Lesson 18, our second atelier (workshop).

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 !

Et après, un petit peut de champagne...