#105 - Fast food (but not)

It's amazing how fast time flies.  I finally managed to catch up with a girlfriend whom I haven't seen in over 6 months - and got to meet her son for the first time.

Persian food
Such a treat - I got to taste my first Persian food after a lovely fig and manchego salad with a really nice walnut oil dressing.

They threw an elegant dinner party while getting their little son to bed and entertaining company.

 
There was a lamb stew made with dried limes, basmati rice (and the yummy crunchy bottom layer - centre photo), a Shirazhi salad (tomatoes and cucumbers), then a really nice dessert.  CT wasn't happy with her dessert but I finished the whole thing, a record for me since I'm not huge on desserts.  The stewed plums were particularly good with the heavy cream.  What is is about cream which makes dessert so delicious?

(Almost) Vegetarian but delicious
Both CT and KN are huge foodies so they were a bit horrified when I told them I occasionally make 2-minute noodles.  A chest infection sent me home for a few days on antibiotics which you have to take with food - but cooking when you're sick isn't that much fun.  CT, as horrified as she was by my 2-minute noodles, wasn't too horrified by my 4-minute noodles (that's how long it takes the noodles to cook).  Lest ye all be completely against vegetarian dishes, this had fresh tofu in the soup rather than meat.  Easier on the stomach and the fresh herbs really pick up the flavours.

I was torn between being completely vegetarian and the old remedy of chicken soup - compromise by using chicken stock but vegetarian ingredients.  It was a variation of the chicken long rice broth from a few weeks ago:

Ingredients
500ml (2 cups) chicken stock (use vegetable stock for vegetarians);
a few pieces of tofu;
2 - 4 leaves of bok choy;
1/2 zucchini, sliced;
1-in piece of ginger, grated;
1 garlic clove, grated;
sliced spring onions (green onions if you live in the US);
a few leaves of coriander (cilantro) for garnish.

Method
Bring stock, ginger, garlic to a simmer.  Add tofu and simmer another 5 minutes (until warm).  Add bok choy and simmer for 4 more minutes.

Pour over steamed rice and sprinkle with spring onions and coriander to serve.

Perfect for a cold night when you need a little soup.

Happy eating!

#104 - Great Expectations

Beanless Chili
Finally a sighting of my chili!  It's been a bit like the search for Bigfoot or a Yeti - this is the first time a sighting has been made (less the fresh jalepenos, cilantro/coriander and spring onions/green onions).  My ever reliable food chronicler sent this one through a couple of days after I left.

See post #103 for more about the chili - and my sister sent me a message tonight saying it still tops the list of things she wants when I come home, followed closely by the veggies below.

Passover
I have been invited to a Passover Seder on Tuesday night.  See this link for more information about the seder - http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1751/jewish/The-Seder-in-a-Nutshell.htm.

Zucchini "spaghetti"

No pressure, but my invitation to seder made a point of challenging my cooking skills in requesting a vegetarian side dish which complied with requirements to be Kosher for Passover.  Surprisingly enough, the thing that took the longest amount of time was the tomato sauce - especially since I had to look up the recipe because I forgot it and had left out the garlic and tomato paste.  It took forever to pass it through a sieve because I don't have a chinois here.  It was easier to make everything from scratch than to have to doctor something from the correct Kosher section or to check I didn't breach any rules (except the tomato paste, which I ran past my hosts).

Vegetarian "spring" roll - named by my sister

I can't get people to choose between the variations but hopefully some tasting by independent third parties will tell me if one of them is better than another.

The vegetarian "spring roll" and the veggie stack are both wrapped in savoy cabbage leaves, which were surprisingly hard to get in Hawaii for the family Christmas dinner and a previous attempt at something like this.

Veggie stack (aka vegetarian stuffed cabbage)

The veggie stack will somehow need to be changed slightly because it's meant to serve 26 people.  So far the Mise-en-place consists of 9 red bell peppers, 8 tomatoes,8 shallots, 2 bouque garni, I'm not sure how many zucchini, 1 savoy cabbage and...I think I forgot something.

