WTF? Potato Salad?

Some days I really don't get the Cordon Bleu curriculum.

The purpose of many of the dishes we make is to illustrate classical French techniques, because they certainly aren't things served in any modern restaurant.  I see the point of that - a foundation in technique makes it easy to tackle unfamiliar ingredients and understand why certain things work (and other things don't).

But I can't possibly fathom why, for the second time in Superior Cuisine, we made potato salad.

A few weeks ago we made potato salad with lobster and ginger.  Not a difficult dish at all, but a good refresher on dealing with Mr. Pinchy.  But why in heaven's name are we, at Lesson #9, making a potato salad with poached scallops? Yes, Chef 2 did ask us to make another dish, some potato gnocchi. But seriously, I'm paying Monsieur Cointreau how much to learn to make potato salad?

Practical class was over in a flash.  My dish was pretty good - Chef 2 liked the taste and the plating.  But I'm not sure of the point of this dish, except to perhaps test our laundering skills since most of the class left with at least a couple of yellow turmeric stains on their uniforms.

Tomorrow and Wednesday will, thankfully, be a little more challenging.  More of the so-called "black box" workshops - on Tuesday with fish, and Wednesday with chicken.

I'm heading home to get out the stain remover, and eat a lot of potatoes.

The Particular Bitterness of Endive Tatin

Friends who know me well know that I love to read – I’m always working on at least four books at any given time and I have hundreds of books on my shelves.

Recently, I finished reading “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” by American author Aimee Bender.  A brief quote from the book jacket:

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the slice.

She discovers this gift to her horror, for her mother – her cheerful, good-with-crafts, can-do mother – tastes of despair and desperation.  Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.  Anything can be revealed in any meal.  She can’t eat her brother Joseph’s toast, a cookie at the local bakery is laced with rage, grape jelly is packed with acidic resentment.

While I would never wish to have such a gift, I do think it is possible to taste something of a person’s emotions in their cooking.  You can tell when a chef is distracted and disengaged – just think of Sunday brunch at most places, where the taste of the Chef’s hangover is often so profound I half expect to find a note crying for help under my toast.

I know I could certainly taste my emotions in my food this week – in particular the bitterness in the endive tatin I made on Wednesday.  For the first time this semester, I actually screwed up a dish.  Nearly every possible thing was wrong with it, and my mood deteriorated as the class progressed.   It was overcooked, messy, and the caramel in my sauce hardened to cement on contact with the plate.  And my other dish from that class wasn’t much better.  Scallops in phyllo pastry that didn’t brown, and a cold sauce and cold garnishes.  Neither dish was difficult to execute, but it seemed like nothing was going right – Chef 2 was definitely not impressed.  I didn’t even bother to take pictures of my dishes because I’m hoping to wipe that episode from my memory – so these are pictures of Chef 2’s versions from the demo.

 

 

 

When I got home that night I didn’t have much in the fridge for dinner, so I sunk my fork into my plastic container of class leftovers.  They tasted terrible – bitter, frustrated and angry, with a sticky note of embarrassment.  Dreadful.

Thankfully, Thursday brought a new day and another “black box” workshop.  This time, I made red snapper with sauce Maltaise (an orange Hollandaise) and salsify frites, and braised pork stuffed with endive and green apples in a veal stock, star anise and clove sauce.  Other than the sauce on the snapper gumming up on me (my own fault – and it won’t happen again!), both dishes were excellent.  Chef 2 was pleased, and even said “congratulations!”  And the leftovers?  They tasted like happiness, joy, and redemption.

 

 

I guess that, good or bad, we leave it all on the plate.

Pastry Curious

I’m not sure that all of our traits are in-born or lifestyle choices, but once in a while I do admit to being a little, you know, “pastry curious”.

I’ve mentioned before that cuisiniers love to make fun of pâtissiers.  Pastry is a slightly precious art of precise measurements and temperatures, and seems to attract the personalities to match.  I had a little fun this week in the production kitchen working with a couple of Intermediate Pastry students who were doing their required hours.  When they were asked to debone some lamb scraps to make sausage they weren’t even sure which knife in their kit was their boning knife because they’d never used it, not even once.  Even a cuisinier’s pastry bag gets a better workout than a pâtissier’s knife kit.   We have creepy obsessions with our knives, they get all weird about spoons and whisks.

