Class Dinner, Hake and Hollandaise

Tuesday was GROSS and rainy, but I was so excited to get all gussied up for our class dinner in the Gare de Lyon at Le Train Bleu. I met Lauren at the train station and we walked up to head to the restaurant. Basic cuisine and pastry had a joint dinner so I got to meet some new people which is always fun!

We walked up and there were 6 long tables set for us. We saw Juliette the director of academics and she marked that we were there and we hung up our coats. We were a few minutes late so we started our own table with Noor, Sara, Florence, Laura, Chef Stril and some others. Everyone was so dolled up and looked great- especially the Chefs! As you know by now, we're to address them as Chef. Bonjour Chef, Bon Soir Chef, Merci Chef and the ever popular Oui Chef. While this formality remained for our dinner, it was really fun to get to see them without their whites. It made them seem more human. Of course, none of us could talk about anything else besides food and school- but it was fun to hear about other groups. Group B (my group) is always full of drama- but I love hearing who stands in my spot in the kitchens, who is fast, who is slow, which Chefs are nice to whom etc.

Dinner was served and we started champagne and Pressé de foie gras de canard grillé aux artichaux:


it was delicious but VERY rich. I didn't finish all of mine.

Then we had Blanc de cabillaud, jus corsé, carottes craquantes au miel et cumin which was really, really great. I loved the carrots. OF COURSE being that we're a group of Chefs and Culinary students no one left anything un-commented on. The Chefs (Stril, Clergue (Mr. Bean), and my pal Cotte) especially didn't care for the carrots, they said that they were over cooked. Mine seemed fine and I cleaned my plate!



We then had a sélection de fromages affinés et sa salade which was also great but I couldn't eat all the fromage. The French take triple cream to a whole new level. There was a fantastic Chevre that I just had to finish.

For dessert (no, we weren't done yet!) we had Millefeuille au kirsch et griottines. I liked the millefeuille but I personally don't love Kirsch so I didn't eat that. After we were finished eating, I mingled with other tables and sat down between Lara, Bruna and Anthony. Lara had been sitting with Chef Cotte the whole meal and at one point RAN over to tell me a story.

Apparently he had been telling her that he always seems to pick on students and make them cry. He doesn't mean to, but they end up thanking him in the end. He mentioned to her that he didn't do that with our group- and Lara (love you!) said "oh yes you do, you pick on Carolyn!" He told her that the only reason that he did that was because he thinks that I'm good and that he likes me in the class. That I work hard and am really starting to get it. I was so excited when she told me! When I sat down by them I wanted to make sure he knew I wasn't scared of him. So we chatted (as much as we could) and actually got along nicely. He thinks I'm funny (go figure) and ended up high fiving me about 300 times during the night. Pretty soon the other 2 Chefs- Stril and Clergue came and were sitting by us (there were about 7 of us chatting with them) and we took some fun pictures. It was so nice to see them outside of the scary kitchen and for them to laugh WITH us. We all were comparing war wounds at one point, and let's just say that I have NOTHING to complain about. I have years and years of burns and cuts ahead of me. Here is a picture of the new found friends Chef Cotte and I:




After dinner, I was saying goodbye to Chef Stril and he said "Thank you for always smiling" which I thought was so nice! Chef Clergue was super sweet (of course) too.

It was a great dinner capped off with drinks with a fun small group of us. Though I was slightly overserved and had a headache yesterday- I couldn't have had a better time. Dimitri, Anthony, Bruna, Lauren and I went to the St. Germaine for drinks and ran into JP, Zu, and Siham!!! of all the bars in Paris- we were at the same one!

Chef Stril made poached Hake (fish) with 'spaghetti' vegetables and hollandaise sauce the long way yesterday at 12:30. It looked simple enough but when we got to practical, right after demo it was far more tricky. While Chef Stril (had him in practical) cut the giant fish into slices, we still needed to clean the blood etc out which was tricky. Hake also has this nasty black lining on its stomach that we had to remove...YUCK. We got to use a mandolin to make our zucchini and carrot 'spaghetti' which I was really looking forward to, but it was hard! The vegetables kept slipping and I was one slip away from a spaghetti finger. Luckily I walked away with all 10 fingers but the hollandaise sauce was HARD.

