Day 17 Le Cordon Bleu Paris

Another session of cooking meat at 0830. Today's vicitim: Blanquette de Veau et Riz Pilaf.

Tasks:

-prep meat
-blanche meat
-prep aromatics for stock
-add aromatics to meat to make veal stock
-prep and glaze pearl onions
-prep button mushrooms and cook
-make roux for sauce
-get the rice going (oven cooked)
-scoop out some stock and use to make a sauce
-make a liaison with cream and eggs
-complete sauce
-decant meat
-reheat everything to plate!


Somewhere in the thick of my frenzy I looked across into the other kitchen and saw the "big Guy" Alan all plated and smiley faced! What's this? Have we been upstaged? My Group B has been the champion group always finishing first! Uhmmmm, I am not going to point any fingers here, but group B's ingredient delivery service is lagging a bit. It's all good, because we all still finished an almost an hour early.

Aesthetically, the dish itself appears dull and uninspiring, but it has a nice taste and the sauce was flavorful and had a nice mouth feel texture to it.

Below is Yolanda receiving some critique form Le Chef. I wanted to show Yolanda's plate because I liked her creative carrot garnish slices bordering her rice. Next to Yolanda is Yuka saucing her plate. Yuka always works quietly but she consistently cranks out a nice plate.

Yolanda (Yuka to the left)

Next we had a nice demo covering a "Flemish Leek Pie", "Grilled Tournedos, bernaise sauce, and potatoes pont neuf". I look over and was happy to see Manuel (pictured on right) who I had not seen for 3 days. I had thought that maybe he had left the course, but he told me that he had to "run" back to Costa Rica for an important conference. He is obviously an

important hombre! Welcome back.This was a busy demo. The leek pie has "Marroilles" cheese (from northern France) as an ingredient. This cheese, as the translator Ben put it, "smells like the stuff you would find between your toes after running a marathon"! I have never smelled anyone's feet after a marathon ,so I didn't know the smell until a sample that was being passed around got within 2 rows of me. I realize that it's in good taste to refer to food smells as "aroma", but this was no aroma. It was an odor, a VERY FOUL odor! I promise to NEVER subject anyone to this smell in my house. However, the dish itself was something I might cook with different fillings. Its exterior crust had the appearance of a shepherd's pie. The cross hatch marks on the crust were a nice touch adding a rustic elegance to its presentation. They were simply created by running the fork across the dough top in one direction and then repeating at a 90 degree angle.

Flemish Leek pie

Next the Chef prepared beef fillets where he taught us the 3 levels of done-ness French style. They are, in order of rarest to more done, bleu, saignant, and Á Point. When sliced, all 3 had red in them but to different degrees. I LIKE! By the way, the 3 levels do not equate to the American rare, medium and well. I would say that Á point may be the equivalent of "medium". If one orders a steak in France any more done than Á point, he is not only considered a culinary amateur, but he is considered downright disrespectful to the chef, French cuisine, Escoffier, and probably even Napoleon himself. OK, along with the fillets was a Hollandaise sauce served in a turned artichoke bowl. Leave it to the French to shroud something ordinary with an elaborate name to elevate its importance. Potatoes "pont neuf" are really fat french fries! Next time I am in Burger King I'll ask for a whopper with some pont neuf potatoes and watch the teenager's face twitch. (Actually, I don't eat at BK lounge)

Tourenados and potato Pont Neuf (Jenga style)

Finally, and the best part of the demo was the "parfait glaçé au café, sauce caramel au cognac". WOW WOW WOW. This was the best dessert I have seen in a demo thus far! It's quite simple to make, but it has a nice "WOW" factor and tastes incredible. I'll make this one again at home!

Picture taking frenzy after every demo