Just Give Me a Reason, Just a Little Bit's Enough.

It's in the stars, It's been written in the scars on our hearts
(P!ink- Just Give Me A Reason)

Lesson 27- Fileting a Fish (Review)

Today we made pan seared Sea Bream Fillets:

I'd like to talk more about this dish, but frankly my dear I don't give a damn anymore. For practical, we had Mr Napoleon Dynamite again, whom we encountered earlier in the semester. Though he was markedly better this time around, he still walked around making inappropriate comments and taunting students, all in the name of keeping the atmosphere light. I swear this guy enjoys power-tripping over everyone because he has some personal insecurity issues (for one, his lack-of height). I think our German classmate got so upset that she cried in the locker room because of something he said in German about German women. Personally, I was so annoyed at the way he belittled every student throughout the class that I messed up my fish and the skin was peeling off. Then, when I was talking my photo he yelled at me because I was already late.

At the end of the class, he walked around handing students paper notes with "0" written on it, saying they're getting zeros for their grade because of some silly reason, then laughed and said that he was only kidding. When I was washing my knives, he handed the "0" to me because I was "washing my knives too slow." I almost lost it. I've kicked the asses of bigger men in college kendo and chewed up tougher guys at Morgan Stanley + Harvard Business School than him. I remained respectful to him throughout the class because to paraphrase Band of Brothers, I respect the rank not the man. I'm sure he's an accomplished chef, and I respect his willingness to become a teacher, but bullying students because he can hide behind his position as Chef is cowardly and shameful. Just give me a reason just a little bit's enough, Chef, and I will devour you for breakfast à la Michael Phelps.

Anyways, I think my classmates noticed that I wasn't amused, and tried to console me after class. I'm very grateful for having supportive classmates.

Something constructive: If you put a round parchment paper directly on a regular pan, you can turn any pan into a make-shift non-stick pan. Doesn't work perfectly, but may be a lifesaving technique someday.

Quote from this class:

At the end of practical, I was last to leave the classroom
Chef: Ou-ard, you're the slowest to leave the classroom. For that you get a DOUBLE ZERO for your grade. *Hands a piece a paper with "00" written on it.
Me: Merci Chef. Do you know what I see on this piece of paper?
Chef: No... what?
Me: To me, that's an infinite sign (∞). Thank you for the grade.
Chef: What are you...... an engineer?
Me: No Chef, I'm a culinary student.


Fuck you, @$$hole.

It's Close to Midnight, Something Evil's Lurkin'in the Dark...

'Cause this is thriller! Thriller at night!
(Michael Jackson- Thriller)

Lesson Z- Halloween Party

The school decided to organize a Halloween party Tuesday night, which happened to be the night before the Basic Cuisine written final exam. What happens when you organize a school party the night before an exam? This:

Rocking the Dance Floor

To be fair the photo was taken at 9pm, but then the party started at 7pm, and was billed to end at midnight. As it was a Halloween party, students were encouraged to dress up. No one would be lame enough to actually show up with an outfit right? Well I did:

The "American Tourist"

I was going to go as the Chinese businessman, but I thought that the American Tourist would be a more popular crowd pleaser anywhere in the world. Anyways, I got to meet a lot of Basic Pastry folks, who had their written exam last week and could afford to come out. I learned a lot today, for example pastry folks don't actually have cooties, as was passed down in the folklore of Basic Cuisine! I mean, how would we know? We never come into contact with them at school. A few of them were actually quite friendly.

Anyways, the written exam was pretty straightforward. I don't think anyone who listened to class and somewhat studied would fail the thing. However, I don't regret all those hours memorizing cuisine vocabs, since they are quite useful to know in real life. IE when I go to the market or when I look at menus in French restaurants. Here are some words that I found useful.

Abats- Means the internal organs of a Chicken. When you buy a chicken from a farmer's market, they would ask you if you want your poulet avec or sans abats.

Allumette- Literally matchsticks. Describes the shape of a certain stick shape petit four, or very thin French Fries IE pomme allumette

Confit- food that is saturated with vinegar, sugar, alcohol or fat. IE Confit de canard is duck meat soaked in duckfat.

