From Cook To Trained Chef and Beyond...

Term 2 - Week 9 & 10 @ Tante Marie and Exam Results

2010-06-28T08:22:00.000+01:00

Well I liked the idea of the last recap post that I thought I would do it again... and this one is going to be a real humdinger what with all the pictures (some good, some not so good!). So lets get on with it!

Week 9 saw us introduced to the wonder that is a rump of lamb. Having never eaten this cut before I was blown away by how much flavour it contained and how tender it was... truly Dyl-icious and one to try sooner rather than later if you haven't already! The rump was followed by a fromage blanc mousse with red fruits which were quite tasty and all turned out well apart from one which had spilt in the un-moulding process.... so we had a little fun with him!

This week also saw us complete the Indonesian class hosted by Vera, Tante Maries very own Indonesian teacher. We utilised her very own recipes and its fair to say that everyone loved the food... as it was all amazing!

My HUUUGE pan of Nasi Goreng!

Things like the satay sauce were unlike any I have ever had as it was made without peanut butter and included a whole host of lovely aromatics suck as kaffir lime leaves and lemon grass.

Crystallised ginger cake... amazing!

The oxtail soup sounded boring, but the addition of nutmeg, cloves and star anise to name but a few turned it into a soup that has relegated the canned Heinz variety to being a distant, distasteful memory.

It may not be a looker but the Oxtail soup was divine.

We were introduced into the world of savory custards this week, however it did not take the usual "quiche" form that we in teh UK would usually go for. This time it was more of a Spanish style baked custard flavoured with caramelised shallots and bread sticks. It split the class 50/50, I liked it but would have liked something sweet and sharp to cut through the richness.

Something I really enjoyed was messing about with some rabbit. We saw a technique detailing how to remove and wrap the rabbit loins in pancetta using a farce to hold it together while poaching... and serving it with a pearl barley risotto....and we were then allowed to alter the flavour however we liked. Myself and my partener for the day decided to go for a "Lapin au vin" using a mushroom farce and very rich red wine jus. It was nice... though maybe a bit wintry for the time of year. We were going to add nettles to the pearl barley to add colour, but since they don't add much flavour we decided not to go for style over substance. Cauliflower puree and roasted shallots and garlic finished it off.

Dressing a crab was also on the and quite good fun... not sure if I would say the same if I had to pick 50 of the little bastards, but one was definitely manageable. I never understood why people cover up the brown meat completely when adding the egg white, yolk and parsley garnish so I decided to try and show it a little. In teh process the class believed I created a South African themed crab for the world cup.... you decide...

Two forms of chocolate fondant were also made... however I have to say that how the "cold chocolate fondant" can be named as anything but a dense chocolate mousse is beyond me. Both tasted great... some issues with the baked ones what with one collapsing completely and the others just being a bit ghetto. The "mousse fondants" came out well and we decided to present all six in a slightly different manner with the chocolate dentelles.... I know which is my fave!

Another desert was a poached peach with almond ice cream that had been rolled in powdered croquante and served with strawberry coulis. Quite nice but melted very quickly as it was a SCORCHER at Tante Marie that day... however it was just what was needed on such a day.

Oh and I nearly forgot... here is a picture of Lulu and Johnny 5 picking nettles for there pearl barley risotto... look how Johnny 5 needs no gloves to protect him from stings... thats what being a cold hearted banker does to you. Take heed!

Before I go... there are just two day until graduation... the time seems to have flow by. On Friday I received my marks for my project (90%) and my celebration lunch exam (80%) both of which I was happy with. Today however I get my final exam and theory exam marks... the 1st I completely ****ed up... trust me... when I write the blog post you won't believe some of the things I did... SERIOUSLY! The latter I did no reviosion for until the night before, and then I found out I had got a job at a 2* restaurant and opend a couple of bottle of Rioja to celebrate... hungover was an understatement.

So today will be VERY interesting and no doubt bring me back to earth with a solid thud which I am sure is a healthy thing. Especially as when I get home this, my little rambling blog that no one in their right mind should be reading will have recieved over 15,000 hits since I started in January... even I didnt expect that!

Have a great week,

Dylan

Term 2 - Week 7 & 8 @ Tante Marie

2010-06-20T16:11:00.001+01:00

So we have double whammy coming at you this week, a BOGOF, a 2 for 1 or however you want to put it.... it's basically a way for me to almost catch up to where I should be. No excuses... I have been enjoying the life of a man with only one exam left, which basically means watching series 4 of the Sopranos and catching up on searching the world wide interweb for amusing videos... such as this one...

Girl Slams Face Into Her Massive Chest - Watch more Funny Videos

Onto the usual subject matter...

Week 7 at Tante Marie was a short week what with Monday and Tuesday being half-term so on our return Wednesday we had a full day of cooking to get through. Orange and kiwi profiteroles with orange sabayon were preceeded by a delightfil mushroom risotto and a not so delightful pancetta and blue cheese risotto. I am a huge fan of blue cheese, but not when used in a dish and completely over powers everything else, I found myself searching for a crack to spoon it onto! We also got to eat the rabbit rillettes made the previous week on some country bread toast... deeeeelish!

Canterbury Tart

The afternoon saw English breakfast muffins being made to accompany eggs Benedict in week 8. A Canterbury tart and creme fraiche ice cream where also conjured up, the highlight being the tart despite me being a MASSIVE ice cream fan.

English muffins in the making.

A total of three demonstrations took place, including one from Nathan Green a former young chef of the year and has worked in many great restaurants including Gidleigh Park in Devon... where I am going!

On Friday we cooked something I have wanted to try for a long time, namely sweetbreads. Although not the hugely sought after and expensive veal sweetbreads the recipe (ris de veau) called for, the lamb sweetbreads were very nice and tatsted pretty much as I had expected them to. Served with French style peas and followed by pannacotta with raspberries and muscat jelly it made for a delightful lunch.

Week 8 started with my celebration lunch exam I have previoulsy posted about and included some rather tasty bits and bobs along the way. The highlight for me were the boudain blanc we made, and although not being very blanc at all, the flavour was very simliar to the one my mother purchases whenever she goes to France... although the schools recipe didn't call for black truffles to be utilised in the white sausages.

Caramel ice-cream was always going to be a winner, and considering it was a no-churn recipe I was quite impressed at the resultant texture and lack of ice crystals. Rum babas, an old school donut-like-cakey thing were quite nice and are apparently coming back into fashion in posh restaurants across the capital, as were the warm chocolate fondants.

Confit duck legs were prepared from scratch, lovingly salted over night, gently cooked in duck fat, allowed to cool in the fat and then crisped in the oven the next day.... delightful.... a word I would not choose to describe the grapefruit risotto (yes thats not a typo) that was to accompany it.

Kiwi profiteroles and rather deflated sabayon.

No I have a thing for profiteroles, wherther they are filled with cream or custard I dont care, so imagine my delight when we had to make a Gateau St. Honore. The gateau is basically big choux pastry balls sat on a big disk of choux pastry which in is sat on a ginat sweet pastry disc. The choux balls and ring are filled with a light and creamy, yet quite rich cream filling before being securred to each other with lots of caramel. The hole in teh centre was then filled with strawberrys and covered with more cream filling piped using a special nozzle and then covered in chopped pistachios. Dyl-icious.

Well that is about that. Only one full week of the course left. I have my final exam on Tuesday and Wednesday and we start getting results for our other exams on Friday in theory.... not looking forward to the theory mark!

Dylan

p.s. here are some crazy Japanese guys making some sort of dough....

Crazy Japanese Dough Pounding - Watch more Funny Videos

Brioche heaven for rich men (or women)

2010-06-13T23:16:00.002+01:00

Well this morning I awoke with the usual spring in my step that occurs when I have to bake my sourdough loaves only. The problem was that after skipping into my kitchen in the manner of a 8yr old girl with pig tails in her hair, I was confronted by the sight of my loaves to be decorating the kitchen surface! So in a fit of baking depression I launched the massively over-proved dough in the bin and ran... well briskly walked, to the local shot to pick up eggs and butter... not for a fry up as you may expect but to start some Brioche.

For those of you that don't know, brioche is an enriched French loaf. You may wonder how indeed it is enriched... well try making it with almost an equal weight of butter to flour then throw in 5 eggs and some vanilla sugar... yep that should do it.

This kind of ratio of butter/flour is usually referred to something along the lines of Rich Mans Brioche as you can imagine all that butter and good eggs ain't cheap... well in comparison to the ratios used in Poor Mans Brioche at least!

The last time I made brioche was on board this...

M/Y Slipstream

It was my very first attempt and with the left over dough I had, I made some mini brioche loaves in these tiny little moulds. The chef though they were so good they ended up on this dish for the guests.....

Confit duck leg, fig chutney, foie gras and my brioche!

Needless to say the environment I found myself in baking today was nowhere near as glamorous or as sunny, in fact Woking was a positively shitty place to be today, as usual!

Now before I start be warned that this is not a quick recipe, but that doesn't mean you should try it. Yes it may take a while to make, but the time actually spent tending to the dough is quite small, the rest of the time is spent proving.

So you will need...

For the sponge/pre-ferment:

115ml whole milk, lukewarm

65g bread flour

25g fresh yeast

For the rest of the dough:

5 medium eggs, beaten + 1 for egg wash

450g bread flour

450g unsalted butter at room temperatre

60g vanilla sugar

12g salt

Method...

The day before you want to bake combine all the ingredients for the sponge/preferment in a large bowl and place in the fridge covered with cling film.

The next morning combine all the dry ingredients together and cut up the butter into cubes. Whisk the 5 eggs one at a time into the sponge before slowly beating in spoonfuls of the flour mixture.

When all the flour is combined you will have a sloppy mess that will look impossible to do anything with... don't worry you are on the right track.... and its going to get worse! Now tip onto a work surface and begin to start stretching the dough and kneading it. Add the butter in 4-5 lots after the previous lot has been absorbed by the dough, this should take about 10-12 mins of kneading/mixing.

Now place the dough/mess into a bowl and cover very securely in cling film and leave on the side for 2hrs before placing it in the fridge for another 6-8hrs.

The dough is ready to portion, all that is needed is for it to be portioned and baked. You could make individual ones in muffin tins or special tins for Brioche à tête, or you can use a loaf tin and place 7-8 balls of dough in it. The dougfis quite hard to shape at this point, use some flour and work quickly.

A brioche à tête I found on the old interweb. The tête refers the bulge atop the brioche... tête being French for head. I still got it baby!

The dough now needs to prove for an hour or slightly longer until almost double in size. Brush with beaten egg twice and bake at 200c for ten minutes before reducing the temp to 180 for a further 10-15mins depending on the size of your brioche.

Buttery buttery tasty tasty brioche!

Leave to cool in the tin before removing as they are quite delicate when warm due to all that buttery goodness. Call friends around so they can witness the amazing smell permeating your house... then forcibly make them leave as this is far too good for the likes of them... I promise!

Dylan

Term 2 - Week 6 @ Tante Marie

2010-06-13T12:39:00.000+01:00

Finally, Lobster time!

So the first of some catch up posts has arrived, and it concerns week 6 at Tante Marie.

The monkfish... not a fan.

One of my favourite dishes of the week was the tomato and caraway bavarois that tasted very much like Heinz Tomato soup... only set with gelatin and served cold. You gotta love a bit of Heinz tommy soup!!! In contrast the very same class we made my least favourite dish of the week, monkfish skewers with sweet vanilla chilli dressing. Not sure what it was, maybe the sweet chilli sauce, maybe the combo of mango and fish but I couldn't eat it, although I must say some classmates enjoyed it. Strange strange strange people!

The delightful Armandine.

There were a few baked items on the agenda this week including an armandine tart, roulade au chocolat with raspberries, sacher torte, seeded batch rolls, white soda bread.

The sacher torte is supposed to have "sacher" piped on the top... I tried to write "Dyl-icious" but got it badly wrong and opted to go for a dimpled effect in the end.

A big highlight of the week was Wednesday morning when we begin making rabbit rillettes, and I do love a good rillette! Whenever my mother goes to France she brings me back some standard supermarket pork rillettes, in the grand scheme of things its probably not great, but any rillettes is better than no rillettes! We made ours with whole rabbits and some added pork and pork fat, and I can say with confidence it was the best rillettes I have ever eaten.... mother would be proud.

A nice full and very large kilner jar of rabbit rillettes.

Live lobsters turned up half way through class to make the classic that is lobster thermidor. It was my first time having lobster thermidor and it was nice, if a little heavy due to the old school sauce. I probably wouldn't order it at a restaurant (unless it was a modern, lighter interpretation), but if you put one in front of me right now (for free) I would very very happily get through it with gusto!

The lobster.

Then came the raspberry soufflé. It was my first time making and eating a desert soufflé and I was in no way disappointed. So very light and full of flavour it was a dream to eat and easy as the soda bread we had made earlier in the class. I always thought from seeing soufflés made on TV that they couldn't be as hard as everyone seems to make out, turns out I was right.

Soufflés ready for the oven.

Success is all about having everything you need ready before you start, then working briskly but carefully and applying some good basic technique... such as carefully but quickly combining the whisked egg whites and the raspberry base. Give it a try some time, I insist!

Out straight out of the oven.

We also had our final theory test of the course on Friday morning. Now I have never been great at studying, despite generally getting good marks I can always find something to distract me from sitting down and revising. So this particular week my room was sparklingly clean and the attempted studying wasn't helped by finding out the day before the exam I had got a job at Gidleigh Park, a restaurant and hotel I visited for a day over Easter.... happy days! So the exam didn't go great, I'm sure the celebratory wine hangover didn't help try and form clear and cohesive answers to the questions posed....

The seeded batch rolls.

So in a nutshell this was a great week, other than the exam, and was so great mainly due to Wednesday mornings class and what we cooked. By far the stand-out lesson of the whole course by a long long way.

Dylan

Photos - Celebration Lunch Exam

2010-06-12T17:52:00.003+01:00

So the celebration lunch was done and dusted last Monday at Tante Marie and all in all I was fairly happy with how it went. There were a few little issues but nothing that caused too much impact on the final dishes... except for the jelly! But more on that later.

The actual menu I choose was a little more complex than I may have let on in the initial post on the subject:

Terrine of goat's cheese

served with marinated raisins, cox apple batons, toasted walnuts and a selection of lettuce leaves with a light walnut oil dressing.

o0o

Ballotine of tarragon chicken

accompanied by confit chicken leg, fresh peas, sautéed wild mushrooms, purple asparagus, leek fondue and a white wine sauce.

o0o

Lemon meringue

choux balls filled with creamy Italian meringue and served with lemon curd, raspberry jelly*, crispy meringue peaks and candied lemon peel with a dusting of raspberry powder.

So the starter was a young goats cheese blended in a food processor with some Greek yoghurt. I then added diced apple and celery before adding some hot whipping cream with a little gelatin to help hold it all together so I could turn it out of the ring mould easily. Nice and simple and absolutely Dyl-icious when combined with the white wine marinated raisins, crisp cox apples, toasted walnuts and dressing... even if I do say so myself.

A special note again to Brockhall Farm for supplying me with some excellent fresh goats cheese for the base of my starter, as well a beautifully creamy rinded goats cheese which was sliced and set in the middle of the terrine's for additional flavour and texture. Be sure to follow Sarah on Twitter and check out here blog here.