Everything needs to be cooked just a bit more but I think it may just be a matter of getting the balance of the different vegetables and the sauce right.  There may not be enough sauce for the zucchini spaghetti so that may or may not make it to the dinner.

So until next time, happy Easter / Passover and food in good company.

#88 - Final practical class

Seen and heard
So I got asked if my duck was spam.  Um, no.  Although I can see from the photo how it might be mistaken for spam, seeing as how perfectly it was cooked, rested and sliced.  Well, I'm going to tell myself that instead of it being understandable because there's still fat under the skin.  Also seen, which was really disturbing:  leather hotpants with sheer pantyhose.  Really? I mean, c'mon, be considerate of people's eyes even if you are a fashion victim and don't care how you look!  Those shorts would have been short on my 4 year old niece.  And given the cold weather, I've seen far too many (super) short skirts and cankles.  You may wonder what cankles are - they are, apparently, when the leg fails to taper from the calf to the ankle and makes the abrupt transition from calf to ankle - hence the name.  I didn't use to notice them much until someone mentioned them the other day. Suddenly it seems I see an awful lot of them.  Or perhaps I'm just obsessed with legs since I started going to ballet again.


A confession
I've been having chocolate cravings, which is highly unusual.  If my parents read that last sentence, I'm sure they're going to wonder if they wandered onto the wrong blog.  Anyway - the danger of having food ingredients around and doing Patisserie is that you have - yes, you guessed it - chocolate!  The other night was disgusting enough when I ate the white chocolate straight out of the bowl, but tonight has been even more classy - eating my dark couverture chocolate chips by the handful.  Mind you, these are the ones we have to temper for truffles so I could always try to convince you it's all about quality control, but really, who are we fooling?


Sleeping in

Preparing for the last practical - and
having a Croque Cordon Bleu at the Cafe

The morning started perfectly.  I had already taken my written exam so after my alarm went off this morning, I went back to sleep instead of hitting snooze.  Or maybe I hit snooze once before I went back to sleep.  Whatever - the point is, I got to sleep until the luxurious time of 9am or so.  Then I finished printing out and making last little tweaks to the Cuisine portfolio.  I think it  due at 5pm and I had it printed out and ready to go at about noon - so energizing.  And then at some point my get up and go got up and went - without me.  If it hadn't been for the fact that I had to turn in the portfolio, there's a chance that I might not have gone to the practical, even though I hate missing class.  However...


Queue de lotte poele, encornets farci avec risotto avec langoustines et coriandre - Pan fried monkfish tail, squid stuffed with langoustine and coriander risotto)
Tonight was our last practical class.  Ever.   So off I toddled, clean uniform and portfolio in my bag, ready to take on the stupid monkfish.  I am not a fan of monkfish - the fish itself is nice - white, kind of firm, not fishy at all.  But skinning the thing - ugh - it has a layer of slimy skin that comes off easily but underneath it is a layer of silver skin that you also have to take off.  If you don't take it off, it either turns gray or makes the fish curl up.  Or both.  There's a way that you can kind of skin off the silver skin the way you take the skin off a fillet of fish, but it still leaves bits and pieces on.  Not to mention, if you accidentally cut through the silver skin on the fillet like I did on my first fillet, you have to do it the long and annoying way.


FYI, coriander and cilantro are the same thing, just different languages (I forget which is what).  We didn't have coriander so I ended up chopping up some dill for the risotto - it could probably have used a bit more dill but still tasted pretty good.

