Jayne still stuck in Ireland; no visit ! yet...flight cancelled again.

Jayne is still stuck in Ireland due to the Icelandic volcanic eruptions. (click on the link for a video!) Actually, most of the airports in western Europe are still closed down due to the ashes in the air.

Jayne is booked on Tuesday's afternoon flight to Paris now - l hope she can make it, I miss her! She's already stuck in Ireland since last Thursday, when she was supposed to fly to Paris... We'll see what happens in the next few days.

Update, Monday evening: It looks good... it seems that flights are going again tomorrow! The flight Cork - CdG (Paris) is still  'on time'.
Update, Tuesday afternoon: All flights from Ireland cancelled again. No Jayne in Paris! Tomorrow's flight to Paris is fully booked and Jayne is now on the late afternoon flight to Amsterdam tomorrow (the last seat!). This time it will work out perfectly to get back to mainland Europe, I'm sure. I guess...

First 'exam' - the atelier, or workshop. Exciting stuff !

A few days ago I asked you for some ideas for my upcoming workshop. I received quite a few replies, thank you very much for that and it certainly gave me some good ideas. I did have a few sleepless nights over it... The chefs told us numerous times that we should keep it simple (and French probably) and respect the ingredients. Some things go together, some things don't.
I explained the rules before in an earlier blog entry; click here for those details.

On Wednesday, I went to Simon, the cookery shop, to have my knives sharpened. Just mention that you're from Cordon Bleu and mention the name of chef Terrien, and everything is for free. C'est formidable ! But..... the machine was 'en panne', broken down, so I had to go back the next day. So I brought 7 knives to sharpen.... ze man in ze shop was not 'appy....

So, to cut a long story short, I came up with the following menu:
My starter, two identical plates.
Chartreuse de saumon et gambas, mayonaise de poivron rouge, un salade aux herbs avec une vinaigrette de échalotes.
My main course:
Pigeonneau avec une glace de porto/miel, pommes de terre farci avec duxelles et cougette, oignons grelots glacée et tomate avec petit pois. Isn't that crappy French, or what!?

Yes, the bird is dead now!

Some details: I cooked the salmon (just put it in the oven at 150degC for some time, no oil, until done - don't overcook!), fry the shrimps and chop up (keep one for decoration). Mix the shrimp well with the salmon and cool off.
Make a mayonaise (egg yolk, mustard,salt/pepper, vegetable oil - no olive oil, that's too strong, whisk like hell, add lime juice and some 'jus' from the red bell pepper to give it some colour. Check seasoning all the time.
Use bit of mayonaise in the salmon/shrimp mixture to bind it properly and make it more smooth. Put all of it in a plastic piping bag.
The chartreuse: Using a mandolin (I bought one!) slice thin layers of carrot, red bell pepper (skin off) and leek. Blanch all separately, cool and pat dry. Then, cut into nice strips. Line a mould with clingfilm and 'coat' the inside with the strips of carrot / leek / red bell pepper all around. Finally, using a piping bag, fill the chartreuse with well seasoned salmon/shrimp/mayo mixture and keep cool in the fridge.
Presentation: Chartreuse, herb salad with a shallot vinaigrette and mayonaise on the side. Decorate the plate with some paprika powder.
I was ready with my starter at 10.15, which was bloody early, but I didn't want to plate first, so I waited a bit until 11.15 after 1 or 2 others presented their dishes to chef. I guess I was a bit scared.... don't know.

Chef really liked this one. It was colourful, I used different techniques and above all, the taste was good. I was really happy with it.

My main course was pan-fried pigeon breast, served pink, with a porto/honey glaze, a stuffed potato with duxelles and tiny sprigs of courgette sticking out, some glazed pearl onions and a (hollow) tomato with peas inside. And a nice pigeon sauce around the breasts. All well seasoned and served on a hot plate.
This one was OK, not really spectacular, but OK/good. My pigeon was slightly overcooked and I should have served the peas in the tomato as a puree inside it, not as whole peas. (And I did some therapy during the atelier - I shelled the peas AND I took the skin of the things.... )

All in all, quite an adventure. And please don't forget, this was the first time ever we've done it like this. So, next time the dishes will be more professional and colourfull etc., I hope! I really really liked doing it. Actually, if we can do this every other week or once every 3 weeks, I'd really like that. I've learnt a lot from this. And thank you chef Franck Poupard for supervising and helping us out to get more ingredients when needed!

One of the nicest things in class was that everyone did something completely different. Some did a starter with the pigeon, some made a carpaccio of the salmon, some deep-fried a lot. Well, there were so many different dishes, so here is a selection of the starters we've made in this atelier. (I will not post any names with the pictures and it's in random order. Nor will I put any comments with it.)

I'll post a few of the main courses on the next blog entry.
Sjoerd

Lesson 12; fish, veal and puff pastry.

Lesson 12, the last one before our first exam on Friday. On this Friday, we can sort of cook whatever we want within certain boundaries. I'll explain later in my next blog-post..
This lesson is all about fish 'a la plancha', with a méli-mélo de condiments (medley of condiments... dangerous, that could be anything!), a classic cuisine dish of sautéed veal grenadin with polenta and a stuffed artichoke and finally a puff pastry dish with all kinds of berries.

'A la plancha' means 'on the griddle', one of those FLAT grill plates. If you don't have that, just pan-fry the fish. And a trick chef did with this dish was to make thin slices of rhubarb using a mandolin, then blanch it in a 30 Baum syrup and then dry them in the oven at 90degC for a while. Candied lemon zest is also made in a syrup. Quite a few starters and desserts are made with these kind of techniques. Sometimes we even use the syrups in a main dish to candy lemon or lime zest.