Goats Cheese Terrine - I really love this dish, delicate yet full flavoured.

Main course was some beautiful free-range chicken that I removed from the carcass keeping the skin in large pieces. I confit one leg and both wings in duck fat and made essentially a sausage with the two breasts and remaining leg by opening up the breasts and laying them on cling film with the diced leg meat. This was then seasoned and topped with chicken mouse made in a food processor with an additional breast, equal weight of whipping cream and tarragon. The whole thing was then rolled in cling film, cut in half and re-rolled in cling film and secured very well at each of the ends. It was then poached for an hour at 62-65c in a large pan of water with a temp probe in... a poor mans water bath if you will, to ensure the chicken was super super tender. When ready I removed it from the cling film and coloured it in a pan before adding more glacé de volaille to give the ballotines a slight gloss.

When the confit was ready I stripped it from the bone and seasoned it with salt, pepper and a glacé de volaille I had made at home before placing it some blanched savoy cabbage leaves, forming into balls and wrapping in cling film so they could be warmed through in boiling water.

The rest of the veg was fairly simple, leeks that had been blanched and refreshed and placed in double cream with a clove of minced garlic that had been reduced until thick. The peas were so fresh and sweet I didn't want to cook them to much so I blanched them for 1 minute before refreshing and removing the skin on each pea and the purple asparagus was blanched for 30 seconds again due to its tenderness and freshness. The mushrooms were sautéed in seasoned butter until lightly coloured and cooked through.

You can see more clearly the different parts of the ballotine... the white meat, the brown leg meat and the slightly yellow tarragon mouse.

The sauce was a fairly simple affair, shallots, garlic, thyme and a bay leaf sweated down until well cooked but not coloured, then adding white wine and reducing until the pan is dry. A really nice chicken stock was then added and reduced by half before adding a few splashes of double cream. The sauce was passed through a sieve and then lots of butter were whisked in before seasoning and serving.

Oh and I nearly forgot... the crispy chicken skin. Once the skin was removed from the chicken I laid it on a baking sheet, sprinkled with salt and placed another baking sheet on top before putting it in the oven. After 10 minutes I removed the skin which was still white and floppy, but crucially the shape had been set so it wouldn't shrink any more. I sliced the skin into strips before placing them back on the tray to continue cooking until golden and crispy. My favourite part of the whole menu!!!

Finally the desert. Choux pastry was made with vanilla sugar... and baked for 5 mins too long, hence the slight “caramelisation” on them. I made the lemon curd in a bowl set over boiling water as this is a more gentle approach than doing it in a sauce pan and allows you to step away and do other things as it only requires the occasional stir. The jelly* was made by extracting the juice from some frozen raspberries, sweetening with sugar and letting it down with a little water before adding gelatin and setting in the fridge.

The Italian meringue was made in the usual way, pouring hot sugar (115c) onto whipped egg whites and whisking until cold. I pipped some in small peaks and set them in a 100c oven until fully dried out and crispy all the way through. The remainder I added to a little whipped cream and used to filled the choux balls.

I think this could have almost passed as a professionals dish if the jelly hadn't melted and ruined the aesthetics!

The candied lemon and raspberry powder I made at home and brought in to add a little bit extra. The powder was made with some of the raspberry powder dehydrated in my oven over night before being added to a coffee grinder with some vanilla sugar. The lemon was made by blanching and refreshing the rind twice in fresh water before simmering in a 50% sugar syrup for 45 minutes and leaving to dry before dusting in vanilla sugar.

So the major issues were the over cooking of the choux balls, the fact that my raspberry jelly lasted about 4 minutes in the heat of the kitchen before turning into raspberry coulis... I plated it up 20 mins before the deadline... wont make that mistake again! Also I could have added a touch more cream to the white wine sauce as it was quite toffee-like in colour and buttery in flavour. Also as I decided to stand the terrine's on their sides, the heat of the kitchen acted against me meaning that after a few minutes they could have been considered to be very poor subcultures of the leaning tower of Pisa. Oh.... and the mouse in the ballotines wasn't as tarragony (is that a word?) as I wanted. When I made the mouse I cooked a little off to check for flavour and seasoning and it tasted great, but when cooked the flavour wasn't as pronounced as I wanted... maybe I got all the tarragon in that one little tester teaspoon!

As I said, nothing major went wrong and all in all I'm quite happy. My class mates and myself are not so happy about having to wait until the last few days of the course to find out our marks though... so I guess you will have to wait too!

Going out on a limb... I'm going to award myself a solid 75%.... come back in a few weeks and see how right or wrong I am!

Dylan

*jelly in hot hot kitchen = coulis after 4 minutes!

The Celebration Lunch Exam

2010-06-07T07:05:00.000+01:00

This morning I have my “Celebration Lunch Exam” at Tante Marie and as you can see I am all packed and ready to go... I feel almost like a chef on The Great British Menu with my box of goodies!

The premise is simple, a seasonal 3 course meal for 4 people costing exactly £23.50. Some of you may remember my “Budget Lunch Exam” where the premise was the same just with a total budget of just £8.... well this really does feel like a celebration with all that cash money to play with!

The menu:

Goats Cheese Salad

o0o

Chicken in White Wine Sauce with Summer Vegetables

o0o

Lemon Meringue

Those of you have endured these blog posts for a while may also remember my waffle about “under promising and over delivering”.... something which I haven't done in this case.... much.

A big thank you to Sarah @BrockhallFarm over on Twitter for sending me the beautiful goats cheese she makes for the starter... I just hope I do you, and the goat's justice!... now click on the link to follow her!

On a final note, I am 2 weeks behind with the Tante Marie updates but will have a little time this week to catch up I hope. They will come, promise.

Dylan

Term 2 - Week 5 @ Tante Marie

2010-05-26T18:35:00.001+01:00

So.... week 5 saw more consommé being prepared and consumed, this time an "Asian" version which was quite delicately flavoured and served with ribbons of coriander pancakes, delightful.

We also made "Globi de volaille" which apparently very roughly translated means "chicken pear" due to its shape and not any flavouring element. The globi were made using poussin with each bird being fashioned into two 'pears' by removing all the flesh and skin from the carcass in one piece, before removing all the leg and wing bones bar the thigh, whilst retaining all their meat. With the aid of some stuffing and a few cocktail sticks its a simple matter of applying a little gentle persuasion to get the desired shape. The picture below shows one of my globi before some final touches to ensure it had a flatter base so it would stand proud and upright, and not bent or lopsided like the average Woking resident on a Friday or Saturday evening.

I know it looks like a chicken leg but its half a baby chicken stuffed with more chicken with only one bone... the one I am holding.

As promised in the previous weeks recap... here is a real life, unadulterated VOL-AU-VENT! You can't quite tell the scale of this puff pastry creation, but there is nearly a whole chicken inside it along with onion and mushroomy sauce.... so lets just say that a REAL vol-au-vent is not something you could easily eat as a canapé! It was made with two layers of puff pastry and I was very happy with the rise I got from it.

A real life actual Vol-au-vent!

And now onto the main event of the week... THE “Wedding Buffet”. Less talk about this the better really, its a buffet, for a wedding.... though not a real one... we ate it all for our lunch.

Dressed salmon


One of my contributions - rolled and stuffed and glazed pork loin.

Pate de volaille en croute.

Duck terrine ( I think).

Salmon... something.

Dressed Crabilicious!


Smoked salmon cheesecake.

Ham hock terrine.


Foreground is another smoked salmon cheesecake, background is a terrine de ratatouille nicoise.

Croque-en-bouche.

Soft pistachio meringue with rhubarb orange and pomegranate.

Charlotte au chocolat, marbe Grand Marnier.

There were other dishes cooked but I failed to snap snaps of them before they got tucked into. My other two dishes were a pasta salad and a delice de cassis.

Well that is all for now... I should, again, be revising for my theory exam on Friday morning... going to do my best to do that now.... but Great British Menu is on BBC2!!!!

Dylan

Why your BBQ makes me want to burn a bus shelter down (NSFW)

2010-05-23T22:40:00.002+01:00

Well judging by the smell wafting in through my open bedroom window... coupled with the tingly sensation that comes by over exposing flesh to the power of the suns rays, I can say with confidence that, for today at least, BBQ season is upon the UK.

Having perused my Facebook page I became somewhat unsettled and then perturbed by something that has been gnawing away at me for a number of years. You know the kind of thing that crops up, starts to piss you off and then is gone just before it built up a head of steam within you causing you to embark on a day of over-turning cars and setting fire to bus shelters?

Well.... NOT ANY MORE!!! I cant contain it, I cant get away from it, its there in my view on Facebook and irritating my nostrils this very second, there is NO getting away from it!!! (the smell at least... I could, possibly, if I realllllllly needed to log out of Facebook.... said in the same way a smoker says they can quit at any time!).

So what is it about BBQ's that get me “a little” pissed off? Well to demonstrate here is a status update from my brothers wife....

“There is nothing like the sweet, sweet taste of a bbq burger!!”

Ok, now I am usually quite well spoken... on here at least, but if swear words offend you I would suggest exiting this page and deleting your history and any memory of this blog.

You have been warned.

Still here....?

Ok then..... (Mrs A if you are still reading this please don't judge me and mark me down in my final exam)

WHAT THE F
UCK IS IT WITH YOU PEOPLE AND PUTTING BURGERS ON A FUCKING BBQ!!!

You wait all year long for the three days of weather that are compatible with al fresco cooking and dining in the UK, you get the BBQ ready, buy the coals (or if you are a lazy bastard turn on the gas), fill the fridge up with beers, go to the supermarket and deal with all the pond scum that are milling around..... and the best you can do is throw some shitty frozen dog dirt burger on to cook!

I just don't understand it!... oh wait, whats that... oh right they are Waitrose all singing all dancing “¼ we saw you coming from a mile away pounder Aberdeen Angus burgers”.... bollocks to that, at least the frozen ones had enough fat in them to give them flavour! Of all the things the modern first world supermarket offers you choose BURGERS! What has gone wrong in your life that you are making such decisions?

“Oh but they taste so good BBQ'd with that beautiful smokiness one only gets from a BBQ” you say... well once again I say BOLLOCKS TO THAT! If you want a flame-grilled burger go to Burger King where at least they make them well and don't burn the ever loving shit out them like you just did!

Breathe.

I am of the belief that if you are going to have a BBQ then you need to do it properly and that means cooking over coals. Gas BBQ's are for the kebab houses of our land and you sample one of those every Saturday night of your life so why recreate the same travesty at home... only worse???

You see, while the coals are burning away and getting to the stage that you can use them, anything from 30-45mins, you could have whipped up all sorts of things that would show a supermarket burger what it truly is... a piece of shit! Having no time should never be an excuse, you make time to do it properly or you may as well go to the “Kebab Cottage” and save yourself the trouble and the planet the added CO2 emissions.

From my experience down-under the Aussies have completely desecrated the very idea of a BBQ, cooking on what is essentially a giant rectangular frying pan over a gas flame. They have BBQ's so often that its just another cooking method in their daily routines. We Brits on the other hand should be cherishing these days that allow us to BBQ as we don't know when the next will come.... if ever at all! This means putting a bit of effort in, a little bit of thought and then reaping the rewards!

How about some lovely Monkfish kebabs delicately dusted with your choice of spices? A spatchcock chicken marinaded in rosemary and thyme, King prawn skewers with a chilli and garlic oil? Lamb chops and tzatziki, or how about.... a home-made burger with a freshly made salsa????????

Hell, if you bothered to plan ahead you could even brine some ribs over night and whip up a lovely sauce to accompany them rather than some shite from a bottle.

You see the issue isn't with burgers themselves its with the fact you have gone through all the logistics a BBQ usually involves, and then you throw some shitty ready made burger.... or god forbid sausage (I'm not even gonna go there, I could write 3 posts just about the burnt and acrid skin let alone the raw and squits inducing centre!) onto the BBQ and then slather it in sugar disguised as a sauce and a slice, or if you are actually properly mental two slices, of individually wrapped "cheese" just confuses me.

So that's about that, I should have spent this time revising for a theory exam this Friday, but have instead opted to risk my chances of passing the course to ensure that you think more than twice about taking the lazy bastard route when next breaking out the BBQ.

Do yourself and your family and friends a favour... and put a bit of effort in into your next BBQ!

Dylan

Term 2 - Week 4 @ Tante Marie

2010-05-23T20:54:00.002+01:00

Excuse the briskness of this post but since we have just completed week 5 you can understand I am a little behind what with all the work that is due to be handed in over the next week or so.

As expected there was more puff pastry on the go this week at Tante Marie, this time in the form of “Bouchées”. You may recognise these puff pastry tidbits from supermarket or the from the 70's where they were generally marketed to the masses as “vol-au-vent cases”. Well sit down and grab a strong drink (my preference is a 6-pack of special brew) as I have some harrowing news... you have been lied too! What was marketed to you as a vol-au-vent was in fact a ! The dirty lying bastards! You will be able to see what an actual vol-au-vent looks like in my next post so please rest easy for now and continue to read if can get over this monumental occurrence that may well have shattered your faith in society as a whole.... why would they lie to us? Why why why why???

These are bouchées and not vol-au-vents... crazy times we are living in people.

So... we made our puff pastry, had our usual “rise competition” filled the vol-au-vents, sorry I mean bouchées, with various savoury mixtures. I was happy with the rise I got, in fact the rise was a little too great as they became unstable and toppled over, nothing that a bit of redirecting and pressure cant sort out though.

Oh yeah..... the all inportant side profile "rise shot"!

A “Frutti” was also on the cards this week, a “Frutti a la vanille” to be more detailed
. Not being massively into baking cakes I found constructing this cake quite fun, and I do mean constructing. What with the slicing of sponge and slathering with jam to stick them together to form a retaining wall for the custard and fruit filling, I could have almost been a builder like fellow class mate Lewis aka “Lulu” was in a former life... just without all the tea breaks and heckling of ladies who may pass by. Here is a picture of Lulu enjoying his lunch... never try to talk to Lulu while he is eating, just a tip.

When it come to eating Lulu is a fearsomely methodical and machine like.

Oh and I may as well include a picture of the Frutti I guess.

Frutti a la Vanille

Another cake on the menu this week wasn't even a cake... it was a Dobos Torte. Yet again this was more of a civil engineering project than baking, with Lulu bringing in a spirit level and a copy of the Daily Sport for nostalgia. Here's a picture of Lulu after someone asked if he was enjoying his lunch....

Run for cover!!! Something VERY BAD is about to happen!! Which one of you spoke to him????

Back to the Torte, it was made up of many discs smothered with chocolate butter icing before being covered in more icing and coated in chopped nuts. Then a final disc had caramel poured onto it before being cut into eight pieces that would become the “windmill” style decoration. Quite tasty!

Dobos Torte - nutty and chocolatey!

We also had a demo on Aspic work and made a salmon, consommé, sea bass with warm tartare sauce, baked stilton pears with water cress and a few others things that slip my mind right now.

Until next time,

Dylan.

(wasn't that brisk after all was it... value for money that's what I give you, even when I don't want too!)