So it was supposed to be a fast and easy practical except the monkfish's silver skin was annoying me.  Then we had to brunoise some carrot, celery and onion.  Which is fine except I didn't think the celery through and I got a very nice, fine julienne which I then couldn't use for my brunoise - which I needed for my risotto.  Finally got a good risotto!  It was a little dry looking on the plate but apparently it tasted good and it was cooked the way chef wanted it.  A little too much flour on my monkfish and squid (I patted it off, I did!) but the sauce was good - langoustine-y, saffron-y and buttery (but my sauce split at the end because my plate was too hot).  I got a very encouraging comment - Chef JB told me to cook like this during the exam and I would be fine.


It was also a fun time because no one was taking it seriously.  There was a lot of laughing as we made fun of each other and some of the students who usually don't talk ended up participating as they channeled different chefs from the school.


After class...
My classmates and I went to the pub in the courtyard after class.  Knowing that I wasn't going home soon and that the food wouldn't be nice later, I gave it to one of the guys at the front desk.  By the time I got home, it was too late to buy groceries at Waitrose so I went to Tesco instead.  It's true what they say about not doing grocery shopping when you're hungry - I caught myself looking at things I normally wouldn't - Doritos and Pringles especially.  Managed to stifle those urges but I ended up buying a packet of mac 'n cheese, then some baby salad leaves, baby beetroots and tomatoes to make a salad with goat's cheese I had in the fridge.  Only thing is, I got home and remembered that I still had 2-minute ramen noodles in the cupboard which have to be eaten before I leave London.  Well 2-minute noodles aren't that nutritious and I really wanted some vegetables.  Luckily I had lugged home my knife kit so julienning some veggies took very little time.  I wanted some protein, so a scrambled egg later and having drained the noodles, I put everything together and got this.  I'm not sure if it's blasphemous to the cooking gods, if they exist, for me to put my skills  to fancying up instant noodles.  Whatever - it tasted good and I probably got my day's serving of vegetables in the dinner.


It's too soon after dinner but I am too sleepy to be able to stay up much longer.  Until next time, may you have unbroken and satisfying sleep.

#81 - Practice, practice, practice...

Hopefully not where they shop...

Yesterday I was meeting a friend to go make a practice schedule for our exam dishes.  While I was waiting, I happened to notice one of the ubiquitous sights we all take for granted.  However, the noticing ended up in a rather icky place - the street pigeon was just strutting his stuff on the sidewalks of Sloane Square.  Which is fine, except I was thinking of the cuisine final, saw this thing walking around and had the horrified hope that this was not where they source our pigeons!

I found out last night that it was one of my hosts' birthdays so what was going to be a pretty plain Sunday night dinner gave me an excuse to start practicing my plated dessert.  For the moment I was just practicing a couple of elements - got some good feedback so now the recipes need to be adjusted a little bit.

Sunday dinner

The main and starter had nothing to do with exam dishes for anywhere.  It was freezing today so a nice Sunday roast seemed to be in order.  Then because it was a birthday and I wanted to make sure there were some veggies in evidence, I ended up making a starter.  Good thing I had a couple of different kinds because one of the people isn't a huge fan of smoked salmon.  I've come around gradually to the cold smoked one but I agree with her - the flavor and texture isn't the nicest if you're not a fish person.  I am, but I still prefer the smokiness of hot smoked salmon.  Luckily I had enough greens to make more salad so everyone got to eat something they liked.

Then it was on to the mains.  I bought the beef at the farmer's market this morning from one of the butcher guys there - I think they had 3 or 4 guys.  Anyway - this was a nice, dry aged (29 days, I think) beef, still on the bone.  They had taken the fat rind off, which was a bit of a shame, but it still turned out ok.  I also did roasted vegetables - personally I'd rather have my roast beef with rice but I'm in the UK so I did as they do here.  The butcher had given me some meat trimmings because he didn't have any good bones and he couldn't sell the pieces he gave me.  Nice jus although it was a bit heavy - I didn't have veal stock so I tried a beef one instead.  It came out tasting kind of strong, but still good.  The meat was rested while we had our starter so even though it was cooked to about medium, I would describe it in the photo as closer to medium well.  Drat, missed the cooking point!

