Day 22, Foundations III (only 2 days left!)

Today's class was easy, but time consuming.  Had to cut 2 potatoes - small dice, 2 carrots - part julienne and part battonet; small dice 1/2 onion, brunoise one stalk celery, chop mirepoix with leftovers (celery, carrot and onion rough chop), mince parsely fine, then cut a chicken the airline way.  The dish we had to prepare was for our practice practical (worth 90 points) and consisted of airline chicken breast, mashed potatoes, battonet glazed carrots and sauce supreme.   It was DELICIOUS!  

Day 21, Foundations III

Tonight we made German bratwurst, sweet Italian sausage, Merquez sausage and Harissa sauce.  It was a fun and easy class.  What a way to end the course!  Tomorrow is our practical, Wednesday another practical, Thursday the final and we are done!  Enjoy the pictures from tonight and see how sausages are made... pretty cool!

Day 20, Foundations III

Unfortunately, this is the first class that I missed.  I felt guilty for missing, but was unable to make it to class on time... This class consisted of cleaning mussels, cleaning whole squid, shucking oysters, and fabricating a lobster... boy, I would have had some great pictures to share!  After the chef's demo, individual production involved grilling the lobster and oysters, making mignonette sauce, making calamari, and making moules mariniere.  Only four days to go and this class will be over.... Then it's on to baking and pastry... I'm looking forward to that!

Day 19, Foundations III

Today was a fun class.  We fabricated a snapper, peeled and deveined shrimp, made fish fumet, made fettuccine, remoulade sauce and blackened the snapper.   It was an easier class than most and went quite smoothly.  I received the highest grade in the class with a 50 out of 50 points... Whoo hoo!!!
These pictures are from the chef doing her demo, the shrimp pasta and the blackened fish with remoulade sauce on the side..

Above and to the right is the chef's demo. 

Above are my fillets and shrimp. 

These are the two plates for tonight.  The blackened snapper and the shrimp scampi..

Day 18, Foundations III

Tuesday's class was all about lamb.  Yesterday we fabricated/cut the meat for our recipes and today we prepared them. We made the tatziki on Monday for the gyros.  Our individual production consisted of:  roasted rack of lamb, zucchini saute provencal, marchand de vin (sauce), lamb stew, rice pilaf, and the tatziki was a group production.

We had plenty of time to prepare the dishes and the evening went pretty smooth, although tons of dishes to clean up!  To me the flavor of lamb is very distinct and I don't particularly care for it.  Here are some pictures of the plates..

Day 17, Foundations III

It's a good thing Monday's are easier than the rest because I think that we're still tired from the weekend.  At least I know I was tonight!  Today's demo included machonner of lamb racks, fabricating lamb shoulder and leg.  Chef is demoing in the pictures.


Then we had to do an individual production of frenching 1/2 a lamb rack, fabricate lamb shoulder into stew meat, and fabricate lamb legs into stew meat.  We also made Tatziki in preparation for our dishes tomorrow. 

To have something to eat we made BLT's.. the hardest thing

we've ever done...LOL!

Day 16, Foundations III

Well, another 7 days to go and I will be done with this class... It has been fun, but very very hard... Today I went to the early class at 11:15 because I had to attend the Chez Couture party for the Foster Children's Organization in the evening.   I have to say for my fellow class mates - our class is THE best!  Thanks guys for making it that way!! 

Due to the large amount of students in  the 11:15 class, I was unable to take pictures of my dishes and I had a hard time getting in my groove!  There are about 30 people in this class compared to about 18 in ours. Quite a difference when it comes to working in the kitchen.  We all have our own space/stove, etc. and it's difficult going into another classroom with so many people and so much going on...   Anyway, we finished the osso buccco (YUM!), made risotto and mushrooms, polenta, veal scaloppione ala marsala, and blanquette of veal, with individual sauces to go with each... As you know, veal is VERY EXPENSIVE but very very good!!!

All in all, was another great day in culinary school.. I just love it!!
I finished ahead of time and got 41 out of 45 points... I forgot to garnish my risotto with parsley and the marsala sauce for my  veal was slightly greasy.  Just look at us all workin away!