An Interlude (non-entry)
Hey folks! It's been a while since I've added a new entry -- finishing school and getting ready to leave Paris (not to mention travelling around Switzerland, Greece, and Italy for the last 3 weeks) has been keeping me busy. I don't have much time now, but when I get back to the States, I plan to update this blog considerably, including pictures of every dish demonstrated in my classes. Should be up in a week or so, so stay tuned. :)
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Coeur de contrefilet roti, pommes mousseline (Roasted sirloin, pureed potatoes) 
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boeuf bourguignonne, pommes a l'anglaise (beef burgundy, boiled turned potatoes)
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Cotes de boeuf grillees sauce bordelaise, tomates provencale (Prime rib of beef red wine sauce, tomatoes Provencal-style)
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quiche lorraine + quiche aux champignons sauvages (wild mushroom quiche)
Off to California!
I'm leaving tomorrow for my college reunion in the Bay Area. I'm excited -- I can't wait to see what everyone has been up to in the 5 years since graduation. Of course, I will see my good friends who I normally visit and keep in touch with, but I'm really excited about talking to those people who I consider friends, but just haven't had communication with since school. Running into random people and just saying,"Hey, what have you been up to? It's really good to see you again!" Makes the 36 hour roundtrip journey over 4 days worth it. :)
(picture--demo) Deep Fried Shrimp, Tartar Sauce
Fried Shrimp and Cheese Souffle
What a great appetizer! I love shrimp, and deep frying them preserves the flavor and juiciness... yum. I'm looking forward to making this back at home, though it's a little bit more of a pain to deep fry without a deep fryer that helps you get and maintain the appropriate temperature. Might have to look into getting one of those...
Practical today went well, though we did two dishes -- a cheese souffle, and deep-fried battered shrimp. A funny note from this practical -- for the tartar sauce, we needed to incorporate a boiled egg. Since I had water boiling, I boiled eggs for myself and two of my kitchenmates. They ended up not putting the eggs in their sauce, so I was wondering what to do with the two boiled eggs (still in their shells). Marianna suggested that I just put the eggs back on the egg rack, that the downstairs prep kitchen could probably use them. I was wondering how they would differentiate between the raw and cooked eggs, but I figured they would probably figure it out. :) Well, guess what. During demo that afternoon, chef needed three egg yolks for the recipe. He cracked one egg, got the egg yolk, no problem. He cracked a second -- what the heck? It's already hard-boiled! He cracked the third. Hard-boiled again. He got both the hard-boiled eggs I had put back! He laughed and cracked a joke about boiling eggs so that they last longer, and sent the assistant down to get more (fresh) eggs.
SHRIMP PREP
Remove the head and shell down to the last shell before the tail. Keep this on. Remove the digestive tract by cutting an incision along the back and simply use your knife or a toothpick to locate and pull out the tube. To prevent the shrimp from curling inwards during cooking, make a few diagonal incisions in the belly.
MARINADE
olive oil, finely minced garlic, minced parsley
TARTAR SAUCE
You start by making mayonnaise, which is an egg yolk, salt and pepper, mustard, vinegar, and peanut oil (incorporated a little at a time and whisked at room temperature). Then to this, you add minced shallots, parsley, tarragon, chervil, capers, and a hard-boiled egg, which makes it a tartar sauce.
BATTER:
Mix sifted flour, potato starch, and baking powder. Mix in the liquid elements -- water, and a little peanut oil. Mix until you get a smooth batter. Set aside until ready to fry.
STEPS:
Prep the shrimp and marinade. Mix the shrimp in the marinade, cover, and put in the fridge.
Prep the batter. Set aside, covered, at room temperature.
Prep the tartar sauce. Set aside, covered, at room temperature.
Heat oil to 180C. Ready a plate with paper towels to absorb the grease of the shrimp when they come out of the fryer. Bring out the batter and shrimp. Add a pinch of salt to the batter right before you start and mix well. Ok, take a deep breath. Take a shrimp by the tail, dip in the batter so it is battered on all sides, let excess drip away, and lower shrimp into the oil, not letting go of the tail for a few seconds, before releasing it into the oil (this is important to prevent the shrimp from sticking to each other). Repeat for 4-5 shrimp. Fry until golden brown. When done, lay on towels to absorb the excess oil.
