Sjoerd at Le Cordon Bleu Paris - superior cuisine 2010

Review and feedback Le Cordon Bleu Superior Cuisine / Cuisine diplome course.

2010-08-09T22:28:00.014+02:00

It's been too long since I've written about my Cordon Bleu adventures. Two months ago, I graduated from the Parisian École de Cuisine de Cordon Bleu, and I received my Cuisine diploma after I successfully completed all three courses: Basic, Intermediate and Superior Cuisine.

(I'm on the back row, hands in the air.....)

I wrote my first review (Basic Cuisine) in 2008. Click here for the web-link. My second review (2009, Intermediate Cuisine) can be found here, and this will be my final review on this Cuisine course.

I will not try to repeat myself too often, since some questions you might have are already discussed in the Basic and Intermediate reviews. First, I'll write some feedback on the Superior course and after that I'll say something about the Cuisine Course as a whole.

Superior Cuisine
My last semester started mid-March and ended early June. 3 months. This was new to me, since I did the first two courses 'the fast way', as an intensive course. The learning curve in Basic Cuisine was steep, in Intermediate it was fairly boring (although I learned a lot more than I realised at the time) , and I must say that in Superior the learning curve was HUGE again. I learned so much during this last bit. And my knife skills are not that bad either...

Recipes/Menu
Again, like in the other courses, we had 30 demos and 30 practicals again. 30 demos - that means 30 starters, 30 main courses and 30 desserts. That's a lot ! As you all might know, we 'only' have to make the main course in the practical class.
The recipes sounded nice from the day we started. And they tasted great! I wrote on this blog before that I'd make most of these recipes again at home. Click here and here for some pictures of the nice dishes the chefs made.

I must say, the level of the dishes is higher, more interesting and we use other ingredients as well. Also, the quality of the produce is great: can't complain about that at all! Of course there are dishes you don't particularly like (taste wise), but that's just personal I guess.

What have I learned from these recipes? Well, I know how to make a chartreuse now, I can debone fish blind-folded, guinea fowl and flying rat (pigeon) no longer hold mysterious secrets for me anymore. I know I like to work with fish - more then ever - and nowadays I also like to try to make more desserts. Things like that.

Plating skills:

Yes, we talked a lot about that during Superior. Especially during the practical sessions. That was very nice and I learned a lot from it. I've also noticed that everybody is very different - even the chefs don't always agree on how the food should/could be plated. I particularly liked the discussions with chef Clerque and chef 'La Petite' (I still don't know her name.) She would stare at a plate for a while, take it all off and re-plate the lot. Great tips and discussions we had. Thank you!

By the way, chef Patrick Caals has finally gotten permission to 'pimp-up' the Intermediate recipes. That is indeed good news. Hopefully he can implement his new ideas as soon as possible.
The Chefs
The two chefs running the 'Superior' show are chef Patrick Terrien and chef Philippe Clergue. Occasionally, some others would give demos (Fréderic Lesourd, Franck Poupard). They're all super chefs, but I must say that chef T. and chef C. are in a different league. No disrespect to the others!
Chef Terrien makes it look all so easy. The recipes all look quite easy, but to get it on a plate properly, that's a different matter. Chef Terrien is a great chef, very funny and creative.

So is chef Clergue. I loved his wine advice and serious cooking during every demo. Also his discussions on (my) plating skills during the practicals were very useful. Chef Lesourd has great dessert plating skills I must say (and lots of gadgets and tips and tricks of the trade). Here's some more background on some of the chefs.

I believe that during class chefs also have another job. Apart from teaching and being a chef, which are actually two jobs in themselves, they have to control a group of students. Well, let me tell you, that's a big issue. My class had 53 people and sometimes that can be quite noisy. The translators are hardly helping out to shut the noisy buggers up so it should be the chef's job. But no, the chefs hardly do anything about loud students and class idiots. A little changed after quite a few complaints, but please chefs - be a little more strict in class ! Or the chefs should at least support the translator publicly when they try to control the class. Some of the translators do actually try to help out chef to control the class a bit. Please keep in mind that some people are serious about doing LCB (apart from those that think it's a holiday camp).

Class size:
As I already said, we had 53 people in class. Personally I think that's way too big, but we managed. Intensive classes tend to be a lot smaller, especially in winter time. I liked that a lot better.

Translation of Superior Class
The classes in both Superior Cuisine and Pastry are being translated again, just like Basic and Intermediate. Thank you Leanne, Gabrielle, Deborah and Polly.

The chefs during our practicals:
There were many. These included our regulars, plus the chefs from Basic and Intermediate, as well as non-Parisian LCB chefs and outsiders. All very nice people. Regarding feedback during our presentation of the dishes, there was not always a good feedback. There are still chefs that say too often that it's 'bien' or 'bon travail'. I can't work with that. At all! Actually, there are only 2 or 3 chefs that give proper feedback. When talking to chef Clerque about this subject he explained that he 'knows the problem'. Chefs: Could you please look into this issue? It will help everybody in class.
And when a certain chef is supervising a practical he should NEVER EVER play computer games on his little computer. Every time (yes, every time!) when this chef was in the practical classes he would only play games or even vanish during practicals. He didn't notice people struggling with issues nor did he see people excel during a class; his final comment was always: 'Bon Travail' ! Bollocks! And take his computer off him please. (He's a very nice chef by the way.)

Furthermore, all the chefs speak English these days. Some better than others, but it's great to have a conversation in Franglais or some other mixture of languages. My French still sucks, but I do get the picture when they speak French and I had some great discussions with all the chefs during classes.

The exam set-up:
Great! Only 5 or 6 people in the kitchen during the exam, so there was plenty of space for all of us. The crate with all the ingredients was already set-up for us. We entered the kitchen one at the time, with some time in between. This actually means that everybody could plate their 4 main courses and (in our case) soups hot for the jury.
During my exam, I was in the kitchen with people I'd never cooked with. We had soooooo much fun and stress together! Thank you Ensan, Hendrick, Liam and Miguel. We had some good laughs!

The people working at LCB / the building.
All very nice and helpful. A few have left unfortunately, but everybody is still very nice (to me..). The communicating skills are a bit of a challenge sometimes. Replying to Emails is still very very difficult for some... but I've discussed that before and it hasn't changed at all, unfortunately. There are many comments on blogs/Facebook regarding this issue. They are very helpful to enroll you (read: get the money in), but after that the communicating skills are crap.

My enrolment for Superior went very smooth again, like last year when I started Intermediate. I just filled in a PDF-form and sent it in by Email. Personally, I think they should also ask for 'in case of emergency' details (up-to-date telephone numbers and the right contact address) since that can change from time to time. (LCB was still trying to call me on my old work-mobile even though I'd left a long time ago.)

As I wrote before, the entrance of the school (with the shop and reception area) changed a while ago - and for the better. It certainly looks more organized and professional. The so called 'Winter Garden' is still a crappy place; it's an always-too-hot-room with a few tables. (And yes, I do understand it's an old building.)

I was already used to the kitchens and in my practical group we didn't have any real issues with the equipment. Even the ovens were well calibrated. One of the smaller kitchens could do with a few more pans and bowls.

A big thank you to the dishwasher guys and the cleaning ladies. Thank you Souad, Suzanna, Georges and Jean (and others I might have forgotten!).

The class schedule for Superior Cuisine
Slow! Too slow! I was quite bored sometimes when we only had 1 session a day and too many days off. I do understand that other students are also doing the Pastry next to the Cuisine course, to receive the 'Grand Diplome', but for me these 3 months of only cooking were way too slow.
I certainly prefer the Intensive courses. 3 or sometimes 4 session a day is a lot better, I must say.

Theft (of knives, scrapers and even complete sets!)
Unfortunately it's still very very much present. From those little things that sometimes just turn up in somebody else's knife-kit, to complete knife sets vanishing. Our practical group was great; when somebody would forget something, we'd just give it back the next day.

But there was someone who had her complete knife set stolen on exam-day, just a few minutes before she was about to start. Nasty!
To be honest, things do get stolen because people are not looking after their own stuff and lockers are left open. People even leave complete knife sets in the Winter Garden unattended and then leave briefly. That's asking for trouble. Most actually think that 'in this nice school nobody steals anything'. Well, get real and please look well after your stuff! It can happen to you and knives are expensive (and popular!).

Rungis market tour.
A great (half a) day out and very interesting. Personally, I would have liked to go to the fishmarket, but that wasn't possible. That particular market only runs from midnight until 4 or 5 am. and that's probably way too early for most people....maybe some other time.

The written exam - a new wind is blowing.
The set-up of the exam is still the same. I already explained last year that I don't like this way of doing exams but I guess that's personal. The change is that the director, Mr. Damien Julia, was present during the exam. I must say that he was VERY present! He watched us like a hawk and he warned us up front that he would sanction cheating with a zero mark. Great! Finally no more iPhones and cameras working overtime of people who take the piss out of the exams and cheat all the time. Keep it up!

Class idiots, disturbing students
Unfortunately, there were a few people in class that were 'quite present' (to say the least). As already explained before, chefs should/could do more about that. But what do you do when the chefs have already given up on the behaviour of certain 'students' in class? If somebody is so stupid that she's ruining dishes that chef presents after a demo (before we even have the time to take a photograph the idiot already starts eating the dish). Or when someone's filming almost every class? Or when you're too drunk to sit up straight in your seat? Or when you're ALWAYS late? To cut a long story short: LCB, please take action and send these idiots away - at least during that particular class.

Graduating, not graduating or how to 'arrange' your diploma
I wrote a bit on this subject before in my last review.
Unfortunately two people failed their course this time, one in Cuisine and one in Pastry. But from what we've heard, it was for a (good) reason. Too bad, but better luck next time, they have to do Superior again. Or not......
From what we've heard some time later is that one of the people who failed the pastry course, suddenly did graduate. Eh? Is that possible? There has been quite some correspondence on the internet/Email and Facebook about this subject and rumour is that 'rich and influential daddy talked to the director and LCB reconsidered this persons performance and grades'. If this is true, then it's a disgrace that LCB is even considering it let alone allowing it.
When someone fails the final exam ('It just was not good enough' the pastry chef said out loud when it happened), when your daily performance is crap and when your behaviour is way out of line every day, you do qualify for failing the course. Period.
Come on LCB, this will back-fire big time. LCB has a great reputation but doing these things don't do any good to the school. You don't want your reputation destroyed by people who 'pretend' they finished a certain program successfully. This person even calls herself a 'French Cuisine & Pastry Chef ' on her LinkedIn site.... And it's also very very disrespectful to the chefs and even to all the students. What is my/our diploma worth now? Maybe it works like this in the real world, but I can't say I like it! LCB please think about it.
Enough said.

The Graduation Ceremony

Now, this was a nice afternoon. LCB organized this in the posh 'Cercle de l'Union Interalliée', next to Mr. Sarkozy's office. We, the men that is, had to wear a tie, and that was not that clearly stated on the invitation. But the concierge at the 'Cercle' had a good tie collection available for those who had 'forgotten' their tie....
After a long procedure/ceremony we went for drinks and nibbles. A very nice afternoon, thank you LCB.

WIFI

There is still no wireless internet available to the students. It's up and running in the building but LCB is not giving any access to it. That's too bad, since there are quite a lot of people using a laptop in class and during the breaks. Please give the students access to the wireless Email and internet.
But I must say, the computer room with 3 desktops is great.

Locker Rooms
Yes! The men's locker room has been expanded last Januari. We have 1.5 square meters more now....
In general, both locker rooms (F and M) are way too small. Don't know how LCB can solve this problem quickly, but it's certainly an issue. And nowadays, each student is only assigned one locker. (Don't take two as I suggested before..... but if there are lockers 'left over', why not...?)

Wouldn't this be nice..... ? Ha,ha !

Another point to look into is the quality of the lock on the door of the locker. I mean the metal bit that you connect the padlock to. With some lockers you can open the door by just turning this metal bit - even when the padlock is on - and the door is open. It would be nice if LCB could look into that and fix that.