Term 2 - Week 3 @ Tante Marie

2010-05-13T22:07:00.003+01:00

Well another week and an another belated blog post about the happenings at Tante Marie.

Last week was a short one what with it being a bank holiday on the Monday, with a few demonstration classes and a theory meant five sessions in the kitchens was all we managed. Having said that there was plenty to keep us occupied.

Puff pastry has so far this term has been, and as far as I can see will continue to be, a recurring 'basic' that will greet us again and again over the coming weeks. There were two dishes involving this beautifully buttery crisp delight that faced us, the “seafood pithiviers” and the “tranche des fruits”.

I enjoy making these pastry dishes, not because of the later consumption of the calorie laden and gratifying assembly's, but because of the challenge presented. Puff pastry is not hard to make as I am sure I said in last weeks update, however it does take a certain amount of care to make it well. It is in the baking when one will find out how well it has been made, and its becoming a bit of a obsession with some of us in group 5 as to how much “rise” we get out of each batch. All good fun.

Seafood Pithivier - filled with salmon, monkfish, prawns and asparagus.

A pithivier by the way is essentially a puff pastry pie in a dome shape, what we up north folk may simply refer to a pasty, only a little more fancy than those served in Greggs. My pithivier was shaped quite well, the filling was seasoned well and all in all I was quite happy with it... I did however skip the section of the recipe that said to turn the oven down after 15 minutes resulting in a slightly more “caramelised” product than I would have liked! This would never happen in Greggs and I fear my chances of securing a position in one of their esteemed baking establishments could well slip through my fingers if I don't pay more attention.

The tranche..... hmmmmm where to start with the tranche? Well. I was feeling a little under the weather when we made the tranche and I was debating going home. With it being a final exam dish I decided to stay and give it a go. Unfortunately my mind wasn't on the task at hand and I rolled my pastry far to thin and then proceeded to bodge the dish together as best I could... which turned out to be quite reasonable in the end, if not ideal by far from an exam making point of view. Here however is a picture Johnny 5's tranche, a thing of beauty.

Even though his glasses are bent, Johnny 5 did an impressive job o fmaking straight lines with his fruit!

And here is a picture of Johnny 5 (this is an equal opportunities course you know).


Awwwww bless....

Another highlight of the week was making my first consommé, well a traditional one at least and not one of the gelatin or agar based ones I have written about in previous posts.

Stock, shredded meat, veges and eqq whites.

This is all about technique and touch, feeling when the egg whites that have been whisked into the stock are starting to set telling you to slow you rigorous stirring to a more sedate level until it starts to simmer.

The all important action shot - stirring the consommé

Once this happens you turn it right down and allow it to cook out for the required time ever so gently. All going well, and with careful removal of the stock from beneath the crust of “goodness” that has formed, a beautifully clear clarified stock will await.

The crust - it tastes better than you would think to look at the crust, seriously!

The final result... with some floaty bits of garnish (they float if you don't blanch them first... floating is not good!)

Here is a pic of a dish we made called “Magret de canard”, a duck dish to you non frenchophiles. Served with wild rice and a turned mushroom and a blackcurrant and ginger sauce. Quite tasty.

Duck.

The name of this dish had me thinking of this sketch from "Little Britain".....

Now I know you are all waiting anxiously for news on the micro herbs.... well the recent FREEZING weather has not been good to them, they haven't died, but they haven't really grown. I am planning to plant larger crops this weekend and I'll hope the weather turns a little warmer.

And a final thing before I leave, exam time is nearly upon us at Tante Marie, with things like “The Project” needing to be handed in soon, “The Wedding Buffet” being banged out next week and as well as “The Celebration Lunch”, “FINAL EXAM” and “The Theory Exam” all coming up sooner rather than later. I say this to forewarn you that my time spent blogging will be reduced somewhat and I ask that you seek counselling should you find yourself struggling to cope in this lean time.

http://www.samaritans.org/

Until the next time,

Dylan

Growing your own micro leaves - UPDATE 2

2010-05-02T16:21:00.001+01:00

ITS ALL GOING CRAZY DOWN HERE ON THE WINDOWSILL PEOPLE!

Columns from left to right: Speedy Salad Mix, Blood Veined Sorrel, Wild Rocket, Garlic Chives.

Speedy Salad Mix has consolidated its lead and started to pack on a few grams of weight in the Propagator Handicap Classic. Garlic Chives don't know whether they are coming or going with their sporadic and somewhat retarded growth pattern thus far. Wild Rocket are showing strength in numbers, but are probably to far behind Speedy Salad Mix to mount a challenge. Bringing up the rear but with Garlic Chives firmly in its sights is Blood Veined Sorel who looks to be laying a good base from which it can mount an attack on third place.

Bulls Blood (bottom left & middle), Lemon Basil (bottom right) Japanese Mizuna (top right), Swiss Chard Brightlights (top middle), Swiss Chard Yellow (top left).

Bulls Blood, Yellow Swiss Chard and Swiss Chard Bright-lights have all made great progress with Bulls Blood the more proliferate of the three with Swiss Chard Yellow very close behind. Way out in front though in the Egg Box Special are the Japanese Mizuna leaves who have made remarkable progress in the last few days. Lemon Basil has made a belated go of things, will it be able to catch Swiss Chard Brightlights is anyones guess.

The peas* are still stuck firmly in the starting pods with no sign as yet as to whether they will make a go of it at all.

Crazy scenes down here.... back to the studio.

Dylan

*not pictured.

Term 2 - Week 1 & 2 @ Tante Marie

2010-05-01T13:33:00.001+01:00

Mini coffee éclairs with boiled coffee fondant icing.

So the looong five week break is over and a return to Tante Marie for the final term of my Intensive Cordon Bleu Diploma has begun. We are in receipt of our practical exam, theory exams and wedding buffets dates as well as “The Project”.... and all I can say is that it's gonna be a busy one!

So the first week back was a mere three days long and involved gammon glazed with ginger and rum, tartelettes des desmoiselles tatin, part 1 of 3 petit fours classes and a host of theory and demonstrations. There was also the new intake of Intensive students whom are all very pleasant indeed... which also lead to a highly embarrassing moment.

There I was ratting my lunch which had been prepared by the new students, when one of the “newbies” whom I had not previously met asked if I was indeed “Dylan”. I informed her that I was indeed he, at which point she went stark raving mental, exclaiming to the world how much she loved my blog, how she had tried the baguette recipe and it works a treat, and if I could give her an autographed picture of me just wearing my apron. It was all very awkward at this point and classmates tried to remove her from my presence, she tried stealing my fork as a memento and bit poor Lulu.... it wasnt pretty*.

Terrine de bavaroise - vanilla and strawberry

Week 2 of term two was a busy one. Lots and lots of cooking, 2 demos and 1 theory class. Highlights were the celebration lunch demo... more to follow on that exam in a week or two, herb crusted trout with lemon buerre blanc, terrine de bavaroise, spiced boulangére potatoes, the finishing of our petit fours and the introduction into the wonders of puff pastry.

Noisettes d'agneau clamart, with artichokes and an old skool sauce demi-glace.

I made puff pasty (or “pâte feuilletée” if you wanna be down with the cool kids) for the first time about a year ago as I was bored waiting to join the owners new yacht. I found a few videos on youtube, followed them, and my eyes were opened to the wonders of REAL puff pastry.

Jalousie a la crème - puff pastry filled with vanilla crème pat.... a few raspberries in it would have been delicious.

The stuff you buy ready made at the supermarket is ok.... buts its not a patch on the rich deliciousness that awaits you if you make your own. Contrary to popular belief its not very hard to make, it takes some care, and you need to make it stages allowing for ample chilling time between rolling and folding the dough.... but it is more than worth it! Trust me, give it a try!

The petit fours classes was good... all a bit fiddly for my fingers but interesting to see how its done, and dare I say by the end my piping (yes I said piping) was looking quite good. We made allsorts of fudge, salted caramels, tempered chocolate, mini profiteroles drenched in fondant, madelines etc.

Anyway, that's all for now. More to follow tomorrow as I know you are all chomping at the bit to see how these micro leaves are coming on!

Dylan

*parts of this account may not be entirely true.

Growing your own micro leaves - UPDATE 1

2010-04-26T17:27:00.001+01:00

Speed salad mix on the left hand side colum taking Woking by storm... Garlic chives on the right are drunk and sprouting upside down. The wild rocket 2nd from right making a noteworthy worthy effort, and 2nd from the left, red veined sorrel is a non starter so far!

The leaves are taking a little longer to grow than I originally anticpiated. Although we have had some lovely

weather over the last 6 days it has been a little on the cool side which I believe will inhibit the growth rate. I have also moved the tray onto a window sill on the staircase where I won't forget about them.

Nonetheless there are signs of life with the “speedy salad mix” seeds living upto there name having pulled off a fantastic first leg. Not a huge distance behind is the wild rocket which is growing steadily and evenly across the two jobbies of soil. The garlic chives have just sprouted, however a few seem to be growing upside down at the moment... pissheads.

Over in the egg tray the Japanese Mizuna leaves are the only ones making

an effort, and its a poor one at that. Come on you egg tray guys, don't let the team down!

Top right - Japanese Mizuna leaves making a small effort. Bottom left - Dead Lady Bird... will that become organic plat food when it decays... answers in the comments section please!

And finally the peas are joint last at present having yet to make a move. They were planted the deepest and will probably have the longest germination time despite the 24hrs of soaking they received.

Well that completes the round up of the action in sunny Woking, tune in soon for the latest on this fascinating event. Its exciting times around here right now.... seriously!

Dylan

Agar Clarification - Easy as pie and brings stocks to life!

2010-04-25T19:19:00.001+01:00

The 'before' on the right and the 'after' on the left. Pretty impressive hey!

When I tried 'gelatin filtration' way back at the start of the year it was with the aim of producing a full-flavoured clarified stock that would act as a consommé. Although it was a success, I was left wondering what the reduced liquid would be like if used in a reduction sauce (jus). What with all the gelatin being removed in the clarification process I couldn't help but feel the jus would lack the viscosity we all have come to know and love.

The answer it would seem is to use Agar (sometimes called “Agar Agar”?!?!!), a product derived from red algae. It can be found in most Asian shops and is known as “Falooda Powder” or a lot of supermarkets who brand it as “Vegetarian Gelatin".
So yesterday I made a lovely brown chicken stock and added enough Agar powder to ensure the stock would set fully. I they froze the stock overnight, letting the ice crystals go to work on the agar, so that today I could defrost it over a muslin lined sieve... only this time, unlike the gelatin method which required it to be refrigerated and defrosted slowly over 2 days, the frozen stock is left to defrost at room temperature and is complete in about 6 hours.

Agar has a property called “Hysteresis” which means its melting point and setting point are both different. Agar melts at 85 °C and solidifies from 32-40 °C, and its this quirk which allows chefs like Heston Blumenthal to serve hot jellies, something that is just not possible with gelatin as its melting point is very low.

Its this property that I am also taking advantage of here. The theory is the frozen stock will melt a lot quicker at room temperature than in the fridge, saving me time but also allowing the gelatin in the stock to melt and end up in the finished clarified liquid. The agar will stay solid the whole time and act as a mesh like structure filtering the liquid as it passes through the microscopic holes created during the freezing process by the ice crystals.... if you are not following me please read my earlier post of gelatin filtration here.

I broke the frozen stock up a little so it defrosted quicker... what can I say I am impatient!

The mushy mess that greeted me after 5hrs defrosting. Nice. After a further hour the following was left in the bowl.......

I am going to let you decide which glass contains the clarified stock.

Again a perfectly clarified stock with a refined and crisp flavour, its gelatin content intact and all in a hell of a lot less time than the gelatin method.

You can use this method to clarify fruit juice too... though I haven't tried this myself, pictures I have seen online are quite impressive.

Dylan

You can see me... but now I can see you! YES YOU!!!

2010-04-23T00:10:00.001+01:00

I mentioned in an earlier post that I use statcounter.com to keep tabs on how many vistors I get to my blog. It is for no other reason than to see if its actually a worthwhile task, if no one is reading it then there is no real reason for me to continue with it.

As fate would have it there are a few strange people out there who actually seem to enjoy my musings (I'm looking at you!), and it is astonishing to look at the maps statcounter.com provides to see where are you strange people are from.

The website only provides info about the last 500 visitors to the site, with a subscription needed to have a greater record size... 500 however is more than enough for my ego stroking... I mean my research into this being a worthwhile endeavour.

Click map for larger version

Here are a couple of the maps statcounter has available for me to peruse with some of the last 500 visitors marked.... thats some freaky shit right there! Especially when you consider I am sat in a dank bedroom in darkest Woking, and some geezer in Korea is interested in the Micro Greens I am growing or what I have been doing at Tante Marie! But hey, if you're happy I'm happy!

Click map for larger version

So a big HELLO from sunny Woking to all you Johnny Foreigners out there, as well as you British Yokels, glad to have you here and hopefully I will see you back here soon!

For a giggle I have listed below, in no particular order, some of the towns and cities that you crazy kids are from... can you see yourself maybe???

Dylan

Houston, Texas, United States
Amsterdam, Noord-holland, Netherlands
London, United Kingdom
Saint Louis, Missouri, United States
Leopardstown, Dublin, Ireland
Plymouth, Plymouth, United Kingdom
Frisco, Colorado, United States
Seoul, Seoul-t'ukpyolsi, Korea
New Delhi, Delhi, India
Kjustendil, Kyustendil, Bulgaria
Doha, Ad Dawhah, Qatar
Horley, Surrey, United Kingdom
Clacton-on-sea, Essex, United Kingdom

Madras, Tamil Nadu, India
Wells, Somerset, United Kingdom
Okotoks, Alberta, Canada
Burgess Hill, West Sussex, United Kingdom
Porto, Porto, Portugal
Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom
Stockport, United Kingdom
Rauenberg, Baden-wurttemberg, Germany
Aubignan, Provence-alpes-cote D'azur, France
Rothesay, New Brunswick, Canada
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Wake Forest, North Carolina, United States

Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Scarborough, York, United Kingdom
Doncaster, United Kingdom
Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand
Exeter, United Kingdom
Aldershot, United Kingdom
Lincoln, United Kingdom
Waldorf, Maryland, United States
Manson, Iowa,United States
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
Kaul, Haryana, India
Saint Petersburg City, Russian Federation

Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Kuwait, Al Kuwayt, Kuwait
Nicosia, Cyprus
Durban, Kwazulu-natal, South Africa
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
San Diego, California, United States
Villeurbanne, Rhone-alpes, France
Helsingborg, Skane Lan, Sweden
Thessaloniki, Greece
Rome, Lazio, Italy
Dallas, Texas, United States
Petaling Jaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Caracas, Distrito Federal, Venezuela
São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Umeå, Vasterbottens Lan, Sweden
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Southampton, New York, United States
Even Yehuda, Hamerkaz, Israel
Meilen, Zurich, Switzerland
Okotoks, Alberta, Canada
Madrid, Spain
Palm Beach, Florida, United States
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Sint-niklaas, Oost-vlaanderen, Belgium
Cottonwood, California, United States

Growing your own micro leaves

2010-04-22T09:12:00.002+01:00

So a new and final term at Tante Marie began today after our very long, but eventful, five week Easter break. I have decided that a number of new challenges is on the cards in the next 11 weeks, one of which I have just begun.

