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.

Spit or Swallow?

I’m talking about wine tasting here, got it?

We had our Superior Cuisine wine seminar today and, I must say, it was a good deal more interesting than the one we had in Intermediate. 

It wasn’t exactly a vertical tasting of vintage Bordeaux, but it was a good introduction to tasting and pairings, and even a relative connoisseur like myself (I mean, relative to the 19 year olds in the class), learned a few new things.

The three wines we tasted were Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi Sauvignon Blanc 2012, Jacob’s Creek Reserve Shiraz 2010, and Sandeman Ruby Port.  Nothing exciting about any of them, but they were helpful in illustrating the characteristics of different styles of wines.

While the school helpfully provided spittoons, it was far more a “sipping” than “drinking” affair, though I did have to remind the student next to me that he shouldn’t drink half his glass before the sommelier’s explanation.

I won’t go into the details about appearance, nose, taste, etc, except to say that I found some of the food pairing advice very helpful.  Want to know why your dessert wine should always be sweeter than your dessert?  Try tasting the Sauvignon Blanc with a slice of pineapple (yuck!) and then try ruby port with dark chocolate (mmmm…. oh yeah!).  That tannic Shiraz?  It tastes a heck of a lot better with a piece of cheese than it did on its own (fat helping to move those tannins along).

And do you want to know if your wine will age well?  Taste for fruit.  You might smell fruit on the nose, but if you only taste the secondary flavours (like smoke, vanilla, etc), it won’t age well.  The sommelier summed it up quite succinctly – “No fruit, no future”.  So if you have any Jacob’s Creek Reserve Shiraz 2010 in your cellar, I suggest you get yourself some good cheese, a rib eye, and start drinking – NOW!

So a wee bit of fun for a Monday afternoon.  I’m hoping that a few of the younger students who made sweeping statements before class like “I don’t like wine.” now have a bit of understanding about how a wine pairing can complement cuisine.

And, for the record, never ask a lady the “spit or swallow” question unless you want the response to be “Well, do YOU?”

Saffron, Squid Ink, and the Brontosaurus Rib

Some days I have to giggle about the amusing turn my life has taken in the last few months.

A year ago I never would have imagined that I’d be at the end of my first week of Superior Cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu and I must say, I’m having a blast.

After Tuesday’s foie gras pig-out, we had another demo and practical class making a fish thing with épices douces, some artichokes, and an eggplant charlotte. It went pretty well. I didn’t think much of my sauce and I could see a fair bit of olive oil bleeding out of my eggplant, but it was fine. Certainly more interesting flavours than some of the tiresome things we made in Intermediate Cuisine.

But the real fun this week was today’s “black box” workshop.  To actually call it a “black box” is a little disingenuous because we actually knew most of the ingredients we’d be working with ahead of time.   We had to prepare a squid appetizer and then a veal rib main course.  We had a basket of vegetables, some spices and herbs, and the standard kitchen pantry (butter, flour, eggs, milk, cream, wine, vinegar, etc).

There was one ingredient in the basket that stood out a little bit – ground coffee. Hmmm… how to use that?  I didn’t think too many people would try to work that in, and being the contrarian that I am, I figured it was worth a try.  I did a little research from my overflowing shelves of cookbooks and trusty old Google.  Nothing really jumped out at me.

But last night as I inexplicably lay awake in bed between 3 and 5AM an idea occurred to me to link veal to coffee.  Cognac!  There are lots of veal dishes involving cognac, and you can pretty much put every kind of booze in a cup of coffee.  In the words of Chef 1 – “Why not?”

Indeed, why not?   This morning I scribbled a few notes, finished the seemly never-ending pile of dirty laundry, and got to school in time for the workshop.  I plated my appetizer of sautéed calamari with saffron and squid ink at Chef 2’s requested time.  Didn’t overcook the calamari, and managed to only get about half the squid ink on the sleeve of my uniform.  Could have cooked the rapini a bit more (yeah… a little on the “crisp” side) but the Chef’s comment on the plate?  “C’est trés jolie.”  Booh-yeah!

An hour later I was plating my veal rib.  I’m still a bit of a spaz at butchery (do you see the size of the bone on this thing?!), but I managed to make a decent looking plate and cooked the veal to the right doneness.  My mashed potatoes were not quite as hot as they should have been (point taken) and Chef 2 thought my reduced sauce of shallots, cognac, coffee, veal stock and a shit-ton of butter was “interesting”.  Interesting good or interesting bad?  It’s hard to tell sometimes.

You know what pissed me off though?  Getting back to my station and noticing the almonds I’d carefully toasted as a garnish, sitting entirely unused.  Fuck….argh….*facepalm*!

Ah well. As Chef 3 has told me, this is the place to make your mistakes.  And I’m sure I’ll make more of them, but it was fun to be a little creative today.

The speed is going to pick up a bit in the next few weeks.  A wine seminar, more “black box” workshops, and our first shifts working the dining room and the kitchen in the Signatures Bistro.  A lot of room for learning, mistakes, and some hilarity.

Perhaps I should start caffeinating more of my sauces – I might need it!

A Duck-Load of Foie Gras

It does appear that you can have too much of a good thing – and if that good thing is foie gras, leave it to the Chefs of LCB to take it WAY too far.