Playing with dessert
Not a happy camper - I couldn't do a joconde for various reasons and the genoise recipe is not meant for this.  Even worse, I hadn't thought it through very well and let me tell you, genoise doesn't seem quite appropriate for this dessert.  I didn't spread it well and it overcooked so it was hard to make it line up enough when I lined the moulds.  Had a bit of a problem with the which chocolate mousse when the chocolate hadn't melted enough by the time I needed to mix it with the angalise for the mousse so I had to warm it carefully so that I wouldn't kill the gelatine.


The end result:  white chocolate mousse (needs flavors adjusted), red wine and blackberry jelly and a raspberry sauce which should have been a glaze.  Need more jelly for the balance of the dessert and I'll need to rethink the glaze because it currently looks like something is bleeding onto my mousse.  So much to do, so little time.


So until next time, happy cooking.

#70 - Happy (belated) New Year

End of the holidays
The past couple of weeks have been a bit of a blur.  Somewhere in the midst of many departures from the islands of those who migrated here temporarily to be with their families (and in some cases, to escape grim, gray and cold weather) and the occasional computer issue, I have fallen woefully behind.  Hopefully you have all had happy and safe holidays.

Back to the basics
New Year's eve was a relatively quiet affair, for which I thank the various children in attendance.  Who knew you could still be tired after sleeping for almost a week straight?  We had dinner chez sister and brother-in-law with several babies (tears at various points in the evening since it was past their bedtimes) and lots of parents.  As always in any Hawaiian gathering, there was obviously not enough to eat...most of the food was take out, but we did prepare a couple of things at home.


2012
Cooking still requires some careful handling of various utensils and a lot of time so I went back to the basics on NYE.  We went up the hill to see the fireworks.  Apparently the crackdown on aerials has worked - they have been illegal for at least 15 years, possibly 20 but that hasn't always deterred the naughty pyromaniacs from setting them off.  This usually resulted in a number of fires so the fire department was kept busy unless it was a rainy year.  Not so this year but the only ones we really saw were the official ones:  Ala Moana and Aloha Tower Marketplace.  We got a good view of both, then the diehards who were still present were served fruit salad.  Yes - that fruit salad from basic Patisserie.  Luckily this time it didn't take 2.5 hours to make and I didn't have to submit the fruits for inspection by the chef.

Sunday morning we managed to get ourselves up and down to the water.  Brunch time!  The usual chef at the made-to-order omelette station was promoted so he wasn't there.  However, I had fun chatting with the new chef and even better, I got to have my omelette the way I like it - most likely overcooked by LCB standards but perfect for me.

Beef roulades with Asian salad
Outrigger Canoe Club -
got a new chef a few months ago
and the menu has changed accordingly,
mostly for the better)

Then it was the last minute flurry of catch ups with friends before they left town.  It occurred to me that I was pretty busy for someone who didn't have to do anything.  I love catching up with all my friends but sometimes it seems like a year (or several) between catch ups is a long time.  Somehow communication loses a lot of its immediacy when reduced to emails or text messages.  I think this is especially true since writing leaves out a lot of nuance while allowing the reader's own moods to creep in, sometimes to the detriment of the communication.  But again, I digress.

Afternoon Tea

Afternoon tea was at the Kahala Hotel.  I liked the savory options and the flourless chocolate cake - the remainder of the tea left me rather uninspired and I can't tell if I am being extra critical because I don't like sweets or because they weren't executed well, which is entirely possible.  Strongly disapproved of the scones (I like mine fluffy) and the clotted cream (it wasn't clotted cream).  There was quite a lot of yuzu jelly / cream in the pastries - a nod to the Asian influence in using the citrus, although it tasted a bit strange to a palate only just getting used to it.  At present I still find it indescribable beyond the citrus tang with a bit of sourness/bitterness behind it.

