Dave's Culinary Adventure: Braising and Deep frying!

AH I seem to be falling behind on blogging these past few days, again I’m going to do a multi blog in one go. Today’s blog isn’t as bad since I’ll only covering two days worth of material. The first lesson we did was on braising, there are three types of braising. They are a brun, a blanc and en ragout. A brun is used for whole pieces of meat and the meat is seared before it begins to braise. A blanc is the same as a brun except that you use clear liquids and you try to add as little color as possible. En ragout is more like a stew, the meat pieces are 1-2 bite size and the water level if filled up to height. In the demo the chef showed us how to make Boeuf a la monde, Navarin d’agneau printanier and Carre de proc braise nivernaise (which are in order, braised beef, lamb and pork.). The chef also showed us how to prepare and clean ribs; the whole process of cleaning every rib tip is tedious but seems like fun to do. The next demonstration we did some deep frying techniques, frying fish and vegetables. In the demonstration the chef showed us how to prepare, beignets de gambas, sole meuniere, merlan frit colbert and a steak dish that I forget what its called in French (in order from first to last, shrimp, dover sole, whiting and steak).

During practical for the first lesson we had to make the Navarin d’agneau printainer, which is braised lamb stew. Doing this dish was pretty fun, since we got to debone a whole lamb shoulder. At first I was a bit worried that deboning the lamb would be hard, but once I got the lamb shoulder it was quite simple to do. The chef said that hoped we would take about 30-40 minutes to finish that, most of us in the class did it in about 10-15 minutes. After deboning, we had to sear it, add the vegetables, water and pop it in the over for about 45 minutes. While that was cooking we had to do the hardest part of the dish, turing vegetables. I’m still practicing everyday on turing my vegetables, but it’s a bit hard and I do it quite slowly. Spending the rest of my time on the vegetables, I almost didn’t finish on time, in the end I did not turn my potatoes and only turned a few carrots. At that point I thought about the past and how I didn’t finish some things either, but I refocused and said to myself I’m going to serve with or without what I didn’t complete. So I took my dish with the rest of the vegetables I finish, plated it all and served. I explained to the chef what happened and he somewhat understood, but he said I had to work on my turning. The rest of my dish turned out pretty good, the lamb was cooked perfectly, the sauce I reduced a bit too much and the vegetables could have used a bit more salt.

The next practical that we had, we had to make merlan frit colbert, which is fried whiting with colbert butter. The chef had told us that this fish is quite delicate to work with and we had to be careful not to be too rough. So I started off filleting the fish, at first I didn’t press down too hard, but realized that I had to put more force into it else I’ll never cut anything. After about 20-30 minutes of slowly cutting out the spine and gutting it, I was finally done preparing the fish. So I put that away and started to work on the colbert butter, which is not very hard at all. You have to reduce some veal stock, room temperature butter, tarragon, parsley, lemon juice and mix them all together. When I first started to whisk the butter, it was a bit tough since we’re not supposed to melt it completely, but at the same time it has to melt. Then after whisking for a few minutes, I added in the reduced veal stock and continued to whist, while whisking it splashed and some of the veal stock got onto my uniform. After getting a bit frustrated in why it still wasn’t incorporating, Allison suggested I place it on some heat and whisk. Following her advice, I continued to whisk and add veal stock and after a few minutes it work perfectly. Once I was done I had to place the newly formed butter into a piping bag and pipe out pieces of butter. After the butter was complete, we had to bread the fish and deep fry it, which wasn’t hard at all, after it was all done I plated and bon appetite.

The past two lessons weren’t too bad for me; I got maybe a tiny bit discouraged but soon after brought myself back up. There wasn’t anything extraordinarily wrong nor did I manage to do everything perfectly. I am quite proud of myself for being able to debone the lamb and fillet the whiting. After this many lessons in school, I feel that at the end of the day I just need to practice more and more. I noticed that I have been getting a lot better every day and with that I’ve been getting discouraged less and less. My confidence level in cooking has been going up day by day, I just hope it will continue this way all the way till the end of my course.

Navarin d'agneau printainer the one I did in practical