That said, I’m always a bit intrigued by some of the beautiful things coming out of the pastry kitchens – the chocolate, the cake and the sugar artwork.  Not my thing because my temperament is all wrong, but if there’s an opportunity to learn a little more, I’ll take it.

I had some conflicting plans today, but decided to drop in on the “Chocolate Demonstration” short course for a little while.  Full-time students are allowed to attend any of the demonstration portions of short courses for free, and can take the full course at a discount.  And since this was demonstration-only, there was no cost at all. 

Got a chance to see the new pastry Chef (shall we call him Chef 5?) in action.  A (very) short history of chocolate and a tasting of some of the various chocolate products, right from cocoa nibs (roasted unsweetened cocoa beans), through white chocolate (not really chocolate), milk chocolate, and more bitter dark chocolate.  Didn’t get to stick around to see all the steps for the cake, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Took a few notes about the precise temperatures for tempering chocolate.  Is it something I think I’m going to use very often?  Probably not.  But on the other hand, it’s always useful to have that info on slip of paper in my knife kit or in the back of my mind.  I had a little success with making dessert this week, so now if chocolate were to show up in my basket I have a few ideas about what I can do.

A little bit of my Saturday well spent, but I’m not going to switch teams anytime soon.

Beyond the Pass

I can’t believe I have the energy to write anything at all tonight, but I have had a lot of fun in the last two days.

In Basic and Intermediate Cuisine students are required to spend a certain number of hours helping out in the basement production kitchen and as demonstration assistants in classes.  In Superior, we’re assigned hours to work in the Signatures bistro.  Last week I did my first turn in the front of the house, and tonight had a chance to see dinner service from the other side of the pass – that is, from the kitchen.

As “new” folks, we didn’t get a whole lot of complicated things to do.  I vacuum bagged some smoked halibut with red pepper achiote sauce, poached some pears in simple syrup, helped plate a few appetizers and cleaned and blanched a shit ton of spinach.

Everything in the kitchen is about the mise en place.  Mise en place is what allows a restaurant to deliver high quality product in a timely fashion, even on a busy night.  No one in the kitchen starts peeling a potato when you order your fries – it’s been done already.  Sauces are already made and proteins often at least partly cooked well before you’re enjoying your pre-dinner cocktail.

It got me thinking though – many people would appreciate fine dining more if they knew the work that went into making their meal and their dining experience (and no, watching the Food Network does not count!).  It is not about opening cans and bags.  It’s creative, skilled, and labour-intensive work, right from the Chef who painstakingly created the menu to the lowliest commis plating salads. And if you have food allergies or real dietary restrictions, please for the love of all that’s holy, tell the staff when you make your reservation – a good kitchen is more than equipped to accommodate you and will do a very good job given the right notice.  But if you’re just the precious type or “don’t like” certain things, find something on the menu you can eat and don’t try to rearrange the menu to your own tastes.  Or just learn to cook for yourself and stay home. And unless you want the kitchen staff and your fellow diners to hate you, never ever be like these people.

I also spent a bit of time yesterday and today working in the basement production kitchen.  As I mentioned above it’s not mandatory for Superior students to work there, but it’s a good way (especially for someone like me, who doesn’t have restaurant experience) to learn a little more in a pretty relaxed atmosphere.  I was up early yesterday and had part of the day to kill, so I decided to go in and see what I could do.  I helped put together some baskets for the Chefs’ demos and practical classes, made some veal stock, helped make the staff lunch, and lucky me, even got to play with some foie gras!

I think I have mentioned before that I adore foie gras.  In class we get to use it more than a few times, but we never work with it right from its raw state.  So when one of the guys in the kitchen offered to show me how to devein it and make torchons, I was thrilled.  I could not have picked a better day to wander in.

I came back this afternoon before my bistro shift and learned a little bit more about cooking and wrapping them.