Plate shrimp with tartar sauce, with a few sprigs of parsley around! :)
CHEESE SOUFFLE
Make a white roux with flour and butter, making sure not to brown or burn the roux. Set aside, as you'll need everything else to be ready before you continue. Brush a souffle mold with soft butter, making sure you get all the sides (to make sure the souffle doesn't stick to the mold -- if it does, it is hosed). Put this into the fridge. Whip egg whites stiffly in a large bowl. Add cold milk to your white roux and bring to a simmer, whisking. At some point, the sauce loses its liquid consistency and becomes rather thick and spongy -- cook for 1 or 2 more minutes past this point, whisking to make sure that you keep it white. Take it off the heat and add egg yolks. Whisk. Add grated cheese, and whisk until cheese is melted. Take some of your whipped egg whites and add it to your sauce, mix. Then add the mixture back into the large bowl with the remaining egg white. Mix, using a rubber spatula, until the white is well incorporated. Note -- all this needs to be done quickly, as the mixture needs to stay hot. Take your souffle mold out of the refrigerator, brush on another layer of butter, and dust the mold with flour, shaking the excess flour out. Then pour in your souffle mixture.
Put into a preheated oven at 180C and cook for 20 minutes. If you've been successful, your souffle will rise. :)
(picture--demo) Crab Bisque
(picture--demo) Clarified Beef Consomme w/ Brunoised Vegetables
(picture--demo) French Onion Soup
Soups!
This week was soup week -- we made a crab bisque one day, and clarified beef consomme with vegetable brunoise another. The third day, we made fried shrimp with a nice tartar sauce. :) I was not and still am not a huge fan of bisque -- I think savoury cream soups that are not vegetable just taste kind of funny to me, but this was not bad, in small portions. The beef consomme went well with some noodles, though it seemed like a whole lot of work for just a simple, clear soup... :)
CRAB BISQUE
For the bisque, we used live swimming crabs. Chef said that these crabs were not good for eating, just for making bisque, but I tried some of the meat that came out when we smashed them up, and it was AMAZINGLY sweet... I think that the french are just too lazy to do the work necessary to extract the meat from such small crabs. But it was definitely some of the best crab meat I have ever tasted.
Clean the live crabs. Try not to get yourself clawed. Heat some olive oil in a large pot very hot, until smoking, then add the crabs and sautee until all the crabs have changed color. (the very hot olive oil is for humanitarian reasons -- you don't want to increase the crabs' suffering by cooking them slowly). Remove the crabs, cover a rolling pin in ceran wrap, and smash them with the end. Sweat carrots, onions, celery, leeks, and garlic in the same pot with more olive oil. Don't brown or color. When they are well sweated, deglaze with cognac and white wine, letting the alcohol boil off, add the crabs back (with the juice!), add peeled, diced, seeded tomatoes (tomato concasse) and tomato paste (to give the bisque a nice red color), cayenne pepper, fish stock to cover the crabs, bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain through a solid strainer, pressing hard with a ladle to get as much juice as possible. Add cream to the strained soup, heat, and thicken with a starch-water mixture (we used potato starch), taste, and salt and pepper to taste. You can serve with a spoon of cream and a sprig of chervil, if you like.
BEEF CONSOMME WITH VEGETABLES
This seems like a lot of work. We didn't actually make the consomme, the chef made it for us, but it is essentially many different cuts of beef and bones, with vegetables, in a large stock pot, cooked and skimmed for 4+ hours (anywhere up to 12 hours), then cooled for a day or two. The cold mixture is then skimmed of all fat, the meat and vegetables removed (they can be used for a pot-au-feu), and the remaining soup used for different purposes. During the demo, chef used the beef bouillon to make a wonderful french onion soup (SO MUCH BETTER than the salty stuff you get in the US), and for the practical, we had to practice clarification of the bouillon, which is what you need to do to make consomme. The result is a clear, light soup that is quite good, I think especially for people who are sick.
