Bloody Ducky

Friday was quite a long day.  Practical class at 8:15 AM making foie gras and duck, a demo, and then another practical making Beef Wellington that ended around 6PM.

Chef 3 supervised the morning practical.  After his admonishment for our poor organization on the quails, I don’t think some people were too happy to see him that morning.

But somehow, even though we had two dishes to plate - the foie gras appetizer and two mains of duck with Sauce Bigarade (caramel and orange), the whole thing went a lot smoother today.

The advantage today was there was not much butchering to do.  We had to get our duck breasts off the bone, but beyond that it was mostly dicking around with the sauces.  I tarted my sauce up with a little cardamom (damn the sous-chef who didn’t bring any star anise from the kitchen!), and it tasted pretty good – a nice little hit of acid from the vinegar and a good slop of Grand Marnier.

The foie gras plated up perfectly.  I’m not sure I’ve made a better dish this term.  Got a little inspired at plating time and it looked as good as it tasted.  Chef 3 seemed pleased.  I probably should have taken a picture before I served, but this is the “after” picture.

The ducky, on the other hand, messed me up a little.  A lot of people cooked their duck far too long before their assigned plating time and many of them had next to no pink inside. I was watching them, and was determined not to do the same thing.  Duck should be pretty damned pink, and I was more worried about overcooking than undercooking. 

Hmmm…. Perhaps I was a little too cautious.

When I sliced my duck just before plating, it quacked.  As in, it was pretty much raw on the inside.  Sigh!

Oh well.  I got it on the plates, made it look kinda cute and bit my tongue.  Like with most dishes, I can usually tell what mistakes I’ve made before the Chef sees them.  Chef 3 thought my presentation was good and my sauce was good, but he didn’t look too happy about taking a bite of the duck.  Other than that the duck still had a heartbeat, it all went quite well.

On my Student Evaluation Form for the class I wrote “Cooking of duck.  It’s not duck tartare!”  Chef 3 laughed a little when he read it.  He suggested I need not be quite that hard on myself, but I actually think I do.  A note like that will come in handy when it’s time to start reviewing – it reminds me of exactly what happened.

The next class, the afternoon demo, set us up for the second practical.  Chef 2 was doing the class today, assisted a little by Chef 3, who also helped to translate.  As I mentioned before, Chef 2’s English isn’t great, but he more than makes up for it by being good, fast, and absolutely hilarious.

He cranked through Steak Tartare (my favourite!), Beef Stroganoff, and the dish for the practical, Beef Wellington (Note that the photo below is of the Chef’s dish, not mine).  Watching Chef 2 work, especially for the first half hour or so of a demo is like watching a cross between a ballet dancer and the Tasmanian Devil.  Amid the crashing pots and pans, he clearly knows what he’s doing, and could probably do most of it in his sleep.

When he gets a minute though, he gets the whole class in stitches.  He does hilarious impressions of the other chefs (his Chef 1 is dead on, and he’s got a rather amusing take on Chef 3 as well), and told more than a few colourful jokes that Chef 3 didn’t seem too keen on translating.  Anyone who knew some French got them though!

Back into the kitchen for the second practical.  Make some puff pastry (yay! again!), some duxelles, some crepes, and piece of foie gras to stick inside the tenderloin.  Assemble, get it into the oven, and try not to serve it raw – though beef is a good deal more forgiving than duck.

My downfall this class was the crepes.  You see, LCB seems to have a thing about non-stick pans, as in there aren’t any.  The Chefs have a few in the demo kitchens, but we’re expected to learn to do without.  This is a good thing, but crepes are one of those things where non-stick is a pleasant luxury.

Massive crepe fail.  I cooked the first one too hot and it did this odd, curling, soufflé type thing in the pan.  Into the rubbish with that one.  Second one was a little better, but tore to shreds.  Third one was passable, I guess.  Crepes two and three made it into my Wellington.  I finally got the fucking thing assembled and into the oven.  I would have liked give it another couple of minutes in the oven and a little time to rest, but ran out of time.  Sliced, onto the plates, a smear (in my case an awkward smudge) of Sauce Périgueux, and that was it.

Mistakes?  The crepes were a bit like balled up laundry, which didn’t look too good.  I also managed to get my beef into the pastry the “wrong” way, meaning that when I sliced it I was slicing with the grain and not against it.  Good one Sarah.  For a second I considered bullshitting Chef 3 and saying that I meant to do it that way, but decided against.  Probably for the best.

But hey, this is school and it’s about learning.  There’s no reason to get yourself in a knot about a few mistakes on a dish you’ve never made before.  Like I said in my previous post, these are lessons about having your shit together and learning from the mistakes.

I can’t say I never make the same mistake twice, but I do remember my mistakes – especially if I can see the humour in them.  My parents (still!) love to tell the story about one of my Grade 3 spelling tests.  I had a perfect score in spelling all year long, which as a great thing because if you got three perfect tests in a row the teacher gave you three pieces of bubblegum. When you are seven years old, bubblegum is a big deal. Well, my winning streak came to a close with ONE single word on a test.   The word was “else”.  I spelled it “eles”.   I didn’t get bubblegum that week and I will never, ever misspell that word again.

Can I promise that I’ll never again undercook duck?  No, but I can promise I’ll remember “It’s not duck tartare!”