Day 6 Le Cordon Bleu Paris

Today was the "Market Day" for my practical group of 8. We walked form the school "field trip style" with Chef Lesourd and our translator Ute. Paris has many markets, and I as I learned each carries a rating of the quality of its products. Today, we visited the Market "convention" which is named after the street where it convenes. This was really a fun event looking at all the goods without the pressure of having to take notes or being serious. It was nice to have a few hours of casual fun with the chef and my classmates. The Chef pointed out many types of produce, cheeses, meats, and fish...some of which were new to some of us. The chef also bought any item that we were curious about.

There were some interesting fowl and game displays. The chicken heads were displayed with the body as proof that you are in fact getting a chicken. There was also a rabbit and game bird (I think it was a pheasant) hanging at the same counter. I'll spare you those pictures.

We also came across a meat counter which exclusively sold horse meat (Le Chevalirie). I was curious about the taste, so the Chef bought some and made me carry it back to school. We also picked up some cheeses, bread, tangerines, and some "rillette du lapin" which is a spread of rabbit confit.

 Flavia from Brazil going for the oysters

Sardines

 Romanesco (a cross between

Cauliflower and broccoli)

Sea Urchins

Learning about mushrooms from Ute

When we returned to school we created a little feast for ourselves with our goodies in an informal setting. Once again this was just a very informal event for our group of 8 with the crazy chef and Ute. The chef had me make a taretar with my ground horse meat along with some salt, pepper and tabasco. After the initial opposition, everyone relented and tried it for the sake of their culinary experience. It tasted very similar to lean ground meat. The

resistance was stronger with the tasting of the "rillete du lapin" as most of the females cited Bugs Bunny, or furry bunny references to avoid eating it, but once again most relented and tried it. It was delicious.  After our market, the school provided a tasting of the newly released Nouveau Beaujolais for the entire school in the Jardin d'hiver (winter Garden) with more cheeses and spreads. This was a good time to mingle and meet people from the other classes and do a bit of socializing. So far, this morning had been wonderful after the hectic pace of the previous three.


BUT, once again it was time to get serious with a 3 hour demo on soups followed with a 3 hour practical. The demo covered a cream of Cauliflower soup, a mushroom velouté, a beef consommé, and a crab bisque. The chef worked the counter as he multi-tasked his way though the simultaneous assimilation and reduction of all of the above soups and consommé. At one point the expertise of Chef Thivet "the history Chef" was sought regarding the convention the French use to name their soups. Lots of good trivia!

Chef's Beautiful Crab Bisque....was delicious!

After the demo, it was off to our kitchen to create.

Tasks:

1. Kills some crabs

2. Use the crabs, veggies, stock, and lots of other stuff to make the juice for the bisque

3. reduce, strain, cream, reduce, strain

4. make some croutons

5. make a puff pastry and do 4 turns on it for a dish that we will do tomorrow

Up to now, I have been happy with all of my dishes. I don't know what happened today, but my bisque was a disaster. This was really an easy dish. I have made bisques at home...oh well. I think I did not reduce enough in between the additions of all the ingredients. My soup came out too thin and too light in color. I was so distracted making the puff pastry in between the soup step that I just neglected the fact that I was producing a thin soup. By the time I realized it was too late. I tried one last bit of CPR before the chef noticed my impending disaster by cutting the quantity in half, cranking up the heat, and adding some more liaison (cream and rice flour). Alas, my patient flat lined____________________. Bummer!

Tomorrow, we have 4 three hour sessions.

Bonsoir!