The clarification technique is quite interesting. Apparently, egg white has great clarification abilities -- when you add it to a broth and heat, it tends to suck up and incorporate all the little bits floating around into the white. In fact, it has such great clarification properties that it tends to suck a lot of the flavor out of bouillons. So, we used a mix of egg white, ground lean meat, and chopped vegetables. The ground lean meat added more color and flavor back to the soup, and the chopped vegetables added flavor. The technique:
Bring the bouillon up to a light simmer. Add the melange (mix) of egg white, ground meat, and vegetables into the bouillon, and DON'T TOUCH. Because the broth is hot, the melange will float at the top, and form a surface covering. Bring back to a light simmer. Little holes will form in the raft as the bouillon starts boiling, where hot water/steam escapes, sort of like a volcano with lava coming through. Use those holes, and start scooping liquid from them, and laying the liquid over the rest of the raft. The raft acts as a strainer for the liquid, and little bits get incorporated into the hardening melange. Keep doing this every 5 minutes for 30 minutes. Then let the bouillon rest and cool -- the raft will sink to the bottom, leaving a clear liquid above it. Then, carefully ladle out, from the top, the clear bouillon through a fine strainer lined with a clean cloth. Get as much liquid as possible, but try to avoid getting the raft at the bottom, or stir up the mixture too much. After you've gotten as much liquid as possible, put it back to heat, but don't boil -- you don't want the liquid to become cloudy again. Season to taste. Add brunoised and blanched vegetables (green beans, turnips, celery, carrots) at the last moment, and serve.
FRENCH ONION SOUP
We didn't make this in the practical, but I love this dish. Chef mentioned how he used to eat it at 5 AM after a long night of partying, and I can see why -- the soup is hot, satisfying, and easy to eat. When I've had french onion soup in the US, it's always been a bit disappointing -- the soup is incredibly salty, and it's often overwhelmed with cheese. In fact, for the liquid, you can simply use chicken stock or beef stock, and it doesn't have to be very salty at all.
First, thinly slice onions, doesn't matter how. Sautee with some butter, sweat, and reduce for a LONG time. Salt and pepper when soft and compact, dust with a bit of flour (to thicken the soup), and deglaze with port and white wine. Let the alcohol simmer and boil off. Add the beef or chicken stock, simmer for 30 minutes, and skim the fat/surface.
On the side, prepare some croutons. These must be DRY, otherwise, when you place them on the soup, they will simply sink. One way is too take baguette and slice thinly, and place into a 100C oven. They won't burn or brown at that temperature, even if you leave them in for half an hour.
The finish should be in soup tureens that are oven-proof. Fill about 3/4 full, put one layer of dry bread on top, and sprinkle one layer of grated cheese on the bread (can be simply mozzarella, or a nice grated gruyere). Put this under the salamander or the broiler in the oven to melt the cheese and finish. Voila! An excellent french onion soup. :)
(picture--demo) Braised Brill, Shallot Onion Tomato Parsley Butter Sauce. Turned Potatoes.
Braised Brill, Shallot, Onion, Tomato Parsley Butter Sauce
This recipe is very similar to the very second dish we made, which was braised whiting fillets. The practical didn't go very well, which means that I learned a lot :) :
Cleaning and filleting the fish was a big part of this practical. When you fillet a fish, you want to keep your fillet knife right at the intersection between the bone and the flesh, the knife angled slightly down into the bone, pulling the flesh away as you cut. It sounds and looks simple when someone who knows how to do it does it, but let me tell you, it ain't so simple. I just pressed the knife flat against the bone, which was a mistake, as I left lots of flesh still on the bone.
Know exactly how long each step is going to take, and plan your time accordingly. In this practical, I was late in getting the fish into the oven AND I used too much braising liquid, meaning that when I needed to reduce the braising liquid afterwards for the sauce, I was already running late, and it took an extra half hour, so I was 45 minutes behind everyone else. I had forgotten that reduction can take a lot of time, and didn't plan well.
Nevertheless, this is actually a pretty darn good recipe -- the sauce, unusual in that it isn't a clean sauce but contains brunoised shallots, onions, and tomatoes, is really tasty, and goes well with the fish.
To the steps of making this dish:
PREPPING THE FISH
Cut off the fins of the fish. Remove the gills. Fillet the fish -- since this is a large flat fish, four fillets are cut, two each on the top side and bottom side, separated by the spine. Chop up the bones and head. VERY IMPORTANT -- disgorge the bones thoroughly (soak in cold water and wash) to get rid of the blood and impurities which will taste bad in the stock.
With the fillets, remove the skin with the fillet knife.
FISH STOCK
sweat some diced shallots and onions in butter. Add garlic, mushroom trimmings, a bouquet garni, and some peppercorns (white or black doesn't matter). Add white wine, allow the alcohol to boil off. Add fish bones and cold water to cover (note -- you don't want too much water! Just enough to cover). Bring to a boil and simmer for about 20-25 minutes, skimming.
