Day 5 Le Cordon Bleu Paris

Puff pastry! The demo was mostly about puff pastry and it's use to make a "Feuilleté de poireaux et œufs pochés, sauce albufera" ...yesssss! The chef also made a seasonal fruit tart to show how to make a sweet short pastry; however, we will not be responsible for making the tart. Back to the puff pastry. This was a laborious, and multi tasked dish which required a veal stock, chicken stock, poached eggs, and some garnish for the filling. The chef was running and jumping behind the counter trying to get it all done within the allotted time. I won't get into the demo details but along with the lesson we also received some instruction on driving a car, how to swing a perfect tennis backhand, and a little about Buddhist temples. I looked down and noticed that I had over 2 pages of fine print notes for this dish! I looked up and by the looks on the faces of my classmates, I could tell that this would be a tough practical. I have to say that the chef delivered a beautiful product with his Puff pastry dish and the 2 tarts that he made. Above is a picture of the raspberry tart.

We finished the demo and headed for the kitchen a bit early to get organized. We found that the kitchen was locked. The tension was mounting slowly as the clock ticked away. Finally the chef unlocked the door and we all raced in to get everything set up for the practical. Poor Julia and Yuka, who are this week's assistants responsible for getting the ingredients for the class ahead of time, were really stretched today to get the show on the road. They did a nice job. So we began the practical. At one point I had all 4 burners going, and something in the oven....I could have used an espresso. The group was pretty quiet today with minimum chatter and lots of intensity.

Yolanda from Madrid adding the finishing

 touches to her plate for the Chef's inspection.

Tasks:
Turn yesterday's puff pastry two more times, and let it rest
reduce veal sauce to demi-glace
make a beurre manié for the sauce
create an albufera sauce from chicken stock
prepare leek filing
prepare red pepper garnish
prepare poached eggs
roll out puff pastry and create shapes, egg them, and bake
put it all together on a hot plate!!!

I was challenged today. Lots going on. I looked around at the end and saw that everyone seemed to have survived with nice looking plates. phheeewwww!

Damn I forgot to take a pic of my plate. Below is a second plate that I put together for this picture since the Chef went through my original presentation plate which looked a LOT better. I was pretty happy with my results today. My back aches though!

We're almost done with doughs. Tomorrow we will begin with a 3 hour Market tour and then come back to the school and begin a series on soups. We also have to make the puff pastry one more time.