Day 12 Le Cordon Bleu Paris

We had school today despite Thanksgiving. Instead of cooking a turkey we were faced with preparing the Rabbit dish from yesterday's Demo. Once again, Kelsey and I as the assistants had to run down to the basement 30 minutes ahead of time to grab all the stuff for the class. Awaiting us were 8 skinned rabbits. You can see from Kelsey's expression that she was not thrilled about seeing this sight at 8:00 am!! Along with this insert, there were 2 other inserts full of vegetables, butter, cream, and ingredients required for our group of 8. The routine is that we load it all on a dumbwaiter and send it up to the correct floor for our kitchen. Then we have to run and greet the dumbwaiter on the 2nd or 3rd floor. If you don't do this fast enough, it may go on to another floor, and then be sent back down to the basement.

The Basement dumbwaiter

Once we unloaded the 3 inserts at our kitchen, we then had to divide it all appropriately for our group, so that it is awaiting them when they arrive.

The Kitchen resembled a pet morgue with the victims awaiting their autopsies. At 8:30 we dove right in  and began prepping the rabbits. I felt like I was in Biology class dissecting. It felt very clinical as we went about our task of chopping off the head, legs, etc...I explained in yesterday's post how this dish was prepared. My dish turned out very well today. All of our spirits were up as the Crazy Chef walked in during our practical. He was back fresh from a short vacation and was in a great mood. He was singing and whistling and generally letting us do our work. We had missed him.

My Rabbit Plate

Next was a demo with the Crazy Chef covering 2 dishes: sole meuniére, and poached Hake steaks with hollandaise sauce. Pretty straight forward dishes. The hollandaise requires a very slow warming up of the egg and water mixture while whisking it over a bain marie (warm water bath). Once it thickens, then clarified butter is added with continued whisking. It is finished off with some salt, cayenne, and lemon juice. The temperature control is crucial as are the proportions of the ingredients. If it's too hot, the egg will cook and the sauce will not form. Too much water or too much butter and the sauce may break, or never form. The drawback to the hollandaise is that it can not be stored and in restaurants it has to be made for the service.

Once the demo was complete, it was once again time to race down to the basement to collect the ingredients for our second practical of the day. Kelsey had burned her hand pretty badly during the rabbit practical, so I had her wait upstairs at the dumbwaiter while I ran down to get everything together in the dreaded basement.

Me running to the basement

First step was to prep the hake and create 3 steaks, tie the steaks with a string so they maintain their shape when poached, and set aside. Cooking the hake required making a "nage" which is nothing more than a flavored water to poach the fish steaks in. I made the nage by heating some water and placing a mixture of vegetables and spices (carrots, celery, shallots, onions, peppercorns, clove) in it to flavor the water. After some time, I added some vinegar and wine to the mixture and cooked it some more. I finally strained the vegetables out and was left with the flavored water. Next I made some strips of carrots and zucchini to make vegetable "spaghetti". Finally came the hollandaise sauce. Mine came out nice, but it took about 20 minutes of vigorous whisking! Lots of work, but I was really happy with my final plate. LOTS of butter!!!!

My Hake Steak with Hollandaise Sauce

on a bed of zucchini and carrot spaghetti