BRAISING THE FISH
Take a pan, butter, salt and pepper the bottom. Finely chop shallots, onions, and peeled, deseeded tomatoes and layer it in the pan. Cut the fish fillets into serving portions and lay them into the pan, bone side up (presentation layer is up). Choose a pan so that the fish just covers the bottom without too much wasted space or crowdedness. Boil some white wine (removing the alcohol content), add it to the pan, then add the hot fish stock so that it doesn't quite cover the fish. Butter a paper lid and place it over. Preheat an oven to 170-180 C, place the pan in the oven to cook for 7-8 minutes. (Note: you want the pan to be hot when it goes in, so you can actually heat it over the stove to make sure it's boiling before you put it in the oven. My pan was cold (literally, I put it in the refridgerator to keep the fish fresh before putting in the oven!), and the fish was barely cooked even after 15 minutes).
SAUCE
After the fish comes out of the oven, take the braising liquid and continue cooking it. Reduce it until almost a glaze (TRES IMPORTANT!), then add butter, a small cube at a time, whisking constantly, to make the sauce. Season to taste. Finely mince some parsley, add it to the sauce at the last minute.
Put fish fillet on a plate, cover with sauce, and you're done! Yum... :)
(picture--demo) Poached Hake, Hollandaise Sauce
Poached Hake With Hollandaise Sauce
Today's practical was not very difficult -- and the dish is pretty easy to make, except for the hollandaise sauce, which requires constant care. The bouillon used to poach the fish is a vegetable broth, made from chopped onions, shallots, carrots, garlic, peppercorns, celery, salt, and a bouquet garni, all simmered for about 25 minutes. The fish we used is hake -- a fairly large white fish, cleaned and cut into steaks. The only thing we needed to do to prep it was remove the inner black skin of the steak (the piece was one with part of the body cavity) and clean away any remaining blood or dark substances on the inside. The fish is poached towards the end for 5-8 minutes (it's not so easy to overcook fish by poaching) in the bouillon.
The sauce is not actually very difficult, just requires constant attention. Prepare a water bath by taking a pot, adding some cold water at the bottom, and get ready to put on a hot burner. Prepare a bowl that is large enough to sit on the pot (doesn't need to be touching the water), and add egg yolks and cold water to it. Prepare clarified butter kept at a temperature of 45-50 C (I'll explain why later). Take a deep breath, and prepare to be whisking for the next 10 minutes. Put the pot and the bowl on top on the stove, start whisking madly, in a figure eight. As the water heating, the yolks will starting cooking, and you have to keep whisking to preserve a smooth consistency. The mixture will increase in volume, thicken, and change color as it heats up and you continue whisking. You need to control the temperature of the water in the pot to just below boiling, moving the water bath on and off the stove if necessary, whisking all the while. When the mixture has achieved a thick enough consistency to stay slightly in the whisk, take the bowl off the pot, and add the clarified butter bit by bit, whisking all the while. Here's where the temperature of the clarified butter is important -- if it is too hot, it will cook the yolk too much and the sauce will not be smooth. If it is too cold, the butter will fail to mix in properly with the yolk. Once the butter is incorporated, you can add some cayenne pepper, salt, and lemon juice.
Keep the hollandaise sauce covered in a warm place before serving, but it is best if you use it as soon as possible, so make it at the last moment.
The other thing we did here was turn zucchini, potatoes, and carrots. What's cool is that I can tell that my skills are progressing -- I'm much more comfortable and my vegetables are much smoother and more regular than before (though that ain't saying much :) ).
The hollandaise sauce turned out great -- I'm looking forward to making my own eggs benedict. :)
(picture--demo) Custard in Three Flavors (Vanilla, Tea, Caramel) With Chantilly Cream
(picture--demo) Rabbit with Mustard Sauce, Pommes Beauchamp
(picture--demo) Duck Terrine with Prunes, Sliced on a Decorated Plate
Roasted Rabbit With Mustard Sauce, Potatoes Beauchamp
This is a wonderful recipe, one of my favorite so far. My only previous experience with rabbit, I left half of it untouched -- I didn't like the flavor very much, and I suddenly felt like I was eating the carcass of a small animal (I could visualize the leg back on the rabbit). But this was great -- the meat wasn't gamy or very strong at all, and the mustard sauce was wonderful. The potatoes were simple and GOOD.
The first task was to prepare the rabbit. It came to us skinned and partially cleaned. We removed the liver and kidneys, cut off the head, cut off the legs and arms, then cut the torso into the pelvis, saddle, and ribcage, and neck. The ribcage was cut, and we prepared a tiny rib roast (more for decoration than anything else). The saddle we treated specially: placed a sprig of rosemary in the center, then coated it with mustard. Then we wrapped the meat of the saddle around to make a small package, and tied it to hold it together. The rest of the torso we just chopped up to make the trimming.
