Cuisines of Europe and Mediterranean week three

Sauerkraut with sauasages

How to chose the menu?

The final week in the Cuisines of Europe and Mediterranean. For this week we had four days of normal classes and Friday was our special project. For the special project we had to prepare the menu of the country chosen on day one by drawing. It had to be a full menu - how it would be in the country. We were not allowed to cook any dish we prepared during our class. Our country was Morocco. We chose really simple menu, which was easy to execute and it paid off. The chef said we were the best team, the menu was Moroccan, very traditional.

During the week we finished Central Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary), cooked English Islands menu, and had Scandinavia and Russia for
two days. And this week I had an extra work, since I was a team sous-chef.

Monday

Roast duck with
mushrooms

The menu for the team was:

Sauerkraut

Swiss-Style Shredded Veal with Swiss-Style Hashed Potatoes (Rösti)

Venison with Mushrooms

Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage

Classic Polish Cucumber Salad

Roast Duck Stuffed with Apples

My dishes were Sauerkraut and Roast duck. Sauerkraut is a slowly braised fermented cabbage with aromatics. Another team used sauerkraut with different preparation and they had a left over. The chef told them to pass it to me and she wanted me to incorporate these leftovers into my dish. The problem was that my sauerkraut was braised for about 90 minutes and it was very tender. The product I got from the other team was not even close enough by texture. So I decided to throw it away when the chef was not watching me. In the mid term review she gave me a comment to be open minded about the recipes. :-)

Roast duck was interesting, because we deboned the whole duck in a way that skin was intact (cut on the back) and all bones were removed. This preparation allows to pound meat, stuff it, roll and roast. As a result you have good looking product - boneless roll of bird stuffed with anything you want. In my case it was apple filling.

That day there were a 'fight' with the chef. She came in the kitchen and torn down all the labels from all the ovens, because each team has one and other class struggled to find available oven. She requested to use station ovens, which are not convection and are not reliable at all. Anyway, I cooked my duck in the convectional oven with the moisture (I chose 20% moisture) as for me it's not practical to use bad equipment when we have a good one. The review was that duck was not crispy enough (surprise!).

Tuesday.

Mincemeat pies

We moved to the British Islands and the menu was

Cheddar Cheese Sauce over Toast

Mrs. Beeton’s Mincemeat Pies

Kedgeree

Rolled Shoulder of Lamb with Capers and Anchovies and Mint Jelly

Irish Stew

Young Wild Boar Ragout in Fagnes Beer

Pea Soup Holland

I cooked Mincemeat Pies and Shoulder of Lamb.

Mincemeat was a strange things. It is a ground meat, mixed with dried fruits and some alcohol, and left for a couple of weeks so the flavour allows to infuse. As a result mincemeat is something really sweet and I did not taste a lot of meat at all. Anyway, these pies came out very nice. 

Shoulder of lamb was an easy dish - debone lamb shoulder, make it flat (by butterflying and pounding some parts), spread filling, roll, tie, and roast. My filling was anchovies with capers, parsley and sage. It was very good at the end. Today the review was really good.

Wednesday

Stuffed pork loin

We moved to Scandinavia and Russia. The menu was:
Swedish Pea Soup with Pork
Mustard Herring
Honey and Mustard Marinated Salmon with Rosemary Apples
Danish Meat Patties
Pork Loin Stuffed with Apples and Prunes and Candied Potatoes
Small Beef Sausages
Georgian-Style Chicken

Salmon was really easy - marinate with honey and mustard and roast it. I made quite similar dish at home using soy sauce and maple sirup for marinade. As usually I portioned salmon by cutting the flesh to the skin, but having skin intact. The chef was impressed by that and it was easier for people to get a piece on the buffet without destroying the whole fish.My dishes were Salmon and Pork loin.

Pork loin was time consuming, as I had to made a hole in the middle and stuff it with prunes and apples. Pork was cooked great, but in general it seems a dry meat, especially loin (there is not much fat).

Thursday

Roasted pork

The second day of cooking Scandinavian and Russian food. The menu was:

Pickled Herring

Crayfish

Pheasant Soufflé with Port Wine Truffle Juice and Watercress Salad

Roast Breast of Pork with Crackling

Pot Cheese Tartlets

Gutap-Egg and Herb parcels

My dishes were Breast of pork and pot cheese tartlets.

Pot cheese tartlets

I have never heard the name Breast of pork. I know breast of chicken. Breast of pork was referred to the pork belly. It was very time consuming preparation, as I had to cut the skin on the pork belly taking care not to cut any meat. And I had to cut it at the 1/8 inch intervals and it was not easy at all, even though I have very sharp knives. Then we poached the pork belly for and hour. Then I placed a half of bay leaf and two cloves at the each slit. After that the pork belly was roasted for a couple of hours with some water on the bottom of the pan.

With the Pot cheese tartlets I took the risk. I was not satisfied at all with these tartlets on Wednesday, so I found a recipe in the Internet and asked the chef's permission to cook my recipe instead of given one. It came out really good, I just a bit overworked the dough and it was a bit dense.
Here is the recipe for Pot Cheese Tratlets.

Friday

Meatballs tagine with  eggs

Was a special project day. Our team cooked Moroccan dishes. The menu was quite simple but it was really Moroccan.
We had Squash croquets, Carrot deep with Mafrouk (flat bread), Meatballs Tagine, Gane hens staffed with couscous, and staffed dates.
My dish was tagine. Tagine is a cooking pot in North Africa with a conical lid. The idea here is that during cooking process the moisture evaporates from the ingredients and condensed on the lid, then it gets down (lid is conical) back to the ingredients.
We had to present food in front of our chef instructor and the dean. We had to explain what the dish is and talk about it briefly. I slightly overcooked eggs so I had no choice but to say that this is traditional Moroccan way to serve eggs. The review for my dish was great, for the team in general - very good. It seems we were the best  team in term of execution.