Consommé- clear soup that is served hot or cold, usually clarified

Crudités- raw vegetables sliced or cut served with vinaigrette or mayonnaise. You get these for appetizers. Also a popular sandwitch in france is a Sandwich Poulet Crudités= chicken mayo vegetable sandwich

Demi-glace- reduced espanole sauce plus madeira used to flavor dish or strengthen brown sauces

Hacher-  To chop into small pieces. IE Steak Haché is chopped up steak

Poêler-  Pan Fry. IE Poulet Poêlé is pan fried chicken

Vapeur- Steamed. IE: Raviolis à la Vapeur = steamed ravioli

Velouté- Cream soup similar to "Cream of" soups except it is also thickened with egg yolks.

Quote of the day:

Overheard
Student 1: Are you going to the school Halloween party?
Student 2: Dude, we have the written final the next day.
Student 1: But...... it's the HALLOWEEN PARTY!

Turning Japanese I Think I'm Turning Japanese I Really Think So...

I often kiss you when there's no one else around
(The Vapors- Turning Japanese)

Lesson 26- Fish Terrine

Today's dish is rather strange: Hot Fish Terrine with Beurre Blanc. A Beurre Blanc is a butter-based sauce cooked with shallots, reduced white wine and vinegar, and cream:

 Fish Terrine as Prepared by Chef Bogen

The final dish feels like a cross between a Japanese maki roll and the Japanese kamaboko that I ate as a child. Even the chef described the dish as a maki. However, instead of rolling the dish in nori, we rolled it in layers of poached spinach. The white part of the roll is the fish terrine, which taste shockingly like kamaboko, which is a kind of Japanese fish cake or fish paste. Point is the whole dish felt very Japanese-y. We should have served it with soy sauce.

However, the dish was surprisingly hard to cook. Out of 10 students in our practical, only 3 successfully had a good fish terrein. The rest of the students (myself included), had undercooked fish terrine that resulted in the white terrine appear more like toothpaste than solid fish cakes.

My Disaster as Layed Out on
My Cutting Board

My dish was already not the worst, as I was nearly there. 2 of my classmates had their fish cake collapsed when they took their products out of the molds. Their texture looked more like Greek Yogurt than cooked terrine.

I have two hypothesis in why my dish came out wrong, despite my leaving it in the oven for 12 minutes more than in the demonstration:

1. My oven is simply not hot enough- Our practical kitchen ovens is not as effective as the professional oven that they have in the demonstration classroom. And so maybe the amount of time needed in our practical chefs is much longer than what was shown in demonstration But this doesn't explain why 3 classmates were successful while 7 of us failed.

2. My spinach was too moist- We poached our spinach, lay out the leaves, and then put them together as a skin. After poaching my spinach, I kind of lazily let them sit on a tray soaking in water (sorry chef). I remember seeing a few of my classmates being just as sloppy as I was, and perhaps this explains why only 3 of us had successful products while most of us failed: perhaps the successful cases were by people who were more diligent of their items.

Point is, the dish was still good, and the ends justify the means.... right? Everything goes into your digestive system and comes out as shit anyways.

Lesson of the day: To thicken your sauce with butter, you have to prepare small cubes of very cold butter and have the sauce boil. We usually soak the butter in ice water just before we add them into the sauce. The reason is oil and water do not mix , and if you just melt butter into a water-based sauce, the fats will float onto the top of the liquid. By adding bits of ice cold butter into a boiling liquid (and whisking vigorously), you achieve a type of thermal shock to the butter and emulsify the fat. The end result is the butter mixes homogeneously in the sauce and gives the sauce a thick, buttery and heavenly texture.

Quote from this class:

"It doesn't matter whether you are in a 3 star Michelin restaurant, or a cheap bistrot ordering a 10 Euro dish. If your plate has stains, your client will send his food back to the kitchen. SO CLEAN YOUR PLATE BEFORE SERVING!"

- Chef-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named Yelling at A Hapless Student in Practical

I threw it on the GROUND! You must think I'm a joke!

I'm not part of your system, My dad's not a PHONE! DUH
(Lonely Island- Threw it on the Ground)

Lesson 25- Chicken Sauté

The dish of the day is Chicken Sauté with Tarragon and Italian Style Vegetables.

Kaboom!