Salt and pepper the pieces of rabbit (legs, arms, saddle), then sear on both sides in a hot pan until lightly browned. Add the trimmings. Brush a layer of mustard on the pieces of rabbit (on side is ok). Put into oven at 220 C for 30 minutes. At 15 minutes, add chopped shallots, garlic, and rosemary (and the miniature rib roasts). Check for doneness by cutting into meat and looking for clear juices (and white meat). There should be a nice crust of mustard on the rabbit pieces. If the mustard is in danger of burning, place foil over it and replace in the oven.
When done, remove the serving pieces of meat, leaving the trimmings. Heat over the stove, deglaze with a little white wine and water, strain through a chinoise. Heat the cream, add to sauce, come to a simmer, mix. Mix some mustard and cream to add as a thickening agent. Put it in, mix, season to taste.
Potatoes:
Shape potatoes into cylinders. Cut little circular slices, about 3-4 mm thick, from the potatoes. Wash (to get rid of excess starch). Dry well. Fry in hot frying pan with oil, browning and cooking. Remove the slices, drain the oil. Add butter to pan, put potatoes back in, add minced garlic and parsley, salt and pepper to taste.
Plating:
Simply place the rabbit and spoon the sauce over. Put slices of potato around the outside. You're done!
Practical Notes:
This is the first time in a few practicals I *didn't* burn myself. When you take pans out of the oven, it is so easy to forget after they are on the stove that they are still extremely hot. The past few times, I burned myself even after reminding myself -- you just don't think before you grab a pan handle. This time, I made sure to leave my towel ON the pan handle, so when I came around to it again, the towel was there. It definitely saved me. :)
(picture--demo) Stuffed Chicken Breast With Mushroom Sauce
Stuffed Chicken Breast With Mushroom Sauce
In contrast with the previous day, this was one of my worst practicals. One big lesson I took away from this practical is that sauces require attention and precision to make. My sauce failed to mix properly, was too oily, and just wasn't that good. I made it sloppily at the end, trying to multitask and do a bunch of things at the same time, and it boiled over, and I didn't do a good job whisking in the beurre manie, so there were still little bits of flour in it. . Well, it's definitely a good thing to learn now, rather than later.
So anyways -- this dish consists of chicken breasts, with a little pocket sliced into them filled with forcemeat (consisting of ground chicken meat, egg white, chives, cream, salt, and pepper), and steamed/braised in the oven. The technique for inserting the forcemeat is actually quite cool. After cutting a small incision from the top of the breast to the bottom (without breaking through), you put the forcemeat into a pastry bag (think inverted wizard cap with a small hole at the bottom), stick the hole of the pastry bag into the incision, and pipe the forcemeat into the incision. You can watch the forcemeat push the breast meat out and form a little tunnel into the heart of the breast (think of Bugs Bunny travelling horizontally below ground, pushing up the ground as he goes). :) This is then lightly browned, and put in the oven with a bit of mushroom water (water that mushrooms are cooked in), and a bit of chicken stock.
The sauce is created from the remainder of the chicken carcass (from which you cut the breasts), browned, with shallots, bay leaves, and thyme, deglazed with white wine, and left to cook/reduce with white chicken stock, and some mushroom trimmings. This is left to cook/reduce for 45 minutes, and then strained, deglazed, and combined with cream brought to a boil. This is then thickened (if necessary) with beurre manie (mixture of flour/butter), and seasoned to taste.
