Day one hundred twenty five

Egg in a whole

The end of breakfast class!

Yes, today we have finished our short breakfast class. Tomorrow we are going to start lunch class. Breakfast cookery was really interesting, we made a lot of new and interesting dishes. The only negative (or inconvenient to be precise) point is the necessity to wake up before 4 am in the morning. The class started at 4:30 am and breakfast starts at 6:30 am. Tomorrow I can sleep till 6 am and I do believe it will be like weekend.

Today was a special project day for us. Each team had to come up with a menu for today. We planned the menu according to the stations assignment. It was our responsibility to request all necessary ingredients and to cook our menu for the customers (students and staff). At the end of the class we had a practical for breakfast class - everyone suppose to prepare
one egg benedict (poach egg, heat up a slice of canadian bacon, toast english muffin, prepare hollandise) in 20 minutes time.

As we were assigned to an egg station we cooked omelette with shrimps poached in butter, corn, tomatoes, and padron peppers. The second dish was 'egg in a whole' - fried egg in a whole in a slice of bread.

Our omelette

An omelette was quite simple after some practice (the first couple were not successful). Yesterday we roasted padron peppers, halved cherry tomatoes. Today we prepared shrimps (poached them in butter), shredded cheese, cooked corn. During the service we have to cook omelette to the order.

Egg in a whole was an interesting dish and quite popular.  We sliced brioche loaf and then cut the round in the centre of each slice. Then we placed a slice of bread on the hot flat griddle and cracked an egg in the whole. When the fist side was golden in colour we flipped the slice with an egg inside and cooked the second side. Also we toasted the rounds (wholes) and served them as well. Egg in a whole was served with basil infused hollandaise.

For the practical today we had to prepare egg benedict. For me it was kind of deja vue - while I poached my egg the hollandaise I already made had broken. I had the same story for the quick practical during a la cart cooking - that time my béarnaise sauce broken (sauce very similar to the hollandaise with tarragon flavor). Today I have spent may be a minute trying to re-emulsify it and then probably in a three and a half minutes furiously made a new one. That was really funny to watch I believe. The result was 9.5 out of 10 - a little bit heavy on acidity and my chef said I should have put a touch more salt to bring it to the balance. An egg was perfect, english muffin warm (still, after making a new sauce), and canadian bacon was nicely warmed.