This afternoon we had our first demo class of the new term.  Nothing terribly difficult on the menu, which is a nice way to ease back into the kitchen, but there is a new emphasis on plating.

Below are some pictures from class.  For the record, these are the Chef’s dishes, not mine.

Some various canapés

Carpaccio de Boeuf

Tartare de Saumon

Cremeux chocolate with cardamom

And, oh yeah…. We can’t forget the foie gras.

As I have mentioned before, Chef 2 is one of the most talented chefs I’ve ever met.  He’s stunningly fast in the kitchen and could probably make dinner for six with two eggs, a pound of butter, and a rock.  And while he is most definitely a serious dude, he’s got the most charming and gleefully child-like sense of humour.  He flirts with the girls, makes fun of the other Chefs, and giggles at his own jokes.

So his delight at carving up a torchon of foie gras to give us a little snack was obvious.  I suppose if you’re cutting into it you might as well use the whole thing, right?  Well, the torchon was as big around as my arm and the slices as thick as my finger, so that’s a duck-load of foie gras.  And this wasn’t the dish mind you, just a snack. Knowing the price I’ve seen for torchon of foie gras in the stores recently (I think about $40 CDN for 150 grams), I can’t even contemplate what each of these bites would cost.

 

The dish – foie gras burgers.  Not burgers with a little foie gras inside or on top - that's for sissies.  Essentially, we had foie gras sliders on brioche.  The decadent last days of the Roman Empire had nothing on these...

Most of the students were already in foie gras coma from the “snack” and avoided tasting them.  However, the other Chefs seem to have a foie gras radar and most of them dropped by the class to scavenge the leftovers.

So a few hours of break to go home and shake off the foie gras brain fog, then back to the kitchen for the practical. 

 

A great day to start the term.

Tour De France and Caul Fat: The Lacy Panties of Pork

I must be having a great time at school because the thought of having a whole week off sent me looking for an excuse to get back in the kitchen.

I got my excuse last week at graduation when Chef 3 mentioned that he was teaching the “Tour de France” short course this week.  While he already had some student assistants lined up, he graciously allowed me to tag along for the ride.  And you know what?  It was possibly the best experience I’ve had so far at Le Cordon Bleu.

As I mentioned in my last post, the short courses are a way for the general public to get a little taste of the Cordon Bleu experience.  The prices can be fairly steep, but where else can a home cook get the experience of learning from a real French chef and trying their hand a few hardcore old-school French dishes?

The atmosphere, as you can imagine, is a little (okay, a lot) more casual than in our regular classes.  The Chefs aren’t handing out grades, and the skill levels of the students are all over the place, so as long as the students are turning out something edible and not cutting/burning themselves the standards are pretty relaxed.  A skilled home cook could get a lot out of one of the classes, and other folks get a little coaching about how to peel a potato (and yes, we had someone in class who struggled to peel a potato!)

For us as assistants, short courses are a fun opportunity to spend some time with the Chefs when they are a little more chilled out, and we get a little glimpse of what they deal with during our classes.  During the demo portions of the class we run and fetch equipment and ingredients, plate samples and tidy up the kitchen.  During the practical part of the class, we wander around tending unwatched pots, tasting sauces, helping the dishwasher, and occasionally offering a little help.

I joined the class on Day 2 of 4, and we made some interesting dishes, some of which I don’t think most home cooks would attempt without a little coaching.  On Tuesday the students made a stuffed cabbage.  There’s very little that’s fashionable about that dish, but it illustrated a few important techniques like making a farce, blanching, braising and glazing.  And they got to work with one of my favourite ingredients – caul fat.

 

Maybe I have a really filthy mind, but surely I’m not the only person who thinks of it as the lacy panties of pork?

Wednesday the students braised some beef cheeks in red wine and made a potato gratin.  I’d made a mild goof of myself in the demo earlier in the afternoon by confusing the sauces for the samples (don’t ask!), but fortunately Chef 3 had good sense of humour.  And then in the practical I suggested to some of the students to monter their sauce with butter.  Another mild groan of pain from Chef 3. Not in the recipe Sarah!  But seriously, is there ever a reason not to add more butter?

We ended the class late this afternoon with a brandade and a cauliflower gratin.  The students got to make a sauce béchamel for the gratin, and I had a moment when I really understood what I’ve learned over the past few months.  A sauce like béchamel is very much about learning the feel and texture of your end result, and an opportunity to think about flavours.  Some of the students thought that the amount of nutmeg we provided in their trays to be the amount we wanted them to use.  There were more than a few “nutmeg sauces” made (and I had nearly instant heartburn from tasting them.)

But you do get a little extra value for your big bucks when you take a short course.  We ended the afternoon today with a mini-graduation for the students at the Signatures@Cordon Bleu bar downstairs, and all the students got a certificate, a chance for a picture with the Chefs, and a glass of sparkling wine.  Not a bad deal, eh?

As I was leaving school I bumped into Chef 2 and the new pastry Chef who were having a smoke by the receiving entrance.  Starting next Tuesday I’m going to be a spending a lot of time with Chef 2 because he’s the main instructor for Superior Cuisine.  He gave me a nod and we had a little chat.  He thinks it will be a “good challenge” for me.  I think I’m ready for it, so I can’t wait until Tuesday.

And Chef 3?  You will note I didn’t say a word about your carrots!