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.)

Lesson 12; fish, veal and puff pastry.

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.)