The school party
This time the school party was sort of at the end of the course. A nice evening in a club in central Paris. But wouldn't it be a lot nicer if LCB organises this at the beginning of the course? In that case you get to know each other a lot quicker!

Signing up for the LCB alumni website
That's a no go! This alumni website doesn't work or there is no response to any applications from (ex) students by LBC. Too many people have tried to sign-up, but ALL gave up after a few tries...

Would I do it again? Will I recommend doing the Cuisine diploma?
In one word: YES! I would definitely do it again (not that I need to!) if I had the opportunity and the money. LCB courses don't come cheap at all, but I loved every minute of it. Of course things go with up-and-downs, recipes are great and bad, I met loads of great people, some idiots, and of course some things or issues are just personal. And we all have our good and bad days.
But yes, I liked it a lot and I must say I've learned a lot of kitchen stuff, recipes, techniques, procedures and other skills as well.

For me, the whole Cordon Bleu experience has been life changing. I'd been unhappy in my former chemical job for many years, and now I have found something that I really enjoy doing. So be warned..... Cordon Bleu could change your life!

Because of my blog and the reviews that I've written about my LCB adventures, I regularly receive Emails with questions from future students from all over the world. Some have really specific questions about the course or (cooking) life in Paris and I've always answered them with enthusiasm and with an honest answer. Some people I have Emailed with are now following a course or have been to LCB already! (From NL (a few), HK, US (a few), E, CH, UK) That's just great. I seem to have become a bit of an LCB ambassador...

How does this Cuisine course fit in the real (kitchen) life?
At the moment I work in a professional kitchen. This is a kitchen of a good (fish) restaurant, a hotel and a banqueting section, so it's busy. I've seen lots of things already that I've learned (or just seen) at LCB, but only now 'I get it'.
LCB could explain a bit more how it works in a real kitchen. Why not explain (in detail) why you use a blast chiller so often, certain mixers, vacuum techniques, steaming dishes etc etc. !? Please explain WHY people have to be assistant for a week during the course. We all understand why we have to learn to chop properly, but you only learn the real knife skills in a professional kitchen. Mine have improved a lot already! Just 'brunoised' 11 crates of sea bass fillets for a nice starter....
I must say that I'm not doing that bad in the professional kitchen, but it's only now that I understand some of the things I've learned in Paris. All in all, the things I learned (and already knew) are very useful.

Before I forget - when you graduate, even after the Basic certificate, people think you can cook! (And some students also thìnk they can cook and that they are already a great chef - even after they've 'only' done Basic Cuisine.....) Well, let me tell you, you just did a nice course and that's just the beginning of it. So please, cook a lot, practice, practice, practice and you'll get better. And - taste, taste, taste, taste! Do try to get some experience in a professional kitchen. That helps a lot.
And tell your friends and family that you still want to visit them for a NORMAL dinner, since they all think you are a critical chef now who only cooks on a high level... (Some are even afraid to cook for you now....) They also expect a posh dinner when they visit you. We all know that that's ridiculous, so explain to them that you also eat 'simple' stuff. Sounds familiar?

Other Blogs, reviews, LCB cuisine adventures
There are many many blogs available on the internet with stories and comments about the Cordon Bleu courses and life in Paris. As you know, I've written 3 blogs already, Basic, Intermediate and Superior with feedback. (Please click on the links for more information.)
For those of you who are interested in attending the Parisian school, or just want some background info on 'LCB life', here are some great web links to start with:
(All blogs are recently written, 2009/2010: Scroll all the way down in these blogs and start reading...)

Mark M. wrote a good review last year. Click here for the link. Nice stories about his adventures in Paris. (Mark did Intensive Basic Cuisine in Nov/Dec 2009)
Anthony F. is still at the school and doing the Cuisine Diplome. Great detailed and funny blog, with lots of pictures. (2009-2010). Anthony is also doing the Wine Program. One of the better blogs!
Carolyn G. is also doing the Cuisine program and will graduate this August. (2009-2010)
Meredith G. has just graduated. She was one of my classmates in Superior Cuisine. She did the 'Grand Diplome', both Pastry and Cuisine. (2009-2010)
Sarah D. finished pastry in 2010.
Mirjam v. R. just finished intensive Basic Cuisine. (summer 2010) including lots of pictures.
Will R. , a classmate, wrote some articles about his adventures during the Cuisine course (2009-2010)
And Jen is still writing about the Pastry course she's doing in Paris at the moment. (2010)

There are so many more Blogs, Facebook pages, Hyves, Twitter and other things available on the web that I can't give you a full list. Please enjoy these links and just 'Google' the rest yourself. And if you do have any questions, please do not hesitate to send me an Email and ask anything you want!

Thank you!
@ LCB: Bruno, Fréderic, Patrick 1, Marc, Franck, Philippe, Patrick 2, 'La Petite', guest chefs, Xavier, Patrick 3, JF and JJ, Amélie, Karine, Thomás, Vincent, Juliette, Pouy-San, Damian, Céline, Kaye, Jean-Luc, Christine, Setsuko, Bérénice, Sandra, Suzanna, Souad, Catharine, Janine, Leanne, Ben, Polly, Deborah, Gabrielle, Georges and Jean - and all the others that I might have forgotten...
And to all students I met during my adventures in Paris: Thank you! It's been great fun indeed.

Have I forgotten something?
If I have forgotten something in this review, please feel free to contact me and tell me about it. Also if you have questions regarding LCB cuisine courses, (cooking) life in Paris, housing etc etc, do send me an Email. I'll try to answer your questions the best I can.

Thanks for reading my blog, your comments, recipe input and all your support !
Au revoir, Sjoerd

Chef de carotte, chef de big quantities (bucket cookery!)

2010-08-04T22:22:00.000+02:00

And I love it ! As of 1st August, I am sort of busy in the kitchen of the Grand Hotel/Bridges restaurant in Amsterdam. It's been quite a week, to say the least. Let me give you a quick update what I've been doing:

peeling and chopping carottes; crate after crate...
vacuum packing duck, chicken and cook the stuff at low temperatures
help out serving the amuse-bouche (appetizer)
make mirepoix
chop up herbs
serve a bunch of Americans... (180 people)
peel more carrots
cut and deep fry lotus-root
make toast/croutons
fry lamb/duck on a one square meter frying plate
chop more herbs
get clean pans
finely chop loads of shallots
wash up
plate up for lunch (180 people)
cut and wash baby lettuce
peel peas
clean and de-skin mackerel
make yellow-fin tuna tartare
make a crudité (sticks of cucumber, daikon and carrot - mandolin....)
slice the scallops thinly
chop up more shallots
wash and slice a cate of spuds; steam
chop 20 bunches of spring onions
wash and blanch paksoy
fry rice (15 kg!?) with mixed vegetables and egg
make omelette (60 eggs - 15 minutes....)
vacuum pack fennel with stock, butter and seasoning; cook and cool off quickly
finish salmon in oven (150+ portions; serve!)
cut artichokes (already cleaned!!! )
get more clean pans
thinly slice more spring onions
discuss an amuse-bouche set-up for customers
wash up again
peel, slice, cut, dice, mirepoix more carrots (I'm chef de carotte by now!)
and probably a lot more that I already forgot....

Right now I have a few days off; Back to work this Sunday, then next week 'only' two days, and then it's going to be busy; 6 days in a row. Normally a shift is from 11.00-23.00, but sometimes chef changes that into a new schedule - 10.00 to 'unknown'.... nice. But it's great ! Every bit of it. I guess.... my back hurts, my arms, my legs, my feet and the rest of my body is 'tired'. As I said, I love it.

New job !

2010-07-25T16:35:00.004+02:00

I HAVE A JOB !!!

As of the 1st August, I've been offered a (paid !) job at a very nice restaurant in Amsterdam. Please have a look at (fish) Restaurant Bridges. It is located along one of the canals in the city centre. The restaurant is part of the Sofitel hotel group, and is based in the Grand Hotel in Amsterdam.
I had a job interview last Wednesday, and chef offered me a trial-day in their kitchen. I did that last Friday on the 12 hour shift from 11.00 - 23.00 .... my, what was I tired after that. But I loved every minute of it.
Chef made me work on the oysters, amuse bouche, peeling veggies like peas/carrot/cucumber/daikon, slicing the scallops, preparing sous vide chicken dish, deep frying some Renkon/Lotus root slices, cleaning/slicing mackerel and much more. Looking back now, I was quite surprised what chef allowed me to do on such a trial day and at the end of the evening I was offered a job to work in their kitchen. Details will be filled in next week.
It will probably be a schedule of 4 working days and then 3 days off. 12 hours a day in the kitchen.....

Please also have a look at their menu; It looks super and they work with high quality products - especially the fish. The restaurant received great reviews in the papers (in Dutch), magazines and websites.
I'm very excited about this next step in my life. And thank you all for your support !

Sjoerd (no chef - yet! ha,ha.)
Update Thursday 29th July; starting this Sunday, 1st August. Really looking forward to it!

Away on a bread baking course in Scotland !

2010-07-10T15:44:00.001+02:00

Bread baking in Scotland? Yes, we're going to West Linton, about 20 km South of Edinburgh. We'll be learning about making country-style breads, croissants, 'mini' breads, the economics behind it, setting up a bakery and much more.
The company is called 'Bread Matters', please check it out HERE !

This means, that I won't be updating the blog for a few days. Sorry about that. Please be patient! I'll be back.....
Sjoerd

Lesson 22; crunchy veggies, fusion cuisine and macarons ! yummie !!

2010-07-06T10:06:00.000+02:00

This was a strange lesson; For a starter, chef Terrien made crunchy vegetables with peas and a peppermint sorbet, for mains he called the dish fusion cuisine, combining Spanish, Asian and French influences and for dessert chef made typical French macaroons....... strange combinations indeed !

The starter could be used in the exam. Since 'a soup' is on the exam list, we could make a pea soup. The trick is to shell all (!) the peas for more flavour (or press the cooked peas through a drum sieve). The crunchy vegetables are served cold, so I guess the soup is also served cold (with the sorbet.) - but I can't really remember....

Then the interesting fusion dish. Roasted thick cod fillet, gazpacho with basil and eggplant paupiettes. This was nice. Very tasty and easy to make. This was also our practical, and I ate it all !
It looks a bit messy on the plate; Plating skills...

We used one aubergine to make the stuffing for the second aubergine..... as you do... So, put one scored aubergine with slices of garlic in it and some olive oil/salt/thyme in the oven at 180 degC for about 20 minutes - when done, scoop out the flesh and put that with some sauteed onion and breadcrumbs in slices of sauteed aubergine. Roll it up and keep warm. Tasty!
The vegetable skewers that go with it are funny. Cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, chorizo (?!), bell pepper and courgette on a skewer. Interesting combination. The gazpacho was nice. Basically, you put everything in a blender and cool it down. Served luke-warm.
All these strange combinations actually tasted very good. I've made the main course already at home. Nice!

Macaroons; Or macarons. Tricky. Frustrating. Chef said he wasn't that good with it, but I think he did a great job. Nice and smooth batter and the end-result was a great dessert. We've tried to make macaroons at home last week. 5 times already..... and most of it went straight into the bin ! I mean, it was edible, but the shape and consistency was way off. Bugger. We have to try again, it's becoming frustrating now. But I will succeed in making a proper macaroon!

You only need powdered sugar, ground almonds, some egg whites and normal sugar to make a macaroon. So it can't be that difficult. Well, it is!
Chef served this with fennel ice cream. Fennel ice cream??? Yes, and it tasted surprisingly delicious.
Thank you chef for an interesting tasting.
Until next time!

Escabėche de rouget, blancs de pintade et blancmange aux fruit de saison. oh, la,la, c'est bon!

2010-07-02T12:49:00.002+02:00

Lesson 21;
LCB calls it 'modern cuisine'. The main course that is. I'll get back on that later.
Chef Lesourd was cooking for us today. That's the little one on the right hand-side in the picture ... he's a great chef, he has super dessert plating skills and he's always talking about little tricks of the trade, selling gadgets and it's just fun to work with him.