Then more cooking - baby steps...
I tried poached eggs and Hollandaise again.  We have a friend who cannot have gluten or dairy so I made vegetables for her instead.  The quenelles were just for the presentation so she would have something pretty.  All bets were off for the second serve and everyone dug in - much better for family dining but it's nice to be able to place something pretty in front of your friends and family.  Poaching eggs was interesting - mainly because I got a request to have the yolks fully cooked through (success and no gray ring, but there was a moment of annoyance when I thought I had overcooked it).  No English muffins so we used toast instead.  As always, I held my breath as I brought the sauce back to temperature because this is usually when my sauce splits.

The week ended with sunset and dinner by the water with friends and family.

So until next time, may your holidays be as drama-free and happy as mine have been.

#34 - Panic, panic and more panic...

Exams for Intermediate are fast approaching and once again people are starting to sleep less, be a bit more grumpy and buckle down for reviewing and practice.

There have been tears, downcast moods after comments and a happy dance...tears from slicing shallots (practice for the salmon exam dish), downcast moods (overcooked monkfish and dry pork in the stuffed squid) and a happy dance for the St Jacques (scallops) Parisienne - although I can't really take credit for that.  But back to the beginning, for those of you who want the details.  Everyone else can stop here - there's nothing left except a couple of photos.

Due to the Riots
It felt very odd not to have cooked for the first couple of days of the week.  We are usually in the kitchen 5 days a week - occasionally 4, but those weeks have a day with two practical classes.  I just checked next week though...a couple of days where we aren't cooking - that will still feel decidedly odd.

Anyway, they have promised a make-up class for the one that was cancelled last week - truffles.  Which is also good because it involves tempering chocolate, which we might have to do for the exam if we are unlucky enough to get the Sabrina in Patisserie - the one where people tend to fail for going over time...

The riots may have started as a protest against the shooting last week (?) but the looting and violence seem to have extended far beyond that.  Newspaper articles were written encompassing the government/PM being out of touch, disenfranchised youth and a host of other problems.  I only wonder if the message to the government was lost in the tumult of police being deployed, shops emptying and closing early while people pretty much went home and stayed there.

After the rioting
So back to cooking...on Wednesday it was a monkfish stew and a stuffed squid - including cleaning it, taking off the skin, etc. etc.  You know how it is - they like to give us the whole animal - you can always buy it already prepared, but at least this way we know what's been done to it.

I finally get what they were saying about the transition from Basic to Intermediate being quite difficult - we are now occasionally preparing two dishes and they each have several components.  Both the squid and the monkfish were new to me in terms of preparation.

Wednesday
The squid feels really slippery and slimy after you get the skin and all the other bits you don't want off of it.  And of course in my attempts to be organized and have things set aside for later, I accidentally threw out my prepared tentacles and squid wings.  Luckily one of the guys in class had prepped an extra squid so he gave me one set of tentacles and wings, which I could plate with the rest.

The monkfish is an ugly fish.  They only gave us the tail because you buy the thing by weight and the head is almost as heavy as the body and is about the same size from what I can recall during the bouillabaise demo.  The skin peels off pretty easily - no issues.  The silver membrane between the skin and the flesh of the fish is really tough and you have to trim it very carefully because it also looks really ugly, as Chef SD pointed out on my plate.  How lucky - it's a bit harder to see in this photo, but I have to admit that it was not an attractive plate.

There was also a ton of garlic in the recipe - I have to admit I cheated and only used about a quarter of what I was supposed to.  Good comment:  the sauce benefitted from less garlic (the one positive thing about my dish).  They always try to end on a positive note - I think it's so we won't get discouraged when pretty much everything else on the plate is junk.

Then we had to run to our next class.  Patisserie kept right on with its schedule so we were due to temper chocolate and make a centrepiece with it.

I had photocopied the pocket from my bag and got this.  In case you can't read it, the boy is saying, "Let's talk."  The girl replies, "Let's not.  I'm eating."  I have been accused of being that girl, but let me just say right now - I can eat and have a conversation at the same time.