I guess the common thread of the last couple of days is that life is about your experiences, and that experiences are what you make them.  When you eat in a great restaurant, you’re getting to experience of the vision of the Chef, and the accumulated efforts of the staff.  If you make it all about having something exactly the way you want it, you’re missing out on a great experience.  And when you’re like me, in the mode of learning new things, the “extras” that you are willing to do are where you’ll learn the most.  I said before that assisting with the “Tour de France” short course with Chef 3 was one of the best experiences I’ve had at Le Cordon Bleu, and in large part that was because I didn’t have to do it.  And the last couple of days I’ve learned so much just because I was willing to show up and do a little more.

When I got home tonight I was grubby and tired, but happy as I’ve ever been.  And no rest for the weary, because I’m going back to school in the morning for a little more “extra” – I’m going to learn a  bit about chocolate!

The Return of Tweety Bird: Black Box Edition

Today’s black box workshop revisted one of my favourite (ha!) ingredients from Intermediate Cuisine – quail (aka Tweety Bird).

I was determined I wasn’t going to fall into the shit this time. While I presumed, based on some of the ingredients in the basket (mango, pineapple, red pepper, etc) that the workshop was about learning to balance sweet flavours, I decided to focus my particular efforts on mise en place, that is to say, having my shit together.  And having that in mind early on certainly paid off because not only was I able to plate on time, I tried out a new trick AND plated a whole extra course: dessert!

I decided early on to save my heroics today for something other than the quails.  I simply tore out the backbone and boned them out flat, similar to the Cornish hen in Intermediate.  It went a LOT faster this way.  While I was digging around in one of the quails, I tore out its tiny little heart.  Mwahahaha!

With the boning of the quails done quickly, and the trimming of the cod for my fish course done in a flash, I made some pâte brisée and decided to repurpose the leftovers from the pineapple-star anise glaze I was making for the quails into my riff on Guyanese pine tarts.  Made the pastry and threw it in the fridge, made a ginger crème anglaise and threw it in the fridge and still had more than enough time to get my fish together and plated on time.

My fun little trick today?  I decided to play with the white powder again.  I’m very much with Alton Brown and his take on molecular gastronomy (ie. it’s a tool, but it’s not food), but I can’t resist once in a while.  I keep a few of Molecule-R’s magic powders in my knife kit, and had some fun turning balsamic vinegar in to “caviar” with agar-agar.

So here’s what I plated today.  Not bad for just under three hours.

Cod with honey and sherry vinegar sweet and sour sauce and asparagus

Pineapple and star anise glazed quails, with wilted arugula and peas in a cardamom vinaigrette, roasted red pepper, and balsamic “caviar” (note: this is after Chef 2 took a run at it!)

Pine tarts with ginger crème anglaise (replated at home)

Not everything was perfect, but I wanted to try some new things and with my mise en place in gear I had the time. And sort of interesting that I was thinking about mise en place this week.  My various spies and sources told me that this term’s Intermediate class got very much in the weeds with their pheasants yesterday – perhaps they got their lecture on organization from Chef 3 today, just like the one we got after our quails. And having that kind of organization drilled into my brain is what allowed me to do the fun things today.  Once you’ve got the basics down, then you can play.

And these Tweety Birds?  Very tasty.

Escargots, Lattes, and the End of Week 2

As I mentioned in my previous post, I ended last week with both a "black box" workshop and my first lesson in "front of the house" in the Signatures Bistro.

The workshop went rather well.  Some serious studying/brain wracking earlier in the week gave me a few cool ideas, and I was actually able to pull most of them off.  My best work was definitely my escargots appetizer, and I don't even like escargots.  I made a potato and pastis soup with a little parsley oil and a fine brunoise of zucchini.  Chef 2 was very pleased - even said "congratulations!"  I don't hear that too often!

My second plate was a variety of vegetable appetizers.  No pictures, sadly, because my phone battery was dying.  Beet ravioli in a lemon butter sauce, carrot and apple soup, shaved asparagus salad, and a mushroom risotto.  Chef said the ravoli were very good and very creative.  I think they could have been a little prettier, but I know how to fix them next time.

Friday was a complete change of pace.  A miserable cold day with several centimeters of merde blanche falling (gotta love Ottawa in April, eh?), but an interesting morning learning about the service standards for fine dining.  I learned how to set a table (the right way!), carry plates (without dropping them!), make a good latte (I think I kinda know this already....), and a little more about wine service.  Fun!

 

No practice running plates or anything exciting like that - a slow Friday in the bistro and the weather outside didn't help any.  Oh well... next time.

