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.
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