Passion fruit and custard soufflés served with caramelised bananas and a scoop of vanilla ice cream
Firstly, I should start with apologising as for the first time since I started this blog, I didn’t have the time to post a blog last week. What with moving house, getting back from holiday and no broadband till this week, I just didn’t have the energy to be honest. All I could manage was early nights after evenings of unpacking boxes and trying to find somewhere to put it all (it’s amazing how coming from a one bed flat you still manage to fill a three bed house!) I was totally zonked and could only manage work and sleep.
I can’t complain though… St Lucia was just what the doctor ordered. Relaxation, sunshine, snoozing and of course plenty of good food. We were spoilt staying in a lovely resort that served some beautiful fresh food and I had endless amounts of mahi mahi, jumbo prawns and of course some…
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Poulet Saute Basquaise
No happy with the presentation- too much bacon said the chef…
Another day here- Its already practical 13
Things are getting a lot tougher here. Punctuality seems to be key. If we present the dish even late by 30 seconds, the chef may not consider it for tasting. So suddenly just half way through the course, it seems so much tougher. Everyday is learning some new dish, cooking it for the pratical. Stations clean at al time and sauces must be good. Hopefully today will go fine. I am cooking, “Traditional White Bean Stew”. A dish where we must balance the fat and salt added in. The recipe looks easy but the cooking time is really long.
Surprise exam-intermediate cuisine
Can’t believe i haven’t written in a while. Wow, its been a quick one this time. Just rushing through each day. Not much time to relax. Its getting tiring. Well we did have a surprise exam last friday. Don’t we all just love surprises. Well then it was a fun day. I tried to remember the cooking timings for the cooking the pigeon. ‘Roasted pigeon salmis with corn polenta and dried porcini mushrooms. Somehow with so many things to do- i almost forgot a few things here and there. The dish tasted good according to the chef, but my presentation wasn’t good at all. So anyways i need to reassure my self that eventually i prefer to make something that tastes good rather than some dish that tastes horrible and looks good. So for now i need to improve and focus on my presentation skills. This is the chefs version- i didn’t have time to take a picture. Every minute counts in the exam.
Intermediate Cuisine
Things are much more serious here at the school. I love the recipes and trying to take one day at a time…so far it feels good. The recipes are quite long and sometimes it feels like forever and just getting so lost while cooking. I love the Brittany prune cake. Tried baking it at home and it is a awesome and healthy snack.
Can relate…
Perfect
Poached Hake Steaks with Hollandaise sauce
A long recipe. First needed to prepare the court bouillon for poaching the fish. Here we need to paysanne cut the aromatic vegetables. They include carrot, celery, onion and shallot. Although cooking seems like a tedious and long task to get to one fabulous dish. I believe it is about letting go while cooking, just going with the flow. Doing one thing at a time helps tremendously. Today for the hollandaise sauce, i cooked up the eggs in the sauce while trying to multitask. So eventually i spent more time redoing the sauce from scratch. I hope this is a lesson, that especially when it comes to sauces, patience does go a long way. Here we also have to prepare a vegetable garnish, this is turning carrots, zucchini and potatoes. Its still taking an effort to do so. Also i have to practice this. But it all went well, no confusions, only my sauce was less salty…other than that ..voila
Fumet de Poisson.
In other words- Fish stock. I need to prepare fish stock before i can prepare my main dish which is ‘Fillets De Loup Da Mer Bercy. Honestly at this point, i need to revising on all the recipes that we have prepared at the practicals as we have an exam coming up. We won’t be allowed any notes as such only the ingredients list. So there isn’t a chance for mistakes. Cooking is fun and french cooking is very detailed. So if i miss out on one ingredient or one step then i might just spoil the dish. So for the fumet-fish stock as listed below.
Mince the shallots and a white onion finely.
Emincier the mushrooms.
Use a saucepan add some butter.
Sweat on medium heat the shallots, onion and the mushrooms.
Add fish bones and trimmings.
Add 150 ml while wine and bring to a boil. Say 2-3 minutes
Add enough water to cover bones.
Add bouquet garni.
Cook on high heat for 25 mins.
Skim well
Filter through a fine chinois for Bercy Sauce.
Another day///
A long day now over. Left my apron and neckerchief at home. Anyhow all was fixed by the end of the day. Feeling exhausted and need to rejuvenate. Cooked a lovely dish today. It wasn’t that intimidating. Easy and simple to do. Today was Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Mushroom sauce. Cooking sauces is now a technique i can master. This is a cream sauce.
Shalini phol 
