Cuisines of Europe and Mediterranean week two

Our pizza oven

What is the biggest mistake in making stew?
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I have just realized that nothing was posted about week two in Euromed class. Last week was short and crazy. Monday was day off, but the rest of the week I worked for a French Bistro bootcamp and my day at the school was about 14 hours every day. The positive is that next Friday a pay check will be deposited to my account, however it won't be as fat as I wish:-)
That week we finished cooking Italian food, then we had France for two days and on Friday we started the central Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Hungary). Also there were a
rotation between teams and there was a new team for the week. The team was good, almost as good as the first one.

Pizza Margarita

Tuesday

Veal Saltimbocca

Our Italian menu was:

Spinach Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce

Funghi al Tegame

Veal Saltimbocca

Risotto with Artichokes

Baked Rolled Lasagna

Sweet and Sour Eggplant, Sicilian Style

Pizza Margherita I was the lucky one, as this was my team menu on Friday, so in a way I was familiar what to do.

My dishes were veal Saltimbocca and pizza Margherita. 

The dough we made from the scratch and it was not difficult at all. Pizza was cooked in a special oven outside building.

Veal Saltimbocca was not so impressive, many steps, quite time consuming, the taste was allright (the chef said slightly overcooked may be 30 seconds).

Wednesday

Curly endive salad

Sweetbreads

We started French menu and our dishes for the day were:

Tapenade

Warm Curly Endive Salad with Bacon and Croutons

Onion Tart

Snails in Garlic Butter

Sautéed Sweetbreads of Veal, Chanterelle Mushrooms and Leeks

Rouille Saffron Garlic Mayonnaise

Choucroute “Chez Jenny”

Rabbit Stew

My dishes were Endive salad, Sweetbreads, Rabbit. My sous chef did not do a great job

Rabbit stew

distributing dishes as I got the most technical and time consuming of them. The good thing is that the team was really good (three of us) and as soon as I got feeling that I could be in a weeds, I asked them for help and they did.

The review for the day was great, it was kind of unusual to hear this from the chef that all dishes were great and she was really bitchy that day.

Thursday

Stuffed vegetables

Was the second day for France. The menu rotated and our dishes were:

Zucchini Gratin

Niçoise Salad with Red Wine Vinaigrette

Spinach Crêpes

Lightly Stuffed Vegetables

Crepeau

Duck Breast with Oranges

Coq au Vin with Croutons

My dishes were Zucchini gratin, Lightly stuffed vegetables, Coq au Vin. Again I got a jackpot - too many steps in preparations, had to ask for help again.

Coq au Vin was not great. I did not manage the fire correctly,

Coq au Vin

I brought it to the boil and reduced fire almost to minimal, but it was still boiling. Therefore the chicken was tough at the end. This is a good lesson to learn. When you are making a stew (does not matter what kind of meat or protein) you never ever boil it. Boiling changes the structure of protein and these changes are forever. You bring it close to a boiling point and reduce heat to simmer and simmer it gently. 

Zucchini gratin and stuffed vegetables were very good.

Friday

Puff pastry with veal
Sweetbreads

Kasha

We moved the the Central Europe. Our menu for the day was:

Meatballs in Caper Sauce

Barley Soup with Air Dried Beef

Puff Pastry with Veal Sweetbread and Mushroom Filling

Wiener Schnitzel with Mixed Salad

Hortobágy Pancakes

Kasha

Cauliflower Polonaise

My dishes were Puff pastry with Sweetbreads and Kasha. These two dishes were not enough to keep me busy for the whole class:-) I even helped some other people. 

Kasha was a Polish dish a mixture of buckwheat with barley. I was not impressed at all, in Russia we never mix rains like this. Also buckwheat is kind of expensive grain, barley is cheap, so it does not make sense to mix like that.

Puff pastry was really technical dish.

Both dishes were delicious as per chef.