Thursday 1 July 2010

Leçon dix-neuf et vingt. (Early May)

OK, after some sort of successful atelier, it's time for a normal demo again. Lesson 19 and 20. (3-4 May 2010) Chef Terrien in control in both demos.

Lesson 19; They call the main course 'creative cuisine', well, that has to be seen.
starter: Green asparagus and crab charlotte with a citrus vinaigrette.
mains: Roast beef tenderloin, 'mi-venaison' marinade with soy, daikon radish and beet 'brochette' and a parsley potato crisp - oh yeah! how creative.
dessert: Frothy caramel with Guerande sea salt, coffee and cognac chantilly.

I remember the starter. That was delicious! And the picture looks nice as well. A very nice summer dish with cold asparagus and fresh crab meat.

The main course was quite good. 'mi-venison' marinade means that you marinade the beef for a short period of time in the fridge. Very easy to do. And a sauce is made from the beef trimmings of course...
The skewer is daikon and beet(root).


Dessert; A great presentation by chef of this dessert - and ruined within a second by our fat class idiot!
'It' ate the whole glass before we even realized it. The $%#@!


The caramel is made with a creme Anglaise (egg yolk, add hot milk, whisk like hell) and caramelized sugar/cream/milk. Finally some gelatines leaves are added. Strain, add some salt and keep cold.
Decoration with angel hair makes it the perfect dessert!


Carlos and Miguel are about to plate-up.

Stephanie getting feedback from chef T.

The main course for lesson 20 is creative again.
The starter was an egg white with a runny egg yolk in the middle. Now that was quite a nice trick chef did. This is a great starter when you have guests - with a surprise element!
The egg whites are beaten stiff (with a bit of salt and a drop of lemon juice) first. Then line a mould with paper and butter well. Make 2 rounds with this mould from a sandwich and put in the oven at 180 degC to make toast.
Put one slice of toast at the bottom of the mould, fill with a bit of stiff eggwhite (1/3), put in the (left whole) egg yolk with a bit of salt, fill the mould with the rest of the egg white and platten the top of the mould. Put in the oven for 2-3 minutes at 70 degC. Put the second pice of toast on top right before serving. Garnish; sauteed morels and some green leaves like parsley or chervil. And a sauce made from morels and beurre....
Trick: You can also finish dish dish in the microwave. That just takes 8 seconds at the highest power.
The name of the dish: Egg blancmange with a truffle and morel mushroom coulis.



Mains: Crispy sea bass with French toast, capers and lemon and a chicken jus.
A chicken jus??? Yes, we ruin the dish again with a chicken jus....

I like this dish. Easy to make and the fish is surprisingly tasty, despite all the clarified butter we use. Already made this at home and we're going to make that for our friends this weekend. (They're German - I make BIG portions.... ha,ha!) I'm not making the chicken bit. 


For dessert chef Terrien made us craquelin aux pommes, sorbet ananas et sirop de melisse-citronnelle.
It's some kind of crumble (craquelin) and compote  with a pineapple sorbet on top. Nice. I liked this as well. Instead of using apples for the compote you can also use pears.