I have decided to venture into the murky world of “micro-greens” or “micro-leaves” or “micro-herbs” depending on what I decide to grow and who you listen to as to what classification to give them.

You may know of these miniature green things from your excursions to fancy restaurants and/or seeing them on a myriad of cooking shows where they seem to adorn almost every dish. Not being green fingered in the slightest this could be an interesting challenge, Alan Titchmarsh or Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall will most probably not approve.

Into my little green house tray jobbie thing (a propagator for all you techno-green-fingerers) have gone a variety of seeds... all planted in the same haphazard manner, there will be no cries of favouritism from these seeds thats for sure.

The planted varieties include... Japanese Mizuna, Lemon Basil, Wild Rocket, Blood Veined Sorrel, Peas, Bulls Blood, Garlic Chives, Swiss Chard (yellow), Swiss Chard (bright lights?!?!) and a free packet of Assorted Leaves.

Will they sprout?

Will they survive long enough to be eaten?

Will they taste good?

All these questions and so much more will be answered in future instalments of my green fingered adventures... I can hear you crying out for more already!

But you will have to be patient my children, but not that patient some of these varieties can apparently be harvested within 10days... another reason I am giving it a go as I do love instant gratification, and this seems about as instant as gardening can get!

See you back here soon!

Dylan

+++ S C A M +++ thefunkychef.co.uk

2010-04-19T10:41:00.000+01:00

THEFUNKYCHEF.CO.UK = SCAM SITE!

If only I had done a quick search for feedback about this company I would never have placed an order. According to what I have experienced and what I have read from about other peoples experience, the people (David) at http://www.thefunkychef.co.uk/ operate a fairly complex scam. Here is how it works...

1. You pay for your selected items by your selected method (I choose debit card).
2. You wait for your items to arrive.
3. The items never arrive.

Now I know this is quite difficult to get your head around what with the level of complexity involved but try going through it again and see if you can work it out.

Needless to say I tried calling http://www.thefunkychef.co.uk/ and emailing them many times over the last 3 months and have received absolutely no response... which again matches perfectly with other people experiences. Having contacted Natwest about what I could do, I was told I and they couldn't do anything as I cant prove I didn't receive the items. What a load of bullshit! Can they prove they sent it recorded delivery as they were supposed to? Surely the fact that you cant make contact with them is enough set alarm bells ringing???

I guess I am glad that my order with http://www.thefunkychef.co.uk/ was quite small, just a few new jackets and replacement buttons... I have read about a guy who placed a huge order for new clothing for his whole restaurant and has received nothing...

Hope you don't fall foul to these muppets!

Dylan

http://www.thefunkychef.co.uk/ thefunkychef the funky chef funky chef scam www.thefunkychef.com www.thefunkychef.co.uk funky chef scam scam been scammed by the funky chef? David funky chef scammer

A day in a Michelin 2 Star restaurant

2010-04-12T14:08:00.002+01:00

My phone rang out at 5:15am and that was the signal, after just 4 hours sleep, to get up get showered, get some Coco Pops down my face and get in the car. My journey was to be 171 miles, and according to the good people over at Google Maps, would take 3hrs 25mins.... TomTom however informed me it would take 3hrs 11mins... who would be right??? I swear you could cut the tension with a knife at this point.

Highlights of this early morning journey were of course the beautiful country side on route to one of the countries top hotels winner of “Hotel Of The Year” in 2009, as well as the unexpected delight of passing Stonehenge at dawn, complete with a few hippies whom were probably wearing all manner of hemp based clothing whilst smoking copious amounts of its illegal cousin no doubt. There was however another reason to be visiting this hotel, and it was mainly due to the awards bestowed upon the restaurant that resides there by a certain tire company that had peaked my interest.

Stonehenge

I was on route for a day in the kitchen of Gidleigh Park, where Executive Chef Michael Caines MBE and Head Chef Ian Webber work to impress diners with their well renowned, modern and innovative cuisine. To say I was excited would be an understatement. Having spent a week in a Michelin 1 Star restaurant during the previous month and been blown away by what I saw, the sense of anticipation of stepping into the kitchen of a Michelin 2 Star kitchen accounted for my paltry amount of sleep the previous night.

Some rooms at Gidleigh Park

My excitement was peaked further as the location of the restaurant was slowly and beautifully revealed. I was already in the back of beyond, navigating single lane roads (the ones where you struggle to get your car down without taking your mirrors off) and trusting, nay, HOPING that Mr TomTom hadn't decided it would be funny to give me the run around the lovely Devonshire countryside. It was around this time, while trying to squeeze through some tight spots that I was unexpectedly greeted by the Gidleigh Park entrance sign which informed me that the hotel could be found a further 1.5miles up the winding lane which I dutifully navigated, pulling up grass verges and reversing to suitable passing points whenever any oncoming traffic was met, which fortunately only occurred on a couple of occasions.

Glorious Devonshire Countryside

Then there it was, Gidleigh Park, in the light of a glorious spring morning, framed by woodland and with long sweeping gardens interrupted by a lovely bubbling stream. Quite simply beautiful! I parked my car, checked I had my knives, whites, hat, and shoes and strolled, as one should do I imagine in such surroundings, to the reception where I was greeted by many members of smiling staff. Even the guests who passed through all smiled and wished me good morning, something I guess is unsurprising since they had just awoken from a night at this fabulous place.

Not a bad spot

I was gently ushered to the kitchen, with plenty of time to admire the crackling fire place and wood panelling along the way. I was met by Head Chef Ian Webber and the day began. I wont go into a detailed minute by minute of my day as it was generally precise kitchen prep such as slicing cucumber on a meat slicer at specific settings before either finely dicing or cutting it with a stencil to a exact size strips, mincing onions until they were mushy and almost melting, peeling snails and finely dicing, prepping vegetables and weighing them for sauce reductions, picking micro herbs and other such jobs... I'm sure to some of you this sounds dull, and in the case of the snails quite gross... I on the other hand loved every second of it!

The bubbling stream running through Gidleigh Park and its gardens

Now everyone knows the way to a mans heart, and the chefs at Gidleigh Park certainly found there way to mine as I seemed to spend a large amount of time while doing my prep jobs nibbling on tasty morsels. As much as I tried to keep my head down and crack on with my jobs, it seemed every two minutes the chefs kept thrusting food in my direction to try... here's some of the foie gras terrine, here's some of the chicken terrine, here's some of the vegetable terrine, try this caramelised cauliflower purée, try these micro herbs, try this apple and ginger purée and on and on.

Heaven.

Executive Chef Michael Caines MBE

During lunch and dinner service I spent nearly all the time at the pass watching the food being expertly and intricately assembled. Now the food I experience a few weeks ago at The Latymer was was very good and looked amazing, however due to its complexity it was difficult for me to look at and understand even when I was told what the dish comprised of! However the dishes I saw on Saturday were unbelievable in appearance, but this time I could understand what I was seeing. As Chef explained to me though, the presentation is important, but first and foremost the priority with every plate of food that leaves the kitchen is that it tastes how its supposed to. (read that last part as AMAZING!)

During a quiet moment at dinner one of the chefs told me to grab a spoon and try all the different jus' that were assembled by the hot plate. There were quite a few and I cant recall them all but there were such delights as duck and orange, lamb, beef, thai fish, split chicken and about 5 others.... you cant believe how these things tasted... I was truly shocked and couldn't comprehend what I was tasting and was left shaking my head after each spoonful, not because anything was wrong, but because they tasted too good! I was also passed various other bits to try such as a truffled white haricot bean soup, snail risotto, thai purée, frogs legs, duck, venison, halibut, salmon etc etc etc.

So all in all you could say I was a little bit more than blown away by my day in this amazing kitchen what with such an splendid location, friendly and welcoming staff and above all the truly awesome food. It was an experience that will stay with me a long time, and I am hoping to be able to take up the Chefs offer to come back again when I have finished my course.

All that remained was for me to drive back home to Manchester... a journey according to TomTom that would span 254 miles and take me 4hrs 32mins.... which it didn't. It took 7hrs after a few sleeps at motorway service stations and the odd Cadburys Caramel Egg... something that wasn't on the menu at Gidleigh but is also amazing!

Dylan

The Meat Lecture - What is that smell?

2010-04-06T19:44:00.002+01:00

A good few weeks ago we had 'The Meat Lecture” at Tante Marie. I had been looking forward to it since before the fish lecture... and with the fish lecture being so damn entertaining, my expectations were raised somewhat for the meaty version.

I was not disappointed.

Upon entering the demonstration room we were greeted by the sight of a whole lamb and a quarter of a cow. That's still a whole lot of cow. Of the two I was drawn to the beef as it was an amazing looking thing, dark and firm looking with a lovely goey ozziness coating the cut ends of the carcass... the kind that would make 99% of the population recoil believing that the mere sight may indeed kill them. Alas its only food spoilage bacteria and constitutes a very very small risk to human health... besides to me it looks like Mmmmmmmm!

Would you eat it?

Our butcher, whos name unfortunately evades me after all this time, excitedly talked to us about how this was the best piece of beef that he had seen in years... was probably of Angus breed due to its marbling and muscle size and had been aged for 5-6 weeks judging by its appearance. Now when we go to the supermarket we are all wooed by the claims of 14 day, 21 day or even the heady heights of 28 day hung beef.... which is all good. Now I am a meat eater, I dare say that I am in fact quite a good one. I have eaten plenty of beef in my time, and even some 28day rib-eye steaks upon occasion as well as fillets of Wagyu beef imported from Japan while working on my first yacht.

Easy when you know how!

This beef according to the butcher was different to what any supermarket would sell, and not just because of the previously mentioned 'goey ozziness'. His point was made after about 20minutes of him expertly breaking down the carcass, a smell wafted across the lecture room and tickled my nostrils. Was someone cooking some steak for us to try in the adjoining kitchen? Had I failed to notice a joint of beef go into the oven and is now roasting away giving off that amazing succulent sweet roast beef aroma we all know and love?

Lovely looking Sirloin steaks... Mmmmmm

No.

What I could smell was the beef on the table. Raw beef. Beef that had been hung for around 5-6 weeks.... it was truly amazing. It smelt ready to eat...I would happily have gnawed on some scraps if I would have been given half a chance when the man with the big knives wasn't looking. It was a smell I truly believe will stay with me for a long long time, the mere thought of it is making me dribble on my keyboard right now!

Fabulous Rib-eye Steaks... may fave steak... and look at that marbling of fat!!!!!!!

Despite the outside appearance of the beef once taken apart into various joints it was bright red, just like the stuff you buy in cellophane packets... at least it was a few minutes after being exposed to the air. When first cut the meat was very dark, it then changed to bright red as the myoglobin (I think it was) reacts with the oxygen in the air.... and gives us meat the average UK punter would happily now eat.

A lovely lamb... the butcher demonstrates a famous break dancing move, a favourite of lambs the country over.

Next came the Lamb, a lovely lamb in the butchers account, though nothing to write home about in comparison to the beef. He once again took the carcass apart with such ease that would suggest a butchers job is an easy one. However as with most thinks in life that look easy, look that way because of the experience and expertise of the person whom you are watching.

Various joints of lamb, with the Valentines Chops being in teh bottom right of the picture...if you squint really hard they may begin to look like a heart if you have drunk enough wine before hand!

We were shown a few new and a few old cuts of meat... one of the old ones was quite apt as it was just a few days before Valentines day so he showed us the “Valentine Chop”. A more modern cut was the “cushion” which if memory serves me correctly was made from a de-boned shoulder that was then folded and stitched into a cushion like shape ready for roasting.... I have a feeling it would look better once cooked.

Of course we were given more information about how to properly store meat, the effects of acidic and alcoholic marinades, the slaughter process and other such things. One of the most interesting for me was the info about something called “cold shortening” which like most, had never heard of.

The lamb shoulder cushion thing... doesn't look all that comfortable to me.

Immediately after slaughter, many changes take place in muscle tissue that convert the muscle to what we would call meat. One of the changes is the contraction and stiffening of muscle known as rigor mortis. Muscle is very tender at the time of slaughter. However, as rigor mortis begins, muscle becomes progressively less tender until rigor mortis is complete. In the case of beef 6-12 hours are required for the completion of rigor mortis, whereas in the case of pork, only 1-6 hours are required.

So... what's any of this got to do with anything you maybe interested in? Well... if the carcass is chilled before rigor mortis is complete you will have tough meat, and if its then frozen you will have something called “thaw rigor” which is incredibly tough meat.... upto 5x tougher than it should be. So if you have ever cooked a piece of meat and had your teeth bounce off it like you were chewing a rubber ball... chances are if you cooked it well, you are witnessing the effects of cold shortening.

How can you tell if meat has this problem... you cant... until you cook it! As you can guess this is a bit of a problem and so large abattoirs now electrocute their carcasses once slaughtered and butchered. The electrocution causes the muscles to contract, this uses up the left over fuel supply in the muscles (glycogen) to power the contraction of the muscles. Now that the glycogen has been used, there is nothing left for the muscles to use for rigor mortis meaning that problems with cold shortening can be avoided... very useful in these massive abattoirs that deal with huge amounts of animals on a daily basis. Also the ageing process (the hanging can) be brought forward a couple of days as some other processes are made redundant through this process. Follow this link for something that makes sense if you didn't follow ;-)

All very interesting stuff if you are into that sort of stuff, and explained to me why a lamb curry I made for the crew last summer was just ridiculously chewy after being slow cooked at 120c for 5 hours.... redemption is better late than never!!!

Have you ever experienced cold shortening? Or are you now going to use it as an excuse when you cook something badly????

Dylan

Michelin Star Work Experience

2010-03-31T14:04:00.002+01:00

So last week I spent every waking hour in the kitchen of The Latymer restaurant at Pennyhill Park, a 340+ room 5 star hotel in Surrey. The hotel boasts an awarding winning spa, golf course and is home for the next 3 years to the England rubgy team whenever they need a base for a home rugby game.

I arrived on my first day and was met by the sous chef who hurried... and I do mean hurried me back to the kitchen, something I felt to be quite rude as at the time I was enjoying the opulent surroundings, log fire, mahogany panelling, candle holders with actual real life candles in, paintings of old people in ornate gold frames etc etc. Quite Lovely.

The Latymer restaurant - one of 4 dining options at the hotel.

I met the head chef who briskly asked if I had whites with me, to which I reported that I did and was told to get changed so we could get started. I felt like maybe I should have turned up in my whites ready to go to save 3 minutes, but not sure what the paying punters whom were loitering in reception would have thought about back room staff being in plain sight. So distasteful don't you know. The time was 09:30 and some of the chefs had been in for 3 hours already since it was Tuesday their first day of the week after closing Sunday and Monday.... lots to be done apparently!

As one could imagine the time before and after lunch are spent with prepping the various components to dishes... and boy are their components, some of the components even have multiple components that needed to be made in order to fully assemble the completed component of components... lost? Welcome to my world!

The old part of the hotel

Without boring you too much about every step and every slice I made I will sum up some of the areas that stand out in my mind when I think about the experience. Days started at 8am (which actually means 07:30 if you are silly enough to come in a bit early).