"Italian style" just means that we cut the vegetables into angled thick pieces, roast it with olive oil and mix some basil leaves into the veg. This is not culturally stereotyping at all.

The chicken was pretty interesting because we've fileted chicken before, but this time we cut the chicken into pieces with the bones attached first, cook the chicken pieces with the bone to retain their shape and then cut out the bones just before serving Don't forget the Oyster, which is called "sot-l'y-laisse" in French because it means only a fool would leave it on the chicken. We pan seared the meat and then "sauté-ed" them, though in my book we were basically braising the bird since we were cooking it in a veal stock liquid over heat. Something I learned today- chicken breast takes about half the time needed by dark meat to cook, so if you don't want to overcook your chicken breast you should take them out ahead of time. As per usual the braising liquid is reduced and turned into a delicious sauce flavored with tarragon.

Our practical chef today was the wonderful Chef Ju. She's a very friendly chef from Korea who spoke perfect French and English. She gives a lot of helpful tips to students and likes to engage in friendly banter with us. For example she was complaining to me how painful and useless her Chinese Cupping therapy session was.

One thing you learn very quickly is to always clean and clear your station. One of the most frequent commands by the practical chefs is "Débarrassez-le!" (Clear that!), followed by a hapless student saying "Oui chef." Another thing you hear a lot is "C'est pas propre!" (It's not clean!), again followed by a hapless student saying "Oui chef." You learn to wash and wipe your knives, your cutting board, your table, your cooking station, everything all the time. You get rid of trash whenever you're not cutting. In fact, at the end of every class, one of the grading criteria is your cleanliness, in addition to your food. It's actually quite refreshing to always have a clean station ready for the next ingredient.

Nevertheless, one thing I noticed about the chefs is, despite their obsession with clean stations, they don't care much about the cleanliness of the ground. When the chef examines your station, he/she rarely inspects the floor. Obviously don't throw a banana peel on the ground, but we've been wiping bits of scraps off the table and onto the floor, and so far no one has ever complained about water or chopped shallots on the ground. Frankly I find it quite dangerous, even though we all wear slip-resistant kitchen shoes. Someone can easily slip and fall. But then we're not graded on how well we walk either, so I guess if one is pressed for time, throwing things on the ground is the most efficient way to clean your station!

Quotes from this class:

"All the cuisine chefs at Le Cordon Bleu are better than the pastry chefs. Why? Every chef here can teach at least the basic pastry classes. But can the pastry chefs teach basic cuisine?" *EVIL GRIN*

- Demo Chef Vaca

During practical class,  after Chef Ju explained something in French too quickly...

Me: Pardon Chef, est-ce-que vous pouvez le-répéter en anglais? (Excuse me chef, can you repeat that in English?)

Chef Ju: *GLARE* On est en FRANCE! (We are in FRANCE!)

Me: C'est vrai, chef. (That is true, chef.)

Chef Ju: Et en France, on parle en français! (And in France, we speak in French!)

Me: Oui Chef....

Chef Ju was just giving me a hard time, she eventually explained in English.

C’est comme ça, qu’est ce que j’y peux? C’est comme ça, qu’est ce que j’y peux?

Faudrait savoir ce que tu veux. Faudrait savoir ce que tu veux!
(Christophe Willem - Double Je)

Lesson 24 -Preparing meat medallions

Today's dish is Pork Medallion in Charcutière Sauce served with Pommes Dauphine. We had Chef Stril (AKA Grandpa Bear) for both demo and practical. Yay, he's awesome!

Boom!

The pork was sautéed, but had to be cooked to between à point and bien cuit (Medium well/well done). I thought the French don't acknowledge anything other than their 4 levels of doneness? Anyways, it was tricky to cook this pork to the level necessary since it was so thick, but I managed to get it done right. Trick is to keep feeling the toughness of the pork at its center.

Charcutière sauce is a sauce made with a pork base (from the sautéing of the pork medallion) with onions, dry white wine and veal stock combined with mustard and pickles. We also added some chopped herbs.

Pomme Dauphine is a type of fried potatoes that is similar to tater-tots but oh so much better. You combine mashed-up potatoes with choux pastry to create cork-shaped gooey pastes that you deep fry at 180C. The result is a delicious fried potato with a fantastic texture.