As you can see, the border is a bit lumpy and uneven.  Chef N told me it was because I was stubborn and hadn't listened to him about my chocolate being too cold.  It's entirely possible - I remember having the conversation, but I can't remember if it was for the border or something else.  And the piping for the blanket is crooked and the decorations were a bit much (the dirt under my coconut tree just looks like a mistake instead of a dirt patch - maybe I should have done Pigpen from Charlie Brown)...by the by, the base is also chocolate - a white chocolate disc poured and cut over painted cocoa butter...

I think this one is close to 750g (or 1.5 lbs?) of chocolate - which I left with the nice guys at the Turkish restaurant which is on the way home from class.  I wanted to stop there to pick up dinner anyway since I didn't feel like cooking any more after 9pm and I had given my dishes from class to a friend as I had no desire to eat either one.

Thursday was trout - filleted, braised and served with vegetables.  There was time built in for practicing our turning of mushrooms - Chef DM said to think of it as peeling the mushroom with...style?  panache?  something along those lines.  Anyway - my mushrooms were undercooked and the sauce was too thick.  It seems the sauces are always either too thick or too thin.  Part of the difficulty is that adding cream changes the consistency and we have to re-adjust the seasoning. 

So under the trout is a bed of green beans which you can just see, and between the two is a layer of spatzle.  They're kind of like mini deformed dumplings or gnocci, if gnocci were made of dough.  We had to press the spatzle batter through the holes in a colander to get the right size - I ended up pulling my sleeves down because the heat radiating from the stove while I was pressing dough was too hot without the protection of the sleeves.  So the things that were good - cooking and cleaning the fish, the green beans and the flavor of the sauce. The things that were not good: not enough salt and pepper in the green beans, spatzle and mushrooms which were also undercooked, plus the too-thick sauce.

You may wonder, how do you know if the mushrooms are cooked?  Apparently when they are soft.  Maybe if you can cut through them with a spoon?  Mine were quite resistant to being cut with a plastic spoon.  Or you could squeeze it - but I'm not sure what that's supposed to feel like since mine were wrong.

TGIF
There was a collective sigh of resignation last night - the week was almost over and we had class scheduled from 6pm.  We needed to make two dishes - it didn't sound that hard and it didn't seem like it would take that long:  make the dough for the tartelette, make the mushrooms while the dough is resting, prepare the scallops for the scallop dish while the potatoes are boiling away, then make the preparations for the hollandaise sauce, poach eggs and hold for later, then finish the scallops.  Right - but it took us the whole time to do it and we worked in teams for most of it.  The things we really had to concentrate on were in the tartlette:  the pastry, the mushrooms (which we've been doing since Basic), the hollandaise and the poached eggs because they (or a variation of them) are all currently part of the Superior Cuisine final exam, which happens to be 4 hours long.

Will need to continue working on the Hollandaise (not enough butter) and poaching eggs.

I'm not quite sure what happened to my egg dish after I presented it.  I was a tiny bit delayed because I broke one of my poached eggs as I was taking it out of the water from reheating and had to do another one - not as pretty, but apparently cooked correctly - which is to say, I wouldn't eat it that way.  All this time at cooking school and I still like my eggs well done, red meat medium well and my salmon either completely raw or completely cooked.

For the moment, it is back to studying and practicing...maybe later - right now it's time for coffee and a lazy morning.

As much as I love seafood, I'm not a huge fan of how the smell tends to linger. I'm not sure if it's still on my hands or in my head, from smelling it in the kitchen - all I know is that I have been washing my hands a lot to get the smell off and there will be more of the same as I practice my salmon paupiettes.

So until next time...may your fish come to you prepared!

#23 - Things I don't understand about the UK...

There are a few things that have puzzled me since my arrival in London and I still haven't worked them out.

