Spring has officially sprung in Paris! If I walk outside and close my eyes, I feel like I'm lounging around in the SF Bay Area.
Well, until a little old lady with a shopping cart tries to run me over at the market, I get stuck on the metro with many people who don't understand the concept of deodorant, or suddenly get a craving for dim sum and remember that none of the old ladies here push dim sum carts and yell at me to eat more.
C'est la vie. I can't complain. I get to live in Paris. Well, at least for another month.
Notable pictures from the past couple of weeks:
The park behind Notre Dame. It's picnic weather!
Mont St. Michel
Part of a weekend spent in Normandy
(ironically, we were there on May 8th)
Why I love Chef Didier (and want a giant immersion blender).
Miss GlaGla's are back. Back with a vengeance!
Deboning a lamb saddle. Awesome.
My life for the next few days will be prepping for our final exam at school. We basically get a market basket of goodies, within which are 4 mandatory items (pigeon, fresh peas, foie gras mousse, and poivrade artichokes).
Our test is to create our own recipe for the pigeon, make 2 composed garnishes (or complex), and 1 simple garnish. Oh, and instead of cooking and plating one plate like we normally do, we get to plate 4! Normal practicals run 2.5 hours- we get four hours total but are basically making about double the amount of food we normally make.
Today we had 6 hours in the kitchen with our market basket to practice and experiment. Although I still have not finalized the menu yet, I managed to finish my plate at just over four hours. I'll have to hustle during the exam though- today we only had to present one plate to the chef for a critique. Doing four identical plates will be quite a challenge.
So what I did I make?
I ended up roasting the pigeon whole until very rare, then removing the breasts. The breasts were glazed with a reduced sauce of honey, balsamic vinegar, garlic, ginger powder (we don't get fresh ginger!), soy sauce, lemon juice, star anise, and black peppercorns. Over the glaze were toasted sesame seeds, then the breasts were popped back into the oven at the last minute to heat through and become a beautiful medium-rare (French term rosé). Turned out quite well today, the perfect degree of doneness!
The sauce was a jus of pigeon, flavored with a little of the glaze, glossed over with butter at the end. Turned out a little sweet today, have to tweak it some more.
The garnishes were:
- Flash fried carrots and baby artichokes sliced on a mandolin. Tiny artichokes are a pain to turn!
- Fresh pea puree. Peas were shelled, boiled, passed on a tamis, then heated through with butter and cream.
- Millefeuille. Sauteed chanterelle mushrooms with onions and shallots, with the addition of chopped chervil. (top and bottom layer) The middle layer was a slice of foie gras mousse topped only with salt and pepper. The millefeuille was created with crispy brik pastry (French egg-roll like wrappers that can be baked or fried).
Our test is to create our own recipe for the pigeon, make 2 composed garnishes (or complex), and 1 simple garnish. Oh, and instead of cooking and plating one plate like we normally do, we get to plate 4! Normal practicals run 2.5 hours- we get four hours total but are basically making about double the amount of food we normally make.
Today we had 6 hours in the kitchen with our market basket to practice and experiment. Although I still have not finalized the menu yet, I managed to finish my plate at just over four hours. I'll have to hustle during the exam though- today we only had to present one plate to the chef for a critique. Doing four identical plates will be quite a challenge.
So what I did I make?
I ended up roasting the pigeon whole until very rare, then removing the breasts. The breasts were glazed with a reduced sauce of honey, balsamic vinegar, garlic, ginger powder (we don't get fresh ginger!), soy sauce, lemon juice, star anise, and black peppercorns. Over the glaze were toasted sesame seeds, then the breasts were popped back into the oven at the last minute to heat through and become a beautiful medium-rare (French term rosé). Turned out quite well today, the perfect degree of doneness!
The sauce was a jus of pigeon, flavored with a little of the glaze, glossed over with butter at the end. Turned out a little sweet today, have to tweak it some more.
The garnishes were:
- Flash fried carrots and baby artichokes sliced on a mandolin. Tiny artichokes are a pain to turn!
- Fresh pea puree. Peas were shelled, boiled, passed on a tamis, then heated through with butter and cream.
- Millefeuille. Sauteed chanterelle mushrooms with onions and shallots, with the addition of chopped chervil. (top and bottom layer) The middle layer was a slice of foie gras mousse topped only with salt and pepper. The millefeuille was created with crispy brik pastry (French egg-roll like wrappers that can be baked or fried).
My practice plate for the exam.
I'm still thinking of some other garnishes, the order to do things, and more plating ideas. It's fun yet a little crazy at the same time!
Bon appétit!
Bon appétit!
OOH good luck with the final exam. I would love the recipe of what you made. It looks absolutely delishes.
Posted by: ben | May 18, 2006 at 08:51 PM
Beautiful! You're so talented!!!
Bisous, Ms. Glaze
Posted by: Ms. Glaze | May 25, 2006 at 01:50 AM
Yum, your practice final looks delish. I love the shooting star-like pea puree!
Posted by: Heather | May 25, 2006 at 09:52 AM
ben: I'll try to see if I can come up with some measurements, I winged it most of the time.
Ms. Glaze & Heather: Thanks!
Posted by: Chez Christine | June 03, 2006 at 09:02 AM