Fingering More Birds

A lot happened this week.

As of the end of today, we only have one more demo class and two more practicals before our final exam.  The rest of next week is filled out with workshops – one a “black box” (similar to the Food Network show “Chopped”) and a five-course menu prepared with ingredients purchased in the Byward Market with a total price limit of $60.  Those are going to be interesting. Have some interesting ideas, but a little iffy on the execution... we shall see.

I don’t know when or how it happened, but I feel like I’ve got my groove on now.  There have been a few times this term where I wondered what the hell I was doing and why I was subjecting myself to almost daily grading on things where I am next to clueless,  but that feeling has passed.  Things that would have seemed hard only a few weeks ago may not yet be easy, but they certainly aren’t scary.

One of the dishes this week was Poussin farci à la française, which is basically deboned Cornish hen stuffed with mixture of julienned vegetables.  Oddly, it’s actually easier to debone a larger bird from the inside than a small one (see Tweety Bird on Toast).  Unlike the deboning of the quails, which at times had the look and feel of a teenager’s illicit rummagings in the back seat of a car (or so I’m told!), with the hen you can at least see what you’re doing.  

Instead of Chef 3’s handsome fingers doing the rummaging this time, we had Chef 1 for the demo – and I have to say, his many years in the industry do count for something.  He pulled most of the carcass out of the bird in one piece – which is pretty cool to see.

 

I had a lot more confidence going into the practical for this one, and most of the other students I spoke to said the same thing.  After the quails, the hen isn’t that bad.  Interesting if that’s the actual strategy here – if the order were reversed between the quail lesson and the hen, I think I would have had a hard time with both, but in this order the second one was easy.  Hmmm….clever.

And when the dishes feel easier, I have a little more time to think about presentation.  On a bad dish when I’m in the weeds, I feel like I’m throwing food at the plate and just hoping it doesn’t slide off.  When I have the extra five or 10 minutes (or honestly, two minutes) to think about what I want to do, I think my plates look pretty good.  I’m still a little confused about Chef 2’s comments on my Brandade, but Chef 3 quite liked what I pulled together for my plates today, an escargots appetizer and cod with endive.  I let myself have some fun with the plates, and he had a couple of useful suggestions on how to balance odd and even numbered elements on the plate.  Chef 3 took a run at my escargots plate before my picture (I actually kinda like the “after” pictures more than the "before").

Other than that I served the cod with the “wrong “ side up (so sue me… it looked better) and that my reduced veal stock sauce was a little cold/gummy, I did pretty well today.

In other news, we had our written exam this week.  It was about a half hour of multiple-guess questions, true or false, and match-this-to-that.  In the final calculation, my grade was about 75%, which wasn’t at all bad compared to some that I saw. I'm told I had the best grade in my Basic class on the written exam, and this score was almost the same.

We also had our class lunch in the Signatures@Cordon Bleu bistro on Thursday.  I’d say a little over half the class came to lunch.  It was very good, as it always is.  The Signatures bistro is a very well-kept secret in Ottawa.  Most notably awesome was the tuna and avocado tartare with tahini sauce appetizer. I felt sorry for the people who got the soup... they missed out. I guess when we are spending nearly $10K a term on tuition, one "free" lunch is in order.

I was a little pissed that none of our Chefs came to lunch – instead we got someone from the school administration.   I recall at the class dinner in Basic Cuisine that I sat next to Chef 1 and we had a rather amusing conversation about the merits/failings of Italian food.  I would have liked that kind of interaction again. So good food, but a rather boring lunch.

And I got myself registered for Superior Cuisine this week.  Monsieur Cointreau can buy himself another case of Champagne after the cheque I just wrote.  Assuming I pass the exam, it’s onwards and upwards in April.

A lot to think about this weekend.  Monday we make the last dish that is on the list for our practical exam, which is sneaking up.  Exam is March 18 at 8:15 AM.  

Getting Cute with Brandade

Just a quickie (LOL!) tonight, I have a headache. (Ok… I’m being a degenerate again…)

A new dish again today.  This time we headed to the south of France for the classic Brandade – salt cod and potato.  Legend has it that the dish was invented by a monk who was cooking salt fish for fellow worshippers.  He heard a knock on the door and, realizing that there would be many more guests for dinner, threw on a pot of potatoes to fill out the meager pot of fish.  The rest, as they say, was dinner.

Countless cultures use some kind of salted fish, and the countries involved in the early days of trans-Atlantic seafaring and trade have classic dishes made with salted cod.  Portuguese bacalhau, Italian baccalà, Norwegian kilppfisk, Jamaica’s ackee and salt fish, and Newfoundland’s own fish and brewis (now that’s hardcore staple food!)  And, of course, France has its Brandade.

Chef 1 did the demo .  Uncharacteristically, the demo started late, and the Chef roared through the demo like he’d just downed a six-pack of Red Bull.  Three dishes – the Brandade, an eggplant gratin, and soupe au poisson, which thankfully we did not have to make in the evening practical.

Chef 2 for the practical. It went really quickly – we were in and out of there in just under two hours.  Poach the cod in milk and water, cook the potatoes in the poaching liquid, cook up some leeks, make a garlic cream sauce, and crack out a mushroom, tomato and eggplant gratin.  Not hard at all.

In the demo, Chef 1 encouraged us to get a little creative.  With something like the gratin, as long as the flavours are there, I don’t think there’s really a “wrong” way to do it.  And I had the same idea about the Brandade – it’s an assembly thing, so I decided to freestyle.

I wonder if I got a little too cute though.  Brandade is a very traditional dish and I’m not sure my more modern plating idea was the right one.  I’d be pushing it to say that I was inspired by VOLT ink. (the very cool cookbook by Bryan and Michael Voltaggio) or Quay (by Peter Gilmore), but the thought of layering potato, salt cod and leeks into a gratin dish as is traditional seemed, well… boring.  In that form, it looks like what it is – a preserved staple food stretched with a cheap and filling starch.  This is what I came up with:

Chef 2’s comment:  For me, this is not Brandade. 

Uhhh… okay.  Fuck?  He said the flavor was good, which was nice.  I thought it was a little salty.  Not sure how long the kitchen had been soaking the cod, but it could have used a little more time, or a little more blanching.  The gratin was… well, tomato, eggplant and mushroom.  Whatever.  I don’t particularly like eggplant, so I’ve got nothing to say, really.  Would have been nice to spike it up with a little orange zest, but we work with what we have.

But back to the degenerate thing.  A few spicy jokes in the demo today (you kinda had to be there), but found a nice little shout out to my blog from fellow food blogger and political kindred spirit Prick With A Fork.  The Prick is a transplanted American living in Sydney, Australia and, notably, a recent contestant/victim on the popular Come Dine With Me Australia.  He’s an excellent writer with the right amount of snark, and for the second time has mentioned me on his blog (I had been wondering where all those Aussie pageviews were coming from!)  This week he had a little fun with my post about Chef 3’s fingering and boning of the quails.  It seems that the Australian Prime Minister’s spouse has a pervy mind, and made a little “fingering” related gaffe this week.  Why oh why can’t Canadian politics be a little more fun?

On that note, tomorrow is our written exam, and I have a solitary can of Kronenbourg in the fridge.  These other priorities await.

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!”