Miscellaneous
For instance, why does the deodorant/anti-perspirant need to work for 48 hours?  Camping or being somewhere without hot running water and soap for a certain period of time (like my apartment when the boiler pressure turned off) is understandable.  But if you are home and have access to a shower/bath - why?

And speaking of boilers - mine wasn't working the other night.  It was late, it was freezing and I was tired from class.  I eventually figured it out - there was a certain amount of desperation because the boiler controls both the hot water and the radiators.  Also, because I cannot get into my bed when I am dirty.

Differences in language can be amusing too.  In the US, saying someone is "spunky" usually refers to their personality.  In Australia, it refers to their appearance, in a good way.  In the UK, apparently it refers to...hm, how to put this...male bodily emissions.  So not a compliment here to say that someone is spunky.  There's also a whole thing on thongs, but I won't get into that.  Suffice to say that between the US, Australian, South African and Hong Kong interpretations of the word, it gets interesting.  The conversation in our locker room, by the way, was in reference to rubber slippers.

So - words that can cause confusion, depending on where you are:
thongs, slippers, spunky, next week (geography seems to determine interpretation).  Feel free to add any suggestions to this list because I am too tired to think of any more.

Liquid soap - they have the usual arrows (one way makes the pump pop up, the other way makes it go down and you can usually lock it down).  I haven't been able to make them work, so I just refill the one bottle that got unlocked (but a friend who lives around the corner) and refill that.  Yes, I am not smarter than my soap pump.  Who cares?

OCD is only a problem if it functions with your normal daily functioning.  I haven't done the research (if you do, I will believe you as long as your source isn't Wikipedia).  Anyway - I had tutorials for my Cuisine and Patisserie classes yesterday.  My Patisserie mentor told me to stop cleaning so much (in response to my question as to why I am so slow in class).  He said, "in the time you've taken to clean, you could have made something."  Which is true - I am going to test it next week and see if I get pulled up on it.

Am very disorganized.  Everything looks so organized, but it's all a facade.  Nowhere is it more apparent than in the kitchen when I have neglected to collect the other 3 bowls you will need when you got the first two.  It seems the chefs all have eyes in the backs of their heads.  They seem to see everything (and they talk).  Apparently they notice when we make 5 trips to the sink area to get various pieces of equipment.

Fashion - I think I am sartorially challenged.  Spending most of my time in uniform makes for a lazy attitude towards every day dressing (I walk 4 minutes to class, change, then might go out for quick dinner with friends before coming back home).  Total time spent traipsing around London in street clothes on a school day:  10 minutes - 4 hours...anyway - back to my point.  During the 4 hour window, I have seen many inappropriately short skirts.  A (male) taxi driver told me that is the fashion now.  See?  Fashion challenged - I am being told what is in by a taxi driver.  So I thought I was being a granny but one of the younger girls in my course (she turns 19 in a month) also made the comment that the girls in London dress like prostitutes.  Might be a bit harsh, but accurate nonetheless.  If you have to keep tugging the hem of your skirt/dress down (and you don't have to lean a little to do it!) then it is probably too short, and possibly too tight.

Back to food
Somehow this week has whizzed by and I now have to update more photos.

I can't make soup...no time to take pictures of my chicken and mushroom soup (the soup wouldn't thicken...but the chicken julienne was nice) or the potato and leek (?) soup with julienned vegetables (watery soup flavorwise, but the first time my julienne was acceptable)...



French Onion Soup
with burned croutons

More troubled soups:  burned croutons on the French Onion soup because I forgot about them, and soup a bit bitter because I overcooked the onions.



Beef consomme
with too-brown savory crepe

Beef consomme was still a little too oily and the crepes were too brown.  Agh!  I will never make soup!!!

Basic Breads:
Soda bread and dinner rolls

Basic bread and cakes
Went a bit better.  The bread tasted a bit boring but everyone I gave rolls and bread to seemed to like it - possibly because it was made with a certain something (like, I don't care as long as it's pretty).

