I just realized that Friday was the end of week 5. Half way if you look at the term dates, but actually more if you consider that this takes into account start of term to graduation. If you take out graduation and exams, we have less than 4 weeks left. Ok, I just freaked myself out about the patisserie exam. It seems like last term's Superior Patisserie group were already quite set on what they were going to do for the final. I'm still trying to get my recipes set because the dome idea I had isn't going to work. And the thought of having to buy all that cream, milk, etc. etc. to practice is making me quite depressed about my refrigerator and its lack of space.
There have already been a few panics by various people as they contemplate the amount of work ahead of us (less than 2 weeks to finish our Cuisine portfolios, the Patisserie ones due a week after that). It helps if you break it down - until you realize how many components there are. I've started doing the math just in case something goes wrong (you know they almost always do) and a decision as to be made whether to skip an element, take a time penalty or to present it but it's bad (sometimes you get partial credit, sometimes it's all-or-nothing).
In which we imitate zombies
Although the service part of the Tea Party had been quite easy, the lead up to it had had a certain urgency to it. I asked Chef GB if he was nervous. He asked why should he be nervous, to which I replied that he was now letting us loose on the public - mostly family and friends...but there was a rather large press table, at least one of whom has attended previous event/s before. Chef said no, he wasn't nervous, but given that he had just given us a little talk about how we were representing the school, its reputation and how he took it seriously, I had my suspicions on that score. In any event, you already know the details so I'll continue on with last week.
St Pierre en Croute de Chorizo, Mille-Feuille de Grenouilles aux Amandes (John Dory with chorizo crust, frog legs mille feuille with almonds)
8am Thursday morning we had another Cuisine practical. Everyone was moving in slow motion. Apparently we still haven't quite recovered from the Tea Party and people are really starting to panic about how fast the time is going by.
I admit that I tried the
cuisse the grenouilles (frog legs) in demo. Not a big fan. Apparently they are nice when they are fresh but for me they go into the basket marked "
was on my dissecting table, won't eat". These were frozen, which changes the texture of the meat. I found them really mushy and kind of tasteless. This is after they were cooked by a really amazing chef. Needless to say I didn't taste them when I made them and neither did our teaching chef, Chef JB. He doesn't like them either, unless they are fresh. So this was just an exercise in French trimming the legs and frying them (longer than you think).
The John Dory was as delicious as ever, but I'm not a huge fan of the chorizo crust. It might have been better if it had been crispy, but we had to make a call as to whether to crisp the crust (and overcook the fish) or have the fish perfect but the crust a bit soggy. Opted for the fish, seeing as how it's the main component of the dish. We also did a puff pastry with spinach (below and inside) and the small bits of frog leg we took off when we trimmed the bones.
The sauce is made from crabs. Mine was very crab-y ("
it's more like a really lovely crab stock. Just too much for this early in the morning.") and I thought, quite salty. By the way, that's after I added so much butter that I don't even know how much I put in.
Fusion?
I didn't want to cook dinner when I got home but I didn't want to eat we'd made in class exactly. I had to buy some salad anyway, so a stop in Waitrose also resulted in buying 3 large scallops.
Oh, ew, Waitrose!
A little detour here. I was so completely disgusted - I took a couple of days to think about it and I am still grossed out. The lady at the checkout counter was sick. How do I know this? Aside from the miserable look on her face, she handed me a plastic bag to pack my own groceries - no problem. But in the middle of scanning in my groceries, she took out a wrinkled tissue from her pocket, blew her nose, returned the tissue to her pocket
and then continued to handle my groceries, among them now my raw vegetables. I have seen other employees use hand sanitizer, but she didn't. And then - she did it again! I'm not sure if it was the same kleenex, but given that she kind of had to hunt for what I assume was a dry spot, I didn't quite know what to do. It's not like I could complain to the manager - I can't imagine she would go to work when she obviously felt so crappy if she didn't need to go. For me, it's just a disgusting ick factor, whereas I have no idea what it was for her. I just made sure I handled my debit card and washed, peeled and/or cooked everything carefully when I got home. One of the girls at school told me that they are supposed to have antibac by their stations though, and that it's part of the health and hygiene things people are taught.
But back to the food...these are big, fresh King scallops (Scotland? I forget) - needed to clean off the roe. Then I happend to glimpse panko crumbs and furikake (seaweed sprinkles, for those who didn't grow up in Hawaii, Japan or eating Japanese food) and dinner was sorted:
An attempt at something like the starter from the student event - Pan fried King scallop in furikake and panko crust with crab vinaigrette. I used a few drops of the "crab stock" from the John Dory in a vinaigrette - quite similar to the one we did with the lobster lasagne a few weeks ago.
The salad I have been craving for who knows how long - it needed to be colorful, have contrasting textures and in this case, contrasting temperatures, so that it wouldn't be boring. In an attempt to be organized I packed some salad (sans dressing) in a tupperware, thinking I would take it to school yesterday for lunch and how easy it would be to do this when I go back to work. Well, yes - as long as I remember to take it with me.
