Dave's Culinary Adventure: Three days in one go!

Salade de poissons marines plated, originally uploaded by FinasZ.

Hey everyone so I forgot to do a blog post for the last few lessons I had, just been really tired and didn’t have the energy to really blog till now. Things are still great here minus the hours of practice and schooling. The last three lessons that I forgot to blog about were pretty interesting, we’re focusing more on cooking techniques instead of the basic slicing and dicing techniques. On lesson 13 we started learning about potages and the difference between it and soupe. Lesson 14 we continued on that and did lobster bisque and a bortsch. Then on lesson we learned how to make many different kinds of butter! It was pretty crazy we did cold butter and hot butter sauces. Lesson 13 was a bit weird, it threw off the meaning of soup for me, and I always thought any type of hot liquid was soup. Apparently it is not, according to French cuisine soupe is a liquid served with bread in the soup, and a liquid served alone without bread is called a potage. The first few minutes I saw there staring and scratching my head going WHAT! After about 10-15 minutes I went ok, I guess this makes sense (which it does). The one we had to make was called Potage Juilenne d’arblay, it kind of reminds me of a mashed potato looking soup with julienned vegetables. Lesson 14 was a continuation of potages, the dish we had to do for practical was called a consommé. This potage is quite plain; most of the other dishes we’ve made were more appealing than this. This potage was pretty much a very clear liquid with some brunoised vegetables as the garnish. Then on lesson 15 we got down to business and sautéed up a nice piece of salmon with white butter sauce. The sauce tasted quite fattening since it was pretty much all butter, but mixed with the salmon it tasted great!

In the practical of lesson 13, it was somewhat intense but at the same time somewhat easy. We had to cook some potatoes till they were soft enough to make a puree type liquid out of them. After that we had to julienne vegetables, which is always a bit hard for me since everything had to be perfectly shaped. (I’m getting better though) I managed to keep within the time limit and not go over, the only thing was I needed more work on my vegetable cuts and the potage was a bit thicker than it should be. On lesson 14 for the practical it went pretty smoothly, I started out with a visual image of what I was going to be doing. The second I walked into that kitchen I already knew what I had to do, where I had to go and the things I needed to complete my tasks. It was a pretty good day for me, I completed everything well in advance and was able to serve 10-15 minutes before the given service time. Again I needed more practice on my different vegetable cuts and to work on my seasoning of the consommé. Lesson 15 which just happened today went by not bad I had the same mindset as I did on lesson 15. The only thing was that I sort of lost my groove when I went to filet a 15 pound salmon. It was a great experience and I somewhat understand how to filet one perfectly (but it was still quite hard). After filleting it and going back to my station to work, it kind of threw off my rhythm and I forgot a few things. I didn’t salt my butter sauce enough, my potato was a bit over cooked and my fish was over cooked as well. Overall the chef said I did a pretty good job, I just need to really focus and not lose concentration.

The past 3 demonstrations and practical’s have been great, I’m really trying to step up my game and put forth my best efforts. Even though I still have lots to learn and lots to really improve on, I feel as the days go on I get better and better. The best news of all was that the buses are back up and running again, which means I can bus to school and practice!! This excites me greatly. I’ve wanted to go to school early or even on days off to get in some much needed extra practice. Hopefully once I start going to the production kitchen more I’ll be able to improve a lot more.

Creme de moules au sofran