We had to make a bain marie to cook and whip the egg yolks until they emulsified. Then we had to clarify our own butter and add that. All in, it was about 20 minutes of straight whisking. Chef made fun of my faces the whole time- apparently when I'm focused, I'm really really focused and I look funny! The first attempt I turned around and my eggs scrambled. DAMN. I had to start over, but in the end it was PARFAIT! I overcooked my vegetables, but my fish and sauce was perfect. HOORAY!

We had Chef Stril again today for fish demo part 2 which I will go into more detail tomorrow. BUT Chef Cotte came in the demo room when the assistant was plating our testers and yelled BONJOUR CAROLINE in front of everyone. Then came over and gave me a high 5- I was so embarassed...but hopefully he won't pick on me anymore!

Off to have French Sushi- this should be interesting!

A Bientot!

I cooked Peter Cottontail...

Disclaimer: The following blog post promises to be extremely graphic, please skip this one if you happen to be squeamish...Really...

We had to make rabbit yesterday with sauteed potatoes. Chef Stril showed us in demo (at 8am) how to butcher them, but it didn't really prepare me for what I was about to see.

First of all- they have their heads (without ears, but WITH eyes)and most of the major internal organs. Intestines and things were removed- but we were left with heart, lungs, liver, kidneys. We first had to remove the head- Chef Stril told us it was better to use the cleaver and lop it off in one foul chop. The cleaver is really heavy. Once it's in the air it's pretty tough to stop it, so aim is really important. I always remove my left hand from the meat...just in case. The other problem is you can completely mangle a piece of meat if you're not super careful. I was sadly unable to remove the head with one chop- so I had to do some sawing.

I had a really hard time with this. There's something about doing it yourself makes it a lot worse. When you order a chicken, duck, rabbit etc- it comes to you cooked and looking nothing like its original form. Here it takes a lot of work to get it into the 10 pieces that we needed. Also looking at open eyes and a tongue hanging out of a bunny rabbits mouth really made me think about the way that it died. I know- they are bred to be killed for food, but actually seeing it whole did something to me. I had to really focus on not gagging audibly. Chef Clergue (Mr. Bean) noticed that I was struggling and asked me twice if I was ok. I had to concentrate on not looking at its head and just looking at the empty cavity.

We then had to remove the kidneys and liver- mine was FULL of liver! We had to cook that so those were saved, but the heart and lungs were tossed. Once everything was cleaned, chopped and dusted in flour we browned them on the stove, and then put shallot and garlic, wine in there and tossed them in the oven.

I began working on my potatoes which were really hard to do- perfect 2mm round slices is challenging! We also had to remove much of the starch from them, which was tedious rinsing. Once my rabbit came out of the oven, I forgot to put my handy hand saver (le creuset rubber cover for hot handles) and I grabbed the handle. I never cut myself, but I can't seem to manage to not BURN myself. OUCH. I kept right on working and the Chef saw what happened. I was slicing my potatoes and was really fine- it was nothing like the finger burns before, but Chef came over without me noticing and bandaged me up- what a guy!

All in all- Chef liked my dish. Meat was cooked perfectly, potatoes cooked perfectly and seasoned properly (they were damn good) and my sauce was a thing of beauty. The only comments he had were that I plated my rabbit upside down...not really sure why it made a difference, but oh well- I also didn't cook the organs enough. We were told to leave them pink, and mine browned so quickly I didn't want to overcook them. I was pleased- but I handed all my rabbit off to the dishwasher (who loves me). She was excited to have it- which made me feel better not wasting. I just couldn't bring it home and eat it.

I walked with Lauren home and we decided that we were going to order pizza to her house and drink wine. We had no class today so we could sleep in. We had such a blast- Anthony came over and we hung out and laughed until 2am- the kind of laughing where your abs are sore the next day :) it was great AND I managed to order delivery en Francais and our order was correct and they found the apt! A little feather in my cap!

Tonight is our class dinner. I CAN NOT WAIT. We're getting all gussied up and having dinner at Le Train Bleu in the Gare de Lyon. Champagne is served promptly at 8. It's going to be SO MUCH FUN not only seeing everyone (including all our Chefs) in street clothes, but also getting to know everyone not sweating and bonding over rabbit murder. I will be sure to take a lot of pictures so you guys can place names and faces.

I better be off to primp!

A Bientot!