Finally, dinner! I made rice because we didn't make any starch with the John Dory (puff pastry doesn't count - I chucked it because it doesn't travel well) and I thought it might soften the flavor of the chorizo crust. It didn't so I scraped off the chorizo, but only after I took the photo. I can't remember what else I did to the crab sauce (maybe more dressing?) but it tasted pretty good. Some people say they don't eat leftovers - personal preference, I have no issue with that. I just wonder, is it leftovers if you didn't eat it? I think it took me the time it took to cook the rice to do everything (I had to empty the dishwasher, do the other dishes and a general clean up - it didn't take 20 minutes to make scallops!)
Teamwork...
Then yesterday at 8am was another practical. Two dishes this time, a starter and a main. We were working in teams of 2. It kind of threw me because I had a plan for everything and I think I could have done it on my own. On the other hand, it wouldn't have turned out as pretty. We were told that this was a test of teamwork (some teams were told they needed to communicate better). ML and I had a couple of little blips but nothing that couldn't be fixed.
Feuillete de Fromage de Chevre et sa Salade d'Herbes, Miel et Fleur de Sel (Puff pastry with Goat's Cheese, herb salad, honey and Fleur de Sel)
We had Chef LM who is just amazing. He said he didn't really care what we did as long as it was beautiful (think all this in a French accent). The other classes who didn't have to do extras finished earlier, but I think our dishes may have also ended up a bit more creative. ML, my partner for the day, insists she isn't creative, but she came up with the vol-au-vent idea for our goat's cheese starter. We did the mise en place together, but plated our own individual plates. My plate needed more salad (see the name of the dish) but he liked the little extras we did. I sprinkled my peanut pistachio praline bits on the dish, ML put hers in the base of her vol-au-vent with the little apple compote we made - a nice little surprise, which I thought was a great idea (and wished I had copied...)
Chef LM said they do starters like ours in restaurants quite often. Of course we were given some suggestions (like,
"you can't just give me apples like that, you have to turn them" or
"what else can you do with the apple peels?" or
"those apples don't have any color - what will it look like on the plate?") Suddenly what was pretty straightforward had teams discussing and scrambling to get the extras done. We were fortunate enough that if we wanted other ingredients he was willing to arrange to have them provided so that we could stretch ourselves a bit. We ended up with an apple infused vinaigrette on our herb salad, the apple compote, a vol-au-vent (instead of plain rectangles) and the praline/brittles. I messed up the caramel a bit (too much butter) so I just poured it off before adding my toasted nuts. Not great technique, but sometimes they don't care if it looks and tastes good.
In some ways this reminds me of what one of the girls was saying at the pub on Friday night after class. She did Basic and Intermediate at the Paris school and she is here with us for the final push in Superior. She said that London focuses a lot on technique while Paris really does amazing presentations and pushes you to be creative. I'm glad I'm here because I find pressure thends to quashy any creativity which sometimes comes in unlooked for bursts.
Dourade en Croute de Sel, Huile de Ciboulette (Baked Sea Bream in Salt Crust, Chive Oil)
Mains: ML made the egg white and salt meringue for our fish. Chef LM wanted to see our fish before we took them out of the crusts so we had to make it pretty (the other groups didn't have to do this). Chef DM happened to pop his head into the kitchen while we were doing this and he said that he used to have people pipe on the meringue (or have the pastry chefs where he worked do something to it, I've forgotten what). In any case, ML handed me a piping bag. I didn't feel like diving into the knife kit to get a tip so I just piped it straight from the bag. She thought the little puffy scales were quite cute so she did hers like mine too. Our ovens are a bit uneven (I had an oven thermometer which we use to check because the dials are so old the numbers have rubbed off and the temperature gauges aren't particularly reliable) so our crust, which should have been white, turned out golden.
We were told in demo to keep the bok choy kind of crisp, for a texture contrast from the fish. However, given it was Chef LM in the kitchen, ML and I decided we would cook our vegetables a tad longer (yes, confusing with the initials). So there are the photos (minus the ones with the whole gutting them thing). Chef LM wanted to know if my fish was sick because the I hadn't smoothed the salt crust over the head very well. He also said that if we weren't good at this sort of thing, you could use a spoon to make the fish spiky...
Cheese and Wine
Back to the other bits of the week. We had our cheese tech on...Wednesday night? I'm not sure...then our last Cuisine wine tech yesterday - the Patisserie one is next week.
Cheese
Anyway, Tom the Cheese Guy is extremely entertaining. He is so sweet, how enthusiastic and passionate he is about cheese, although I always worry when I see an anticipatory, gleeful smile on his face. I have learned that the cheese making the rounds is going to be particularly stinky / strong. Some of the gems from our cheese lecture:
- Calling the Cloche (goat's cheese from Touraine - see left) "utterly beautiful" in reference to its rippled texture which looked like the ridges on a brain to me;
- "decent, sexy cheese" (cause for a ripple of amusement through the class);
- "become one in unholy decay" in reference to his love of cheese and what he hopes will happen to him upon his demise and being interred with...Roquefort? - resulting in outright laughter (in a nice way);
- Roquefort being "carried down to limestone caves and being stroked by little Frenchmen" (also how Stilton should be treated);
- "If they're calling for wine, they're not really English [cheeses]. They're probably a Frenchman in disguise".
