TODAY’S TIDBITS
- No salt in the stocks, the cooks will put that in as needed later
- Sauté pans have slanted edges so that any steam quickly is out of there, sautoirs have straight edges so that the steam will curl back in
- If you have a gas burner, buy pots with not only a thick bottom but also thick sides because a lot of the heat curls up along the side
- Do not lean on the counter near a flattop burner, your hand will burn like mine did today (not serious, but it made working near heat tougher).
My feet are hurtin’ – it’s been a week of more or less full time on our feet. This, I’m not used to. Despite having splurged for the Doc Martens, by 3pm I need to sit down. They said it would take two weeks to get used to, so I’ve got another week to go. When I first saw our schedule 9.30 – 3.00 I thought “geez that’s not a long day”, but I get it now. I’m close to my limit at the moment. If the day was 2 hours longer, or they were throwing a couple more things at us at once, I’d be really struggling. A guy in the locker room says level 4 is pure chaos. Uh oh.
Today, we made three stocks (Chicken, Fish, and Vegetable), as well as three levels of vegetable glazing (blanc, blonde, brun) for our Garniture Bouquetiere. The stocks involved cleaning fish and chicken bones, combining with vegetables and some herbs, simmering and skimming. We also tasted our veal and beef stocks from yesterday. To be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed – they were all pretty weak and not that amazing tasting – but apparently that’s the way they’re supposed to be, until you reduce them down, add salt and convert them into a sauce. That’s next week.
We used the vegetables we previously shaped into cocottes to make the vegetable plate. We ‘glaced’ the turnips ‘a blanc’ which was simmering in water, s&p, butter, sugar (for the glaze) all under the parchment tops. The carrots ‘a blonde’ were a little browner, and the pearl onions ‘a brun’, nice and brown. To plate we placed peas in the carved artichoke heart, and surrounded with the remaining veggies. They tasted and looked pretty good, but the pearl onions were by far the best.
This was our last day with Chef John, we gave him a round of applause, I hope our next Chef (Veronica) is as good he was, he is both a great cook and a great teacher. They don’t always come together. Off to the bread floor, and then home to put the feet up.