Mushrooms were done in two different ways in this practical -- turned, and simply sliced and cooked in lemon juice, salt, sugar, and butter. "turning" mushrooms is really for decorative purposes. You take a knife, and cut little curved strips from the top of the mushroom to the bottom of the cap. You do this all the way around. Chef warned us that we wouldn't be able to do this our first time, and that was definitely true. It's really hard! First, you have to be able to slice a 2 mm. thick strip of skin from the top, and then maintain and peel that all the way down to the bottom. You do this by taking a paring knife, holding it like a fan, setting the base of the blade at the top of the mushroom, and turning your wrist. Chef made it look easy. I mainly succeeded to peeling the entire top layer of skin from the mushroom. One funny note -- our translator translated the motion as "supination of the radius and ulna", which I loved. Perfectly descriptive, completely uncommon usage. Talking to him later, I found that he had finished 2 years of a medical degree before going into the culinary field (he was a chef and kitchen manager after that for 17 years, and now was working as a culinary translator). :)
(picture--demo) Stuffed Veal Roll, Glazed Turned Vegetables
Stuffed Veal Rolls With Glazed Vegetables (Paupiettes de veau bourgeoise)
The next two lessons were all about forcemeats, or essentially a mixture of ground meat and fat seasoned with herbs and spices, and used in various ways. In this lesson, we prepared stuffed veal rolls. These are meatballs wrapped in a very thinly pounded skin of veal. The stuffing is composed of lean veal, pork fat, and pork shoulder ground together, sauteed brunoised shallots, mushrooms, and garlic, bread crumbs, armagnac (liquor), and some cream. Oh, and of course, plenty of salt and pepper. :) You take this stuffing, put it in the pounded veal slice, wrap it (it sticks surprisingly well), mending any holes in the veal layer by putting a piece of veal UNDER the outside layer. Then, a piece of fatback (pork fat in a strip) is wrapped around the roll. (I think this is to keep the outside layer moist, but I'm not completely sure). Then you tie the roll like a present with kitchen string, dust with flour, and lightly brown it on a pan. You sweat a mirepoix of fresh skinned and deseeded tomatoes, garlic, onion, celery, carrots, add a little tomato paste, a bouquet garni, then place your veal rolls on top of this mirepoix, add veal stock to just cover, and put in the oven to cook for 20 minutes at 220 C.
When the rolls come out, the rolls are removed and the mixture continues to cook, deglazing as much as possible. The fat is skimmed off the top, then the braising liquid is strained. This is then reduced and skimmed, and used as a sauce for the veal rolls. This sauce is very nice -- a slightly tart (tomato) counterpoint to the well seasoned veal roll. :)
The flavor of the veal rolls was very familiar to my asian palate -- I think it was the shallots, mushrooms, and garlic. I actually ate my rolls three ways -- straight up with the sauce, one heated and eaten with ramen (instant) noodles, and the third with the veal roll cut up into chunks, heated with the sauce, and tossed with some freshly cooked noodles, sesame oil, and chili oil. Mmmm... very good. (though probably not what the chef intended :) ).
Practical and Personal Notes on the veal rolls:
This was one of the best practicals in terms of all the different dishes coming together. The serving plate was hot from the oven, the veal rolls were still quite warm, the glazed vegetables hot and perfectly caramelized (well, the onions, anyways -- the carrots were just a little brown), the sauce piping hot. And the taste of everything was quite good. The only problem was that I completed about 15 minutes after the end of the time period -- so I need to work a little faster. But I liked how everything just finished at the same time. :)
The other thing chef demonstrated was the preparation of a duck terrine. "Terrine" is the name of the dish as well as the container in which it is made -- a rectangular tub. What you have in this tub are ingredients placed in horizontal layers, sort of like a lasagna, cooked in the oven, and allowed to mature in the refrigerator for 24 hrs to a week, allowing the flavors to blend together. When it is removed, it looks like a loaf, and slices are cut off. In this terrine, we had alternating layers of well-seasoned forcemeat (a blend of duck meat, shallots, parsley, spices, chicken livers, thyme, pork jowl, pork shoulder, pork fat), duck breast, and prunes (sweetness to balance the saltiness), all wrapped in a layer of duck skin. We didn't observe the cooking (though rumor has it that it takes 2 hours in the oven), but saw and tasted the results at the next lesson. :)
(picture--my dish) Grilled Salmon, Lemon Butter Chive Sauce, Pommes Byron, Sauteed Spinach
(picture--demo) Roast Pork Rib Roast With Herb Stuffing, Pommes Byron
(picture--demo) Grilled Salmon, Lemon Butter Chive Sauce
Grilled Salmon, Ice Cream Profiteroles, Roast Pork With Herb Stuffing, Potatoes Byron
This was a great demo -- the food was so good. I love mustard, and I love pork. Freshly made ice cream is much better than storebought.
The pork is a rib roast. The herb stuffing is made from a mixture of pureed herbs (sage, savory, tarragon, and parsley) and coarse mustard (whole seeds of mustard). Make an incision close to the bone and put in a good layer of the stuffing. Roast for an hour (for the piece he had, about 3 kilograms or so, 1.5 inches thick) at 200-220 C. The mirepoix (carrots, onions, shallots, garlic) go into the roasting pan and the rib roast is set on top for the last 15 minutes. If you decide to put the stuffing on the outside of the meat, you should cover it after a crust has formed to prevent the crust from burning. Test for doneness.