When I fried my first batch of potatoes, the corks all unraveled in the oil and disintegrated. WTF?? Chef Stril looked at me sternly and said "I guess the Harvard boy can't figure out the potatoes." Yo chef, I followed the recipe to the T. You can't blame me for how it turned out!

Then he added:"You'll have to serve your dish without the potatoes."

"NO!" I barked back, adding "chef" a second later. "I can redo my potatoes!"

Chef Stril looked at the clock and said "Okay, you have 45 to redo everything, allez-y!"

For the rest of the class I was in a zone, racing to redo my Pomme Dauphine while keeping an eye on my pork and sauce. I was able to race to the finish line, though 5 minutes later than the deadline, and present my dish to Chef Stril, who praised my dish but marked off points for having finger marks at the edge of my plate. C’est comme ça, qu’est ce que j’y peux?


Quote of the class:

"If you want to, you can put in less sugar than what is stated in the recipe. It'll make the dessert dish healthier."

- Demo Chef Stril on how to make a dessert dish "healthier."

The dish also called for 6 egg yolk, 50 grams cream and is served with 

homemade ice-cream (250ml whole milk, 3 egg yolks, and 65 grams of sugar).

Too bad we didn't make this in practical. It was delious.

Chef Stril: Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit..... nuef, dix. I count 10 finger marks at the edge of your plate, Ou-ard.

Me: Oui chef, that's because I have 10 fingers.

Chef Stril: This is not good. You need to serve your plate with no finger mark.

Me: Oui chef.

From Russia with Love, I Fly to You...

I've Seen Places, Faces and Smiled For a Moment...
(Matt Monro- From Russia With Love)

Lesson 23 - Beef Strogonoff

 Boom

Today's class is on Beef Strogonoff, a dish of Russian origin. The funny thing is, the Cordon Bleu version looks nothing like what I see on the internet. Our Stragonoff has a reddish hue due to the large amount of paprika that we put in the dish as well as the tomatoes. The recipes that I see online doesn't call for paprika, and instead of regular cream they call for sour cream, which I'm sure would alter the flavor profile.

Typical picture of what I find online

Aside from the beef, we served the dish with rice, carrots, green beans and zucchini, which all have to be prepared separately. They're all pretty easy to make aside but the biggest trick is to manage your station so that everything can come out well.

Strogonoff Sauce

Sear beef trimmings, pour out grease, then add in
1/2 onion finely chopped, 2 tomatoes chopped and tomatoe paste. Then deglaze with
200ml white wine, add
1 tbsp Paprika, 2 mashed garlic cloves. Give it a few minutes and add in
400ml brown veal stock and Bouquet Garni. Let cook and reduce.
Strain sauce and reduce as necessary. Before serving add in
100ml cream and whisk. Do not boil sauce anymore.
After prepping and searing the beef, add the beef into the sauce for a minute, then bring the beef out and serve.

Grandma's cookin breakfast she makes pancakes the best.

Every day I see my dream.
 Every day I see my-every day I see my dream. 
Every day I see my dream. 
(LMFAO - YES)

Lesson 21- A typical Bistrot Menu

Our dish today is Côtes de Veau Grand-mère- Grandma Style Veal Chops.

Veal Chops

The veal chop was sautéed in a fairly simply, though it was hard to get right because you had to cook it for a long time to get the thick piece of meat cooked, but you can't leave it on the pan for too long or the skin will burn. The trick is to sauté the meat with its trimmings. Once the skin is colored you put the veal on top of its own trimmings to keep on cooking without being burnt. The trimmings also serve to flavor the sauce later.

Façon Grand-mère, Grandma style, just describes the mix of garnishes that we serve the veal with: glazed onions, sautéed bacon cubes, button mushrooms and lightly fried potatoes.

Quote of the class:
"Always taste your mussels because you don't want anyone to die from your food. If the mussel's gone bad, you will die first as the taster"

-Demo Chef Bogen, 

while teaching us how to prepare mussels (which we didn't make in practical)

Kiss Me Hard Before You Go, Summertime Sadness…

I got that summer time - summer time sadness… oh~
(Lana Del Rey - Summertime Sadness)

Lesson 19- Balanced Menu / Thickening a Sauce with Egg Yolk

Fall/ Autumn has most definitely arrived at Paris, with temperatures hovering stubbornly around 10C (50F) and the sun setting at 7pm. Time to say good bye to those endless days of sunshine and hot nights with cool breezes. Thank you summer 2013, you’ve been beautiful.