For a starter, chef made red mullet 'escabeche' with fennel cream. The fennel cream is easy: Just put some sweated fennel (cooked) with creme fraiche in the blender. An 'escabeche' is a cooked marinade we use for the fish that consists of a brunoise of carrot, fennel and onion, some garlic, vinegar, a bit of herbs (and a bonus: saffron!)
When still warm, pour over the fish fillets. It's best to do that 24 hrs in advance. I can't remember if the dish was served hot or cold - I'd say cold, but I'm not sure. The colourful marinade can be used as a garnish; served on top of a blanched fennel leaf.

Then our 'modern cuisine'..... Guinea fowl breast cooked on the bone with lemon grass 'fricandeau' of legs and a mushroom flan. Well, modern.... I don't think so...

You start with the standard procedure: Take the fowl, burn the feathers off (it also kills all the bacteria!), cut off the wings, take the wishbone out, cut off the legs (watch the oyster). Debone the legs and take the skin off. Chop off the backside of the carcass for the jus. The supremes are left on the breast bone for further cooking. So far so good. This was easy!

Of course we use the leftover bones and carcass to make a jus.

The meatballs in this dish are made from chorizo, mascarpone, left-over leg meat, some basil leaves and breadcrumbs. Fry the little balls (oh yeah!) in oil/butter. Don't cremate the stuff, just light-brown please.

The little flan is made with duxelles and cream. When the breasts (still on the bone) are cooked in the oven at 170 degC, slice the supreme off the breast bone with the knife. Actually, I thought it was a tasty dish, certainly no modern cuisine (more like old fashioned to me). But it was nice. Thanks chef! My practical for this went really well.

Le dessert; A fruit mixture with a mojito sorbet and a jasmine tuile.

This very refreshing dish was really really nice. There's not much to say about chopping up fruit, making a mojito and cooking a tuile. The blancmange is made from milk, almond milk and agar-agar. To make a frothy foam, just use a 'giraffe' blender. Bon appetite !

Leçon dix-neuf et vingt. (Early May)

2010-07-01T14:36:00.000+02:00

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.

Lesson 18, our second atelier (workshop).

2010-06-25T12:51:00.002+02:00

I was looking forward to this workshop. This is the second workshop we had and I was not as nervous as I was for the first one.
This time we have to use sea bream, veal tenderloin, sweetbreads, caul fat, artichoke, spinach, beetroot, cauliflower, pearl onions and asparagus. On top of that, there is a wide selection of vegetables, oil, wine, herbs and spices available.

I'm not that keen on the sweetbreads, I think they're tasteless 'waste' food, but at least I know what to do with the stuff. (soak, membrane off etc - pan fry/deep fry)
Some background on sweetbreads: It's a long-time foodie favorite, many, many people still have not tried them, or even know what they are. To be honest I can’t say I blame them with a name like sweetbreads. I mean, they are neither sweet, nor are they anything resembling bread.

So what are they? Well, as eloquently as I can put it, sweetbreads are the thymus glands of young veal, pork and lamb. That’s right, today we’ll be learning about eating thymus glands! Yuk! Here’s what they look like:

Now we can get these thymus glands from two places, the first is just below the throat of the animal, and the other is near the heart, which are generally more prized and more expensive as many consider them to have a better flavour. Enough about this stuff...

I decided to make a (raw) sea bream carpaccio on top of cold asparagus, a drizzle of (fish) sauce around it and a mixed herb salad and a vinaigrette for a starter.

For mains I did a grenadin. (That's a nice veal steak.) Use the trimmings for the jus, make a pepper crust for the veal, a cauliflower flan, 'packages' of spinach/lemon zest, fried sweetbreads (clarified butter, espelette pepper) and some cooked pearl onions. Easy on the pepper for the crust; It can be very overpowering! I think I did OK with this whole dish. Little chef, la petite, thought it was OK. Not super, not bad.

Not surprisingly, we all make something completely different again. These workshops are a great way to practice for the final exam. Here is an impression of the results. (I have more pictures available for those who want to see more.)

Dishes during the course, 22-29 April; 3 demo's.

2010-06-24T12:20:00.000+02:00

Part 2. Lesson 15, 16 and 17.
Let's start with a few pictures.

starter: baby calamari with chorizo, bell peppers and rocket pesto. A nice summer dish.

A creapy handicapped looking squab.... It just looks funny. Deboned and stuffed, cooked in a cocotte with pork belly (and lots of garlic!)

Dessert: bitter chocolate soft-centered cake with arabica sorbet. Very,very nice indeed!

(recipe on request....)

Lesson 16;

Then chef made something with (greasy) fish; Sole, a very nice fish. Easy to make, but I thought it was a bit of a waste of a good fish to 'let it swim like this in the sauce'. I know that it's all about the style and technique, but I didn't like the presentation of this this. I skipped the corresponding practical.....

starter; haddock, mackerel and potato terrine with dill and a horseradish sauce. The makerel is poached the night before. Haddock is always smoked in France, so please pay attention when you buy this.

It's best to make dishes like this well in advance, it's better to let it rest overnight in the fridge to get more flavour.

An avocado sorbet for dessert. A what?? Yes, and it was surprisingly good. Served with a mango and pineapple chutney (French style) and shortbread pastry sticks.

Lesson 17; Let's start with dessert!

Sauternes wine jelly with a marbled lemon sorbet and a balsamic jus. A very refreshing dessert. Presentation: one round piece of sorbet or two small(er) strips.

Pan-fried monkfish, a vegetable puree of parsnip, Jerusalem artichokes (and lots of beurre et creme) and potato crisps.
Crips are made with waxy potatoes, like BF15. Peal, cook well and dry out in the oven at 140degC. Puree the lot, pass through a drum sieve (and add butter when warm!) Lay a bit on a sylpat and roll out very thinly. Sprinkle with fleur de sel and sesame- or poppy seeds and put in the oven at 150degC. (option: mix a bit of parsnip puree with the potato puree for more flavour!)

Crisp langoustines with a citrus emulsion, olive oil and wasabi for the starter. Chef Terrien had a creative moment...

I liked this starter, very light and tasty (spicy!). The kadaif pastry we use here is Turkish and made from cornstarch, flour, water and salt. Presented with a herb salad; That's easy - mix chervil, flat leaf parsley, tarragon, lemon grass, mint and marjoraml. Add a bit of herb-vinaigrette (last minute) with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice.

tip: For a nice herb vinaigrette: reduce a bit of orange juice (strained!). Put basil leaves, coriander, few spinach leaves for extra colour (all herbs chopped up), wasabi and a pinch of salt in the blender. Blend with olive oil and the cold reduced orange juice.
(You can add a little bit of water if needed.) Check seasoning. Result: Green, spicy vinaigrette.

Next is our second atelier (lesson 18) with sea bream, veal tenderloin, sweetbreads, caul fat, artichoke, spinach, beetroot, cauliflower, pearl onions and asparagus.

Dishes during the course.

2010-06-23T10:16:00.000+02:00

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...

Lesson 14. Classic cuisine.
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

Message from Le Cordon Bleu - the graduation June 2010

2010-06-14T20:40:00.001+02:00

Le Cordon Bleu Paris graduation ceremonies took place on June 3 and 4, 2010. The graduation for the basic and intermediate cuisine and pastry levels was held at the school and ended with a buffet prepared by the chefs. The superior level ceremony took place at the prestigious private club Le Cercle de l'Union Interalliée.

We are proud to announce the top five students from each level:

BASIC CUISINE

* 1st: Hubert Ly, France - Distinction
* 2nd: Wonhoo Lee, South Korea - Distinction
* 3rd: Leonardo Silva Carvalho, Brazil - Distinction
* 4th: Sarah Gill, United Kingdom - Distinction
* 5th: Josée Caron, Canada - Distinction

BASIC PASTRY

* 1st: Ban Tell, Jordan
* 2nd: Wang Ting Cheng, Taiwan
* 3rd: Mohsen Abedi Jazini, Iran
* 4th: Loredana Cunti-Mayr Harting, Canada
* 5th: Yee Men Chong, Singapore

INTERMEDIATE CUISINE

* 1st: Hitomi Saito, Japan - Distinction
* 2nd: Bruna Amaral, Brazil - Special mention from the Jury
* 3rd: Michele Maino, Italy - Special mention from the Jury
* 4th: Mayuko Okada, Japan - Special mention from the Jury
* 5th: Blanca Garcia de Sola Cabello de Alba, Spain - Special Mention from the Jury

INTERMEDIATE PASTRY

* 1st: Naomi Lee, United Kingdom - Distinction
* 2nd: Blanca Garcia de Sola Cabello de Alba, Spain - Distinction
* 3rd: Dimitrios Karabatsos, United States
* 4th: Jean-Sébastien Clapié, France
* 5th: Noor Kandiel, Saudi Arabia

SUPERIOR CUISINE

* 1st: Mayra Toledo, Brazil - Distinction
* 2nd: Joeson Ramos, Italy - Special mention from the Jury
* 3rd: Melissa Lombardi, United States - Special mention from the Jury
* 4th: Maya Patnaik, India
* 5th: Tatiana Bykovskaya, Russia

SUPERIOR PASTRY

* 1st: Mayra Toledo, Brazil
* 2nd: Jong-In Park, South Korea
* 3rd: Paula Silva e Silva, Brazil
* 4th: Amandine Madelaine, France
* 5th: Sachiyo Yamamoto, Japan

Also a Special mention from the Jury to Meaghan Cherny from United States.

Congratulations to all of our students! For those of you who are not attending the next level we hope to see you in the near future and for those who continue, keep up the good work!

For more information about Le Cordon Bleu Programs, visit lcbparis.com

And no, I wasn't in the top 5.....
Sjoerd
PS: Well done Sarah - Basic Cuisine with distinction! Justice...

The menu of Superior Cuisine - March/June 2010

2010-06-14T10:58:00.000+02:00

I've had a few requests to publish the list of the menus that the chefs made in Superior Cuisine this semester - so here we go; If you see anything interesting you'd like to make at home, and you want some background info (the recipe - my interpretation...) just send me an Email. (click on the picture for a larger image. The images are not of the best quality, sorry about that, but it's good enough to get an idea of what we did in Superior Cuisine.)

Picture time, part 2 ! The graduation.

2010-06-08T12:36:00.002+02:00

Leanne and Philippe.

With the chefs.

Barbara and husband visiting. Thank you for the nice presents!

The top 5 in cuisine and pastry.

Moi, with Enzan.

Picture time, part 1 ! An overview of exam (fish) dishes.

2010-06-08T12:31:00.001+02:00

Here are a few pictures of the exam dishes we made; The chef and the jury gave us some feedback during this session.

Flying toques! Graduated !

2010-06-07T16:12:00.003+02:00

Et après, un petit peut de champagne...

On the Thalys train now - Amsterdam here we come!

2010-06-06T13:00:00.003+02:00

We're on the train at the moment. Going through the northern part of France at 300 km/hr. The last few days in Paris were great and very hot. It's a lot cooler now, since we had a bit of rain this morning.
I'll post some more later tomorrow; Running out of batteries now and the electricity on the train is not working... Tonight a small party at Mike's in Amsterdam!
Sj
Update 16.30 hr; HOME ! It's great to be back in our own house with a very green garden. Tonight, we're going out for dinner - no cooking! Mike is organising a party, he'll cook, I guess....

Enjoying Paris...

2010-06-03T23:02:00.002+02:00

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday have been great. Finally, I have some free time to do ‘nothing’, Jayne is here, and since yesterday Ron and Pauline (Jayne’s parents) are here. They flew in from England with a nice 4 hour delay from Leeds... On Wednesday, we picked them up from the airport and brought them to their apartment near the Eiffel Tower. This is the place where I used to stay during my basic and intermediate course!.

On Wednesday evening we went out for dinner at a local resto (‘Lola’) and Thursday we went to LCB to do a small tour through the school. Everybody at the school was very nice and helpful to show us around and let us taste a few nibbles that were made for the graduation of basic and intermediate people that day. Thank you!