After the roast comes out, the roasting pan is placed on the stove to continue cooking and browning. You can add some veal stock and water, and strain for a sauce.
GRILLED SALMON
I won't go into too much detail on how to grill the salmon, other than say that the grill needs to be very hot and clean. Don't over cook the salmon -- two minutes on each side (assuming about 1.5 inches thick), flipping every minute is sufficient to create the cross-hatching. Finish in the oven with fairly low heat to desired level of doneness.
The sauce is essentially lemon juice with butter. A LOT of butter. 200 grams, to something like the juice of half a lemon and 50 ml. of water. Bring the lemon juice to a boil and add the butter, (this is important) a little at a time, constantly whisking until the butter is incorporated before adding the next pat. Season to taste. Add the chives at the last moment before serving, as the heat will make them turn yellow if you cook them too long.
POTATOES BYRON
This is essentially mashed potatoes, shaped so you have a little hole in which to put a white sauce and sprinkle grated cheese (gruyere, in our case), then bake. It's quite good. A few things about mashed potatoes -- you need the potatoes to be still HOT when you add the butter and cream, otherwise it's not as good. In this case, we also add egg yolks so that the potatoes will brown nicely in the oven. Also, mashed potatoes lose their stickiness when you add butter.
Other practical notes -- you want to cut up the potatoes into equal size chunks so they cook evenly and finish at the same time. Also, after you cut the potatoes, you want to rinse them, to remove any excess starch (otherwise, when you boil them, the water will be cloudy).
ICE CREAM PROFITEROLES
I won't describe how you make these, but I learned that ice creams and sorbets are simply
ice cream = dry ingredient (flavoring, fruit, etc.) + dairy product
sorbet = dry ingredient + water + sugar
In our case, chef made vanilla ice cream from cream, milk, fresh vanilla, egg yolks, and sugar. The mixture is cooled, and put into an ice cream maker. The ice maker does two things simultaneously -- (1) freezes the mixture and (2) mixes it. If you don't have an ice cream maker, you can do this by hand, by it's quite time/effort intensive, as you have to keep moving back and forth between the freezer and mixing it up.
Fresh ice cream is incredibly good, though. Chef also made chantilly cream and chocolate sauce to go with it. I think I ate 3 scoops all by myself. :)
(picture -- my dish) Roast Chicken Au Jus
(picture-demo) Roast Chicken Au Jus
Roast Chicken Au Jus, Caramelized Onion Omelettes
Roast chicken -- a standard and staple dish, yet so delicious. Here, much of the learning was how to clean a whole chicken. We singed feathers off the chicken, cut the head off, removed the neck, removed the digestive tract (reserving the gizzard, heart, and liver), removed the tendons from the legs, etc.. (Note, the tendons in chicken are pretty small, and will soften with cooking, so it's ok to leave them in. Turkeys, on the other hand, have horribly thick and tough tendons, which make eating the leg fairly difficult. So you can remove them before roasting, which will remove the problem. The only thing about this is that removing the tendons require the leg to be whole, rather than cut at the drumstick, as most turkeys are -- this cuts through the tendon which retracts into the leg, rendering it impossible to remove before roasting). Then we salt and peppered the chicken, put a sprig of thyme on the inside ("too much herbs on roast chicken is just to hide the flavor of a bad chicken!" says the chef), trussed it, seared lightly in oil in a casserole pan on all sides before putting into the oven to roast (~50 minutes), along with a bunch of chicken wings (to make the jus). Every ten minutes, we basted the chicken -- this keeps the meat moist. (During the demonstration, the chef started the chicken cooking on its side for 20 minutes, flipped it to the other side for 20 minutes, then finished it off on its back for 10 minutes). The mirepoix vegetables should be added (to flavor the jus which you make from the chicken drippings) for the last 20-30 minutes of cooking. Note -- the oven is started between 190-200 degrees celsius, and you can adjust the heat as you get to the end of cooking to get the result you want. Higher heat -- browned skin, but with the danger of leaving the inside raw. Lower heat -- chicken can be overcooked without browning the skin.
After the chicken comes out, you put it to rest in a warm place, and put the roasting pan with the drippings, chicken trimmings, and wings on the stove to continue cooking. After you see the fat and oil on the surface become clear, drain the roasting pan of the fat. There will be all this nice brown stuff stuck on the bottom of the pan -- that is what you make the jus from. Now, just add water and deglaze. After you've gotten all the lovely stuff off the bottom, reduce it down, skimming any fat or scum that comes to the surface. Voila! Wonderful jus for the roast chicken.
