Last May, I promised to write a bit more about the dishes we made during the superior cuisine course. I was a bit behind with the blogging back then, but now it's time for the first update. I'm home now for three weeks and I've also been shopping in the kitchen stores here in Amsterdam. The latest purchase is a new KitchenAid blender. This is something we used a lot during the course. It's the perfect tool to make sauces, chop up herbs and vegetables and make ice cream. So we decided to buy one.
Right. Menus. Dishes we made. Turning mushrooms again...
starter: Roasted jumbo shrimp on a stick of lemon grass
mains: a thick salmon steak with a (butter based!) herb crust, a mushroom flan and a creamy (veal stock based???) jus. Typical LCB - veal stock with a nice fish dish....
and for dessert chef made pistachio creme brulee with a tuile.
The trick with the flan was to clean the ramekins really well and butter them generously. Then keep in the fridge to 'set the butter'. The herb crust was nice and very easy to make. You just blend/grind some herbs like chervil, parsley and coriander, add some butter and almond powder, breadcrums and an egg and roll it out thinly on some parchment paper. Finally you freeze it and when you need it, you just cut it to the right size. Easy-peasy!
And I never thought you could re-use the salmon skin. Chef rolled a (cleaned) strip around a metal mould and dried it out in the oven at 100degC for 2 hours in a convection oven. The result was a dry ring of crispy salmon skin for decoration on the plate. Nice trick!
With the left-over salmon or trimmings you can make a salmon tartare. Don't throw these trimmings away! Ever !
Chef's dish.
starter, shrimp something...
Tuiles in the oven. Let it cool down a bit, then wrap it around a rolling pin to make a nicely shaped tuile. (recipe on request!)
Mayra turning mushrooms.
Adriano struggling...
Comments from Bruno. Meredith's dish.
Carlos listening to Bruno.
Victoria's dish.more to follow soon.
Sjoerd