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Brillat Savarain - triple cream
also a party favorite (mild, creamy) |
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Vacherin - seasonal, stinky
one of my favorites |
Wine
This one was more fun by virtue of the fact that we got to eat canapes prepared by the production kitchen with the wine to test food and wine pairings. I enjoy food but the wine thing is a very slow process, although considerably facilitated by the past few months here. View of canapes to the right - on the overhead mirror, which is why it looks upside down.
Have come to the conclusion that I shouldn't do tasting for food and wine. The only pairings I thought were good were the ones everyone agreed on. Those who know about wine could talk about complexity, etc. etc. Sometimes they went well, sometimes it tasted atrocious - a suggestion was made that I ought to practice more drinking. Hmmm, usually classes don't encourage you to drink...photo of my favorite on the right (of course - dessert, fortified, very sweet...)
All the sitting in class made me very twitchy so after a quick stop at the pub after our wine lecture, I took myself off to ballet class. Sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm working as hard as I could in class - but that doesn't mean that it doesn't still hurt the next day. I spent last night stretching out from the unaccustomed exercise on Friday night and the extensive walking on Saturday.
Saturday excursions
Yesterday was a trip to see more of London's sights. In this case - a snack at a market near Bermondsey on Maltby St where LM introduced me to the best grilled cheese sandwich ever. I have an aversion to sourdough bread because it tastes like it's rotten - but wow! I seem to have missed the list of ingredients, but here they are, preparing the sandwiches, with a view of LM's excited face - she's been talking about these sandwiches for a couple of weeks now. After the grilled cheese that changed my view on sourdough, we had a bit of a walk around to see what else was around. Maltby St market didn't seem to have many places open but the ones which were, seemed to be quite foodie heaven-y. (Yes, I know that's not a word - but if it got my point across, who cares?) One of the things we saw was this grocery stall which was much more like a shop - quite big and had a bunch of things which I had been looking for in other places but haven't seen in a while - like micro greens (remember my fish tacos a while back?) and these interesting looking mushrooms. No idea what they are, I couldn't see a sign. I was just enamored of the lavender color on something which looked a little like a cross between girolles, shiitake, oyster and who knows what else.
Having seen most of the Maltby Stree market, we went to Camden where we only saw a fraction of the markets. We started near this canal thing where they have a bunch of food stalls and a small indoor section which reminded me of some of the shopping arcades in Sydney. The weeping willows are still green and we had to pass under a hanging curtain of the branches to cross the little bridge to the other side. (Q: Why did the Anna cross the bridge? A: To get to the food on the other side.)
It was even prettier because they had strung up lights, which were particularly effective as it got darker. It was pretty to see all the lights on as the overcast day got darker (the sun is now down by 4:30pm and getting earlier every day). Some sections have names (The Stables; Designer Row?) - generally it seemed like similar things were sold in the same general location, like the little place with furniture stalls, which were more like shops, the stalls off the main street which sold similar looking dresses/sweaters/sweatshirts, the food section...I kept thinking of it like a fair because of all crowds and the food. The art and the crafts were much better though. I hope to make it back to do a little Christmas shopping, but we will see how the time goes. It is rapidly slipping away and I still have a lot to do.
Early to bed
I think we walked for about 5 hours straight - I was too afraid to sit down near the end of the day because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get up again. I was in bed by about 8:15 with a Dr Watson and Mr Holmes, never having read all of their adventures consecutively. They await me patiently as I finish this particular entry.
I don't have photos of my tartelette with poached egg and Hollandaise sauce (which turned out a strange gray color - I will have to ask the chefs why it looks so weird) because I accidentally washed the memory stick adaptor for my camera with my laundry. The Hollandaise didn't split! Cause for a mental happy dance even though it was a little thin, except still wondering about the color...photos later, once I manage to get things sorted out. Late start tomorrow - Holmes and Watson are calling me, so I must go.
So until next time, may you enjoy your little successes as much as I have enjoyed mine.
I think there's crack in one of my olive oils. Or the balsamic vinegar, not sure. All I know is that I have to limit myself to 1 lettuce a day, drizzled with olive oil, balsamic and a sprinkle of sea salt or else I'd eat more of it. Maybe it's the sea salt...
Random Sunday morning cooking frenzy - my scale wasn't working and I couldn't find the back up so although I was dying to bake, that didn't happen. I cooked instead because you don't need a scale for some of the things. No sea bass at the fishmonger so grilled snapper rice paper rolls.
Dinner with some friends on Saturday night so I made some tartlettes with mushroom duxelles and then a little puff pastry (store bought) served with goat's cheese, tomatoes and beetroot. I forgot to charge my camera so I didn't get a photo of the yummy dinner that AC made - normally I hate the taste of pork but this was so delicious I actually had seconds. And of course a good cheesy sauce is good on pretty much anything - cauliflower with dinner - felt totally spoiled.
