Contemporary Restaurant cooking week two

Fish course - shallow poach
sole with vegetables

The last cooking exam at the school...

The second week of cooking in the restaurant was not easier. It was again full of mistakes and miscommunication. We were consistently late. In the middle of the week we switched with John, so I started cooking proteins and he making garnishes and plated food. Same day we switched we had a menu change. The proteins were the same, there were some changes with garnishes and sauces. Beurre blanc for the sole dish was changed to plum sauce, asparagus for salmon was substituted for Romano bean salad, and chickpea stew was changed for faro salad. In a way it was good, as the new garnishes were easier to assemble and prepare. What was not cool is that for the first couple days when we switched, I was not able to help John with plating or finishing dishes, as all my attention was for proteins and I had no chances to learn how to make new garnishes. Ater couple days it changed and I helped him when it was required.

In the middle of the week

we got midterm progress report from the chef. That was shocking. Half of our group had non-passing grades. I got C, which is very low. It happened that the day we got this from chef I asked him for some time after the shift, because I was going to ask him about feedback for my work. The feedback was not cool, he said I should be a team player, be more vocal, and spend more time for homework. Ok, at least something to work on.

Main course - roast beef,
potato gratin, grilled vegetables,
and broccolini 

At the same day I had my final practical exam. I was nervous about it, probably as usual before an exam. As a part of exam I had to answer verbally for ten questions out of list of 300. The day before the exam I thought about one particular question about color pigments in vegetables, as I was not good at that question. So I asked the Google and got information about three pigments out of five. As it was too late, I did not go further in my study. And guess what, I got this question to answer. The chef doing this exam helped me a little bit. I got the menu with roast beef, sauce jus lie, scalloped potatoes, broccolini and grilled vegetables for the main course and shallow poach sole with beurre blanc and vegetable garnish. I did well, the food were good, small critique from the chef about seasoning and the portion size (if you gave me huge plate do not expect small portionsJ). I got 92.25 out of 100 possible. That was a huge relief to pass the exam from the first attempt.

my graduation jacket
(I was waiting to pick it up
until practical exam)

In the restaurant I had troubles for cooking salmon with crispy skin. For a couple of days it was a real challenge. I had soggy skin, I had no skin, but no crispy skin. At the end of the week I figured out how to cook it and that was a breakthrough. After that salmon was not scary at all. One table returned the salmon dish with complains that it was undercooked. The chef said that in his opinion it was slightly over cooked, so I was not in trouble.