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| My plate on the practical |
It was the second term practical exam yesterday. The task was easy - cook one menu in two and a half hour. There were six menus and by the draw it was determined what you suppose to cook. My menu was chicken consommé, beef stew, fresh pasta, green beans, and assorted vegetables (rutabaga, turnips, and carrot).
It was interesting, but the night before I had a dream of making fresh pasta. The pasta was only in one menu. When I draw this menu, the first thought was that I do not remember exact ratio for the stew. How much wine, or stock you need, so I went by instinct.
There were a few differences between the first term and the second term practicals. For the first tir we were allowed to use recipe cards. There were only two
menus. Lastly on the first term practical I had plenty of time, here I had just enough.
I started from denaturing protein for my consomme, so I mixed ground chicken with salt, egg whites, and tomatoes, and let it sit for a while. Next I started my stew, as it had the longest cooking time among all my dishes. I cut the meat in bite size pieces, brown it, removed meat from pot, add mirepoix (onion, carrot, celery) and sautéed. Then deglazed pot with wine, add stock and Espagnole sauce, returned meat to the pot, and simmer it for a good two hours. During that time I did not have to pay a lot of attention to the stew, I checked seasoning a couple of times and adjust it.
The next step was consomme, so I started it and had to spend some time, waiting for the raft to form (ground chicken with aromatics and egg whites, coagulates and float on the top).
As soon as raft formed, I was able to move to the pasta. I mixed it and let it rest. It rested for about 20 minutes and by that time it was one our to the window (the time I could serve my food). I started to roll pasta first time. At the beginning it was allright, but then it lost elasticity and when I rolled it with machine it was tearing, but not rolling. The first fought was that something is wrong with pasta and I have to start again in a short period of time. Then I realized that probably the problem is a gluten and it needed more time to relax. So I wet my hands, form a ball of the dough and left it to rest for another 30 minutes.
That time I spent cutting vegetables for my consomme garnish and for the vegetable components of the main dish. I cut all vegetables, then blanched them in a boiling water, shocked them in an ice bath. Returned to the pasta.
This time the dough was good. It was slightly less elastic as I would like to have it, but it was rolling good. Rolled pasta, cut it as tagliatelle (wide flat noodles). Consomme was ready to strain and degrease. Time was close to the service. Strained consomme, started to degrease it with a parchment papper. There were more fat on the surface than I expected, so I had to spend more time for this. Window opened and I had 20 minutes to serve my food.
Three minutes since the window has opened I served my consomme and come back to finish main dish. Stew was ready, it's a shame but I did not taste meat, only the sauce to make sure salt and flavor are right. Pasta in the boiling water. Two pans on the fire to heat vegetables. One pan for assorted vegetables, the other for the green beans. Pasta was ready and a couple of minutes (fresh pasta cooks fast). Third pan on the fire for pasta to get rid of excess water and mix it with sauce or butter (in my case it was butter). Plates in the oven to get them hot. One minute later, plates out of the oven, they were even too hot (not able to touch with my fingers). Plate everything, bring to the tasting table. Five minutes to the window closing. As soon as I returned to my station I saw chopped parsley, which I did not used. Shame. Time to start clean up.
Later on during my discussion with the chef I found out that the stew was really good (he even asked two other students to taste it). Consomme was good, good flavor, good colour, good seasoning. Vegetables were slightly under seasoned (not enough salt). So I lost a couple of points here and there. The total result was 91.8 out of 100. It was pretty good, much nigher than the average to our class. Satisfied.
What was a shame is that according to the school policy I can not take food out of the building. Half of my stew I gave to dishwashers. More than a pint of consomme ended up in a sink. This is a real shame, we do not have a way to use it in a school, but people are not allowed to take it...
Now we have a summer brake to the end of July. There will be no updates till that time (I am not in the school, right?)
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