No matter how early I came in there was always bread proving in giant bags on the pass... who made this bread... does the hotel employ magical bread making pixies, or does that miserable French guy over in the hotel pastry kitchen make it? And yes he was miserable, on one occasion I was sent to “pastry” to get a tray of eggs from the fridge. I walked into the kitchen and was greeted by the grumpy face of the Frenchman who enquired not so politely as to what I was doing there in his hallowed breathing space. I informed him I needed eggs and was wondering which of the two big doors in front of me was the fridge in which I could find them. “well zis eez aye frrriiiige, an zis eez aye freezaaarr” I was told curtly and sarcastically as I starred at the two identical doors ahead of me... silly me for not knowing which is which I guess. I asked him to repeat himself as "courtesy costs nothing" in my book, and mainly because I knew it would annoy him to do so... and so I could laugh internally at his marvellous pronunciation. I grabbed the eggs and hastily left, with a hearty “Mur-chi boo-coop mon-chore”... something the other 4 pastry chefs found quite amusing.

The indoor pool and jacuzzi... not too shabby!

Anyway I digress somewhat. It was an amazing experience to see food being prepared which I struggled to understand do to the complexity and intricacy of dishes. Some contained El Bulli elements such as “truffled marshmallows” and “pear caviar” etc all of which was eye opening for me to see done in front of me, rather than to have just read about it. Is it the kind of food I want to cook?... not on your nelly. Though I respect the work that goes into it, I like to cook food that can be easily understood and then fill that dish with as much flavour as possible so the “wow” factor comes in the tasting and not so much the presentation and complexity of the dish.

So some key things I learned are as follows:

If you have to shell huge box of peas and then a huge box of broad beans, always shell the broad beans first. The is no other reason than reserving you sanity for this. Peas come out of their pods very easily, broad beans (the ones I had at least) do not, so after doing a bucketful of peas quite quickly it saps your will to live to have to struggle and fight for every single broad bean. Also if I were hungover and had the choice of being a vegetable I would be a broad bean, what a lovely soft and silky home they live in! But what a wild night it would have to be to be woken up and given such an option!!!

Clams, once cooked and shelled, can be peeled. Yes I said PEELED! You look for that little tongue like part of the clam, grip it between your fingers the using your other hand pull the rest of the clam away from it. You end up with a piece of meet about 1/3 of the original that is quite pretty to look at compared to what it looked like before. Nothing wrong with the other bit other than its a bit ugly!

The Brasserie

A bucketful of raw octopus skin that I removed from 3 large octi's, feels disturbingly pleasurable when you put your hand in it. The 'goop' feels like a mixture of snot and cling film. I dare say it would make a far better toy for children than that bright green slime in a jar we (well the boys reading this at least) had when we were kids. Does stink a bit though!

When slicing white truffles on a truffle slice (tiny mandolin), the faster and more confident the slicing motion, the larger, more even and perfect the resultant slices are. Going carefully and slowly results in partial slices that myself and the chef can eat. Use each method dependant on what the need is that needs to be satisfied.

Chicken skin can be made into a tasty alternative to glass... and yes it is see-through!

Another amazing looking dish with more components than the Apollo space craft.

French maitre'ds dont like to be informed of the fact that English sparkling wine is beating all comers from Champagne in blind tastings the world over. If you do decide to take this route of conversation expect a similar response to this “I don't decide where the best sparkling wine comes from, there is a God and this God decided to make Champagne the perfect place to produce the best sparkling wine in the world. This is a fact. Your English wine is a gimmick and has no history.” Maybe so... but it seems to have more flavour according to the punters, and why are all the champagne producers buying up land at an alarming rate in southern England?!... now walk away before he can respond and listen to the glorious sound of an exploding Frenchman. C'est magnifique!

Chiffonading (cut into a very very fine strips) 2kgs of curly kale may cause you to lose your sanity and all feeling in your knife holding hand. Constantly picking through what you have just sliced to remove the odd piece that was too big also saps the soul.

Don't cross the Polish pot-washers, they look like they could tear you a new arsehole in about 2 seconds, what with their bulging biceps, solid looking backs and well defined forearms.... and that's just the chicks!

Using sharp smooth bladed knife results in less a less fragmented shell than using a serrated blade when cutting through the shell of raw quails eggs... even I can teach Michelin star chefs something ;-)

The Ascot Bar - Perfect for a spot of afternoon tea methinks.

Wholemeal flour can in fact be sieved despite what I have been told at school.... but then it does achieve what we have been told in class, that you remove all the goodness (the husks). However the resultant flour does have that wholemeal taste and when a small amount of the sieved matter is added back to and sprinkled on top of the bread, one ends up with a fabulously light and airy wholemeal loaf.

That's about all that springs to mind right now. Most of what I learned was more ideas and concepts for flavours and presentation, how the kitchen functions, how much my pain my feet can actually cope with etc. You see after our early start our first “break” was at around 17:00 when we would hurry to the pass to grab some food that had been produced by the banqueting kitchen. We would fill a small bowl and hurry back to our station and hurriedly shovel our faces and then carry on working... lets be generous and say a 2 minute break! Next break was usually somewhere between 23:30 and 00:30... and that break was classed as home time. No lunch, no ciggy breaks (not that I smoke), no afternoon tea... just hard graft. Damn my feet are contorting in pain at the very memory!

Good times, and I'm already looking forward to getting more experience somewhere else in the future... my feet however aren't!

Dylan

I Need Your Family Secrets!

2010-03-22T09:17:00.002Z

In late May or early June I will have an exam at Tante Marie... the “Celebration Lunch” exam to be precise. It is a similar vein to the budget lunch exam I did a few weeks ago, except this time I have a larger budget to play with.

The mission should you choose to divulge your family secrets.... is to tell me what your favourite recipes are for a cheesecake biscuit base and/or your favourite crumble topping recipe. I have my own recipes for both, but to be honest they are fairly bog standard, tasty but lack that little something. I am looking for a few little quirks that could help elevate these dishes to something a little more special. Maybe you like to put toasted oats in your crumble mix, or maybe you have a favourite biscuit that you like to use for your cheesecake base.

Whatever it is, I would like to know about it. There is absolutely no kind of reward for your family secrets other than a smile and a thank you from yours truly. At this stage I don't want to go into any detail about my plans for the desert, all I will say is that it is fruit based, so maybe that will have some impact on your recipes? Maybe not though!

So “help a bruva out” and dish up those recipes, all weird and wonderful ideas will be considered.... and who knows, I may decide to use your idea and then publish the pics of the final dish here, making you so very very nearly famous as a result!

Find the little link below this post that says 'comment' and spill thoses beans... do it now!

Thanks in advance,

Dylan

p.s. Mother – don't bother posting your recipes, I have endured them on enough occasions to know they don't coupé le moutard. You will just be wasting everybody's time. ;-p

Half Way There.... but where is there???

2010-03-19T22:38:00.000Z

Sorry for my lack of posts recently, I have been inundated with various exams and travelling back home for a few days over our Easter break.

Lots to do in the next 5 weeks until the the final part of my course begins at Tante Marie, The first of which is work experience at a 5* hotel in Surrey. They have a variety of restaurant options including a Michelin Star restaurants... and lucky me will get to work in them all for free! That's right, I don't have to pay them for the privilege and they don't have to pay me for it either... a truly win win situation!

So that should be something to write about and hopefully you will find as interesting as I will. I also have a post about a meat lecture we had at school I need to blog, as well as my adventures into the world of Sourdough... which has even earned me an actual paying customer for my creations, a teaser of which you can see above and below! Winner winner chicken dinner! (since I only charge cost price its nothing to write about really... I just wanted to boast a little :-D

Also I will be exploring the world of freshly made Croissants... I have tried it twice with two different recipes and both had failings... when I post it will be MY recipe... so I guess I best make them so good even my mother would approve!

Well thats it for now... busy busy as always, see you soon!

Dylan

Celebration Cake - It's Completed!

2010-03-10T17:38:00.001Z

The Cockerel that overlooks White Hart Lane from the roof of the stadium and appears on the chest of Tottenhams shirt.

So here it is, the cake you have all been waiting for. Regular readers will know that I am no artist, all of that gene went into my older brother who is so artistic he can draw trees by drawing “where they aren't”. I kid you not!!!

We were set the task to decorate our fruit cakes with a celebratory theme... birthday, Christmas, spring... anything.

I decided to go for a Tottenham Hotspur Football Club themed cake. “The Mighty Lilly Whites” as they are sometimes referred have been my team of choice since I was about 6yrs of age. There have been many 'downs' and only a couple of intermittent 'ups' in the history of the club since I have been a fan... unlike the glory days my father reminds me of from time to time that occurred well before I was born.

Team colours, white home strip, navy away strip and yellow third strip.

With 'Spurs' doing so well so far this season, a cake to celebrate the club is as fitting a testament as any... well to me at least!

To make things a little more interesting, a classmate from “the other group” on my course is a fan of our arch rivals and nemesis Ar5ena1. In case you are wondering, they are known as Ar5ena1 (rather than Arsenal) after we whipped their asses 5-1 a few seasons ago in semi-final of the Carling Cup. Just so you know! ;-)

So onto the pictures... I have also included some other cakes by my classmates (I have asked their permission to post them here), you can generally tell whether the cake was made by a male or female classmate by the themes and finesse... and a couple of them to me are truly stunning.... Let me know which is your favourite.

My tribute to Tottenham, Audere Est Facere... To dare is to do... and I did!

Cake celebrating arch rivals ar5ena1.

Steffi's tribute to Tiffanys the jewlers... talk about high maintenance!

Oscar themed.

"Under the sea" Birthday cake.

Cake by Biddi, a former sculptor, not that you can tell in the slightest! Awesomeness!

Robs tribute to..... I'll double check and get back to you!

Vanessa's floral beauty!

Matts cake was about celebrating the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge... complete with piss head!

I think this was Mihai's cake, big problems in Romania with volcanoes and dragons apparently!

Dylan

Exam results are in - Budget Lunch

2010-03-08T19:00:00.002Z

Well that was quick!!!

Exam results were posted today at Tante Marie for the Budget Lunch task we undertook last week, and I was able to improve on my previous score of 74% and pulled in a not too shabby 81%. Very pleased with myself, the 28hrs it took to make my three different stocks (chicken, veal and lamb) and combine and reduce them into one for my 'shepherds shepherd pie' seems to have paid off.

It was a far from perfect performace... I f***ed up my bread again, slightly over seasoned my soup and meat base for the shepherds pie and used a few unseasonal ingredients (peas* and mango) but lesson have been learned and will be taken into next terms exams. At least I know I have more in the tank and can hopefully tap into this next term.

So I am celebrating tonight with a take-out curry, my first in 3 months which is an achievement in itself! I guess the result means I am going to have to work harder to try and stay were I am, its going to be tough as there a few people nibbling away at my toes who have their eyes set firmly on the 'prize'. Should be fun!

For now at least I can feel like Maverick here...

Dylan

*I originally wanted to make a seasonal soup but ran into supplier issue, I had intended to make 'celeriac veloute with curry scented crouton's instead of the 'pea and bacon cream soup'... however the two local supermarkets aren't stocking celeriacs!

Week 9 at Tante Marie

2010-03-07T17:24:00.000Z

I have always felt one must be properly rested before attempting any sort of revision..

The week started with a morning off for revision as budget lunch exams were undertaken by some class members. We have a theory exam in a couple of weeks for which I want to revise for, however as always when it comes to revising... my attempt didnt last long, with me opting to bake some goodies instead. The afternoon was taken up by a Pasta demonstration and obligatory tasting... delicious!

Tuesday saw us making the pasta and then the completed dishes from Mondays demo, something I haven't done since my 2nd year at Uni. It was a fun and relaxed class and I learned a few new ways of shaping pasta which gave me some ideas for other dishes. Bonus. The afternoon saw us make Danske Weinerbrod dough, that's Danish Pastry in real money, and also 'meringue cuite' which we attempted to pipe into small baskets and also into a flower shape. I say “we attempted” when I actually meant “I attempted”. My flowers were not very flower-like, in fact they weren't like anything I can think of other than a mess. My little baskets were quite nice if a little on the little side, they were so little that I couldn't squeeze any raspberries inside them and had to make do with a whipped cream filling and perching one on top!

Wednesday morning was taken up by the budget lunch exam and the afternoon we finished our Danish pastries. The pastries were ok, I overcooked my first batch by a minute or two so they didnt have that slighty goey or chewyness I love about them. The other issue I had was with the glacé icing. Since there were no spoons in the kitchen we had to make do with our miniture palate knives to scoop up some icing and try and drizzle it over the pastries. The task was made harder as the pallete knife seemed to form two trails of icing and wouldn't hold enough icing to allow a pastry to be done in one go. I remember icing Pilsbury dough pastries from a can when I was a child being easier, but maybe thats because the icing was in a bag.... hmmm I know what I'll do next time, cheers P. Dough Boy!

Thursday saw the creation of a avocado, melon and lettuce leaf salad with a raspberry mayonnaise dressing. It may sound a little 'out there' but believe me when I say it was delicious. So much so I had to force myself not to lick the mixing bowl clean when it was done! The main dish was 'Fillets de porc roulé dans d'épinards. The dish was made by trimming two pork loins and slicing each lengthways into quarters. Lots of large leaf spinach was blanched and laid out carefully on a cloth. The pork pieces were laid onto the spinach and individually rolled up tightly in the spinach, this was repeated for 6 of the 8 pieces of loin with the remaining two pieces going into a food processor. Lots of bacon was laid out on a board and spread with some puréed pork, the spinach wrapped strips were placed onto and the remaining purée used to fill any gaps before being rolled and baked. Lovely looking dish when sliced, would love to have spread some dolcelatte cheese in and around the spinach and pork... deelish!

Thursday afternoon saw the final day of cake decorating. You may remember me mentioning in previous posts my lack of artistic ability... well I surprised myself a little. Its not a great cake, but for me its about as good as it gets...I am happy with it! There were a few magnificent cakes produced, one by a former sculptor and graphic designer... yeah its good... it is soooo good! Pics to follow next week when they get displayed for the rest of the school to ogle at!

Friday morning saw me don my marrigolds and pot wash for the final budget lunch exam. I have to say that the food produced by that exam group was for me the best I had tasted. I also think that the top marks will be awarded to a person in this group... The afternoon was spent watching croissants, brioche and a lovely seabass dish being created. All very tasty and looking forward to recreating them.

Dylan

Week 8 at Tante Marie

2010-03-07T17:00:00.001Z

What with the budget lunch exam to prepare for I completely forgot to post about the previous weeks happenings at Tante Marie, here is very briefly what I missed.

Started the week with a theory class about chocolate and chocolate tempering which included a tasting session. We had 14 or so different chocolates to sample and boy did we sample! Now I'm a fan of bitter chocolate, but trying a 100% cacao product was horrific, it just kept getting worse and worse the more you chewed and sucked at it. The afternoon was spent making Cassata gelata, a ice cream filled with a variety of candied fruits, for someone who loves ice cream as much as I, making this throw back broke my heart, I like my ice cream smooth but can deal with 'bits' if they are tasty. I have yet to find anyone who finds glacé cherries tasty. We also made a start on a Tarte aux pommes normande and Frankfurter Kranz, both of which were finished the following afternoon.

