Super Friday!

Petite marmite henry IV soup bowl, originally uploaded by FinasZ.

WOOO! What a great day I had on Friday, the day started off with me recovering from the lack of sleep on Wednesday night. In the demonstration we did three dishes that were taught by a retired chef who had been teaching for over 35 years named Chef Claude. The three dishes we learned all had a very rustic feel to them, they were Petite marmite henry IV, Blanquette de veau a l’ancienne and Truite pochee au court bouillon. I was a bit surprised that it only took about 10 minutes to poach the trout; I thought it would at least take 15 to 20 minutes (truite pochee au court bouillon). The dish we had to do for practical class was the petite marmite henry IV, which I’m not sure what the English would be but it had chicken, veal and beef knuckle. They were all cooked together in a cocotte, simmering on medium heat for about an hour to an hour and half. The recipe itself isn’t insanely hard to produce, except making sure it’s seasoned properly and that the meat has all fully cooked through and is not still tough.

During the practical class I started off doing pretty good, got my knuckles in the cocotte cooking and started right away on the vegetables we had to turn. At this point in time my turn skills have been improving, I just hope they will improve enough to impress the chefs before exams. After that everything was quite straight forward, remember to skim the cocotte for impurities that the meat would produce and season. We also had to make a veloute sauce, which in the end my turned out to be not thick enough but the chef let it go this one time.

I presented the dish to the chef, got some pretty good feedback but was told that the dish is more of a country dish. A dish that didn’t need to be presented in a very exquisite manner and that plating it roughly was good enough. My seasoning was also pretty good and my turning got better, which I’m very happy about. So over all I did pretty well in class today and am wishing for more of these days in the future.

Truite pochee au court bouillon


Blanquette de veau a l'ancienne


Cool Candy sculpture