(Oasis- Champagne Supernova)
Intermediate Lesson 17- Champagne
Our Grand Tour de France today takes us to Champagne, with its universally acclaimed sparkling wine. We made a braised sole fillet stuffed with fish forcemeat and served with a Champagne sauce and mushroom flan. Oh we also had to "turn" mushrooms, which was the bane of my existence in basic. It is back, and this time there's no escaping.
Insert Explosion Sound
I added some chives for garnishing because the dish looked so drab on its own. I'm really proud to say though that this was one of my best dishes in intermediate. The presentation was fantastic, everything was cooked well. Flavoring was fantastic. The sauce was great, with good acidity and texture. The mushroom flan was yummy. The turned mushrooms could look nicer, but tasted great. I even finished early, and timing has been a consistent issue for me in intermediate. My only weakness was that my station should be cleaner. Dude, I've been told to be more organized since parents-teachers day in grade school. I've long given up being tidy. Thank you very much but I'ma gonna focus more on my strengths than my weaknesses, chef.
All of this masks a fundamental problem of this class: Our soles came filleted. We didn't have to do any of the slicing ourselves. As some of you may know, I've always struggled with filleting a fish. If we had to cut that damn sole, I don't think I would have done nearly as well. This is also an exam dish, and the chef refuses to say whether we will be getting the fillets or a whole fish in the exam.
Santè! Chin-chin! Cheers! Salud! Prost! Salute! Pura vida! 飲勝! 干杯 (随意)! Kampai!
Whatever language you speak, the meaning's the same!
Man, it's the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I don't deny that I'm missing me some old-fashioned all-american capitalistic fist-fighting in the mall for Black Friday sales. I see so many Black Friday deals online that I really wish I could just go help lift the national consumer spending this weekend.
Quote from this class:
Me: Chef, an average egg is 50 grams, and the recipe calls for 175 grams of eggs, do we really need to measure out 3 and a half an egg, or can we just use 4 eggs?
Chef: Well, the truth is, many of these recipes alter their ingredients slightly for copyright reasons. They can't put down the same exact ingredients as other published sources. That's why you sometimes see recipes calling for 2.33grams of salt, when it just means a pinch. So yeah, use 4 eggs. It's just a question of copyrights.
Me: Oui Chef.
"I heard this when I was 20, and I was shocked hearing this at such a young age.... And again.... I'm just passing you a saying that's very well known among French chefs. I didn't make it up, so don't blame me.... They say a cook who doesn't have their dish cloth is like a prostitute without her ass.... yeah, there you have it. That's why all chefs are crazy. We've been pushed and exposed to all sorts of crazy stuff at a young age."
-Chef on explaining why we always need to
carry at least one dish cloth
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