One thing I did learn last week is that a bit of thinking ahead of time makes a huge difference in workshops.  If I can go into a workshop with some ideas about what flavours might work well together, a solid grip of some kitchen basics (pasta, pastry, etc), and a few techniques in mind that I want to use, it saves a lot of fumbling and screwing around.  And you can tell which students have done this kind of homework - they are faster and have much prettier and coherent plates.

We have a few demo/practical lessons this week, and then another workshop on Wednesday.  And guess who'll be back?  Tweety Bird. 

When Dead Things Fight Back (And Some Thoughts)

If you’ve got issues about killing your own dinner, you might want to skip the rest of this.

The two lessons this week were on seafood.  And if you’re the squeamish type, this would not have been a lot of fun.  But thankfully, by Superior Cuisine, we’re all pretty much cold-blooded killers.  At this point in the course we’ve all shucked oysters, killed at least one lobster, butchered carcasses, and ripped bones from enough adorable animals that I don’t think any of us think about it much anymore.  And, quite frankly, you can’t be that type and survive in culinary school, let alone in a kitchen. If you’ve got a 50 or 100 lobsters to dispatch for a dinner service you don’t have time to sit around and get all emotional about it – you just do it.

So when Chef 2 started by snipping the legs off of his lobsters in the demo this morning, he knew what he was doing.  A quick poke between the body and tail shells with a paring knife, twisting off the tail, then a bamboo skewer lengthwise through the tail meat (to keep it from curling up while cooking).  Merciless, but quick and workman-like.  And his plating?  Beautiful.

Kind of a fun dish too.  We were making a lobster and potato salad with candied ginger.  A little reduced balsamic vinegar, a bit of arugula and cilantro salad, and of course a little sauce made from the trimmings.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always named my lobsters “Mr. Pinchy”.  I gave Pinchy a quick look in the eye before flipping him on his back and snapping his legs off.  This displeased him greatly, but he got his revenge on me, and not only that, he took it out in front of the Chef.  As Chef 2 passed my station, I was holding Pinchy’s (by then) disembodied tail in my hand and preparing to skewer it.  I asked the Chef if I was aiming at the right spot, and just that second the tail jumped in my hand.  I nearly dropped it.  I wasn’t so much grossed out as just surprised that it was still twitching. 

And if the lobsters have their own saint, this one got a little more revenge today.  I somehow managed to set one of my kitchen towels on fire.

This had never happened before, and not only did it happen to me, it happened to another student in the class too.  Let’s just hope Earth is never invaded by an alien lobster-like species… I fear Chefs would have a lot to answer for.

Pinchy made a lovely salad and sauce. The Chef had no particular issues with my dish, other than perhaps the portion of potato was a little too big.

A little later as I was getting ready to leave I bumped into Chef 3.  We had a short chat about what he’s teaching the Intermediate class (today’s dish was the salmon coulibiac) and a little talk about how my dish went today.  We were soon joined by another Superior Cuisine student, and it wasn’t long before the conversation was a bit philosophical.  The other student and I both admitted that our lobster claws didn’t come out of the shells neatly today, so we improvised. Chef 3’s question to both of us: “Would you have done that in Intermediate?”   We both admitted that we wouldn’t have – at that point we were both more concerned about mimicking the Chef’s dish.  We would have tried to re-assemble the claw on the plate. Today, I gave up on the claws (chopped them up and added them to the salad) and drew “claws” on the plate with my sauce.  I think it worked, and the Chef seemed pleased.

I rarely clog up my Facebook with those boring inspirational-type quote things that seem to plague my newsfeed, but this week one jumped out at me in particular.  I saw one that said “The best teachers are those who tell you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see.”  Somehow I felt it was appropriate to what I’ve been learning lately.  The recipe (and the Chef’s interpretation) is where to look, but what we create is what we “see”. And I couldn’t have asked for a better illustration of that than today’s dish.

Tomorrow will be fun – another “black box” workshop (and my first turn as “sous chef” in Superior), as well as my first shift doing front of the house in the Signatures@Cordon Bleu Bistro for lunch service on Friday.

   

It’s already Wednesday, but I think the week is just getting started.  And I’ve got lobster for dinner.