After that, we went shopping at Rue Montmartre and surroundings (cookery shops!). We also went shopping at Tiffany’s, near Place Vendome’. That was very nice indeed.

Dinner at my place. Simple!

Pictures to follow later. Tomorrow is my graduation at 15.00 hrs. Some posh place near Sarkozy’s office....

A demain, Sjoerd

Finished! I did it, plated on time and graduated!

2010-06-01T11:59:00.002+02:00

Just a quick update; I graduated yesterday ! It was actually a nice 4 hr session, with only 5 of us the kitchen: Enzan, Hendrick, Liam, Miguel and me. The assistents helped us nicely with cleaning and taking care of extra ingredients.
The last hour went by so quickly, I can't even remember. I ran around the kitchen..... but I finished on time. The judges were happy with my plate I guess, because after a few minutes chef told me that ' it was OK' .
After finishing, Jayne came into the kitchen and gave me a nice beer! Thank you! What a way to finish the exam.

Finished! Time for a beer.

Here are some pictures of the final plates:more pictures later.

The three 'cuisine judges'.

Fighting for a beer...

I'll keep you posted on more news and pictures! A demain, Sj

Update Tuesday: Unfortunately, 2 people failed the exam, 1 in pastry and 1 in cuisine.

The weekend practicing a bit and 'le menu en Francais' !

2010-05-30T14:16:00.005+02:00

It’s been a weekend of practicing a few garnishes. Making a puree, stuffed confit tomatoes and something with lettuce. I decided not to buy any fish because I know what to do with it anyway. So I bought HUGE steaks instead, yes, more than one! Nice.

The biggest struggle of this weekend was to write down the menu in French. In French ? Yes!!! Are they mad at LCB? I don’t know why we should do this, but it’s totally useless. I mean, all the lessons are translated into English, and all the chefs do understand some English. Maybe it’s ‘history’ because the superior class wasn’t always translated or maybe it’s because of the ‘old’ judges – they probably don’t speak English.... Anyway, it caused me some trouble, and Jayne helped me out big time!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you !

I also have to make a drawing of my final dish, so I went to the Monoprix supermarket to buy some pencils. That a job for this evening!

My menu for tomorrow’s final: Filet de turbot ‘artistique’ aux diamants avec une garniture de tomate confite remplie de ratatouille, une purée de pommes de terre et des petits pois, laitue farcie avec du poivron rouge et mini calamars farcis avec des bâtons de poivron rouge. Le plat sera accompagné avec un beurre blanc ‘herbes et Noilly Prat’.

Doesn’t that sound nice ?

On top of all this we have to make a soup, to be served in 4 shot glasses. I’ll be making an asparagus soup with a cheese foam on top and a dried thin slice of ventreche (pancetta).

I’ll be in class tomorrow from 13.20 – 17.20 hrs.

A demain, Sjoerd

Il pleut ! practice for exam, trying to relax a bit and shopping for moulds.

2010-05-27T12:06:00.004+02:00

Yes, it rains in Paris. Again. And how nice it is that it’s a lot cooler now.

The last few days were really nice, but hot. Too hot. You can only imagine what it will be like in the kitchens during the summer. Hot, extremely hot!

Yesterday evening I tried two things again: The asparagus soup, that was sort of OK, but I’m still not too happy about it, and I did de-shell peas again (therapy or the perfect internship-job) and made the perfect puree. Eat that ! I also went shopping for small Inox ring moulds at Mora, Bovida, Dehillerin and Simon, but nothing/rien/nada/niks/pas du tout. They didn’t have anything close to what I was looking for. So I will go to the school today to see what they’ve got left in the basement... I do need these moulds to present my puree ‘tower’ at the exam. And LCB admin gave me a nice letter of recommendation, signed by the cuisine chefs; That was really nice of them.

And... yesterday it was our last demo! Chef Terrien was in charge and before he started cooking, he wished us all good luck for the exam and the future. At the end of every semester, there’s champagne served at the last demo.

Well, something with bubbles in a plastic cup, but it was nice. Funny thing is, when there’s champagne, suddenly a lot of chefs ‘just pop up’ out of nowhere to join us. We saw Terrien, Clerque, Poupard, Caals, Lebouc, but we ‘missed’ mr.Ego from pastry....

Starter.

Yesterday’s menu: a shot glass of goat cheese and oven roasted veggies, for mains, chef made veal loin in a salt crust (Intermediate cuisine style...) with a vegetable spaghetti and souffleed spuds (nice!)

And for dessert we had pears cooked in caramel and carambar ice cream.

dessert.

The program for today and tomorrow: write down the whole menu in detail how it is prepared - IN FRENCH ! That's going to be a challenge... And I also have to make a drwawing of the plate I'm going to deliver at the exam, in colour... it's not over yet!

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

2010-05-25T20:54:00.002+02:00

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.

2010-05-25T20:48:00.003+02:00

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.

Practice, practice, practice...

2010-05-24T17:36:00.005+02:00

I’m doing the dishes for my exam at the moment; As you know it’s turbot, a very nice flat-fish. So, yesterday evening I practiced my fake turbot. I went to the Sunday market at Dupleix, but they only sold HUGE turbot fish (at least 35-40 euro per fish). So I decided to buy a turbot look-a-like: Brill. Same texture, smaller and cheaper (yes Mark, cheaper!)

Cheap... I'm not like him, but Paris is soooooo expensive...

I tried two different cooking styles for the fish. Cooking it ‘on the bone’ and filleting first and then cook it with a special forcemeat/topping. Interesting results... I’ll explain in another blog-post.

I also tried two different garnishes, the simple ones; something with lettuce and something with the (mini) calamari.

Mon Calamari, different style (from Star Wars)

I still have to decide which one I’m going to use;

Tonight: practice evening for the Verrine in a shot-glass and two garnishes. The shot-glass has to be filled with a (drinkable, as in ‘liquid’) soup, served either cold or warm. I’m working on asparagus soup at the moment. It’s asparagus soup because it is the season for it, but also because many people in class will do some kind of pea/lettuce soup, which is very French. And I want to do something else.... Regarding the garnishes, I’ll try to make some descent purees and combine the two (or maybe not).

A puree made from... little green 'pea kids'...

Tomorrow we have a double practical to practice our exam. I’ll try to aim for a 4 hour project to make two plates (different styles) and two shot-glasses with soup. I’ll also try to make some extra garnishes; just to see if it works with the fish. and it’s hot in Paris....and it's worse in ze kitchen..

Until tomorrow, Sjoerd

Update: My first attempt of the soup wasn’t that bad, but I’m not completely happy with the final result. Too ‘milky’ and too salty. I’ll try again!

Demo 28 & 29 on Saturday from 8.00 - 15.30....

2010-05-22T21:50:00.002+02:00

Saturday – 2 demo’s ! Are they mad at Le Cordon Bleu? The first one started at 8.30... and after an hour’s break, we had the second one at 12.30 until 15.30.

It was quite a difficult morning in class because my neighbours, opposite my apartment, had a party until 5 ‘o clock this morning. Students...

Today, it was chef Philippe Clergue’s last demo. The final one, number 30, next week on Wednesday, will be given by chef Terrien.

Well, today’s recipes were:

Lesson 28, starter crabmeat in jelly with (molecular gastronomy style) pea pearls. For mains chef made filet de boeuf en gratin gourmand, aux champignons, croquettes de pommes de terre, asperges vertes et blanches au beurre – in short: beef with asparagus! And for dessert he made Tonka Bean panna cotta with cherries.

The most interesting bit was the molecular ‘cooking’, the pea pearls. Chef used Algin and Calcic to make these. Algin comes from brown algae and it can do magic tricks in/with water. Calcic is needed to perform a trick to make droplets; check out this link for making mango droplets; chef did the same with peas;

It was hot in class today; And everybody looked tired. I guess we all showed up just for some possible exam info....

Lesson 29;

· Langoustine consommé with veggies

· Semi-wild duckling with a parmentier

· Watermelon jelly with melon, mint and Sauternes wine cocktail.

Not bad, not special. Allthough the consommé was nice, until chef put gelatine in it. What a waste of a nice soup, but he wanted to make a jelly, so you actually need to use the stuff. Today we got some ideas about plating dishes again, making a good pea puree and making a good potato puree. Exam stuff...

I went home knackered, did some shopping on the way (artichokes, fruit and wine) and fell asleep when I got home. At 7 ‘o clock I started to prepare the rabbit legs that I took home from school yesterday. Just finished dinner; not bad...

Tomorrow, I’ll be going to the market and buy some fish to practice for the exam. I’ll keep you posted!

Sjoerd

La petite chef - not bad at all.

2010-05-22T00:24:00.000+02:00

The mini chef;

She's good, has a good pallet, she's only little - even with her chefs hat on - she's nice and she gives super feedback during the practicals. And she's the only female chef at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and certainly the youngest. She speaks French with us and sometimes a little bit of English. We call her a guest chef.

'La Petite' doesn't give demos, that's only for the Cordon Bleu staff. She's Korean and has done the Grand Diplome, did some other culinary stuff in Paris and worked for chef Robuchon (2* Michelin) - so she must be really good...

Yes, I do like her in the practicals; Especially the feedback she gives us. She sometimes stares at a plate for a minute or so, then wipes it completely clean and starts plating herself in a different way - just to give you some ideas. Wonderful ! I still write 'she', because nobody knows her name... even after all these months...

Making fun of Ms.'sweet sweet' David...

(pictures from Will's blog - check it out! )

Last normal practical (No27) today- one atelier and the exam to go!

2010-05-21T22:42:00.003+02:00

Today, we had one practical, rabbit legs stuffed with minced veal, herbs and breadcrumbs. Chop, chop, chop, cut, trim, cut some more, remove some bones and push the forcemeat inside. And finally, my favourite – NOT - wrap the leg in caul fat.... (pigs stomach). Put in the oven and plate nicely. Served with endive and some slices of polenta. It wasn’t that bad actually.

We only used the legs this time ! (The rabbit's legs that is....)

Not everybody showed up in this practical today. The hours before, some us had a class in sugar pulling. They were very tired, had dirty clothes and just didn’t feel like showing up for just a rabbit’s-leg.

Tomorrow we have 2 demos in a row, no 28 and 29. The corresponding practical is next Tuesday, which is actually our ‘atelier’, or workshop, for the exam. In this double practical we can practice our final dishes that we want to prepare in the grand final. So, that means that today we had our LAST normal practical session. The rest is related to the final! Was did it all go quickly in the end!

Paris is nice these days; Lots of sunshine, 20+degC, everybody is smiling, people dress nicely (ha,ha). And lots of beautiful flowers in the parks. In the coming days I will not see much of all this – I will be practicing the final dish a few times at home. I’ll be going to the market this weekend and next week to buy some turbot and vegetables in order to practice.

For me, exam day is the Monday 31^st May. My session starts at 13.20 hrs and finishes at exactly 17.20 hrs. We’ll be with only 5 or 6 in the kitchen, which is nice. Normally it’s 10 people... More about the final later, including my menu and maybe the recipes as well...

Off to bed now, tomorrow class starts at 8.15 hrs...

A demain! Sjoerd

Today one demo and the written exam

2010-05-19T14:02:00.004+02:00

Wednesday;

Chef Clergue is back from his ‘Down Under’ tour. He visited Adelaide and LCB Sydney. Chef was away for 3 weeks, and I kind of missed him in class. I missed his wine advice and his excellent demos. And in the practicals he’d give you lots of great advice,

unlike our always computer playing and shouting ‘mon ami, vous etes bien’ chef T. from Intermediate cuisine.

Today’s demo was about oysters, served hot or cold, a veal chop dish ‘en cocotte’- in a cast iron pot - (served pink) with a nice colourful vegetable mix and for dessert a cake with some soft chocolate inside. All nicely presented at the end of the demo.

Well, I’m studying again this early afternoon. I have a few hours off, before we start on our written exam at 15.30. That’s all about (6) ingredient lists, background information of setting up a restaurant business and all the terms and information the chefs gave us in class. Shouldn’t be that difficult.... I hope....