Let me explain a bit about the syrup: 30 Baum syrup is a solution of 1.3 kg of sugar that has been dissolved in one liter of water. 18 Baum syrup is 700 grams of sugar per liter of water. It's all about the sweetness of the syrup you are looking for and the density of the sugar to make that.

The trick with the veal grenadin was to serve it pink, not red (undercooked), not brown (overcooked), but just pink. Mine was cooked to perfection as chef Bruno S. told me in the practical. I was really happy with that result! He even got others over to have a look at my dish. Yes, I did well... We served it with polenta; That's an easy one - you can shape that in every form you can imagine; French fries 'pont-neuf' style, flat, rounds, squares, even the shape of the Eiffel Tower...

Before I forget, a 'grenadin' is the same as a tournedos of beef (tenderloin). Because this is veal, it's called a grenadin. It's the name of the veal-cut.

My notes: Here are some details of the notes I make during a demo. Sorry that the pictures are not so good ! The first picture is the list of ingredients we receive, then it's all explained in the demo and the last two pictures are my notes. It's in 3 languages, all mixed up and messy... but at least I can read and reproduce it!

(click on the pictures for a 'blow-up')

Tomorrow, it's our atelier.....

See you all later!

Sjoerd

PS: the wines, how could I forget - with the starter we serve a Mediterranian wine, something like a rosé 'Ott', or something Spanish like Muscat d'Alexandria. With the main course we could serve a cabernet sauvignon, like Bouguoi from the Loire Valley. Don't serve a pinot noir or merlot. It's an acidic sauce with plain polenta. Medoc can be chosen. For dessert a sweet dessert wine, but when we have whipped cream, strawberries, we always go for....... ta,taaaaaa.... champagne!

We could even serve a creme de framboise or a Muscat wine from the Rhone valley with it. (This last one is tres parfumée and sticky.)

I'm back ! With food stuff. Nice food stuff.

Yes, I'm back on-line posting new stuff. Foodstuff. Sorry that is has been a bit quiet on the blog, but I've been rather busy, I was lazy, I just didn't feel like 'blogging' every day.
Right, where was I, a few days ago, regarding the food stuff? Lesson 9, on 11th April was my last food update, so here we go:

Lesson 10.
A demo on a Saturday. Bugger. But it wasn't that bad actually. Early afternoon class, run by chef Clergue.
starter: an artichoke salad with ricotta gnocchi and other stuff
mains: slowly cooked spicy lamb shanks with salsifi and spud-gnocchi (= practical)
and for dessert chef made pineapple and vanilla 'brochettes'with gingerbread and a coconut sauce with saffron. Not bad for a Saturday breakfast!

The Monday practical was by supervised by 'the liitle one' - chef Fred Lesourd.

Remember him from Basic and Intermediate cuisine? Well, he's back in town; he's been on a cruise ship for a few weeks (cooking, he says...) and now he's back at the school again. As usual, he was teaching us few tricks of the trade. Instead of adding spices ('spicy', as chef says) to the browned meat, he told us to grind it coursley in a pestle and mortar first, then rub it into the meat with a bit of force, and then fry it in oil. How right he was - much,much more flavour in the meat. The spices penetrated the meat much deeper. Nice one chef, thank you!

And he brought another gadget, a gnocchi board. We all liked it. It's just those little things that make a practical class much better. Lesourd is the perfect person to do all that!

And I've learnt how to cook salsify properly. I've done it at home before, but that went straight into the bin. I guess I overcooked that heavily when I made that some years ago.

A few things about salsify: use gloves when peeling them (stains) and put them immediately after peeling in milk (or water/lemon juice). To shape them nicely round, use those yellow scrup things you might have in your kitchen to clean the sink. The salsify will be perfectly white and nicely shaped. (Lesourd trick). Cook in a 'blanc' - water with flour, salt and lemon juice, until crunchy, cut into 5 cm sticks (cut at an angle) and finish off in the frying pan with a bit of butter and salt. Or just fry them in a bit of the jus you have from the lamb shanks. Even better!

My slowly cooked spicy lamb shank with a glaze and shitty shaped gnocchi. Good dish and I'm sure I'll make that again!

Then Tuesday, yes it goes really slow at the school, in general we have only one class a day - sometimes a day off and occasionally we have 2 sessions a day.

The 13th April, it's a demo AND the corresponding practical. Yippee!!! Chef Clergue again, he's a great chef, nice and explains everything very well I think. And he gives wine advice with every dish.

starter: a shotglass of guacamole and céviche (mirinated fish, like cod. White fish in general)

This can be served as an amuse bouche or as a starter. It certainly looks appetising!

The shot glass presentation is also part of our final exam in June. We have to present four of these (all the same) next to our main course. Also for four, and identical.

For mains chef made lightly pan-fried 'saint-jacques', a scallop parmentier and beurre de carotte. (Chefs plate and mine...)

Le dessert: Beet ravioli with berries (the ravioli is just the style of presentation)

Here are the wine suggestions for this menu that chef gave us;

With the starter, chef suggested a white fatty wine. It's a spicy dish with lime and raw marinated fish, so a Sancerre should go well with it. Or a nice sauvignon blanc from Chili.

For mains, the scallops, he suggested a Sancerre again (why not have the same wine with the starter and mains if that's possible) or a chardonnay from the Bourgogne. Something like Saint Aubain (spelled correctly??).

And with the dessert,the beetroot thing, which is also fruity, an acidic wine could be nice. Banyuls or a champagne rosé or a Madeira port is good! No vin rosé.

Sjoerd