My friend, Alta called at 6:20am this morning-"Are you up? Do you want to study?" It turns out she was nervous about our exam and didn't sleep well last night so got up early and was already at school when she called me but they don't open til 7am! I told her to give me 15 minutes to get dressed and ready (I was in the shower when she called). We got to school a little after 7am, pulled all our dishes, silverware, glassware and linens for the day, then started to study product ID (herbs and spices which will be a part of our test for the next three months). At 8am, Chef Pete got us all together to show us how to finish up the veal stock. We defatted it and then drained it and put it in the walk-in (fridge), then saved the bones and mirepoix from the original stock to do a reboil to make a second veal stock. This is one of the few stocks that has enough flavor left in the bones and veggies that you can get a second run at stock.
At 9am we had our quiz-I think I did ok, it was not quite as hard as I thought it might be (except the question about food safety, was not sure what exactly he wanted from us. Some people just left it blank!). I know I got at least one of the herb and spice IDs wrong. We'll see next week what I got!
Once the test was done, the Chefs went over our menu for the day, which I think we will do every day so that all of us know what the other kitchens are doing.
In Garde Manger, we made a Tomato and Gruyere Tart-making small individual tarts, blind baking them (or pre-baking them without a filling), then painting them with Dijon mustard, sprinkling them with grated Gruyere cheese and topping this off with half a tomato that has been concasse'd (you remember, blanched, peeled, seeded and in this case, only cut in half). They were beautiful! Stick them in the oven for a short period of time with a little cheese sprinkled over them and viola! We served them with some Beluga Lentils I had brought in so we could experiment with them-saute some cubed bacon, then remove from a pan. Add some mirepoix (keep up here, lol!) to the bacon grease and saute but do not brown, add the lentils and saute for a few minutes, then add crushed garlic, white wine, chicken stock, bouquet garni and simmer for 40 minutes. After they were cooked, we seasoned them with salt and pepper, put them on a plate along with the tart with a small amount of lettuce dressed with a small amount of lemon juice, salt and olive oil and serve!
Next Chef Dale talked about the ABCs of chicken-different poultry, sizes, weight, etc. Then we boned a whole chicken. Not as bad as I thought, but messy. And I cut myself three times!! How embarrassing is that!? Alan cut the tip of his finger off, so I guess I shouldn't complain, my cuts were tiny-just messy! Anyway, we all made it thru. The only one who doesn't need more practice is Cris, but he was a butcher for two years-talk about easy for someone! We had to do a good job cutting the breasts because that's what we had for lunch. We had to do what they call an airline chicken breast. You cut off the first two sections of the chicken wing, then take off the breast from the body of the chick but leave the drumstick portion of the wing attached. Then you cut around the end of the wing and push the meat up the bone toward the breast and remove the cartilage and skin left on the end of the wing bone. Hopefully this will get easier! It does save you a lot of money buying a whole chicken rather than just the breasts or legs.
Pastry made cherry clafouti for dessert. This type of dessert is very European and showcases really good fruit. In Europe they usually do not remove stems and seeds/pits, but Chef Lexie took pity on us and had her students remove the pits for us. Think of Clafouti as a dessert where cream meets pancakes. Not too sweet but tastey!
We went over Quatre e'pice or four spices again . The spices are equal parts cinnamon, all-spice, ground ginger and white pepper. Cook Street also adds a half part cloves to this. The smell is out of this world. And it truely makes things taste better. We used this along with sugar and salt to "cure" duck legs. We left them in the walk-in over the weekend to cure. We will be making duck confit on Monday.
The main course for lunch today (which was not until about 3pm!) was chicken breast served over couscous and sauteed spinach with a lovely saffron sauce. I'm not sure I can keep eating this much food!!!
We were all exhausted by the end of the day and all I can say is thank goodness it's the end of the week! It was nice to learn I was not the only tired student, lol. But, because it was Alta's birthday, we went out for wine and dinner-although I have to tell you, it's hard to get enthusiastic about eating out when you'd just had a large, gourmet (late) lunch!
We went out to Solera, a wine bar and restaurant. Alta's two daughters were there and four of her girlfriends. All wonderful ladies! I was home by 10pm but still exhausticated!!
Tomorrow Alta and I help Martin Yan in the kitchen. Cool!!
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