Day 8 Le Cordon Bleu Paris

Saturday class! Roasting a chicken at 8:30 am! The good news is that this will be our only weekend class for the remainder of the term. After our 12 hour marathon yesterday, It was a bit quiet as everyone went about unpacking their kits and setting up for the practical. Even the usually perky Hsin Yi (aka Kelsey) from Taiwan, who has been adopted by a couple of us older students as a little sister, was a little reserved. Here she is going through her usual methodical setup...Hanging her color coded, perfectly scripted recipes with her trademark pink magnets, and retrieving the proper "tools" for the practical from her custom case. In fact, we have all become more organized in our setup routine. It's sink or swim as the recipes are becoming a little more involved.

Today we had to create a roasted chicken au jus with a garden vegetable variety presented in a turned artichoke.

Tasks:

-dress the chicken, truss
-prep chicken trimmings and vegetables for juice
-bake chicken and trimmings
-prepare and blanch garden vegetables (carrots, string beans, daikon radish, and celery root). All cut in precise batonnets of equal width and length, cooked separately to prevent colorization.
-Turn 2 artichokes and cook in a flour water mixture and preserve color. once cooked, create a bowl to house the garden vegetables
-Prepare Jus
-Plate a leg and breast with one artichoke bowl of garden vegetables and a trace of jus with watercress garnish.

No glitches today. All went very smoothly. I think the chef had laid it out for us so well yesterday that it was simple to keep things in a logical fashion in the kitchen. Here is my plate:

The rule of thumb here is (as the chef puts it) ne jamais, ne jamais...never, never, place the sauce on the meat, chicken or fish. There are a few exceptions of course where the dish is defined by the sauce and "meat" being together.

Eduardo from The Dominican

Republic having his dish inspected and critiqued

by the Chef

After the practical, some of us from the group went to have lunch at a Korean restaurant. The group was Julia, Kelsey, Wen Bo, Jennifer who had defected from her practical group to join us, and me.  Wen Bo's girlfriend joined us later. Julia, who is of Korean heritage, really took charge and spoiled us. She ordered for the whole group. This was my first Korean food experience. It was a FANTASTIC feast. As Julia put it "after eating so much butter this past week, it's really nice to eat some vegetables and leaner foods"  It was a great experience. Thanks Julia for such a great treat. I will definitely add Korean to my list of favorite foods.