Perhaps it is fitting for the cold weather that today we made a traditional veal stew, garnished with button mushrooms and pearl onions made A l’Ancienne, which is similar to glazing but without drying out the cooking liquid or coloring the product. We served this with a Rice Pilaf.

Boom

In French cuisine, when you see the word “traditional,” you can bet that there will be an excessive amount of butter or cream (or both) incorporated. In this case, there’s a mind-blowing amount of cream in the stew sauce. There’s even butter stirred into the Rice Pilaf (Pourquoi?!). I have to admit, though, that this dish is really delicious. Just don’t eat more than 1 bite and you’ll love it.

The interesting part of today’s dish is that we thickened the sauce with White Roux (equal parts of melted butter and flour), cream and egg yolk. The egg yolk is the trickiest because it prohibits the cook from ever boiling the sauce again or the egg yolk will coagulate.

Review of my dish: Flavor was good. Veal was tender. Mushrooms and onions were well cooked. The only problem was that my sauce wasn’t thick enough. For whatever reason, despite following the appropriate ratios, my sauce came out too liquid. The chef recommended that I put some beurre manié to thicken it, but then you need to boil the sauce to activate the thickening agent, and that would cook the egg yolk. Great. Also the chef said I put too much sauce on my dish, but isn’t this suppose to be a stew dish?

No quote from today’s class, but I’m sad to report that I said “Oui, chef” to the train conductor when he asked for my ticket on my train ride back from Bordeaux the other day. FML.

Et Je Suis Fier, Et Je Suis Fier, Et Je Suis Fier D'Etre Bourguignon

Quand je fois rougir ma trogne, je suis fier d´être bourguignon!
( Je suis fier d'être Bourguignon)

Lesson 18 - Red Meats - Part 2

Today, we made Beef Burgundy, a yummy, tender dish that reminds me of an interracial wonderful marriage between the Chinese and French. The texture of the meat is similar to the braised beef that I eat in China, but the reduced red wine sauce is distinctively French. The sauce contains small mushrooms and bacon bits, and the dish is garnished with potatoes, glazed onions and a fried crouton.

My Braised Beef with Glazed Onions, Potatoes and Fried Cruton

 I accidentally cracked my heart-shaped crouton, so

I now christen it my Crouton Cordon Bleu Coeur Brisé (CCBCB).
Sounds like a Chinese State-owned Enterprise.

The dish took over 48 hours to make. We prepared the marinate, which was basically 1 liter of red wine combined with aromatic garnishes, last class. We then soaked the beef shoulders in the marinate for over two days, and then cooked it in the oven for a good 75 minutes. Despite that, the Chef still complained that my meat was not well done enough. The beef is suppose to be super well-done, to the point where its fibers break down. That would take more than 2 hours of cooking to achieve.

Review from the chef: The beef is as well cooked as it could be, given that we only had 75 minutes. Glazed onions, cruton, and turned potatoes all have the right flavor and textures, though glazed onions generally should have more coloring. Although flavorful, the sauce should have more red wine flavor. Perhaps I should add more red wine in the future. Also I probably shouldn't serve my crouton if it was broken. "Oh it was deliberate, chef."  I tried to argue,"It's my Broken-Hearted Crouton!"

Quote from this class:

"You know, I have a friend in the industry who refuses to serve beef that is any more cooked than Saignant (rare). If a client demands à point (medium) or bien cuit (well done), he would simply refuse to cook the dish, and instead recommend a chicken or pork dish, which would be cooked bien cuit."

- Demo Chef Vaca, who failed to disclose where his friend works

Tell Your Boyfriend, If He Say He's Got Beef...

That I'm a vegetarian and I ain't fucking scared of him!
(3OH!3- Don't Trust Me)

Lesson 17- Red Meats - Part 1

Today's menu is roasted sirloin fillet (coeur de contrefilet) with mash potato.

Sorry, this is not focused well. 

I blame it on the camera.

