Have you seen the 'injury counter' on my blog?

It’s still on three........ I guess I’ve learnt... What a difference compared to my time in Intermediate Cuisine.Only one lesson to go! I’ll try to avoid new cuts and burns, I promise.

Today's workshop - a practice run for the exam.

Today, we had the chance to practice for our upcoming exam next Monday. We had two time slots available to sort out what we are going to do. 5.5 long hours... Some people had everything written down in detail (like me...) and others ‘had it all in their head’. Today was ‘just’ a practice run; You were allowed to experiment with different garnishes, different plating styles. Anything was possible, and chef Clerque would give you some good feedback.

Goal: three shot glasses with a soup and 2 plates with the main course.

Well, my session went sort of OK – I made my asparagus soup (and struggled with the top bit, a small piece of squid stuck on a toothpick) and the foam on top of the soup collapsed too quickly. I know how to solve that foam issue now...

Then my main course. I decided NOT to cook the fish on the bone because so many others are doing it already and chef also advised me to try out my other idea – steam the fish (But with a decoration of aubergine and red bell pepper paysanne on top, stuck on a real thin layer of farce of whiting). That went really well and chef liked it. But it was a hell of a lot more work....
In the pictures: I tried to prepare the fish in different styles; cut and fry it on the bone or make separate fillets. In the second picture you can see the 'result'... two styles of fish, the green ball is a blanched lettuce leaf that is stuffed with red bell pepper and herbs, the other thing is the bottom part of a calamari 'stuffed' with a julienne of red bell pepper. We have to use the calamari, lettuce and turbot in the exam. I also made a confit tomato stuffed with a nice ratatouille. A suace of course; a very nice beurre blanc with a twist.

Other items: my pea puree was way undercooked (idiot!), but hey, I did de-shell the things, and it’s easy to solve 'the undecooking issue' next time. My lay-out on the plate was good, the garnishes were not bad but need a little tweaking. My beurre blanc (tarragon, basil – just a hint) was super. Seasoning all over was very good. Looking back now, I’m quite happy with what I did today. It’s looking good for the final next Monday (13.20 – 17.20 hrs); Please think of me and wish me luck !

Enough for now. Tomorrow we have our last demo at 08.30 hrs. Chef Terrien in charge. (Champagne afterwards?)

A demain! Sjoerd

Ha ! It’s raining big time now. Finally! After some very nice sunny and very hot days, it’s finally raining ! Thank you for that. It was sooooooo hot in the kitchens last week and today.