I already started slicing this bad boy up when I remembered to take a snap!

Tueday saw a game demo. No this was not a class devoted to the best tactics to employ when playing Monopoly or Connect 4. We saw a multitude of wildlife cooked and beautifully presented to us by Tim, which we dutifully tried to recreate on Thursday morning. A very informative, enjoyable and down right tasty demonstration, the star of which for me was probably the simplest.. Spatchcock quail skewers with Asian salad.

Spatchcock Quail on Asian Salad

Another quail dish, the name of which escapes me right now.

Wednesday morning saw a Hamper demonstation. None of the things we saw cooked reminded me of the picnics I have been on that consisted of stopping off at Tesco for some sandwiches, cold pork pies, some crisps and a mars bar. Seems to me there is a whole crazy world out there I am yet to experience! The afternoon theory class met us soon after where we discovered “The Project”. “The Project” is made up of five questions and basically asks us to write menus, order or services, recipes etc. for a variety of events. Question 4 for example asks us to write a five day menu for quests staying at a Cornish holiday cottage in August. They are 'foodies' and would like a formal four course meal each night with the choice of two deserts and a cheeseboard.... oh dear! Other questions include catering for a canapé party and a Henley picnic. I have a feeling these projects are going to take a lot longer than it initially seems.

Thursday afternoon was a dreaded cake decorating class. All went, once again suprisingly well. I guess when one has such low expectations of what the can artistically achieve, even the slightest thing going ok makes one smile. I smiled a fair bit.

Sometimes I wonder why I choose to do these things to myself, I guess "Audere Est Facere" sums it up.

Friday saw Escalopes de veau viennoise, potatoes baked with blue cheese and parmasan, lemon glazed carrots and courgettes and finally profiteroles au chocolat filled with crème chantilly. Basically this was a very very tasty lunch... I ate nearly all my profiteroles... they were so good, infact they were probably better than the batch I made when I was 13 due to the chocolate suace being far superior this time. I remember my mother telling me they were very hard to make all those years back... but just like Jay-Z I bust them out in one take and they were amazing. I guess I was just born with it! ;-)

Budget Lunch Exam... and one pic!

2010-03-03T16:58:00.001Z

Just got in from Tante Marie.

Today I had my “Budget Lunch Exam”... you can read about the criteria in my last post here.

Just a quick post to say that all went well, a couple of issues but most were ironed out to my satisfaction, such as forgetting to add a teaspoon of flour to my browned meat to thicken the gravy-like juices... so I had to make a buerre manie. My soup was slightly over seasoned to my taste, although other students said they liked it and a few others like the soup being too smooth.... anyway... unfortunatley my memory card is showing an error and I cant get many of my pics off at the moment, will update if I sort it out

In my previous post I gave you the menu but undersold it somewhat, so I thought I would oversell it now so you can see the additions you would have got but did not expect.

Undersold Menu -

Pea Soup

with bread rolls

Shepherds Shepherd Pie

Mango Rice Pudding

Oversold? Menu -

Garden Pea Soup

with a smoked bacon infused cream and

pain d'epi

Shepherds Shepherds Pie

with freshly minced lambs breast, heart, sauteed kidneys,

caramelised onions and a veal and lamb jus.

Served wth garden fresh green beans and carrots vichy.

Kaffir Lime Leaf Rice Pudding,

served with caramelised mango on puff pastry arlettes

and a mango sauce.

Fortunately I have a picture of the desert with is the only 'looker' on the menu. Baring in mind it was supposed to be a family meal I didn't want to go crazy on the presentation front. The soup was served in a soup terrine with a jug of the smoked bacon cream on the side, allowing for guests to make it as bacon like as they chose... or not! The Shepherds Pie was sever in individual ramekins with the potato piped on top, the carrots and green beans were served in mini rectangular Le Creusets dishes and the desert yo can see below. The rice pudding is in the glass, topped with a little mango sauce and a sprinkle of the arlettes that had broken up (they are sooo delicate), the caramelised mango is sat on the arlette biscuit and there is a little dribble of mango sauce on the plate... because that's what you do to make it pretty is it not? ;-)

All in I was fairly happy with how it went, my bread was a let down again, I think I will stick to making it home rather than in exams where I can take all the time in the world to knead it!

As for Top Gun and there being no points for second place, I think I will have to make do with no points. It was good but it was not flawless so I am expecting a good grade.... just not the spectacular one I would have liked... oh well, will just have to wait for the Celebration Lunch next term and do it all over again!!!

Dylan

The Budget Lunch Exam

2010-03-01T10:29:00.001Z

Your idea of a budget lunch???

Its exam time again at Tante Marie and this time we, the students, get to choose what to cook for it. The task is designed to test our budgeting skills, and how we need plenty of that skill when trying to cook a three course family meal for four people, total budget being £8 and not a penny more or a penny less. Yes you read it correctly, eight pounds sterling, and to make sure it is a test we have 2hrs 45mins in which to serve it all... sounds like a challenge more than a test to me though... and boy do I love a good challenge!

So its a 'family meal' meaning a starter of “Free-range 'Woking' Escargots à la Bourguignonne” which I collected from the car lot behind where I am staying, is off the menu as those picky kids would probably find snails a little 'out there'. A condition of the the task is that we have to pay a fair price for everything we use, so if I were to go and 'collect' a couple of Pheasants or a Pig for free, I would still have to cost it at a price I could reasonably purchase it for from a butcher or supermarket.... hmmmm that's that idea out the window then!

I had to fight every bone in my body to stick with the 'family' theme, a task made easier a few weeks ago when briefly speaking with 'Al' one of the teachers at Tante Marie. He advised me not to try and go all fancy, but to make sure it was tasty, “remember its a family meal” he said. He went on to say that if he was doing the task he would make a Cottage Pie, and that with the budget we had he could make the best version in the world... a tall claim methinks! But forget whether his claim is full of hubris or not... the important thing here is that his statement sounds very much like a challenge to me.... and boy do I love a good challenge! (déjà vu anyone...?)

Going back to a previous post on “Underselling and Over-delivering” my menu is as follows;

Pea Soup

with bread rolls

Shepherds Shepherd Pie

Mango Rice Pudding

There was a prime example on Masterchef last week of doing the opposite of what I like, and am trying to do with the above menu. This particular gent “oversold and under-delivered” by producing dishes for the judges which were visually amazing, yet failed to live up to the expectation in the flavour department... the MOST crucial department surely!.

So.... my selection is a very family friendly in my opinion, comes in at £8 exactly, all that remains is for me to execute it as well as I can. I maybe pushing myself a little as there are a few little extras not mentioned above that will be appearing on the dish... you will have to come back another time and see how I got on and what they are! One mistake will throw me off my time plan so it needs to be a faultless performance... a tall order but I know I can do it, whether the occasion gets the best of me remains to be seen, I just hope the gas ovens treat me well and that the bread comes out well! What could possibly go wrong....

What do you think of my menu, over unsimplified? Mango in the winter? Let me know any thoughts below in the comments section.

Dylan

Exam results are in - Intermediate exam

2010-02-28T10:55:00.000Z

Earlier in the week we received our grades for the 'Intermediate Exam' we undertook last week at Tante Marie, you may remember the 'issues' I had with my bread and my attempt at piping a pretty design on a chocolate cake... just in case you missed it you can read about that here, towards the end of the post.

Being extremely disappointed with how the bread rolls turned out, and making a couple of other school boy errors I had resigned myself to getting a mark a fair bit lower than what I know I could have achieved. The results were posted on the board in the entrance to Tante Marie for all to see, and low and behold I had somehow managed to score enough to be top of my group and second in the class comprised of the two groups. To say I was very surprised with my position in the class is an understatement, in fact I must admit to feeling slightly embarrassed after discussing with classmates all my mistakes at length and in great detail.

What I wasn't surprised by was my mark of 74% which is just a touch higher than I expected. Not having a clue how the various marking criteria were weighted I came to my expected score by simply imagining that if I had done as well as I knew I could, I would get 100%, then I deducted marks for the errors I made. Simples.

I had a 15 minute debrief on Thursday with 'Mrs A' about the exam, whom I have now started to refer to as 'The All Seeing Eye'. 'The All Seeing Eye' sits at the front of the exam kitchen, pen in hand, note pad on the counter, mini cafetiere no more than arms length away... and doesn't miss a thing... nothing, nada, nowt, **** all, NOTHING! I had heard this was the case from other students but I guess one does not believe such things until it is witnessed first hand!

'The All Seeing Eye' even reads this blog... I told you nothing is missed! (Hi Mrs A.. I will bring you a coffee on Monday if you promise not to shout at me for your new nickname!)

So it turned out that my own observations of my short comings in the exam where the same as 'The All Seeing Eyes'... bread was crap, piping was “variable”, lamb jus under reduced etc etc etc. I must say that the positives were also pointed out, those I was most pleased with were my Lamb being cooked well, general level of seasoning being good, and the way in which I work (tidyness etc.) being very good.... so good in fact I received full marks in this area, something for which I have to thank 'Geoff the Chef' for beasting me about when I worked with him over the summer on a yacht.

So all in all I have no complaints, my mind is now focussed on the 'Budget Lunch' exam I have on Wednesday (post to follow shortly). The intermediate exam was a good warm up and introduction to how the practical exams will work here at Tante Marie, I just need to focus more and trust my own judgement, rather than worrying about what I think the examiner wants to see.... and lets be honest when it comes the result, to quote a classic movie...

"there are no points for second place"

Dylan

French onion soup the way you imagine it should be

2010-02-24T21:43:00.001Z

My 'Onion Scale'

Having spent 6 months making French Onion Soup on a weekly basis during my ski season in Val d'Isere, I am fairly confident that I make a mean rendition of it. Now I know many of you out there make a 'mean' onion soup, but unfortunately I have the job today of telling you that you probably don't.

This is not me being an arse-hole, there will be no doubt in your mind when that is the case, its simply the truth. I have sampled many many attempts from Alpine restaurants and from friends alike, some are good, some are ok and some are shocking.... None have been as good as mine. This is not hubris, but fact.

This soup is a classic, and its a classic because its good. Its good because its simple, but because its so simple people get bored. When people get bored they start to meddle and unfortunately when people start to meddle things go off track. I should know... I have done more than my fair share of meddling over the years!

So the secret, the key, the holy elixir of onion soup greatness is...... the onions! Kicking yourself now for not getting that aren't you! Some people say that the secret lies in the stock that is used, and I would agree that a really well made and flavoursome stock is important, but its not the secret to the dish. The flavour that you know and love is not that of the stock, otherwise you would be ordering a beef consommé and not the onion soup... like I said the secret is in the onions and I'm going to show you what that secret looks like. Literally.

No additives, no preservatives, no balsamic, no sugar, no gravy browning... JUST ONIONS and patience

Before I move on I need to make something clear... I am not going to give you a recipe. Instead I am going to give you something far more dangerous than that hand crafted Japanese Santoku you are wielding, I am going to give you an idea. The idea I want to bestow upon you is the bare-bones of a French onion soup, its the DNA profile that makes it what it is, but it is not the worlds most refined and elaborate version. I am willing to bet that if you try this, do not meddle, and take care and time to do it properly you will be surprised and delighted and maybe even astounded at a soup that is probably better than most you have tried before.

So you will need, white onions, garlic, beef stock as well as some butter/oil and seasoning. Simples. All I will say regarding the quantity of onions you will need is that, you will require triple the amount of onions you think you will before you slice them, and double the amount you have after you have sliced them! Confused? Don't be, it will become very clear when you try it. For now try maybe 5 large onions. Also many recipes use balsamic vinegar, sugar, tomato paste and many other things. I don't necessarily disagree with using these, just not today please, trust me on this. We are going to get a pure flavour, you may tinkle with the recipe afterwards but this once do it my way, see what you would like to add then make it again. Things like sugar and balsamic will make you think your onions are at the right stage when they are not.

Take a look at this great bloggers onion soup he was doing well until he added the balsamic vinegar. Look at the colour of the onions, they have started to caramelise but haven't had a chance to develop serious flavour and the balsamic makes them look like they have. (I do love a little balsamic in my soup, the acid cuts the sweetness nicely, but I add it to onions that have been taken to the limit). His post was the inspiration behind this blog... bookmark his site, it makes for good reading!

The key to developing 'that' flavour is looooong slow controlled cooking. This soup is a labour of love, no answering the phone, now watching your favourite soap, no nothing other than the soup.

So lets do it.

You will melt some fat, a touch of oil and a wedge of butter is my choice , add the onions and some salt and sweat in a covered pan for 5-10mins to soften and start to draw some moisture out of the onions. Once softened remove the lid and allow moisture to start evaporating.

You will soon notice that the huge amount of onions you thought you had is no more as they sweat down and reduce hugely in size. It will get worse... or is that better? Keep stirring and maintain a medium to high heat at this stage until the moisture in the pan from the sweating stage has evaporated then lower it.

After 20 minutes the onions will start to caramelise. This does not mean they brown due to the heat searing the onion, it means as the water in the onion is being removed the natural sugars are concentrating and very slowly caramelising. You may add a whole clove of garlic, un-chopped and un-crushed.... whole.

Make sure you stir the onions every 2-3 mins. As the volume of onions reduces try and make sure the entire base of the pan is always covered in onions. This will speed up channelisation process a little and make for a more uniform colouration and flavour.

Monitor the heat carefully and be vigilant, it only takes a few seconds for the onions to catch and burn turning your soon to be soup acrid. If this happens try and spoon off the onions from the top leaving the burnt ones behind... and start again in a clean pan, using fresh onions if you dont have enough part cooked ones.

Keep going.... be brave, but be careful!

Finally, an hour later we are there! Look at those onions, fudge-like, gooey, deliciously sweet. Just some of the ways that I can think of to describe them. From all those onions we now have maybe two heaped tablespoons of onions... enough for 2 bowls of soup... and if you are me, you will eat them both yourself.

So to finish add you beef stock and simmer very very gently for a couple of minutes, season to taste et voila! You could add a large croûton cut from a baguette, topped with a heart stopping amount of good Gruyère, I'd go for Beaufort personally, but being a very very poor student I couldn't afford the bread let alone the 'King of the Gruyères”... truth be told I couldn't afford the onions, but that's the kind of guy I am, getting into debt to make sure you guys have good soup!

To recap... don't mess with this idea, you only have to do it like this one time so you understand the process and the flavour it develops. You will then understand the heart and soul of this soup and are then free to go wild and add some wine, tomato paste, lychees whatever! Your onions will be the same but you will build a greater depth of flavour around them, hell you may go completely crazy and even add some flour to thicken it slightly... but not this time!

Let me know your opinions in the comments below... I wont bite I promise... oh yeah... HAVE FUN!

Dylan

Week 7 at Tante Marie... and a little rant!

2010-02-22T20:43:00.001Z

Monkfish head

So week seven at Tante Marie came and went in a flash, mainly as it was a 4 day week due to Monday being half-term... you gotta love the 4 day weekend, and all in the name of half-term! I feel like a real student again, something that had not previously happened due to all the work and early starts (9:30am) we have to do, unlike my time at uni! Our group was not its usual self either as half of the group were doing their exams so some work was done in a group of three which was thoroughly enjoyable.