Basic cakes:
Lemon cake and madeleines

Cakes - were edible.  A bit too much baking powder in the madeleines resulted in air pockets, but otherwise any stuck edges were on the side not being presented.  I tasted one madeleine and a tiny edge of the cake - the one and the edge were enough.

   





Sienna eating a madeleine

SO & Sienna came down from Oxford to visit their friend Bernice. We managed to meet for coffee before lunch - so Sienna got to do some tasting. Evidently the madeleines have met and passed kid testing - she ate three immediately.


Some research:
Comparing to my test eclairs...

    



Wouldn't you visit this store?

 

This week - more meats and stuff...

A dish to help practice butchery because my chicken fricassee was way behind schedule - where does all the time go?

Poussin with apple compote

The poussin - had problems with potatoes.  I can't cook potatoes either - this is the third time something has happened to them - I hate potatoes!  and forgot to trim the drumstick ends.

Luckily JK and ML each had some spare potatoes so I could plate because mine were not cooperating.  The apples were a bit tart for Chef J, but I thought they were perfect...cut through all the butter and cream.  Oh well - still developing the palate (is that a good thing?)

Then it was offal - yech.  I tried them in demo and told the chef that if I liked liver or sweetbreads, I would have loved the dishes.  As it was, I hated them both.  So today we had to make them...I'm not sure whether I smelled the liver or the sweetbreads while we were in the kitchen, but any residual hunger I might have had from tasting the amazing sole from demo before (on the list for next week) was completely buried.
 

Chef EB refused to taste anyone's liver because he had already done 3 classes worth of tastings today.

Veal liver
with onions & sauteed potatoes

I don't blame him - my one teeny taste yesterday was enough to turn me off liver pretty much forever.  I can confirm that my policy of refusing to eat anything that has ever been on my dissecting table (or a variation of said item) is completely sound, along with the certain discrete exceptions (i.e. fish).  So the liver was well done, as per Chef E's directions, the onions burned to a crisp and beyond repair (I checked my photos from the demo - should have stopped when I had originally stopped) and the potatoes were good except they needed more salt.  Maybe everything needs more salt because we are always so hot in the kitchen that everyone pretty much sweats buckets.  Yes, yes, I know - ladies don't sweat.  Well, we're not ladies - we're chefs!  And I defy anyone to stay cool, calm and collected (and not to sweat) when it is 40 degrees C / 100 degrees F in the kitchen with the clock ticking and the dishes misbehaving.

Veal sweetbreads with
asparagus tips and parisienne potatoes

The sweetbreads (say what?) were beyond yuck - they looked like brains.  Just because something doesn't have latex running all through it like in our fetal pig which we had to dissect for 4 weeks, doesn't mean that it doesn't smell bad or look good.  They also feel kind of rubbery, but not firm - a bit squishy, actually.  So I can make it look pretty on the outside, but this one, which was super thick, should have been cut into small escalopes, then breaded and fried.  As it was, Chef E tasted the potatoes, asparagus and jus - bitter jus and the asparagus had been peeled too much...but the potatoes were good (ok, maybe I don't suck at potatoes quite as much as I thought I did).

So we finished class on time (even me!) and everyone headed to the pub for a drink.  There was a deep sigh of relief as we started drinking down our various beverages (Coke, beer, Pimms...)  I had run out of water during the practical so have been chugging for the last couple of hours.

De-offaling...


My dinner after all the awful offal

I took the longest shower ever - getting the feel of the greasy smoke, even if only in my imagination, took forever.  Then it was scrubbing the day off before I could even think about dinner.  So - the results of looking at innards for two days in a row:  yes, I cooked.  Yes, this is kind of an attempt at presentation, but I really couldn't be bothered.  There's all kinds of fussing about to make things pretty and put them in shapes, which is fine if you are getting graded on it - or being paid lots of money to look it that way.  At home, it's just more dishes to do and I have to do my own dishes - so just as soon throw it all together.

So until next time - no more offal!