A demain! Sj

PS: update 23.30 hrs; I think I did sort of OK for the exam. Something has changed at LCB: the new director was keeping an eye on things during the exam, like a hawk - no cheating any more or... well, you get it ! We even had to change into our FULL uniform, including the safety shoes.

Studying, sleepless night(s), exam dishes and written exam.

2010-05-18T00:04:00.000+02:00

There's a lot going on at the moment. The school schedule is not that bad, 1 or 2 sessions a day, even the odd day off, but we also have our written exam coming up this Wednesday and on the 31st May we have our MOST IMPORTANT practical exam. That last thing will give you sleepless nights! Oh yeah!
I have (too) many ideas and quite a few of you readers have given me some great input so far, but I'm still not sure what to make for my final exam.

As you know, we have to make a starter (soup, cold or hot) in a shot glass, and a main course with turbot. But it's quite difficult to come up with a balanced plate! Not too much, some colour, some height, some..... well, everything. So I'm struggling a bit and I don't sleep that well.....
Any 'exam input' is very welcome, thanks.

until tomorrow. Tuesday, I have a day off to study...I might even go to the hairdresser (not gay) .... or maybe not...

One of those dinners....

2010-05-17T23:49:00.000+02:00

I went shopping at the Dupleix market last Sunday ; I mean, I do have to practice my exam dishes, but I just couln't resist...... the rest!

I bought some good fish, a dozen of oysters, asparagus and some wine. So..... that was a pretty good meal! And cheap!

A demain! moi

Verrines practicing evening

2010-05-15T23:34:00.002+02:00

I tried two verrines (shot glasses/ starter/ amuse bouche / whatever) tonight, recipes thanks to Levi, who was in intermediate with me last year.

He doing an internship in Reims at the moment and I think he’s seen some pretty nice dishes in his restaurant until now. He had some good ideas and I prepared two nice verrines ‘my way’ !

I didn’t know what to do actually, so I just tried something. The result was not too bad. One of the dishes had a bit too many olives in it, so I’ll try to make that dish again soon.

And I actually put the pea/lettuce verrine stuff in the food processor.... don’t know if this was the original idea, but it tasted ‘damn nice’ , as Damien, my former classmate would say. And I seasoned it well; judiciously!

Then I prepared the lamb saddle I took from school today; I deboned it, trimmed it (fat off), made a stuffing of vegetables and finely chopped meat trimmings, sautéed it, put it in the oven, let it rest and thinly sliced it. Few glasses of wine later.... It was goooooooooooooood !

I also bought new batches of asparagus, brunoise (onion, leek, carrot) and some calamari and whiting. Tomorrow more practicing!

Sjoerd

the weekend

2010-05-15T17:31:00.002+02:00

Not much blogging going on... sorry. I’m practicing a few dishes for the exam at the moment. Yesterday I tried something with an asparagus puree – well, that went straight into the bin! Another chance today, different method.

And I bought some fish to try that with the verrines. Let’s see how that goes.

I had a class today, but I didn’t go. Well, I did, but only to pick up the nice piece of lamb. That’s for dinner tonight! And I already paid for it.... I missed a demo the other day because I went to a lecture about marketing/branding your own business. That was held at the same time as my demo, unfortunately. To cut a long story short, I wish I had gone to the demo! Waste of time.

And, I’m studying. Shock!!! Yes, I have to read a bit about setting up a restaurant, recipes and general stuff the chefs told us in the demos. So yes, I’m studying. (With a glass of beer.... )

Until tomorrow, Sjoerd

(blogging via Email now; just to see if this also works)

Final Exam, FISH ! Turbot and calamari

2010-05-11T13:46:00.001+02:00

Today, we received our ingredients list for the final exam on 31st May; It's fish ! Quite a surprise to me, but I'm happy with that. I do like fish a lot and this time we have to do something with turbot, calamari (squid), asparagus, fresh peas and lettuce. The rest on the list is optional.

We have to plate 4 identical plates, and 4 shot-glasses with a cold or warm soup (served separately). Total time available is 4 hours.
We have to make 3 garnishes, including a farce (stuffing) and a sauce or jus for the main dish. And, what's NOT on the list, is NOT available (like balsamic).

Please have a look at the ingredients list and the basic rules and if you have some nice ideas, please let me know! Email: sjoerd.servaas@hetnet.nl
And keep in mind the judges are OLD.... and very very French!
I hope to hear from you readers! Thanks a lot.

Today and last week; Jayne in Paris! Lessons/market tour.

2010-05-10T22:24:00.001+02:00

Let me start with today, and the things that happened last week;
We only had a 3 'o clock practical today - fish; cod with veggies. An easy dish to prepare and actually quite nice. I just finished that for dinner ! (after having a few beers with Levi from last year's intermediate class).
The practical went really well. I was first to plate and chef T. liked it. My gazpacho, French style, was really tasty. And the HUGE piece of fish was nice. I took most of it home (uncooked) to put it in the freezer. And I also found a few pieces of super-steak (beef) in the fridge from the group before us..... what can you do..... you just take it home! Right?
And this morning I met Audrey, from Amsterdam, whom I met at LCB Ams a while ago, with a few of her friends. They are in Paris for a few days and they booked a demo with the intermediate class. Thank God that chef Thivet was in charge and not chef Caals. Caals is great, but quite often he can be 'a bit hectic'..... to say the least. Afterwards we had a nice glass of wine in the local cafe near the school.

And finally Jayne was here for a few days! Yippee!! It took her a while to get here; 6 weeks.... She missed her birthday in Paris because she was stranded in Cork, Ireland, for a week because of some volcano... She arrived last Wednesday evening and left yesterday late afternoon. We had a great time together. Lots and lots to talk about, some nice restaurants, some good cafes, we cooked together, Jayne baked bread (with eggs in it and without... ha,ha). And we also went to the 'chef invite' at LCB together to follow a demonstration about catering. Chef Roger Raymond of 'Duval traiteur' (yes, click on the link please, it's nice!) did a demo about a 'smoothy de tomate' (please say out look in French...), scallops with a purple spud puree and a tuna and daikon 'thing'. It was very nice actually. In 3 weeks (on exam day) time, Jayne willl be back in Paris! 31st May. I'm looking forward to it already!

What did we do in school last week? Let me see - lesson 19-22. And we went to Rungis, the world famous biggest food market in ze world. That was a nice day out; Get on the bus at the school at 6.30 and be back at 13.00. Interesting tour.

Let me get back on the lessons we did some other time. It's a bit too much for now.... sorry.

Rungis;
some pictures; getting dressed for the freezer, beef, cheese, vegetables and flowers. Breakfast in one of the 21 restaurants on site.

Artichokes; the trauma of many in basic cuisine...

Until tomorrow.

I'm way behind with my blogging... the things I have to write about...

2010-05-08T18:31:00.000+02:00

the things I have to write about in the coming days are:

the recipes we did in demo and practical
Jayne is back on mainland Europe after being stuck in Ireland for a week
Paris in general - everything is green now
class dinner at 'Le Doyen', a *** Michelin restaurant
Rungis market - the biggest foodplace in the world !
my 2nd Atelier (workshop) with sea bream, veal and sweetbreads
class idiots; yes, they're back - the fat one and Ms.D.from Peru
Jayne FINALLY arriving in Paris after 6 weeks
dinner at the bar: oysters, shrimps and wine. Dessert in the back of a wine shop
my (cheep) beer cafe is closed for 2 weeks; refurbishing / re-opened; nice!
Chef Fred Lesourd; yes, he's back!
my favourite US chef who ALREADY works in a * Michelin restaurant
and probably much much more.........

Few days off, time to blog again.

2010-04-26T22:53:00.000+02:00

I'm having a few days off now; Tuesday and Wednesday and this Friday as well. On Thursday I have my second 'exam',the atelier #2, so I've got some time to practice for that, and I've got some time to blog as well; Tomorrow, I'll post an update off my adventures of last week! promise....

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

2010-04-18T22:22:00.003+02:00

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 !

2010-04-18T18:27:00.005+02:00

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.

2010-04-18T16:51:00.001+02:00

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.

2010-04-18T15:50:00.004+02:00

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

To fly or not to fly - Iceland's revenche ?

2010-04-15T14:44:00.003+02:00

To fly or not to fly... that's the question; Jayne's in Ireland at the moment and she was supposed to be on the Aer Lingus flight to Paris today, but.... due to overnight volcanic activity in Iceland, extensive flight disruptions are being experienced today throughout the UK and Ireland. So no Jayne in Paris today! %^*$! She has been booked on tomorrow's flight now (if it actually goes..).
And some people don't like these flight cancellations at all; click on this weblink. Well, he's Scottish...

Some volcano news: click HERE.

Iceland - nice country - IceSave - bad management - money - volcano - no money - more volcano's - UK loan - Dutch loan - high interest rate - referendum - government Iceland gone - some Icelandic people blame UK and NL - eruption - lava - ash - more eruptions - no flights western Europe - no Jayne = Icelandic revenche !

Hopefully, Jayne will be here tomorrow, right after I had my first exam, the atelier that is all about squab, salmon and shrimp. A demain!
Sjoerd

Ze French - Those little things in class...

2010-04-13T11:16:00.003+02:00

Over the last few days we had a few different chefs in the practical classes; Clergue, Terrien, Poupard, Cotte and Lesourd.
All have their own style of teaching and supervising, but I must say, they all help you out with small tips or they even do 'hands-on' work when you're plating the dish in the end.

They also comment on your cooking (style) or final result. Sometimes they don't say that much, apart from 'très bien' , or something like that, but sometimes they are a bit more, let's say, 'expressive'.

Chef Cotte the other day: 'Maintenow, mes amis, you can begin with cuttink yeur vegeta-bu-lus'. (thick accent!)
Cotte again when tasting Meredith's dish: 'Carefuul, I am not Roger Rabbiet' , when he thought the carrots needed a bit more cooking...

Lesourd is in a different league; He talks about rubbing the spicy into the meat. Oh yeah! Of course he means the spices, but it's funny when you hear him say 'ze spicy'.
After adding ze spicy, he commented on a dish: 'Watch out, zis is not a Tex Mex', when somebody might have added a few too many 'spicy'... It's funny.

Clerque always starts with his standard phrase: 'Bonjour, tous le Monde!'
Terrien makes fun of other chefs, and often comments in a strange/funny voice: 'Oui, mon chef, c'est bien mon chef'. Thivet is chef 'petite histoire'.
And one of the daily rituals is that a certain chef always sticks his head around the corner in EVERY demo and practical (where he's not supposed to be - he's never our chef!), just to get some attention....

And I must say, all the chefs speak English these days. One better than the other, but they do understand you and (try) to talk back in Franglais. It's great! I just love being here.

Atelier (workshop) coming up and a challenge for YOU !

2010-04-11T12:51:00.002+02:00

Next week, on Friday, we have lesson 13; A so called 'atelier', where you just get some ingredients and you have to come with 2 identical starters and 2 main courses. It's an exercise for the grand final, where we have to produce 4 plates of each....

Let me explain the rules of the workshop a bit; yes, there are rules! We have to use certain ingredients like squab, salmon, shrimps, peas, pearl onions, mushrooms and a red bell pepper. On top of that we have some more things available that you CAN use.
Please have a look at the ingredients list.

QUESTION: WHO OF YOU READERS CAN COME UP WITH A FEW NICE SUGGESTIONS WITHIN 2 DAYS ???

(email : sjoerd.servaas@hetnet.nl)

Hint: keep it simple and use the ingredients on the list. Some additional information; we have 6 hours to prep, make and serve it. Peas are fresh. Garnish: two simple ones (just veggies on a plate) and one composed (a combi of vegetables). We have to make a stuffing, a cold sauce for the starter and a jus or sauce for the main course.
Of course I have many ides at the moment - too many! and that's exactly the problem....

I will guarantee you, you'll have a very bad night's sleep over this one. I haven't done this before, well, I've made some menus at home together with Jayne, but this one....

PLEASE, SURPRISE ME !