Highlights of the week included making Apfel Strudel... and stretching the dough on a cloth over the edge of the work surface. We could have used our hands to do the stretching as the other part of our group did when we were doing our exams, however the bold and intrepid three of us decided to go all authentic with the stretching technique... and wouldn't you know it was easier than hand stretching, if a little riskier. One needs to have their wits about them to ensure that the dough doesn't end up on the floor, but it is fairly straightforward.

My Strudel dough nealry fully stretched out... needs to cover the whole cloth!

We also had a curry session in which we made a variety of Indian curries and breads, the best of which for me was the simple lentil daal, the subtly spiciness and soft creamy texture just a delight... of course the fact that it was one of the dishes I made had nothing to do with that! A nice and relaxing class that was an ideal warm up for the class members who had exams starting in the afternoon.

The selection of dishes produced in the curry class... Mmmmmm!

Other delights cooked up included a spicy mango chutney (which I am now ageing for full flavour), lemon curd (which I ate with a spoon!!!), twice baked soufflés of smoked haddock, fried brown rice salad, lemon roulade, bouchées au chocolat, lime creams, seared scallops with bacon, rognons d'agneau beaujolaise (lambs livers) and baked monkfish with parma ham and pea purée.

Of course there was the first session decorating our celebration cakes, something which went better than anticipated yet again, which is honestly starting to worry me. Although far from perfect, my navy border/ribbon around the cake and scroll came out better than I expected and I was very pleased consdering my artistic abilities.

Forgot to take a picture with the scroll on... i know its not much and is simple but I am happy with it so far!

Now a little rant if you will... what the **** is the deal with wrapping great fish in salty ham, can anyone explain this too me??? You have great ham, and great fish, but when combined and cooked you get shite ham and shiter fish. It may indeed be a classic combination, but that doesn't mean its right!!!

I know many of you will argue saying that firm flesh and prominent flavour of the monkfish can compete with the strong tasting salty ham, and indeed the fish is not completely drowned out by it as a more delicate fish would be... but it nearly is! Monkfish at around £16kg is not cheap, and at that price I would like to taste the full flavour of the Monkfish and not the ham, which incidentally is no bargain itself!

I am all for marrying flavours to create something that is greater and delivers more than its core components, but if the effect is the opposite then why the hell bother? Parma ham wrapped around a boring chicken breast is in essence a winner, you can still taste the blandness of the breast, and the salty haminess even helps improve its flavour by massively over seasoning it, no problems with that whatsoever... but a lovely, if ugly as sin fish, rolled in herbs and lemon zest to be then wrapped in 4-5 slices of salt cured ham is nothing but perverse in my most humble opinion.

My little jar of spicy mango chutney from before the ranting began.

As I said there will be many who disagree with me, some of you may actually know what you are talking about too, but again that doesn't make you, or your palate right either. Maybe balance is the key to this dish, and if so it surely can't be had by wrapping the fillets completely in ham... or can it?

Feel free to tell me how wrong I am in the comments section below... I am ready for battle and armed with a thesaurus to take you down! ;-)

Dylan

My Ultimate Focaccia Recipe

2010-02-15T20:10:00.007Z

(Beautiful, expensive and exclusive Portofino, Italy)

So having failed so massively at making the little bread rolls in my exam last week at Tante Marie, I decided today to get back on the bread wagon and make one of my favourites breads – The Focaccia.

Garlic and herb Focaccia

Focaccia is as popular as it is badly made, and believe me I have had some badly made ones! Whilst working on-board large motor-yachts I tried numerous recipes for this fabulous bread, non of which came close to encapsulating the goodness of the version found in a tiny little bakery in the heart of Portofino, Italy. This tiny little bakery that has been going for over 100yrs, serves up what can only be described as the best Focaccia in the world* and may also rate as being some of the most expensive. One day I had to run ashore to pick up some provisions and was asked by the chef to stop by this particular bakery and pick up a few varieties for the guests, and was warned that the old women that serves in there will try and feed me till I burst with various bits of baked goodness... she didn't disappoint. I bought four varieties, each portion being the size of a dinner plate... price... 65 euros! That's some expensive water, flour and oil let me tell ya! But oh yeah it was definitely worth it!

After this experience my focaccia making stepped up a gear trying to recreate that perfect texture and flavour I had experienced, the crispness of the herb variety, or the goey stickiness that came with the onion topped version. After many an hour trawling the internet I stumbled across a recipe that looked as if it may posses the correct texture, and that has to be half the battle right?? So the next day I set about making it. Not bad.. I made it again a few days later tweaking it a little... better... and so on and so forth until I reached this my recipe. I would love to mention the place I first found the base recipe as it was the blueprint for this, just with a little tweak here and there, but I cant for the life of me remember... so if you recognise this being close to your recipe, let me know who you are so I can thank you and attribute it to you!

Ok, enough with the waffle. Lets get baking!

Dylan' Perfect Focaccia

(makes two breads, or if you have a very large oven and baking tray.. one party size!)

For the Poolish:

340g White bread flour

350g Water at room temp

½ tsp Dried yeast.

(is fine to use fresh yeast if you have it. If using dried just whisk it with the water to dissolve and reactivate it)

To finish the dough:

All the above poolish

330g White bread flour

90ml Olive oil

2 tsp salt plus some for sprinkling

170g lukewarm water

1½ tsp Dried yeast

Night before making bread mix all poolish ingredients together with a wooden spoon and stir in the same direction 100 times to help develop the gluten (crucial), cover and leave somewhere cool or in the fridge overnight. This should be like a thick sticky paste so don't worry!
Add remaining ingredients and again mix 50 times with a wooden spoon ensuring everything is incorporated. It is still going to be a sticky mess... just go with it. I wouldn't lie to you.. would I?
Remove dough from bowl and place in a greased basin, gently spread the dough into a rough rectangle and fold it into three. Oiling your hands a little will help. Cover and leave to prove for an hour or until doubled in size in a warm place. I used an oiled plastic basin to pour the dough into, you could the remainder on a greased work surface or baking tray.
Because the dough is so 'loose' it should have spread as it has risen and nearly filled the base of the basin, repeat the folding, cover and prove again for an hour or until doubled in size... repeat one more time after this. The folding helps distribute the various size bubbles that are forming in the dough and is crucial for a good final texture.
Use a knife and try and cut the dough in two, it wont be easy but just get stuck in! Grease two trays with olive oil, or use a teflon baking sheet as I have, and place half the dough on each. Cover with oil (see end of post) and gently push your finger tips into the dough and ease it towards the edges of the tray. Don't worry if it doesn't fill the tray as it soon will. Leave to rest again covered in clingfilm until doubled in size. Preheat the oven to 250c and place a baking sheet you won't be using for the bread in the bottom of the oven.
The dough should now fill or nearly fill the tray. Carefully add more oil to the top of the dough and gently press it into the dough. Any any large bubbles that appear should be gently popped. The idea is to keep most of the gas in the dough so treat her gently. Rest for 15mins then place in a 250c oven, immediately turning down to 220c. Just before shutting the door, toss a 1/4 cup of water or a few ice-cubes onto the tray you previously placed in the bottom of the oven, shut the door quickly to trap the steam.
Vent the steam from the oven after 8-10mins and turn the tray around and bake for another 8-12mins until cooked through and nicely browned.
Let cool on a wire rack or the base will go soggy, brush with a little oil then sprinkle with sea salt! Don't touch it for at least 20mins to allow excess moisture to evaporate from the dough.... enjoy!

So that's basically that. A few things, I made a flavoured oil with rosemary, thyme and garlic heated cooked gently in good extra virgin olive oil for 6-7mins and then cooled. You don't have to do this as it tastes great with just the olive oil... I would recommend it though. 150-200ml should be about right, save leftovers to make salad dressing with... no measurements for the herbs as I didn't take note, just go with what feels right, taste and add more if necessary!

The second focaccia was a onion topped version, very authentic and my favourite! Finely slice an onion or two or three and place in a bowl with some salt and a little sugar. Mix well and taste a bit of onion, it should taste a little too salty. Leave for 30-60mins and gently squeeze the liquid out of the onions. Taste them again and they should be only a little salty now. Spread over the lightly oiled dough and bake. Sprinkle with a little salt while cooling.

I cooked the bread on a tray, and I placed the tray on a granite chopping board I use in the oven to replicate a real bakers oven. As you can see it really helps cook the dough from beneath encouraging a browned and crisp base! (read more in my baguette post)

Any questions or comments feel free to ask below and I'll do my best in helping you recreate this AWESOME FOCACCIA!

My baguette post made it onto this weeks YeastSpotting ..... I wonder if this will be deemed worthy to appear next week? check the site out for some awesome looking bread recipes!

Dylan

*my opinion, and you best believe it!

Week 5 & 6 at Tante Marie

2010-02-14T20:14:00.001Z

Apologies for the lateness of this post but I was kept busy with preparing for my first practical exam at Tante Marie, which kept me from updating you on the last two weeks events.

Week 5 started with icing the dreaded Celebration Cake with cold fondant, a task that didn't go entirely smoothly but resulted in something which I am happy with knowing my skill level (-10) at these sorts of things.

Celebration Cake - covered in cold fondant

We also made up some Royal Icing and did a little piping practice, something which my perma-shaking hands are never going to cope with too well. Next step for the cake is to start decorating it... and that is where the real “fun” begins allegedly.

My humble/feeble attempts at piping... this cake is not going to be pretty!

As if that wasn't enough piping, week 5 saw us make a Gâteau au chocolat... which... wait for it... had a delicate design of stars, shells and straight lines piped over and over again across the top :-( Other dishes included Cabbage gratin, Filets de sole cubat, Warm honey and goats cheese salad, Poulet provençal, Turban d'Agen and a couple of others. The week also contained a couple of demos, a theory class, “The Meat Lecture and “The Herb Lecture”. I intend to post about the about the final two lectures mentioned in the easter break, so tune in then to see what these pics are all about....

A whole Lamb... minus innards.. head, fur... etc...

1/4 of a beef! Hung for 5-6 weeks... get a load of that colouration!

Week 6 was a 4 day week what with half-term on Friday... yeah I said HALF-TERM mofos, Whoop Whooop! The week kicked off with a demo on Monday morning followed swiftly by some of our classes first practical test... the so called “Intermediate Exam” whereby one must cook a three course meal chosen by Tante Marie along with 8 bread rolls shaped into various...erm.... shapes!?!?! The exam is split over two days, a two hour session in the afternoon followed by a 9:30am start the following day, serving starters at 12:00, mains at 12:15 and deserts at 12:30.

On Monday and Tuesday I had to potwash for some of my fellow students doing their exam, before starting mine on Wednesday afternoon. My dishes comprised of Bread rolls, Kitchen garden soup, Garlic and herb crusted rack of lamb, Rosemary potatoes, Cabbage gratin, Carrots vichy and yes you guess it........ a god damn Gâteau au chocolat with all that damn piping!!!!

Anyway, all went OK... not brilliant by far. I was devastated with home my bread rolls came out, they had hardly proved even after nearly an hour over some hot water and when baked were covered in stretch marks and were pasty pale even though I had baked them for longer than required in a desperate attempt to get some colour on them... bloody old school gas ovens!

From clockwise - Shite, Shite, Shite, Shite, Shite, Shite, Shite and finally...Shite

Of course the piping was not as bad as my first attempt in class the previous week, and although I was quite happy with it, I am fully aware that it would fall short of Mrs A's stringent criteria. The only other problem with the Gâteau was the fact it did not come out of the tine cleanly... again! Despite doing exactly as instructed and taking a solid 5mins to slowly and gently run a palette knife delicately around the edge of the sponge (as it again hadn't shrunk away from the sides as it is allegedly supposed to do, not that anyone else could achieve this... even when it was demo'ed to us!) a good chink was left welded to the oiled cake tin... very very annoyed!

Sooo... Lines not straight and gaps between shells and stars.. on the right side of the third line from the bottom you can see where my shakes really kicked in!!!

Saving graces were how well my lamb was cooked (in my humble opinion), the jus was under reduced as I was faced with the conundrum of serving well rested and hot meat with a under-reduced jus bang on time, or a great jus with cold and dry meat 5mins late. I went with the former option.

The veg dishes were good-ish... the potatoes stuck a little to the pan but were a massive improvement on the “mash with crispy bits” I served up in class when we first cooked them after they welded themselves to the pan. The Cabbage gratin was a revelation as I decided to actually weigh the cabbage I had shredded to ensure I had exactly what was required, beautiful.

The soup came out well... again a lot better than we had made in class mainly due to the fact we followed the recipe and only put 1litre of our carefully crafted veg stock into it... rather than what we did in class and just put ALL the stock... watering the final flavour down by a factor of a million.

Over all I was happy ish, far from faultless and far from what I could achieve. I put myself under the kosh on the second day by remaking my bread rolls.... which I shouldn't have done as they came out even worse... I couldn't believe it! Here's a pic of what I thought was just an OK batch I made at home....

From bottom to top - Not bad, Not bad, Not bad, Not bad, Not bad, Shite, Shite and finally... Shite!

Compared to the two abominations I made in the exam this bread was amazing, despite the cottage loaf blowing its top, and the twist untwisting a little! If I had stayed with my original bread I would have had a nice 30mins to rectify some of the things that weren't great... alas coulda woulda shoulda dont get you very far.

You see, I don't see tests like this as an opportunity to show the teachers what I can do, but as a way of challenging myself to see what I can do. I know a lot of people wont either understand or agree with this, but that's the way it is for me. Yes I would like to get a great final mark for my time spent at Tante Marie, but I feel its more important for me to leave here with a greater idea of what I am, and what I am not capable of doing. I have a feeling that in the real world people are not going to be so interested in whether I got a Pass, Merit or Distinction on this course... but whether I can indeed knock out 500 canapés in the 4hrs before they are needed.

If from time to time you don't push yourself beyond your limits then how can you know where that limit is? And this is what I was thinking when I remade my bread. I didn't go down in flames, yet I didn't shower myself in glory. I guess we will just have to wait a few weeks for the budget lunch exam and see how far beyond my limits I go.....

Dylan

Homemade Baguettes - Easy & Awesome

2010-02-07T17:11:00.005Z

After hauling myself out of bed after the most enjoyable Sunday lay in I have had in the last six days, it was time to get up and bake some bread. I decided upon making a “lean dough”, as in one that contains no fat and settled upon a nice quick recipe for Baguettes that I found and tried a while ago.

A quick note, I am using a granite chopping board to bake my bread on. I keep it in the oven and make sure it is really hot before putting any dough on it. The idea is that it replicates a proper bakers oven and starts to cook the dough from the bottom as soon as it touches it. You can pick these up quite cheap, I got mine from Argos for £7 reduced from £15 in a clearance sale. An alternative could be an upturned heavy bottom roasting tin. You can just place the dough into the oven on a cold baking tray but you will not get a consistent crust all around the bread, it will still be good eating though, just not spectacular!

Recipe

10g fresh yeast (half for dried)

280g (approx) water

482g strong flour

10g salt

Method

Sieve flour and salt into a large bowl.

Take the fresh yeast in one hand and a small handful of the flour in another. Rub both hands together as if trying to warm them on a cold day, crumbling the mix into the bowl containing the flour and salt.

