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....

One Shot! J'attends Toujours Celui Qui Viendra M'étonner!

Mais laisse tomber, et laisse tomber. C'est même plus la peine, c'est même plus la peine
(Maitre Gims feat Dry- One Shot)

Basic Cuisine Exam

After 9 weeks of cooking, cutting and burning, we've finally reached the end of the term. Exams at Cordon Bleu is divided into the written exam, which we had last week, and the practical exam, in which we would be given 10 dishes from our term to study, and then on exam day would be made to 1. write out all the required ingredients and 2. make the dish by heard or "Par cœur!" as the chefs yelled out throughout the term.

The written exam was jokingly easy, if you paid attention to class and then brute force memorize the glossary. It was still a bit challenging because some words were not on the glossary. I still remember freaking out freaking out on page one and thinking"WTF IS A BERCY SAUCE????!? It wasn't on the glossary! OMG IMGONNAFAILLLLL" and then feeling better when the rest of the exam had questions like "The best Parmesan cheese comes from a town in Holland. True / False."

Anyways to the practical exam. On exam day, we each drew a different dish to cook upon entering the kitchen. I drew the rabbit dish, which I guess means I pulled a rabbit out of the hat (hah). We had 15 minutes to fill in the ingredients list of the dish, then they would take away our answer sheet and give us the correct ingredients list, and we would start to cook the dish. We had 2.5 hours to complete the dish, and would have points deducted for every minute more needed. As in regular practical, you are given only enough ingredients to cook the dish, and you have only one shot to do it right.

The entire exam wasn't that difficult, and I was fairly comfortable with the dish. Moreover, the two proctoring chefs present in the practical exam gave a good amount of hints to help you like "Are you sure you want to use veal stock, or would you want to use chicken stock?" or "Hmmm you may want to use this piece of meat that you are discarding..... Just a thought." We were suppose to cook four-people's worth of food, which is different than the one-person portion that normally do in practical. Otherwise, the whole exam was fairly straightforward. I did everything just fine, except I almost forgot to sear the organs of the rabbit. I furiously seared them in the last 10 minutes.

Oh we also had to turn and cook an artichoke, which as you may remember I really didn't want to screw up. I did just fine, no problem at all.

Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of my dish. All I could say is I really liked the sauce that I made. I hope I passed my exam.

Quote from this class:

As I started searing the rabbit pieces halfway through the exam.
Proctor Chef: Hey don't you want to cook the head too? *Points towards the severed rabbit head that I left on my tray*
(In my mind: Shit do I need to cook the head? Shit shit. Not, I remember that we discard the head. But why would the Chef say that? Do I really not cook it? ERMAHGERD!)
Me: No.... I don't think it's fine.
Chef: Yeah it would be weird to serve a cooked head on a plate, wouldn't it?
Me: Well in China, they sometimes serve the pig's head along with the rest of a roast pig.
Chef: Ew really? Anyways, this looks really funny, no? *Picks up head and starts playing with it*
(In my head: Dude, seriously? Now? You're making jokes with a mutilated dead rabbit's head now?)
Me: Oui Chef, très amusant.
Chef: Ah hahahaah doesn't this kind of look like a cat? *Points the severed head at me and wiggles it around, its eyes staring blankly at me*
Me: ha yeah um........... *Continue cutting shallots

And if you go chasing rabbits...

And you know you're going to fall...
(Jefferson Airplane -White Rabbit)

Lesson 13- Traditional Recipes

Today's menu was braised rabbit meat.

The resulting dish from the demo

I actually really like rabbit meat. It's lean, tasty and something one doesn't come across all that often where I am from.

Of course cooking it is an entirely different matter. We each had a full rabbit (skinned) to work with, and have to learn about the different cuts and split the creature into different bits. The material itself was pretty disgusting. We're not allow to take photos of the kitchen during class, but I just had to snap a few photographs:

The "raw" material.

Step one is to CHOP off its head. Step 2 is to cut out its front and rear legs. Step 3 is.... Okay I'll stop.

Pair of front legs and hind legs from the rabbit I had.

Overall, I was not as traumatized as some other classmates of mine. To me it was just another ingredient to work with. Another day in the kitchen.

I think I did pretty well in this class, with my only fault being I didn't reheat my rabbit when I plated it. The meat was sitting out for around half an hour, and I should have thrown it into the oven for a few minutes just to get it warm again. The first words that Chef Terrien, our practical chef, said was "C'est foid!"Okay. Lesson learned. Chef Terrien was actually very nice and was very supportive, but he made it very clear that he would come down hard on us if we made the same mistakes the next time we have him.

Rabbit with mustard

Cut the rabbit, then sear the individual pieces on a hot pan.

Remove rabbit and saute onions, rosemary, garlic cloves and shallots on the same pan 

Brush mustard onto rabbit and put the pieces back onto the pan. Deglaze with white wine and chicken stock

Put into oven for ~15-25 minutes.

Take out. Reserve rabbit pieces and reduce the remaining liquid.
Saute the rabbit liver. Keep the insides pink.

When sauce is done reducing, put in mustard with whipping cream.

Strain sauce. Reheat rabbit meat.
Remember to season!

Serve

Boom

Quotes from this class:
"You did very well today, Howard. That's all I can tell you. You have to improve on a few things but I've told you what they are. Next time I will be paying close attention to you, and you better not make the same mistakes again." -Chef Terrien after I asked if I could see my grade for this class.

Demo Chef Stril: Each student will have his own rabbit to cut and cook.
Female students: *GASP* No!!!