Note: don't season the jus until you are ready to serve or stop cooking, and TASTE IT FIRST!
Side dishes -- artichokes are turned and cooked in salted lemon water. The other vegetables are cut into sticks, blanched, and immediately plunged into ice water (to stop the cooking). Then they are sauteed together with butter, salt, pepper, and sugar.
CARAMELIZED ONION OMELETTE
This was amazingly tasty -- the flavor of the just firm and moist eggs, brought out by the salt and sugar, with the sweetness of the caramelized onions, and the richness of the cream and slight savoriness of the chives -- delicious. And simple -- I definitely am making this at home. Of course, I think this is probably a lot harder than chef made it look. :) In essence:
Thinly slice onions and sautee over low/med heat in butter (with salt and sugar) until soft and caramelized. Thinly chop chives and add some to the onions. Heat some cream on the side.
Salt, pepper 3 eggs per person. Mix at the last moment, and don't mix too thoroughly (increase likelihood of sticking?). Take a hot, oiled pan and add some butter. Don't burn or brown the butter. Add the eggs. DON'T STIR. When it starts cooking, move the eggs around. Note -- you don't want any coloration. Add the onions in the middle. Use a fork, and fold in 2 sides of the omelette to the center. Tilt the pan, and flip the omelette by bringing the pan up with one hand, and hitting the wrist of that hand with the other. Plate.
Heat the cream, add chives at the last moment, salt and pepper to taste, serve on side of omelette. Enjoy!
Secluded Beach by Antibes
Lookout Point On Coastal Trail
A Night On The Beach
The night out on the beach was really nice. It was not nearly as precarious as the guidebooks made it seem -- yes, there were individuals lounging (alone and in groups) along the boardwalk of the beach, scrutinizing you as you walked by, no doubt assessing how valuable your cargo was likely to be, and how difficult it would be to take it from you. But there were also many groups of young people out, sitting in little groups on the beach, smoking, drinking, laughing, talking, or couples just laying out by the edge of the water. There were no lights on the beaches, leading to a sharp contrast between dark, dark shadows and parts of the beach brightly lit by the lights of the city. Up above, the old city rose on a steep hill, at the very top trees in a park or chateau, with their shadows cast upwards. I had a moment where I had a sharp realization -- I'm in Nice, in the French Riviera,on the beach at night. This is what people dream of doing and being, and I felt gratitude that I could be simply where I was.
I walked down along most of the length of the beach, watching those who were on it. Sharing the beach with the young groups and couples were locals fishing, casting lines far out into the water from the beach, and setting their poles into special cylinders propped on the beach for that purpose. For some reason, I felt the most affinity with these fisherman, or at least felt the most comfortable, and I sat there, watching them for a long period of time. What their stories were, I would have liked to have known -- who they were, what they did, and what fishing meant to them (given that they were fishing on the beach, after midnight). I saw what seemed to be a father/grown son pair fishing together, and I could see a father's favorite past-time being shared, creating a shared bond, and passing down a generation.
I lay back and watched the stars -- there were surprisingly many that were visible, despite the light of the city. At first, I thought some of them were airplanes, far up in the sky, since they seemed to flicker and move. For a while, I watched a few, convinced that they were moving across the sky, but after looking away to another set of stars, and looking back, I realized that they had not moved, only appeared to do so. I'm not sure what causes this phenomenon, perhaps moving air streams, high in the atmosphere, but it did give me the thought that maybe I was seeing UFOs. :)
In a conversation with Felice, she told me that one of her labmates made the observation that when you look at the stars, the photons of light that are hitting your retina have travelled millions of years and quadrillions of miles, managed to avoid hitting any obstacle along the way, just to be stopped and observed by you. When you see the star, you see the star not as it is, but how it was millions of years ago -- a glance back in time. And all we need to do to receive this ancient gift is to simply look up. She found that thought humbling... and inspiring, to make use of the gifts we are given. As an ordinary man enmeshed in the everyday world, I don't think of the stars much. As a rationalist, I shrug and think simply on the enormous quantity of photons given off by all these stars, that it is no miracle that some survive their intergalactic trip to our eyes, and yes, ok, so we're seeing them as they were millions of years ago. That's what simply is. But as a person struggling for meaning and purpose in this life, I see how beautiful and inspiring it is to live a life where one is awed by these things that we can see every day, that we can take for granted.
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