Et j'ai dit.... Bonne idée....

Et puis j'ai vu de la lumière et je vous ai trouvés...
(Jean-Jacques Goldman- Bonne Idée)

Intermediate Lesson 20- Loire Valley

Before I start today, I'd like to tell you a joke from high school French:

Why do the French like Easter? Because it's a Bonne idée (Bunny day)! Hah... okay not that funny. But this explains the title track of today's entry. Yes we had rabbit again. And this time is much more complicated than my encounter in basic, which was also my exam dish.

Hop!

This time, in addition to cutting a rabbit into different pieces, we had to fillet out the meat from the bones, and then use the meat to wrap around the forcemeat that we created from its two front legs, its liver and a duxelle. We also threw some prunes in for kicks.

Sadly, I had to rush through the dish today because we had back-to-back demonstration and practical classes, and the demonstration class ran late. We finished our demo at 6:20pm, and I effectively had 10 minutes to change into practical uniform and prep the kitchen as assistant for 6:30pm class. I was therefore far behind most people today in class. This is compounded by the fact that the fillet work of the rabbit was so complex. At least I got it done. In rushing to complete the dish, I forgot that we were suppose to serve only one slice of the loin with a hind leg instead of the whole loin, so as you can see in my photo I have this chunky piece of meat next to my rabbit leg (whopse). At least my dish tasted good.

On the other hand, my garnish came out great. We had these baked potatoes from which we dug out the contents, mashed the potato and added scallion and cheese, and then filled it back to the potato skins. That I did very well.

I just wish that my cold can get better. The fact that I was late already gave me a lot of pressure, worse yet is I had to be careful to 1. not cough to much 2. cover my mouth when I do cough 3. go wash my hands every time I cough. I definitely lost a lot of time as a result.

Quote from this class:

Demo Chef Stril:(in French) ... and there's a lot of fish in the Loire River.

Translator looked dazed...

Chef Stril:(in French) ... and there's a lot of fish in the Loire River. *WAVES HIS HANDS vigorously

Translator: (in English) and there's a lot of fish in the Loire River. (In French) I was here Chef!

Chef Stril: (In French) well so am I! Wake up! *laughs

As we entered our practical classroom, it was very clear the previous class didn't clean the room thoroughly

Student 1: Ohh the room's a mess! Who was here before us?

Student 2: It was the basic kids.

Student 1: Those stupid basic students. What rookies!

Student 2: Now we have to clean their mess!

Guys... we were in basic less than a month ago ourselves....

But we've got the biggest balls of all!

I've got big balls! I've got big balls!
(ACDC- Big Balls)

Intermediate Lesson 14- Lamb Fillet

Our dish today is a lamb fillet served with vegetables and fried potato balls.

Boom!

It was actually a fairly straightforward dish. We had to cut the lamb fillet from the rack of lamb, and I continue to lament on how wasteful haut-cuisine is in France. Clawing down the bone is the best part of eating a lamb rack! Why would you deny your customers the pleasure of dirtying their fingers to eat from the delicious bones??

The fun part of today was creating the potato balls that you see on the right side. We lierally took our melon ballers and dug out perfectly good-looking round balls from whole potatos and then fried them. They're so delicious. Chef Caals thinks that I haven't seasoned the balls enough, but by this point I just think the French and I have artistic differences when it comes to seasoning. What was left were potatoes with beehive-like holes all over them. Perfect for making mash-potatoes.

Hint: it is always better to blanch your potatoes first before frying them. If you simply fry them directly then you always end up the core being undercooked and crispy. Blanching them a few minutes first precooks the potato, so that after you fry the potatoes they would be cooked thoroughly. Salt the water when you blanch them.

We also got to play with these big metal molds to plate our dish. This is why I arrange my lamb and make it look so nice!

Quote from this class

"Jean-Baptiste Denys was the first doctor in history to have performed a blood transfusion on a person, using lamb blood. It' didn't work....."

-Demo Chef Caals

On blood transfusions. I don't remember how we started on

this subject.....

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.