Friday, August 27, 2010

First thing today was our exam. I know I missed at least two. We'll see what my grade is next week! Today is my last day in Hot Plate. That means I only have four weeks of school left! Next week I start in Pastry. Today is also "cooking without a net." The chefs give us a menu (something we have made in a previous class) and then give us 2-2 1/2 hours to make it.

We had a short lecture on Petit Fours from Chef Lexie. Petit Fours translates to "little oven". They are really any sweet little treat. They are usually 1 inch in diameter, one bite, cut, intensely flavored and intricately decorated. It is the sweet version of the Amuse Bouche.

There are four categories of Petit Fours:

1. Frais ("fresh"), which means higly perishable (the quality becomes easily compromised). This would be for example, a mini fruit tart.

2. Sec, ("dry"), which are dry, crisp little cookies. Shortbread, toiles, little biscotti. they are good for coffee service and to put with a serving of ice cream.

3. Glace ("glaced") which are the classic cute little cakes.

4. Deguise ("disguised"), these include things like chocolate dipped fruits (apricots or strawberries), baby biscotti dipped in chocolate or caramel.

For cooking without a net, Hot Plate had to make Chicken Roulade with Sauce Veloute and Butternut/Parsnip Puree. We had a little over two hours. We fabricated 12 chickens so we had enough chicken breasts to do the main course and enough to make chicken mousseline. We ended up doing ok (I was in charge of making the mousseline used for filling the flattened chicken breasts), but our sauce was a little thin because we started it too late. Our parsnips were roasted so ended up woody and could not be piped. The squash was good as was the chicken. The four chefs gave the entire class and the entire meal a 78. We were kind of disappointed (all of us) that we didn't do better. Oh, well, it was a good learning experience!

We got out of school early today. I'll be working on my project part of the weekend, going out to sushi with one of my friends from school and going to Cherry Creek Mall to look at Sur La Table (a cooking store) where we get a 10% student discount. Have a good weekend everyone!