The dish itself was pretty straightforward to make. I actually had a lot of fun preparing it. The key to this dish was simple good beef, as we did minimal flavoring. We learned to cook it saignant, "rare" in French. Unlike the Americans, who use a quarter system (Blue, Rare, medium-rare, medium, medium-well, well done), or the Asians, who use a percentage system (30% done, 70% done, ete) the French has 4 and only 4 levels of doneness: Bleu- Bleu (barely cooked), Saignant- Rare (bloody, sometimes called rosé, pink), A point- Medium (Beef still shows some pinkness, but little if any blood, and Bien-cuit- well done (No red/pink at all).

The dish is generally garnished with mash potatoes, which is cooked by boiling skinned potatoes in salted water. The potatoes should be cooked until super tender (ie not al dente), and then mashed into a paste and cooked with cream and butter.

A review of my dish by the chef: Meat was cooked very well. The sauce tastes great but is a little too concentrated (I shouldn't have reduced it so much). And the mash potato is too moist. I knew my mash potato was too wet when I was cooking it already, and tried to heat it up and reduce the moisture. However, what I should have done is letting the potatoes dry between boiling the potatoes and mashing them up. Oh well. You live and learn.

Quotes from this class.

"Always use odd number when you are plating things. Look, we plate three pieces, never two."

 - Demo Chef Bogen, when plating.

It's the time of the season for loving...

What's you name? Who's your daddy?
(The Zombies - Time of the Season)

Lesson 16- Historical and Regional Influences

We prepared two dishes today:

Deep-fried Gambas shrimp, which included learning how to make mayonnaise by hand and turning it into Tartar Sauce:

 My taichi-symbol fried Gambas

And Cheese Soufflé:

My soufflé after Chef Stril tasted it. I swear

it looked perfect just a minute ago.

Similar to the hollandaise sauce that we did, mayonnaise is an sauce made from emulsified egg. One major difference is that mayonnaise doesn’t require heating of the egg, which makes it so much easier to make. You prepare 3 egg yolks, add vinegar and salt, whisk vigorously and slowly incorporate peanut oil into the bowl. FYI, real mayo should be yellow because it includes a significant amount of egg yolks, not white as the American packaged food industry have you believed your whole life.

In terms of the soufflé, we learned how much of a bitch it is to make one. You have to vigorously whisk egg whites until your arm turns to butter, and then whisk a bit more until the egg white peaks into a dreamy froth. Then, even if you follow the recipe to the T your soufflé might not rise properly because there are so many things that could go wrong.

We had Chef Stril today as our practical chef, and I was so happy! Chef Stril has been our demonstration chef many times, and I've liked him a lot. As our practical chef, he is both strict and supportive, which is really what I want in an instructor. I think of him as a Grandpa Bear figure: loving and warm but you know he can devour you if he ever wishes to. When he tasted my Gambas shrimp, his eyes sparkled and said that it was “divine.” Hah thanks.

Sadly I forgot to season my cheese soufflé. I realized my mistake the after I closed the oven door and it was too late. You can't open the oven once you put in the soufflé, and all you can do is wait for the trainwreck to unfold. Right before tasting, Chef Stril looked at me funny and said "I hope you seasoned your soufflé, or it'll taste like prison food." I laughed nervously as he tasted it. "Ugh, I bet this is what prison food taste like in Boston." he commented with a smile. I can't believe I still made such a rookie mistake after a month and a week in the school. Hopefully I've learned my lesson and won't forget again.

Cheese Soufflé
Preheat oven at 200C
Butter and flour ceramic bowl
Create Bechamel Sauce
Add egg yolks and gruyère cheese to turn it into a Mornay Sauce
Whisk Egg white vigorously until it peaks with a silky smooth texture
Fold mornay sauce into egg white.
Pour  mixture into ceramic bowl, pour in more gruyère cheese until the liquid is below the tip.
Season!
Use finger and trace the mixture along the edge of the bowl.
Put in oven for around 15 minutes. Actual time depends on your soufflé. DO NOT OPEN until ready.
Serve immediately.

Quotes from this class:
After demonstrating how to make mayonnaise sauce-
Demo Chef Stril: (In French) Mesdames et mesdomoiselles you will have no reason to screw up your mayonnaise sauce anymore
Female Translator: (In French) And the messieurs too, no?
Demo Chef Stril: (In French) Yes but it always seems to be the ladies who can't make the mayonnaise sauce. I don't know why.
Female Translator: (In English) So now ALL of you will have no reason to screw up your mayonnaise sauce anymore.

