Time flies. It was day one hundred yesterday ('business'). Time goes so fast. In less then one month there will be written exam and after that second term practical, when we have to cook one of the six menu. The difference between first term and second term practical is that this time there will be no such things as recipe cards. We suppose to remember dishes and cook them without any auxiliary material.
Yesterday was Friday and it was second day of Southern menu. Mine responsibilities were green salad with candied pecans. It was the first time I made candied pecans. Green salad was more familiar for me:-)
To make candied pecans you blanch them first in boiling water for one minutes (really short period of time kust to warm them up a bit and make them wet). Then you toss pecans (or other nuts you want to candied) with powdered sugar mixed with spices of your choice. I had a mixture of cayenne pepper and salt with powdered sugar. The idea here is to create instantly a sirup which will cover nuts evenly. In the next step you have a choice. You may bake these nuts or
you may deep fry them. I deep fried them in a pan (deep frier was reserved and also residual sugar is not good for deep frying oil). When you finish frying remove nuts from oil and place on a baking sheet tray to cool them (do not cover tray with any material, otherwise nuts will stick). When nuts are cold, move them to another sheet tray laired with paper towels to absorb extra oil. They are ready to serve.
I was able to get right mixture to toss them, there was a little kick from cayenne, slight taste of salt and the taste was really balances. I got a few compliments from people.
Dressing for the salad we made poppy seeds vinaigrette. We mixed olive oil, salt, poppy seeds, champagne vinegar, onion juice, and sugar. Can not tell exact amount of ingredients, as the recipe we used we did not like the taste. So we ended up making a lot of adjustments, we added more vinegar, more onion juice, more salt, and some black pepper.
The next week is going to be a final for our Banquet cookery. On Friday each team will cook own menu. That will be fun to see what people make...
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