On Thursday, I had two classes. My 8.30 demo (after the usual visit to the cafe and croissant on the way) and the corresponding practical straight afterwards. Jayne stayed at home, she wanted to finish some work.
The demo; chef Clergue in charge, my favorite. He's a great chef, explains things in detail, talks about pairing wine(s) with the dishes and has some super plating skills. And he's also a nice guy.
For a starter, chef did salade de pommes de terre et saint-jacques aux tuffes fraîches. Yes, lots of truffles!
Mains; This was based on classic cuisine with Russian influences (the influence is the technique, not the flavour or ingredients) - seabass in a crust with stuffed tom's (cheese).
Fillet the fish (sea bass), clean it/de-bone/descale/skin off - in other words: the lot - and put between those two nice fillets a tasty stuffing of veggies, rice, salmon pieces, hard boiled eggs and onions with mushrooms. All wrapped in a dough and baked for 35 minutes in the oven. Just serve one slice per person, together with some stuffed mini tomatoes. (These little buggers were stuffed with a cheep's milk cheese and herbs.) To bring it all together we NEEDED something tyical French: a beurre blanc...
Oh yeah! The only adjustment we made in class was not to use the full 150 gram of butter we needed, but ONLY 125 gram. The reason for this was that we didn't have enough butter in class.....
Chef Clergue chopping, Raffaele joking around.
That's my plate! There should have been more egg in the middle, but the taste and presentation was good.
And the kitchen was hot! Everybody had his/her stoves switched on at full whack, including the ovens. Not really needed....
Le dessert;
Dates stuffed with almond cream wrapped in phyllo pastry with saffron ice cream.
Oh yes! I liked this one. I'm not too keen on dates, but this was nice. You can also make this with prunes, dried apricots or dried figs. I'm sure I'll try this again.
Evening home dinner: A freshly made salad 'à la Jayne ', 2 slices of warmed up seabass in a crust and stuffed tomatoes with broccio cheese made by Raffaele and Sjoerd.
Friday is my day off; Shopping at the kitchen stores..... euro's, euro's, euro's needed.
These shopping trips are always dangerous! They're always expensive.more to follow...
have a nice weekend,
Sjoerd
