difference between the first and second platefuls of food but I was slowing down by the second plate of meat and veggies. There's no way to escape the day with eating only a little bit when there's so much good food and I have a bad habit of choosing "both" when presented with a choice. We also decided that food made with TLC doesn't have calories (for those who know about that sort of thing).
Dessert (aka Round 4): pumpkin pie, sweet potato and haupia pie, dried fruits, cookies and ice cream.
So until next time - merry Christmas (#or insert your holiday of choice here) - happy, safe and joyous holidays to all.
In which I have discovered new levels of stress
Whatever thoughts I might have had last term about getting ready for finals and doing portfolios was trumped yesterday. An email reminder arrived from a course I enrolled for back in September - related to my job and obviously before I got injured. The reminder email was to confirm technical setup with our lecturers in Sydney. Yes, I am beyond silly in that I now have to finish my Patisserie portfolio, finalise the Cuisine portfolio, practice for the exams and...do readings for a dispute resolution course. That could always go on the back burner but I have a couple of assignments due during the period that I am away so what I had thought would be easy down time at home over the Easter holidays now bid fair to be rather involved in catching up on the reading that I don't really have time to do over the next couple of weeks. Between study / practice sessions and classes finishing full pelt, I have little free time as I have to pack up pretty much right after finals in preparation for leaving London for the foreseeable future.
Finals have started to permeate every aspect of life, from allowing no time for ballet classes to taking over conversations and any conversations I might have with anyone. There has been random browsing on the internet as well as trying to think of flavor combinations within the list of ingredients which don't sound horrible (cinnamon and white chocolate made various faces screw up at the very thought). Thus far we have had some good natured guinea pigs as evidenced by the mousse and raspberry thing the other night.
Good influences
There are good influences everywhere you look. One of the girls from Cuisine has kicked my butt into actually making a practice schedule for our cuisine final. That influenced a slightly less ambitious one for Patisserie - less so because there are a few things I can't practice at home (sugar and brioche). In the meantime, our first practice session is tomorrow. She has kindly offered the use of her kitchen and equipment - I will provide the things she doesn't have. I have high hopes for the upcoming finals as I have only practiced on my own in the past. If nothing else, this will teach me whether I am capable of practicing with other people or whether I need to do it on my own.
Gather ye roses...
In the meantime, we have been using the boulangerie module to practice brioche. Mondy and today resulted in more bread items than we could carry - a happy bonus for friends not doing Patisserie. We made a few breads for the day, then prepped a few other things for Tuesday (a second brioche recipe, the croissant doughs, etc.) which we did first thing in the morning - not a bad breakfast / morning snack. We actually had so many that I gave a few to various people. The porters like these days because they also get to share - we need assistance in making our take-home packages manageable and they get to have fresh bread - a win/win situation for all concerned.
After all the Viennoiserie was baked, we all had to do a quality control/taste test. As you can see, they looked quite nice (my croissants are the two outer columns and the pains au chocolat on the left - we shared trays). For hygiene reasons, I've been wearing a mask while I cook, but that doesn't interfere with tasting time. The others in the background are ladling hot water in their cups so they can have coffee with their croissants. Milk and sugar were already on hand for other ingredients so we were well supplied.
In which we eat - a lot...
Tuesday's afternoon session was for finishing a few other breads, then time for some fun. We have these enormous deck ovens which can make their own steam so you get a really nice crust on bread. The only thing is, these are apparently the small ones so it makes it a bit harder to have one at home. You can make do but it's a bit more dangerous to make your own steam so I just do simpler ones. The Viennese baguettes are baking on the left (just before we went for lunch). Then we had to turn out and cut our pains de campagne in the second session. It gets a really nice crust, it freezes well and it's really good when you defrost and toast it. This is the one I had in my freezer when I got injured last term - really good with beans on toast - even better if the beans and toast is topped with melted Gruyere and a fried egg on top.
Pain Surprise
This is one we make with a rye bread mix (pain de siegle). We baked the bread the day before, then chilled it over night - apparently that makes it easier to slice. It's something you can do with any bread (so we were told) and traditionally people make them for parties - either as a finger food, part of a buffet or whatever - easy to eat and the display is quite nice.
Hollowing out my Aloha Honu ("honu" is Hawaiian for turtle) was a bit of a pain, mainly because I missed a little bit on the bottom and it was uneven. Did manage to disguise the layers - the one on the left below is Chef's turtle, Terry. Mine is in the centre and on the right below - the girls work at the dentist's office on the ground floor of the building where I'm staying. They saw the turtle and they made the same impressed sounds I made when I first saw a Superior student taking home her hedgehog back when I was in basic. Anyway, both girls are from Australia. One didn't like smoked salmon so she just sampled the prosciutto one and the other one tried both.
As you can see, Honu was quite popular. Knowing just how much butter I had spread over the various layers when making the sandwiches, I couldn't face eating so many more for dinner, especially since I had already had a pain au chocolat by then. All I want was a nice salad - so this was dinner. Of course I ended up having a second dinner a few hours later - apparently eating lots of butter and refined flour doesn't satisfy your body's need for food and it still demands the good stuff after you've given it tons of bad (but oh so delicious) stuff.
The remainder of the evening was spent doing more laundry - the baking trays have been cured over years of use but the whole not washing them thing means that they get crap on the bottom of the trays - so each day the pristine white uniform gets random rusty looking streaks not too long after you handle the trays. I've washed my oven gloves but they still look a bit cooked. Hopefully they don't affect hygiene marks.
Today is a late start - 3pm demo, then a 6:30pm practical. Luckily the main time of the practical will be waiting for the lemongrass / ginger/ other spices bouillon to come together so there should be some yummy goodness to bring home for dinner. There's enough time to drop off a Kugelhopf bread to a girlfriend (not cooking school) who had a baby not so long ago, with some of the bread from yesterday, then it's on to meet a friend from Cuisine to go over a couple of things for finals. I can finally get some things out of the fridge, like the wood pigeons I bought over the weekend -I'm not sure if that means they were wild but we have to look for shot in them - and some of the vegetables. Busy day ahead - must go.
So until next time, happy eating and sleeping!
Starters (aka Round 1 when I eventually got around to eating): cheeses, prosciutto, a few other things and sashimi (which we sliced at home). 
Dessert (aka Round 4): pumpkin pie, sweet potato and haupia pie, dried fruits, cookies and ice cream.
