Day one hundred fifteen

Our plate 

Some days are better than others

TGFI so glad about it. Unfortunately it was the worst day for the last two weeks. There was no common sense in people's work. That in turn created a chaos for the whole day. We were late with our food as well. At the end it was a huge relieve that the day was over at the school.

Our menu was:
Pan-fried Pork Cutlets
Sauce Chasseur
Braised Cabbage
Macedoine of Vegetables
Spatzels
Cream of Tomato soup.

I was doing the sauce and the vegetables. The idea of vegetables was interesting. Start with mushrooms and shallots sauté until golden
brown, than add onion and celery and continue to cook until onion translucent. Then add garlic, yellow summer squash and green zucchini and cook until soft. The last step is to add red bell pepper, turnips, rutabaga, and carrot (root vegetables blanched in boiling water till tender first). Heat through vegetables add herbs (parsley, tarragon, chives) and serve. All vegetables cut in large dice (3/4 inch cubes) and the dish  has variety of colours, so it is really good for garnish.

With the sauce I made an error. I thought that it going to be strained at the end and instead making tomato concasse (seedless, skinless tomatoes) I chopped them. Later I realized that the sauce is not going to be strained. There were mushrooms there, reduction of red wine, shallots, and demi-glace (reduction of Espagnole and brown veal stock). I discussed this with the chef and he suggested to strain the sauce and then to introduce tomato concasse and sauté mushrooms. Unfortunately we had no time to do this and had to leave the sauce as is. It was not bad. The flavour had to be adjusted to compliment the pork cutlets. The team sous chef said that we had no time to figure out what to do. Only after service I was able to figure out that adjustment should be a lemon juice.

At least two people returned pork as it was undercook. Indeed that was a shame, you do not want to serve undercooked pork.

There will be one more day in this class on Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday are two days for the second term practical (one day for written exam and one day for cooking exam). After that it will be summer break for almost four weeks.