Sjoerd

pictures of the week and recipe update

2010-04-11T00:12:00.003+02:00

I'm a bit behind with my blogging and publishing of the dishes we made. First things first: I like superior cuisine class a lot ! It's just great. So far, I think I'll make all the recipes again; at home, for somebody else etc. Maybe with a few small adjustments, but I do like like it a lot so far.
Please let me give you an update of the week;

the class idiots; you remember those two ? They are quiet. Maybe chef said something to them or they might have read my blog post... I don't know. The 'big one' is still asking stupid questions and she's still filming chef's demonstrations; every day...
(pictures of) this week's menu; sea bream/squid/risotto practical on Tuesday evening, demo first, (Wednesday we had the day off), on Thursday the flying rat (demo and practical), Friday - fish again, also a demo and a practical (red mullet with potato scales and artichokes) and on Saturday early afternoon a demo on lamb shanks. In one word: Nice !

Tuesday; Tasting of the fois gras terrine chef made last week (not bad!), dorade poêlée, encornets farcis au risotto de langoustines et coriandre, and for dessert a lemon grass cream with a citrus jelly and a rhubarb crips. Nice! And sweet....

The sea bream was the evening practical.

Wednesday, nothing to report... That is, I forgot what I did on this day.

Thursday; Lesson 8. Franck Poupard in the lead. Shortbread with crab, lime and lemon balm with a green mango and lemon grass sauce (don't remember this one, sorry), flying rat wrapped in cabbage (pffffrrrrrttttt - yes, that was a fart! it's the red meat and the cabbage again, sorry. It still sounds and smells like during those cabbage classes in Intermediate cuisine last year.) with a tartelettes de champignons mélangés and for dessert a coconut meringue with a yoghurt sorbet, blackberries and a parsley coulis. Right.

Of course the pigeon was the corresponding practical - and served pink. Bugger. Pink. And not overcooked! Mine was borderline.

Starter of crab, something with shortbread, dried ham, a sauce and other stuff.

Pigeon, served pink, with mushrooms. That creapy thing on the plate, in the top right corner. is a stuffed leg. Horrible tough piece of meat. It looks like a thing from the Harry Potter movie !

And a meringue dessert. A bit messy, but it had a nice taste to it. I think. The pictures are from Meredith - thank you! I forgot my camera today.

Friday; Chef Clergue- - 'Bonjour tous le Monde ! ' He made a courgette blossom with langoustines, red mullet with spud-scales and an orange beurre (blanc) = LOADS of butter and for dessert candied tomato stuffed with red berries and a lavender shortbread.

2x Langoustines picture, a red mullet and tomato shortbread.

The practical was the red mullet with the potato scales. A bit of therapy! We used the mandolin, a Japanese one - the most dangerous there is, and we all survived. First you peel a potato, then you use an apple corer to drill through the spud and finally you slice the small cilinder over a mandolin to get really really thin slices and stick them on a fish. As I said, therapy.Will I buy a mandolin ... not sure yet.

Chef Xavier Cotte in charge during our practical. He was in a good mood today (yesterday he wasn't - he had quite an argument with somebody in another class next door to ours) and joking around as usual. Al in all, a good lesson. Easy fishdish, although I didn't brown my 'scales' (potato slices) enough. Raffaele called my dish 'shitty'- thank you very much. In a way he was right, I could have done better... next time. Maybe.

My dish...., sauce good (but needs more salt, I don't agree), the fish should have been more browned and NEVER ever pour the butter sauce over an artichoke - always use the jus where it's made in. Yes, I'm an idiot, according to chef X.C. Merci to you too!

Saturday; well, that's tomorrow's blog post I guess. I've had enough of it today.

A demain,

Sjoerd

On the menu today: flying rats and foie gras! lots of foie gras...

2010-04-08T22:45:00.002+02:00

Today's demo at 8.30 (after coffee in the cafe, drunk guy, 2 beers, etc - well you get it, the usual), we started off with a meringue based dessert, a starter I can't remember and finally - a flying rat ! A what? Yes, the pest of our lives, the thing that shits everywhere, that spreads uncontrollable diseases and that lives all over the planet! Even next to my bedroom window in Paris. What, what, what is it? It's a ^&;?;a;%^$# pigeon!

It's also one of those things that is quite bloody when you have to prepare it. There's not much meat, just two breasts and the two legs. The rest is for the jusor sauce . And they are expensive; Around 10 euros a piece. And that for a flying rat!

Chef Franck P. in the lead today. A bit chaotic again, so we predicted a late finish, and how right we were. We are all paying attention today; the beast is used in our 'atelier', or workshop next week. More about that later.
I'll tell you more tomorrow about how to prepare these buggers, I'm tired and will go to bed soon. No pictures yet, I forgot my camera today, so I'll ask others for a few snapshots.
Before I forget, we used a lot of foie gras in the stuffing and on the plate today. And truffles. And guess only once where the leftover foie gras, truffles and 5 chicken breasts went..... yes, into my fridge! Thank you chef P.
I'll make something really nice with it. Any ideas from my blog readers?
(terrine, or....)
I'll be back tomorrow,
have a good night, Sjoerd

Fish, risotto and a stuffed squid, evening class, shopping for kitchen stuff

2010-04-07T13:09:00.036+02:00

Today, Wednesday, is another day off, shopping time!

We'll be paying a visit to Dehillerin cookery shop..... that's so dangerous, euro,euro,euro... and we just come here too often, despite the 10% discount.

Big pans, small pans... everything!

I got home at 17.30, with my newly bought gadgets; a terrine mould, drum sieve (tamis) and quite a few mini 'cocottes' and glassware for plating purposes. All in all, it wasn't that expensive. Lucky me...

Right, let me tell you about yesterday. (Monday we had the day off as it was Easter Monday.) Chef Terrien was in charge and Yuka was assisting.

Part 1 was the 'degustation' (say this out loud in French, that sounds a lot better!) of the fois gras terrine chef Poupard made last week. Part 2 was a main course of sea bream/ langoustines and squid stuffed with risotto.

Part 3, le dessert, was a lemon grass cream with

citrus jelly and a rhubarb crisp.

This was made with agar agar, to make a gelly.

Chef gave us some background info on the foie gras dish - plating and garnish tips, and that was nice. The taste of the fois terrine was great! I might make that again at home, although Jayne can't eat it...

We also used Lota or Yota, a gelatine replacement. It's one of those E-numbers... probably very very chemical.

The main course was a bit too simple I thought. 'Just' a piece of seabass fillet with risotto. The nicest bit was the stuffed mini squid. And I liked the reduced vegetable stock with herbs and butter as a sauce. I made quite a nice sauce, I think. I'm sure I'll make the squid thing at home.

Between our demo and the practical lesson, we had a few hours off and Raffaele and I went to the Jardin Luxembourg for a walk and some coffee. Nice. And the weather was super!

Then our evening practical. Not everybody showed up (again). For various reasons: allergy or religion (langoustines). We finished this easy practical by 21.00 hrs and went straight to the pub to have a few beers and watch football.
What a terrible day it was: demo, stroll in the park, practical, beer and football - and all of that in Paris....

until tomorrow,
Sjoerd

entertainment in class; class idiots and a drunk....

2010-04-05T17:16:00.014+02:00

Last Friday, we had quite a nice demo. Chef Clergue teaching. For mains, chef made the lamb dish. It became a bit of a funny session after a few people went out to go to the toilet, get a quick coffee, glass of water or do whatever. It bothered chef. And he remembers... he always remembers.

Then he found out that somebody was filming the demo all the time. So he stopped that (but she started filming again later..). Filming is not allowed at LCB, taking pictures is not a problem at all. It has all to do with copyrights of recipes.
Later during the demo, Ms.D from Peru went out; noisy ! Later, he (indeed) came back in class with many of his 'gestures' and he just didn't shut up. Chef didn't like it at all and it actually pissed him off quite a bit. So he made a comment (with the same 'gestures' ) to ms.D. and told him to behave. Laughter all over.

The two class idiots

(picture taken from behind so nobody can recognize them...)

But then, the stupid thing sitting next to Ms.D. , the one that is filming every lesson since the beginning, used her last brain cell to get a coffee and return WITH it.... How stupid can you be ! Imagine chef's reaction.

Ms.D. was on a roll. His last comment to chef was: 'Vous êtes très bien chef; bravo !', or something like that. Chef turned all red, was ready to explode, but he didn't say nor did he do anything. If only eyes could kill this idiot....
And we had a smelly drunk guy sitting next to us; I think he came straight from the pub to class. It was kind of funny actually. I don't think he showed up at the practical afterwards.... and that was a smart move of him!

'Want another beer ?'

And last but not least, the two in the front row, Ms.D and 'no brains', already started having quite a few tasters at the end of the class; You know, we actually get to taste the food that chef is making in a demo. Sometimes there is more then enough, sometimes there's not that much. Even before everybody else had their first taster, they were already on 3.... it pissed a few people off. Actually, most of the time after a demo, she has emptied 5 or 6 tasters by the look of all those empty plates near her seat. So,no wonder why she's so large.... (didn't I just say that soooo nicely!?)

The big question remains: Why didn't chef remove these two out of class immediately?

Then there's the absentees: Well, there are quite a few people not showing up in class for whatever reason; but just going on holiday abroad instead of being in class and now being on 6 absent points already is a bit too much I guess. (The maximum amount of points we are allowed to lose is 6. The course is 11 weeks, and we're only in the second week now.) Some people are already on 4 or 5 absentee points, this one is on 6 and the chefs have commented on that. This guy, who's on 6 points, just doesn't take this course seriously. It's very disrespectful; Not to chefs, not to the school, but certainly not to the other students in class. One more point and he should be out! No matter what. But I guess LCB will let him stay anyway.... unfortunately. Obviously, money is not a problem here if he will fail this course. But hey, it's his problem I guess.

In short: A lesson to remember. There's a lot happening during a demonstration...

Update Tueday, one day after publishing this post: Quite a bit of support from people in class. General reaction: 'Finally somebody is saying something about this/them..., but LCB needs to take (more) action'.
We actually signed a contract when we started in basic cuisine or pastry that we'd behave/do not film/ be on time etc. It was quite a list! So the issue is easy to solve.

Les chefs de cuisine supérieur /höher / superior / superiore / superieur

2010-04-04T21:39:00.003+02:00

Bonjour/Bonsoir mes ami(e)s,
In our superior cuisine class, we generally have two chefs who do all the demos. Chef Philippe Clergue and chef Patrick Terrien. Occasionally, chef Franck Poupard takes over. In the practicals, there's a variety of chefs showing up; Even 'guestchefs' whose names I don't even know.

Let me give you a bit of background on this team; All of them are French, mais bien sûr!
I'll start with chef Patrick Terrien - he works for Le Cordon Bleu since 1989, he owned a * Michelin star restaurant in Tours, but that's a while ago. He also worked quite a bit abroad.
Chef likes to make fun of other chefs.... 'oui, mon chef'..... Dedicated indeed.

Then there is chef Philippe Clergue. He's from the Pyrenees region. His career started in a 2* Michelin restaurant. He also worked in the Elysee Palace (Ze President), and he worked in numerous * Michelin star restaurants.

He also owned his own restaurant in the Beaunne rgion for 15 years. Here, he also gave cooking lessons. Chef Clergue is with Le Cordon Bleu since 2006.

Great chef, very dedicated, precise, funny and a wine lover. He ALWAYS gives wine tips during a demo. And he loves applause!

And last but certainly not least, chef Franck Poupard. Chef is from Normandy and is with Le Cordon Bleu since 2007. He worked in a few *Michelin star places. He also was a chef for the French Olympic team in 1992 in Barcelona. In winter he used to work in the ski regions and in the summer in Corsica. He was a 'fusion chef' in Geneva, Switzerland and in 2003/2004 he worked in London at Harrods, 'Le Georgian'. He can 'roll his eyes' like nobody else, and he smiles a lot. You can also call hin 'monsieur foie gras'.

And who's this? Is this a guest chef? He even has his own Facebook page... check him

out quickly!

