culinary school flashback: week 5 in review
This is a long one guys … week five was filled with lots of new recipes
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week five in review
Once again our week was packed! We made 20 menu items this week and my favorite was the steak and french fries. Here is a glimpse at what we produced this week:
RATATOUILLE – I am not a big fan of eggplant or cooked peppers, and therefore the dish was not my favorite. I did promise myself when I started school that I would try all the dishes we make, regardless of whether I thought I would like them. I have to admit, ratatouille isn’t sooo bad after all.
Pasta from scratch – I hope we make it again soon because I could use more practice. While it is not extremely difficult to make, it is very time consuming, and learning what the dough should feel like takes some practice.
LE COQ A VIN – A classic French dish that I have always heard about, but never knew exactly what it entailed. For those of you who also don’t know, it is a braised chicken leg, served in a reduced (and flavored) veal stock with pearl onions, mushrooms and bacon. Anything with bacon is incredible!
Pound Cake – Oh so good!
LE FILET DE LIMANDE MEUNIERE – Flounder topped with a lemon parsley sauce, served with snow peas, carrots and ‘shrimp toast’. The shrimp toast is made with minced shrimp and whole shrimp, atop a crouton and then deep fried.
Note: I am not sure if I have told you all about our pastry chef; Chef Somchet. She is originally from Thailand and is very keen on teaching us as many asian recipes as she can, which is awesome!
LA TART AU CITRON MERINGUEE – A citrus pie. We opted to make Key Lime Pie, not just lemon. Yum!
L’ONGLET FRILLE A L’ECHOALOTE – Steak with a shallot sauce, home-made French Fries, home-made mayonnaise and tourneed carrots- WHAT IS THERE NOT TO LOVE ABOUT THIS DISH?! It was by far the best meal of the week. The fries were tender, yet crispy, the mayonnaise was creamy and the steak melted on my tongue.
PATE FEUILLETE – Classic Puff Pastry that we learned how to make this week! It is fairly simple, yet takes a long time to make. The key with puff pastry is that it needs to be flaky and rise up during the baking process. When making the dough, you need to ensure that the butter gets distributed evenly when you roll and turn the dough. Because of how involved it is, I think I will do a whole blog post on it in the future, so stay tuned! We then used the puff pastry to make two separate desserts: Cheese-filled Puff Pastry
King Cake – It is a puff pastry cake filled with an almond cream. Notice that the king cake should look like photo number 1. Ours however, is photo number 2: we did not score the cake properly before putting it in the oven, but it still tasted great!
This is what a king cake is supposed to look like.
This is what our king cake looked like.
LE GNOCCHIS A LA ROMAINE – Gnocchi made from semolina, served with a tomato and fennel sauce. These are not the gnocchi that we typically think of (we don’t learn how to make those until phase 2). I got really excited when I heard we were going to make gnocchi and was a bit disappointed when I found out it was not the gnocchi I had originally anticipated. These rather, are made from semolina, a similar grain to polenta, cut into a rondelle and then served with a delicious tomato sauce. A very creamy dish.
LA TRUITE SAUTEE GRENOBLOISE – Trout topped with a caper sauce, served with a braised endive. I was not big on the braised endives. To me they were a tad bit mushy, but it was pretty cool to see how to use the braising technique on a vegetable.
LE PALMIER – These cookies make me think of my grandma and Christmas time in Germany. Puff pastry trimmings topped with cinnamon sugar (and by topped, I mean that we incorporated it in the dough by rolling and folding many times, so they were extra delicious).
As you can see, it was a busy week:
Some mornings before chef starts his demo, I feel overwhelmed, scared and very nervous when I glance at the menu. I think about the fact that we only have 2 ½ hours to cook and wonder how I (along with my team) am going to get it done in time. But when chef starts cooking and I realize that it’s doable I calm down. Over the past five weeks, I have also become comfortable in the kitchen, knowing where the equipment is and learning how to organize my time (i.e. prioritizing my dishes) to help me stay confident in the fact that we can make it happen and finish all of the dishes on time.
In other news, this week we also received our grades from the last few weeks:
Practical and theory exams – I am happy with the results of both.
Classroom grade – The grade takes into account our overall behavior, from the way we conduct ourselves in the kitchen to the proper attire. I did extremely well in this category , and while I don’t want to brag, I am just excited.
Sanitation scores – I PASSED!!!
One by one, we sat down with Chef Francois, owner of the school, to discuss the results. It was a good conversation. I left happy with the results, knowing exactly what areas to focus on to improve myself and become the best cook that I can be.
But the week was not over quite yet. I went to school yesterday to help Chef Brian with a recreational class: Smoking & BBQ. He left me in charge of the baking, saying that he picked me because of my precision (which is an awesome compliment, but also ups the pressure!). It is a nice feeling to have his confidence, leaving me in charge with dishes for his class.
I made ancho brownies and brown bread. The brownies tasted delicious, I did however, take them out of the oven too soon and they were way too gooey. I was a bit annoyed because I have made brownies a million times and I should have known how to make them properly! But my brown bread came out well, which I was happy about. It was nice to be able to help chef out and see how the recreational classes are run.
Alright, this blog post is getting way too long. My word count is telling me I am over 1,000 words!! Have a great rest of your Sunday!
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Now I am hungry, haha. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s been so fun to relive this time through these posts. I am so glad that I documented my time in school and took lots of photos! Although my photo taking skills of food wasn’t all that great back then, and let’s be honest, I am still working on those skills today haha.
For now, I hope you all have a good weekend!!