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.