Dinner alone with 2 friends; I'm a murderer!

2010-04-01T15:44:00.003+02:00

Killed twice today... sorry. I thanked the lobster for a hopefully happy life and stuck the metal pin up its behind. The boiling water was ready and I finished him/her off quickly. Good job, I think.
There are two ways to kill the lobster straight away; Like I described above (and in an earlier blogpost), and there is a more human way. Well, the end result is the same; Cooked meat... This second option is just to tie two lobsters together and throw them in a bigger pan with boiling water. Nice solution for a minor problem.

It wasn't a really difficult practical. Only in the end, there was a bit of pressure - put the chartreuses in the oven over a waterbath, blanch spinach quickly, reduce the sauce, make lecitin in soymilk to thicken the sauce, whisk whisk whisk, and make a frotty sauce, whisk more, then put the plate in the oven to warm it up and check chartreuses. Un-mould the stuff and plate-up quickly while it's still warm.... Where's chef ???? Busy judging other people's plates... hurry,hurry...

today's creation!

I was very happy with the suace (so was chef), spinach and farce. The only problem was the shitty design of my chartreuse. I ran out of pre-cooked carrot slices, so my chartreuse looked a bit scruffy. Sorry, I'll do better in presentation skills next time.

Raffaele had a good chartreuse I think, but a lousy sauce....

Tonight's dinner will be a nicely cooked lobster chartreuse (or two) with spinach, lobster pieces AND...... an extra lobster.

So, I'll be having two of my lobster friends TO EAT. Wonderful. By the way, I asked chef nicely for it. There was a leftover lobster because somebody didn't show-up today in class. At school, I wrapped it in clingfilm and took it home safely... hi, hi, he's going to die very soon...

15.00 hrs; I just cooked/killed lobster #2. Reserved the meat and made a bouillon from the bones/carcass. I'll use that jus for the risotto in combination with my homemade vegetable stock (no Maggi cube in this place!!) Should be a great dinner! Mark M. where are you? Help me out eating some good LCB food here. (picture: tonight's dinner)

Bon appetit to you too!

A demain, Sjoerd

Great guy

2010-03-31T20:33:00.001+02:00

What can you say? He's a great guy and he just loves to eat!
I think that's probably the only reason why he's at the school..... and he's NEVER late for class.... Mr. Wen Bo C. from China.
And he giggles when he's eating.... as I said, great guy.
(click on the links and scroll down.)

class photo - I was on time!

2010-03-31T19:43:00.001+02:00

After Chef P's belated demo, we went straigt to the local cafe on the corner. Some for coffee, some for beer.
Suddenly, somebody said that our classphoto would be taken at 12 o'clock - so we sort of ran back to school. Just in time...

Here are a few of my classmates looking at the fat man during the set-up for the picture;

Normal weekday with homard, foie gras, a 'light' tiramisu and a loooooong needle.

2010-03-31T19:12:00.004+02:00

Indeed, it's one of those normal weekdays.... Chef Franck Poupard is in charge today. We started kind of late because first we received some information about the 'stage', internship that is, we can do after our superior program. We got a list of mainly Parisian posh places where we can go to. I don't think I'll apply to any of these, but I'll look into it some day this week.

Anyway, chef started late and finished very late. He also blamed it on 'silly Peruvian' questions.... and he gave us a lecture on 'NOT being on time in class'; There are too many students already losing too many points. (You are allowed 6 absences; some are on 4 already!). Chef explained the consequences of all of this in detail... and he was quite right actually. With 53 people in class it's pretty full; This is my view on the demo kitchen today.

On the menu today:

starter: A terrine. No tasting today, it's dans le frigo. Chef made a fois gras and oven roasted vegetable terrine. (no picture yet)

mains: Chartreuse de homard aux agrumes confits, jus mousseux. Doesn't that sound great? I'll explain: It actually is a lobster chartreuse with candied orange and lemon with a frotty jus. I liked this dish. But hey, doesn't everybody just loves lobster?

A typical chartreuse.

dessert: A light tiramisu-style mousse with sugared raspberries (with lots of mascarpone that is.... light.... not....)

Chef wasn't really 'sharp' today. Nice guy, but a bit hectic and that showed in the final presentation. But he did produce four desserts. Nice taste, I liked it.

The foie gras (starter dish) was about how to devain a piece of foie. That was quite easy. Assembling the final terrine with all the vegetables was a bit more work, but actually very simple. Further: Cook it in the oven for 40 minutes at 150C, au bain marie (waterbath) and then a few days into the frigo. We'll get a taster next week. It certainly looked good.

Then the live lobster - well, the way chef put that trussing needle up it's arse was just great! Some of us were shocked. This will stay with you forever!

Picture this: You're well alive and kicking and somebody takes a loooooooong needle and choves it straight up your arse... what do you do? you'd freeze! And so did the lobster! The bugger stayed nicely straight and only wiggled it's claws. Actually, that was the only thing left he could move... We finished him off quickly in a nice court bouillon, but just water will also do. What a way to go: Head first into the boiling soup with a needle up your arse!

The end result, after a lot of work (make a mouse, cut/blanch veggie's, make jus from the carcass, blanch spinach, make candid orange and lemon), was OK.

Great taste, shitty plating. Tomorrow early morning 8.46 hrs, after boiling the water first, we have to put 'a big prick up the arse' ourselves.
Oh yeah! Have a good night....
To be continued.

Jayne going home, sushi and sweetbreads/quail practical

2010-03-30T22:09:00.003+02:00

Today, Jayne went back to Amsterdam. Yes I know, somebody has to make some money; I understand who the breadwinner is at the moment! We went to the Gare du Nord together and I dropped Jayne off at the Thalys. It was a very easy-going trip for her; Paris-Amsterdam in 3.15 hrs. That's just great.

After I left the railway station, I walked around the city centre a bit and then I took the metro to Vaugirard, near the school. It was lunchtime, so I decided to have some sushi. I had a nice lunch with miso soup, a salad and 12 maki (with lots of wasabi) for only 8.80 euro (menu N) - no beer or wine yet...

Then to school, to do the quail and sweetcrap practical.

I cleaned the bird, chopped off its head, legs, toes,wings and tore the liver,lungs and heart out. Then I cut off the breast, and trimmed the meat before I schredded the carcass completely with my cleaver. What a great way to start a cooking session!

The end-result wasn't too bad. I actually took the leftovers (a whole pie) home and just had it for dinner with a glass of white wine. According to chef Clergue, that should have been a full bodied red wine, but who cares.....!?

My dish.

See you all tomorrow! Sj

(And I cut myself twice today; new knife....)

Just one of those days; a small tour of the centre of Paris.

2010-03-30T21:28:00.000+02:00

What do you do with the rest of your day when you only have an early morning class? Yes, you go out and have a look around a few of the major sights. Especially when the weather is nice.

So, yesterday afternoon Jayne and I did.....

the metro system
Le Bon Marchee
The river Seine
A view of the Louvre (didn't go inside)
Jardin des Tuileries (near the Louvre; nice!)
Place de la Concorde
View on the Avenue de Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe
Place de la Madeleine
Fauchon at Madeleine
Laduree
Place Vendôme (The Ritz and all the posh places)
and beer in our own street

not a bad afternoon, I think. A small selection of our trip;

Smell of fried sweetbreads at 9 a.m., Kirsch dessert and smoked eel

2010-03-30T11:04:00.003+02:00

Bonjour! Did you all have un bonne weekend?
Today, Monday that is, is a semi-free day. Only one early morning demonstration by chef Clergue.

The picture is taken from one of the TV screen in class;
We have quite a big group with 53 (minus those that are ALWAYS late or absent...). So there is a lot of work to do for the assistant of today, Priska; Helping chef, chopping,chopping,chopping and setting up the plates (53x3) for the tasters. Thanks P! for all the work!

I thought I was looking forward to it, but have a look at today's menu; Keep in mind that it's only 8.30....

starter: smoked eel, smoked salmon and smoked trout with a beetroot mousse and a sauce made from the (smoked) skin of the eel and all the leftover fish-trimmings... LCB calls it 'smoked surf and turf duo', or 'mariage terre et mer en composition fumée'. Now that sounds a lot different! Maybe even better.

For mains, chef made quail with veal sweetbread pastries with shit-aches, I mean shiitake, mushrooms and a peppery jus.

dessert; Frozen chocolate nougat with sour cherry coulis.

Well, let me tell you this; Personally, I'm not that keen on sweetbreads (tasteless funny waste product), but the smell of fried sweetbreads early in the morning, right after a nice breakfast, is just too much.
Then the carcasses of the quails were shredded to the smallest ever possible, leaving the breasts (to eat) and the legs (to make a forcemeat).
Livers and heart were used in the forcemeat. And it's still so early....In the meantime chef also gave us a few tasters; Like the (dessert) sour cherries in kirsch... now that's nice early morning start!! Reminds me of my skiing holidays... Some of us were not that keen on the alcohol shot at this time in the morning.... ha,ha!

Chef ran late today, big time. Not that we really cared actually. Philippe is a super chef and we take it as it comes. That's different with other chefs, like last year in intermediate...
Finally breakfast arrived; a cold fish dish for a starter (smoked), then pastries stuffed with quails and sweetbreed and for dessert a (too sweet for me) chocolate nougat. All fantastically plated. Time for us to take pictures:

Would I make it again? Well, yes and no. I'll make it all, but probably with a few adjustments. (no sweetbreads, adjust suger contents of dessert if possible)
It was good today. Tomorrow (Tuesday), I'll have the corresponding practical at 15.30 at 'holiday-camp LCB' ! I'll promise to use the sweatbreads, yuk.
à plus tart! - that's the culinary version ... I mean à plus tard! of course...
Sjoerd

Jayne in Paris, dinner, thursday demo + practical and dinner at home

2010-03-27T11:42:00.000+01:00

Jayne's here! Finally. It's only been a week, but I missed her. We had a look around in the neighbourhood and later that evening we went out for dinner;

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

Quite a group!

2010-03-24T13:53:00.002+01:00

Indeed, the students are from all over the world. 53 of us this time. Some are doing 'only' cuisine - like me-and some are also doing pastry next to the cuisine program.
We are:

Practical #2; the lamb with a super jus and purple crisps

2010-03-24T12:58:00.004+01:00

This morning, we had an early start. I got up at 7, was in the cafe by 7.40.... met my 'ami' - he still doesn't recognize me after all these years, he's a local and always starts with deux petite bierres in ze meurning - I bought a croissant and then to school.

Yesterday's demo was good, and today we had to give it a go ourselves. Chop up/trim the whole rack of lamb, make a sauce or jus, prepare a crust and a garnish. Actually, it went really well. Allthough most were struggling a bit with cutting the rack of lamb, I did quite good I think.

My dish.

There was a new chef in class, French, from a national cuisine school, and he was really nice. He didn't (want to) speak English, but we talked a lot.... yeah, you know me! Nice guy. (The chef, that is! )

Adriano with chef talking about A's crisps gone wrong...

My result was good. Slightly, but only just...., overcooked my lamb. It should have been a bit more pink. But hey, that was everybody's thing today. My jus was super! Chef also liked that very much. Garnish was green beans wrapped in bacon (and re-heated in butter.... but of course!) The purple stuff on the plate are crisps, like Pringles, made from purple potatoes that were dried out in the oven. Tasty!

Meredith trimming the beans

Half past 11; Finished for the day. No beer(s) yet. Jayne will be here soon, and I'll pick her up at the metro station Pasteur soon. She will stay for about a week. Super!

Tomorrow 2 classes, Friday I have the day off. Paris is good!
Sj

Demo #2; frog legs, lamb and fruit dessert - nice!

2010-03-23T20:14:00.002+01:00

I liked today's demo; Chef Terrien again. A few more people in class today compared to yesterday... and everybody was sort of on time! Even...

So, for a starter, chef made us frog legs with a garlic puree and a green (herb) jus, for mains we had lamb chops 'mantenon' (don't ask ! I don't know.) with purple potato crisps and green beans wrapped in bacon. And for dessert: fruit minestrone with a tomato cappucino.
It was interesting when somebody from class called chef a 'nice looking rabbit' in a discussion.... chef didn't respond or just didn't get it! Some people...