Why should it be that the fish in the sea are all unable to sing?

Just listen to me young fellow. What need is there for fish to sing, when I can roar and bellow? 
(Mr Scruff- Fish)

Lesson 15- Brill Fillets in White Wine Sauce

Ugh we've had fish for two classes in a row, and my fingers now perpetually smell like fish. Then again, we had a wonderful brill fillet dish today.

This is the second time that we filleted a fish, and again it is a type of flatfish. I have to admit that this time has been much easier than our first time. Although I screwed up 2 of my slices, I am proud to say that my 2 other slices came out remarkably well, with minimal meat left on the bones. Deskinning was also pretty straightforward. On the other hand, the brill so much more slippery than the lemon sole, and it was not pleasant handling it. As with last time, we braised the fish in a stock made by the fish's own bones. Cruel.

The real challenge was the turned potatoes anglaise shape, IE big 4-5 cm pieces of potatoes cut into oval shapes. Turning has been one of the hardest skills for me master. I've always flunked grade school arts & crafts class, so I really don't think I can improve much here.

Chef Legue's comments for me is "Fish is well cooked. Sauce is well flavored. Potatoes are well cooked but need to be uniform in size." Uniform in size? Do you realize how proud I was just to make those potatoes look decently turned? Anyways, I guess I'll just have to keep practicing!

The braising liquid used:
Fish stock (Brill bones, 1/4 onion, 2 shallots, butter, Bouquet Garni, White wine and cold water)
Cooking Garnish (1 chopped onion, 2 chopped shallots, 3 tomatoes peeled, skinned and chopped)
We then turned the braising liquid into a sauce:
add: 100ml white wine
REDUCE!
add 125g butter
add 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley as late as possible
Boom

Surprisingly we didn't have to strain the sauce today before serving.

Quote from this class:

"This is a Brill. It's a type of flatfish that lies at the bottom of the ocean floor. Kind of like the lemon sole that you had earlier in the term. Flat fishes swim like this." *WOBBLES the dead brill vertically* Fish refuses to wobble "Rigidity is a sign of freshness in a fish."
... Later in the class
"This is a Salmon. It swims normally in the sea. Like this." *WOBBLES the dead salmon horizontally*

- Demo Chef Legue

What's My Age Again? What's My Age Again?

Nobody likes you when you're 23 and are still more amused by prank phone calls...
(blink-182 - What's My Age Again?)

Lesson 14- Fish- Part 1

Our dish of the day is a Poached Hake Steak with Hollandaise Sauce.

Dish as prepared by Demo Chef Bogen

Hake is this tasty white fish that has an ugly head. We shared a fish between two people, and someone had to saw off the head.

UGH so ugly... Reserved for stock

After this, we sliced the fish into pieces of steak (approximately 3 fingers in thickness) and then we braised it in a court-bouillon soup (A combination of aromatic garnishes, vinegar and wine). DO NOT let the water boil violently. Just let the fish steak sit in the simmering/very hot water until it is done.

The challenge in this class is to make Hollandaise sauce, which is made by an emulsion of egg yolk and butter. For a novice, the thing is a bitch to make, because you have to heat the egg yolk gently without letting the yolk coagulate. You also need to be careful when you add the warm liquid butter or the emulsion process will fail. Bottom line is you have to keep whisking it, paying attention to the temperature, while carefully adding the yellow fat. At the end of the process you put in juice from half a lemon and season with salt and cayenne pepper.

Today's also my birthday! I still remember when I first heard the Blink 182 song in high school and thinking "23 years old is so far away..." Now I'm quite a few years beyond that number already. How did those years pass by me like that?

Quote of the class:

"Monsieur! Your tousers are not done. You are not allowed into the classroom. No. No. You had 3 weeks to shorten them. No. You are not allowed in. Désolé! Please leave now!"

-School health inspector kicking out a student for not hemming his school trousers. Students were given 1 week to hemm all their trousers, and have been repeatedly warned to have them hemmed. Missing a demo class counts as 2 absences because one would be disallowed into the practical class too.