"Your fillets look like crocodiles hahah"

I survived practical #2.

I slept until 11 this morning (!) I got up, showered and went to meet Anthony for lunch. We both had croque monsieurs- I realized quickly that the croque madame's aren't really my thing. I asked him about 650 questions as he had already done the fish practical.

On my way to school, I went and bought colored rubber bands and ziploc bags. The rubber bands are so you can mark your knives. Many people either etch their names into them, or use le vernis a ongles (nail polish) to differentiate their knives. I picked rubber bands and it worked very well!

I get all changed and head up to help Bruna and Moran who are this week's class assistants. We get everything set up for practical and the chef comes in and SCREAMS "YOU HAVE CINQ MINUTES". So we scramble around, set up our boards, get out the necessary knives (once class starts, you really can't run to your knife kit...so if you forget something, you're SOL). In the middle of our workspace is this giant box of sole fish. We each are given 2 fish that are slimy, stinky and looking at us. From both fish, we SHOULD get 8 fillets.

We get to work and I snip the tail, fins and gills with my kitchen shears, scale with a paring knife (scales EVERYWHERE) and start to fillet. I get the first one and it looks like it should...I almost yelled I DID IT!!!! but then I kept going. Each one got worse and worse. The chef walked by me at one point and laughed..."your fillets look like crocodiles". I didn't really get what that meant, but when he told me to throw one away, I knew it wasn't good.

We were all SUPER behind the entire class. Once we had our fillets, we had to skin and gut our fish (take out all the roe and brains, eyes etc) to be used in our fumet de poisson (fish stock). He kept yelling out that we should be at this point, we should be at that point and I was no where near where I was supposed to be. Instead of panic, I just kept my nose down and worked. I put a lot of butter in a stock pot, and put the fist bones in there (we were also given 2 other uncleaned fish for our stock) to steam. I then feverishly brunoised my leek, celery, and onions. Put them in the pot to let them steam- then brunoised shallots, chopped parsley TRES TRES FIN (very very fine). Then I added wine and water to my stock, let it steam for 5 minutes then added mirepoix mushrooms. Then it was time to prepare our fillets to be braised. We had to butter the bottom of a oven safe sautee pan, sprinkle some of our shallots on the bottom and fold out fish into 3 pieces like an envelope. This was hard because the side that came off the bones needed to be facing up. When you destroyed your fillets like I did, you can't tell which is which. I strained the stock (which was great) and ladled it so it was 1/2 way up the fish. Meanwhile Chef was screaming ALLER ALLER ALLER!!!! meaning we weren't working fast enough. I put my fish in the oven and carefully watched the clock while I tried to salvage things from my station. If the Chef walks by and your station is messy, he just throws everything out.

7 minutes later, my fish was cooked 'parfait'. I quickly put it in foil, and poured the braising liquid into a small saucepan. At this point people were freaking out! The braising liquid needs to reduce A LOT and then you add about a stick(!) of COLD diced butter and wisk it feverishly until it's thick. I had turned off my oven and put a plate in there to warm when the chef told me my wisk was too big for the pan I was using. Oh well I thought, too late now, better just make the sauce. I tasted, seasoned and plated my dish. C'est tres bien, le bercy est tres bon. Were the Chef's comments. I nearly jumped out of my skin...TRES BIEN? my sauce was TRES BON? HOLY SHIT!!!!! The girl next to me over cooked her fish, and my friend Lara's sauce separated, and many people's sauce didn't reduce enough. I felt like barbie queen of the prom.

Chef screamed at us and made us late for demo cleaning our kitchen (little did we know HE was our demo chef...) Group B all rushed into class breathless and there was our jolly chef, laughing at us. He then proceeded to call me out "Ou comme Caroline..." and demonstrated how loud I was wisking my sauce because my damn wisk was too big. I didn't care, I turned beat red as everyone laughed, but Bruna next to me said "who cares, you got a tres bien on your meal"

I just got home, am SO exhausted and have 8:30 demo, then right into 12:30 practical. We're making white chicken stock and poached chicken with sauce supreme. I have to get their early and clean the fish guts off my knives.

A Bientot!

Ps. I did burn myself while Chef was screaming at me, but STILL NO CUTS!

Pps. Someone barfed all over the steps of the locker room. GROSS!