The starter, the little legs, was quite good, except for the garlic puree, that was a bit too much for me; There's not much meat at all on a frog, so you can actually only use the thighs of kermit. But chef also served it's shins.... From the rest (bones) you make 'just a sauce or jus'.

The small pieces in the green herb-sauce are actually the frog shins..... sad isn't it?

But a very nice presentation.

dead frog bits on garlic puree...

Then our main course; Lamb is always served PINK. Especially in France, and how right they are. This was a great dish, with great taste. Chef made a super jus from the meat trimmings, some veggie's, mushroom leftovers and herb stalks. And truffles!
The purple bits are dried purple potato crisps. really tasty! First you boil these spuds, push it through a drum sieve, add butter (oh yeah!) and make a very very thin layer on a 'sylpat' (or baking parchment) - don't forget the salt and put it in ze oven and let them dry out. Nice! (Click on picture for details)

Le dessert;

Chef made crystallized basil leaves on top.

Le dessert was OK I think. I didn't eat it. Must have been good, but I have to watch my 'super body'....
At least it was healthy; loads of pineapple, strawberry (in season, not!), orange, kiwi and mango. A bit of gelatine was used to make the layer of tomato foam on top of the fruit a bit firmer.
But.............. after demo I ate 3 nice pieces of lamb (chops). Thank you chef!

Tomorrow morning at 8.30 we have our lamb practical. Probably quite a bit of work, but I'm looking forward to it. And on Wednesday Jayne comes over to Paris ! Yippee!!!

A demain, Sjoerd

1st day at 'school'. The schedule, demo and practical.

2010-03-22T21:40:00.005+01:00

Bonjour à tous!
Today we started our first superior demo at 12.30. Class was full with 53 people in 5 groups. There is one group of 13... (but they're always in the 'grand salle' practical kitchen)
I'm in group B, together with Raffaele, who was also in intermediate cuisine when I was there last November/December. Actually, I was a bit nervous today. I arrived at school around 11 am, after I already had my daily stop at the local cafe for the usual espresso. It was busy in the school with all the new people, so I quickly found myself a good locker (or two) for my stuff.

The demo: Chef 'terroriste' Terrien was in charge.
After the introductions, hand-outs, schedule and 'recipes', chef explained his rules in demo. No walking around/leaving class, he will notice and punish you in practical, bring in coffee/beer/wine/rum before class - that's OK - don't even think about getting that during his demo. No talking during a demo. Lots of bla,bla, but we got the picture. By the way, 'terroriste' is chef T's favourite word. He is using that all the time: When you ruin a dish, when you're cutting wrongly, etc etc. Deborah was translating today.

So, today's menu was about couscous, shrimps, cauliflower and broccoli (Tabouleh), a nice summer dish, then John Dory, some rice, mango and papaya and for dessert baked banana's in its skin with banana sorbet with a hibiscus and rum sauce.

Actually, I kind of liked all of it - I'm sure I'll make all of these dishes at home. And guess what: you can be late in class or you can be LATE ! But showing up 10 minutes before the end of a demo.... some will never learn.

Straight after the demo we went into the practical; And yes, we ended up filleting fish and chopping up bones already. I liked my end-product, but some little (French? unknown, still don't know her name) chef gave me lots of comments and said 'très bien' in the end. Yeah right!

Raffaele plating the fish and rice.

When we started the practical everybody was kind of nervous or tense, but that changed during the lesson. at least we all smiled when it was over.... I think....

We also received our schedule for the coming months; more about that later!
Just had dinner at home; my leftover John Dory fillets with rice and sauce (not too much butter!!!) And I took all the trimmings of the papaya and mango home - nice breakfast for tomorrow morning. Next class is at 12.30 - 'just' a demo.
See you all back tomorrow,
Sjoerd
(pictures are not he best yet, I'm still playing with the camera to adjust some settings like white balance etc. and I still don't get it.)

1st class today; demo + practical et une petite bière..

2010-03-22T20:23:00.001+01:00

1st class etc etc... more to follow later; just got in - a shower first please!

The new counter : general injuries during the course

2010-03-21T21:11:00.003+01:00

Yes! Like last year, there's going to be a burn counter, but it's also a general injury counter. I've had a few suggestions over the last few days, but unfortunately I can't publish those ideas... So, whether it's a burn, a cut, a mental problem, a road accident, extreme frustrations, a computer crash, a change in schedule at LCB or whatever... it counts!

So, it can be a....

A simple burn...

(Not my) head injury

In short; anything is possible! I hope the counter stays LOW!

Friday 19 March: graduation ceremony

2010-03-21T16:22:00.006+01:00

Last Friday I was invited to go to the graduation of both the superior cuisine and pastry students of LCB. A few of them were my classmates of last Intermediate. I arrived just in time for drinks and 'missed' the formal part, including Levi's 'speech'....

The graduation was at the Cercle de l'Union Interalliée, on Rue de Faubourg Saint-Honoré - a bloody posh shopping street, next to Mr.Sarkozy's and Carla B.'s little place. Nice!
(Click on all the links for more information!)

spot the gay guy.....

Levi and Damien with their bosses!

(sorry for the crappy yellow colors in the pictures... don't understand it...)

Paris, graduation, drinks and dinner

2010-03-20T10:38:00.002+01:00

just a quick message for now;
Arrived in Paris yesterday, with a 40 minute Thalys delay. Took a taxi to the apartment, changed quickly and took a taxi to the graduation ceremony of a few of my old classmates. (nice place, next to Mr.Sarkozy's office).

Met my old classmates, some LCB people (more news about them to follow later), had a few drinks and posh nibbels and went out for dinner with Damien, Levi and their girlfriends.

Today is Saturday. I'll have to do some shopping (mobile phone SIM card, fruit, coffee, beer) and just settle down. I'll have a quick look around in the neighbourhood.
I'll keep you updated with more stories and some pictures of yesterday's ceremony and my apartment.
Until later, it's raining now...
Sjoerd

The first schedule update 'Nouveau Planning !!! ' - a trent in the making?

2010-03-16T21:38:00.003+01:00

Yes! it's here... the first schedule update; I've heard many rumors of this palaver before and it's already starting. Funny!
So, this is the NEW schedule, part1.

The email read:
I quote: 'Attention !!! Changement !!! Nouveau Planning !!!
Ce message annule et remplace le précédent.
Attention !!! Change !!! New schedule !!!
This message cancels and replaces the precedent.'

And yes, I agree as the sign says: 'good luck'. Any direction is possible....

Here is the new schedule.... to be continued.....
Still don't know which class I'm in. They will probably tell us next Monday.

This might be a good idea to make a new counter; How many changes of the schedule will be presented over the coming 11 weeks?

1st week's schedule has arrived.

2010-03-15T12:14:00.007+01:00

LCB sent out the schedule for the first week of school this morning. On Monday 22nd March, we will start our first demo at 12.30 hrs. I don't know in which group I'll be - there are 5 groups in Superior Cuisine (and 4 groups in Superior Chocolate).

You can click on the schedule for more details. The 'purple schedule' is the one for Cuisine.

What's the target for this year? Please come up with ideas!

2010-03-10T15:56:00.010+01:00

As you might know, on last year's blog I had a target: Get less cuts and burns than I had during the Basic Cuisine course!
Last year, when I was in intermediate class, I created the burn counter because I had so many burns from the hot ovens and pots and pans (please, click on the links) from the year before and I also had quite some cuts...
What shall I do this time? I can do a counter on stolen knives.... or stolen equipment in general..... or 'burns' again? Don't know yet, so please SEND ME SOME IDEAS !!
Press comments below or send me an email.
(I expect a certain Mr.MM from the USA will come up with some good ideas ....)

Counting the days and visitors from LCB Paris at LCB Amsterdam

2010-03-10T15:24:00.013+01:00

Yes, of course I'm counting the days. Next Friday, I will be on my way to Paris. I'm soooooo much looking forward to it! I've been practicing a bit over the last few weeks. Sometimes it was really good, sometimes it went straight into the bin......
Yesterday late afternoon and evening I had to be at the LCB school here in Amsterdam. I'm helping out at the demonstrations and practicals. Actually, the school is 'La Cuisine Francaise', run for 30 years already, and owned by Pat van den Wall. Not that long ago LCF has been added to Mr.Cointreau's empire. (Yes, he's the one of Cointreau liqueur and Remy Martin Cognac! and he also owns the Cordon Bleu cookery school....) At the moment 'La Cuisine Francaise' is not an 'real' operational LCB school yet, but who knows what will happen in the (near) future...

And guess what: Who showed up at the 'La Cuisine Francaise' door, taking pictures of the building and LCB name-plate? A few students from LCB Paris, visiting Amsterdam. Two classmates from last year with their friends. We had some tea at the school, showed them around in the nice canal house and then we went to work for the evening. It was nice to see them again and to hear what they're all doing. I might see them again at the superior graduation next week. We'll see.
Until soon, Sjoerd

Thalys train booked. No bookings to stay please !

2010-02-14T13:39:00.002+01:00

Bonjour a tous! My 1st class trainticket from Amsterdam to Paris has been booked. I'll be leaving on the high speed Thalys-train on the 19th March.

Jayne will follow a few days later and she will stay with me for a short week. And please don't ask me when YOU can come over to stay (for free....) since I don't have my daily cooking schedule yet. Of course I will have the occasional visitor (no families or couples) for a day or so, but at the moment it's NON. Sorry.

At the moment I'm practicing a few dishes and techniques again. Did quite a bit with fish (sole, brill, dorade, sea bass, cod, skate, oysters, red bass) again, as well as some dishes with duck, steak(s) and lamb.

But no caul fat please!

I'm enjoying it a lot! By the way, I'm not doing anything will caul fat, braising meat, hugh amounts of butter and turned vegetables....

And I haven't prepared a rabbit (yet) to make us a nice meal....

In short, I'm really enjoying the cooking at the moment and I'm really looking forward to go back to Paris again. The sooner the better!

Until soon,

sjoerd

I found my apartment, finally !

2010-02-07T13:38:00.003+01:00

Last week I booked my apartment; I found a nice place through 'ParisAttitude', a housing agency. The apartment has a good kitchen, separate bedroom and a sofa bed for the occasional guest and it's not too far from the school. I think it's only a 10 minutes walk to class every day.

From Saturday 19th March until Sunday 6th June, I will be living in this place. Not bad!

And no, don't sign-up yet to pay me any visits.... (I will have the occasional guest, but I'm not a free Parisian hotel for couples and families !)

Until next time,

Sjoerd

Superior Cuisine - The Next Step... I have booked!

2010-01-02T17:46:00.002+01:00

Yes, I've already booked for the next step - superior cuisine. I'll be back in Paris from 22nd March until 4th June 2010. That's a long time....

I found out, about a month ago, that there are already 42 people on this list (max 60 students), so I decided to act quickly. I've reserved my place and paid...
I'm sure I'll meet some people I already know from basic and intermediate cuisine. Maybe James and Raffaele will be there as well. Hope so!

update Wednesday 6th January: I'm IN for superior ! Just received an Email from administration that the payment 'has been cashed'... Yippeee!! I'm poor again...

I have to sort out an (other?) apartment soon; they're already filling up. So, if you readers have any ideas/weblinks/hints/contacts etc, please let me know! (sjoerd.servaas@hetnet.nl)

And don't even think about visiting already......
--------------------------------------------
The program for next year will be: Cuisine Supérieure, Description:
Haute Cuisine: classique et contemporaine
Précision et rapidité du travail en cuisine
Maîtrise des techniques et des méthodes
Elaboration de recettes avec des produits rares et raffinés
Maîtrise de la planification des menus classiques et contemporains
Adaptation des menus selon les disponibilités des produits et les saisons
Maîtrise de la décoration et de la présentation
Développement de la créativité personnelle

Programme totalement en Français et Anglais (!)
Pré-requis: Certificat de Cuisine Intermédiaire