Add the lukewarm water reserving a few tablespoons in case you don't require it all. Using a knife or the handle of a wooden spoon gently combine the ingredients together. When the mix looks like its almost formed add the remaining water if there is still some flour remaining at the bottom of the bowl.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for ten minutes. You will know when the dough is ready as it will have a smooth appearance and will spring back when lightly pressed with a finger. It is important not to take any shortcuts here as the kneading develops the gluten that will impact the texture of the finished bread.

Unproven dough

Place the dough back into the mixing bowl that has either had a light coating of oil or a sprinkle of flour (I prefer flour personally as I don't want a greasy dough), cover with a damp tea cloth and leave in a warm place until doubled in size. This could take 20mins in a very warm room or over an hour in a cooler spot. The dough will no longer be springy, you can make a 'belly-button' and the dough will hold the indentation.

The dough is now double the size and the gluten has relaxed and is no longer springy to the touch

Preheat oven to its maximum setting, French bakers ovens are a lot hotter than home ovens so we need to get as close as we can. Ensure the cooking stone or upturned tray is in place if using, and place an empty tray on the bottom of the oven... you will see why shortly.
Gently turn the dough out onto a floured surface and slap the dough a few times to remove any large packets of Co2 that have formed. Cut the dough in two and create a “backbone” in both pieces of the dough by following the technique below...

As you can see my technique is not up to scratch, but I have a feeling the bread will be OK, don't know why, I just do... ;-) I folded and pinched etc three times and after this the dough was elongated and more cylindrical.

After one go at shaping the dough and 'inserting the backbone'.. hmm more practice is needed!

This will help the dough have a nice round shape as a baguette should and not a flat bottom like a ciabatta.

Gently roll the dough to the desired length. If you are baking the bread on a conventional baking tray that is not heating in the oven, place the dough upon this, cover with a cloth and prove for 15-20mins in a warm place or until nearly doubled in size.

Shaped dough on floured tray ready to "slide" onto baking stone after further proving

If using a baking stone or similar, place the dough on the back of a floured upturned tray or chopping board, cover and leave to prove for 15-20mins in a warm place until nearly double in size.

To make a poppyseed baguette, beat an egg and lightly brush the dough, sprinkle with poppy seeds and then take a lame (bakers razor) or a slightly serrated knife (what I used) and quickly and confidently slash the bread seven times... I cant count so I only did six, mother will be cross. Of course you don't have to add the poppy seeds, just bake without the egg wash.

Egg washed and poppy seed coated.. ready for the oven

Slide the dough quickly from the board or tray onto the hot baking stone in the oven, pour ¼ glass of water onto the baking tray at the bottom of the oven and quickly shut the door. The steam, strangely, helps to give baguettes its characteristic crust.

After 5-6mins open the oven to vent the steam, if there is still water on the tray remove it from the oven. Continue cooking for 6-10mins until it is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on the underside. Leave to cool on a cooling rack and don't eat for at least 20mins!!! Hard to resist but the inside needs time to dry out a little.

Venting the steam from the oven, here you can see the granite chopping board I am using as a baking stone

To make the lovely looking 'Epi' you could have followed my pictures... had I taken any. Instead follow this video...

Make sure you do this either on the baking sheet you will cook it on, or on the board you will transfer it onto the stone with. Again with the stone, confidently slide the dough onto the stone with a good jerk.

Bake as per the baguette.

Let me know how you get on... because this is soooo easy you will be making it, won't you?!?!?!

Bon appetit!

Dylan

p.s. a great site for recipes involving yeast http://www.wildyeastblog.com/category/yeastspotting/

Undersell/Over-deliver... The Budget Lunch

2010-02-01T17:31:00.002Z

If there is one thing that annoys me more than any when it comes to dining out, it is how dishes are described. Its all good and well telling me what is in the dish but I don't need to know everything! There seems to be a worrying trend where restaurants are trying to out do one another by detailing each and every component that forms a dish, and this has gotten worse of late by telling me where every item on the menu has come from!

I understand restaurants want to highlight there use of seasonal and regional products, but just tell me that's what you do at the start of the menu, I will believe you, and I for one will be a happy chappy. By all means restaurants should have this information available, but to be honest if I wanted to know where my lamb chops grew up I would ask the waiter to find out. I could then take it upon myself to drive down the road and find the farm and heckle the remaining lambs telling them that their brother or sister tasted very good, and that next week I will be back again, for one of them (insert sinister laugh). Maybe I would take an empty bottle of Reggae Reggae Sauce with me to taunt them with the prospect of ending up under its sweet and spicy blanket, while all the while I sing along to the Levi Roots song....

You see I believe that as with most things in life, a little bit of mystery does one good. Isn't that the very reason that Lingerie was invented? When you order a dish from a menu that has detailed the DNA profile of the dish, all you are waiting for is for it to be delivered so you can consume it and go and find the mother of the Dunfermline Dexter Steak you just devoured and lick your lips and rub your belly in front of her. My personal preference is for understated menus that give you a surprise when it turns up as you weren't quite expecting what you see before you.

Of course for all the fussy eaters out there they will probably have an acid reflux attack at the very thought of what I am suggesting, but if I had my way these people would have been dealt with by Darwins Theory of Natural Selection, that and a little help from me and a blunt object. Alas with the UK laws being what they are at present this is unlikely to become a reality for at least a couple of years.

A clear case of Over promising and Under delivering!

In the stock market world they call my preference “Undersell and Over-deliver”. Steve Jobs and his team at Apple are famous for giving earning estimates which they know they can easily beat. The analysts cottoned on to this quite quickly, raising their own estimates above that of Steves, yet Apple still leave room to allow them to over deliver on the analysts expectations most of the time. Of course the equation could be reversed... but who would want to risk a dish being perceived as under delivering? My point is over explaining a dish could lead the diner to expect too much, thus leaving room for it not to meet the standard they have created in their head... with the dish served having no faults.

Now imagine this from a diners point of view... a few select words describing the key constituents of the dish, the mouth starts to salivate, the mind starts to imagine how its going to look when it arrives.... and then it does, but with a few little things that you weren't told about, a few little nuggets of flavour and texture you hadn't been preparing your tongue, nose and brain for. Ohhh yes, that's what I am talking about, that little bit of, as the French say “je ne sais quoi”! Marco Pierre White had a tenancy to do this at Harveys, it would seemingly slip his mind that a dish contained not just a little, but a whole mountain of truffle shavings for example, resulting in an unexpected and greedily welcomed surprise for the diner. I would wager this doesn't occur too much nowadays, and the world is a sadder place for it.

So its with this in mind I would like to introduce the Budget Lunch task I will have to undertake in about 6 weeks time at Tante Marie. We have been challenged to create a family meal for 4 guests, comprising of 3 courses for the total sum of £8. That's £8 for the whole thing, not £8 per person or £8 per course £8. Total.

Having thought about this a few times since we were informed of task last week, I believe I have settled on a menu.

Soup

-------

Shepherds Pie

-------

Rice Pudding

Isn't that lovely. What more do you need to know? Is it understated? Yes. A little too understated? Maybe. I guess the challenge for me now is to develop serious flavour into each dish, as well as utilising a number of techniques to allow me to expand the descriptions a little, but still leave room for that little bit of “je ne sais quoi” of my own. Working with the budget I have, my skill set and the time limit of 2hrs 45mins may make this a difficult goal to achieve, but as ever I am always up for a good challenge. Don't be surprised if I bite off a little bit more than I can chew... as I fully intend on chewing it!

More on the Budget Lunch task to follow at a later date. For now, just ponder what 3 courses you would make remembering to stay within that £8 limit.... my menu is not set in stone, any suggestions are welcome in the comments area below.

Dylan

Week 4 - Ramsay, Tarts and Fish

2010-01-31T21:54:00.001Z

Glazed Fruit Tart... mother will be proud.

I will start this post by saying WOW.

This WOW is in reference to a certain Mr Ramsay, but is not to do with him as a person but more as the brand. If you read my last post you will know that Gordon, or El Gordo as we, his close friends, like to call him, popped into Tante Marie last week to freak out most of the students. I would like to believe that his visit and my subsequent post on the matter had no real influence in the number of hits my blog got that evening and the next day. No, I would prefer to believe it was down to my eloquent prose and witty humour which somehow the readers could sense in the ethereal world of intertwining interwebs and were drawn to these very pages. Unfortunately the realist in me finds this hard to swallow.

So what pull does “Brand Ramsay” have... well since I began this blog at the start of this month, and up until I posted about El Gordo, my little blog had received 891 page loads from 609 unique visitors. Not bad an average of 28 unique visitors per day for 22 days. I posted the “Ramsay Post” at 17:56 on Thursday the 28^th January. I had 22 page loads from 17 unique visitors if my memory serves me correctly. By midnight, 6 hours later, I received a total of 200 page loads from 134 unique visitors. The following day I received 188 page loads from 99 unique visitors! As of today my blog has received 1279 page loads from 842 visitors for the month, not bad work, not bad at all. A thank you to the people at Stat Counter for providing the data as well as those at Google Analytics.

Pasta sauces created by El Gordo for Comic Relief

Well thats enough of that, I am sure only I am interested in all these numbers.... but just for your information, looking at the map Google Analytics provides of where you, my readers, come from, if I want to take a well earned holiday far away from all you blog fans out there, its going to be a tough choice between The Democratic Republic of the Congo and North Korea, neither of which, unlike Brazil, I am big in.

Week 4 at Tante Marie saw a few challenges, the first of which was to cover our celebration cakes (made in previous weeks) with an almond paste. Now lets be honest here. I hate this kind of thing, when I found out we were going to have to decorate this horrible fruit cake (and boy do I hate fruit cakes), and not only decorate it but we would get marked and it would go towards our final mark for the course, I wept. Please note though that I wept “on the inside”, it just wouldn't do for a northerner to be seen weeping in front of all these “soft southern furries” now would it?

And it wasn't just the fact that I hate fruit cake that had me weeping (on the inside, just making sure), but the decorating. My elder brother is the artist in the family, he can draw trees by “drawing where the trees aren't”... yeah he is that good! I on the other hand am not an artist, not in the slightest. The thought of having to make figures out of icing, little pretty flowers and piping little designs fills me with dread... firstly because of my complete ineptitude in such delicate things,but mainly at the thought of what “the boys” back home will think I have become down in the soft south.

Alas, stage one was to cover the cakes with a almond paste, a task that went surprisingly smoothly. Tomorrow I have to cover the almond paste with cold fondant which will serve as the final finish... oh dear god help me!

A face only a mother could love - Monkfish Head

A highlight for me last week was the fish lecture held by a lovely man (I forget his name, sorry) who is close to 70 years of age and has been dealing with fish since the age of 12. You could say he knew his stuff. I especially enjoyed the parts where he would show us how to fillet different fishes, just before which he would say “I'll do this slowly so you can see what I am doing”.... a flurry of movement and 2.67 seconds later a lovely Plaice had been turned into 2 half fillets and one full fillet... in the words of the late and great Tommy Cooper, “Just like that”.

Classmate Debs (she's Canadian and everything) Beef and Guiness Pie... don't ask what happened to mine!

As for actual cooking, the week saw the creation of Rough puff pastry and its use in a Beef and Guiness pie, a Tarte aux fruits, Carottes vichy, Simple fruit brulée (a recipe stolen from my mother), Vegetable stock that went into our Crème jardinière soup, Crème caramels, Lemon and herb stuffed roast chicken, Pommes de terre duchesse, choux au gratin, Quiche Lorraine and finally Chocolate muffins. Thursday saw the full day taken up by the hygiene course talked about in my last post, and the interruption by El Gordo, and that as they say is that.

Crème Caramel... with some pointless whipped cream and blueberries.

Nothing terribly challenging this week, although the rough puff pastry was something I enjoyed making and will probably feature in my Budget Lunch... something I will tell you about in my next post.

So come back soon and find out how I get on covering my cake with the fondant icing, and how one goes about cooking a 3 course meal on a very restrictive budget.

Dylan

When Dylan spanked Gordon Ramsay.......

2010-01-28T17:56:00.002Z

Now who owns a car like this?

Well wasn't that an unexpected event. Today we had a full day of theory classes culminating in an exam, upon successful completion of which will give us a Level 2 Award in Food Safety. The class was taken by the husband of the lady who presented the healthy eating class I wrote about in the last post.

This was however quite a different kettle of fish, meaning it was two things, both interesting and informative.... as well as being a prerequisite to work in a catering establishment. We learnt all about bacteria and viruses that can be spread by food, cross contamination, how to chill food fast and get it through the “danger zone” within the allotted 2hr time frame before bacteria start to multiply... and much more.

Some of the more interesting parts where the lecturers little tangents about work he had done as an expert witness in court cases, his work on tv shows such as Panorama and the “Britain's Worst.....” series where he was involved in finding the worst restaurant from a hygiene point of view. All much better than being told we could make pastry with low fat margarine!

Anyway... it was whilst we were learning the differences between detergent, disinfectant and sanitiser that we were rudely interrupted by the school principle Andrew Maxwell, a co-owner of the school and joint founder of Absolute Taste, Lyndy Redding and a geezer who likes to cook a bit and apparently does a not too bad job at it.It was a brief visit, he wished us luck with our exam that was following shortly and informed us that food hygiene courses are...

“like that ugly French teacher you had at school, they seem pointless and boring but when you get to France and see all the women you wish you had paid more attention”

Inspired.

The food safety guy then had a light hearted pop at one of his restaurants only getting 3 out of 5 stars in a cleanliness inspection... but it has to be said that 3 stars equates to a “good” rating, 2 stars being “satisfactory” and one star being “poor”... not all bad then!

We then had to get on with our learning while students looked at each puzzled and wondered if that actually just happened. It did. I have photos priced at £10 to prove it.

A covert picture taken by myself of Gordon Ramsay interupting our class, I tell you some people have no manners these days.

The test was dully administered and we had a full 60 minutes to complete it... we started at 16:00 and 25 multiple choice questions later I was out of the door by 16:10. Fate it would seem was smiling on me. As I exited with fellow classmate Lewis, we turned around to see Gordon Ramsay (if you hadn't guess it was him yet) leaving for his brand new Ferrari as a couple of the students on the year long course stood around star struck... not I though, oh no. I scampered... yes I said scampered, over to him thrust my hand out and asked in a tone which left little room for any other answer than yes, for a photo. We posed while Lewis tried to work the camera and I instructed to Gordon to “smile.... I'll make you famous” to which he had no response other than the awkward grin, but that could equally have been caused by me slapping his arse. Oh yes I did.

Gordon... meet the competition... look at the fear in his eyes...

he is trying to hide it, but its not working!

I am sure he was thinking... “who the fuck is this guy and why the fuck do I have my arm around him?” A question which he will soon know the answer to the first part at least. You see, unbeknownst to Gordon at the start of the year wheels were put in motion that could quite literally change the landscape of the British restaurant industry, and with his investment in Tante Marie he was playing a part in the rise of the next great culinary master (that's me if you were wondering) which will inevitably eclipse his own great accomplishments......

OK OK maybe not.... but you never know, maybe.... does one no good to ever count me out! ;-)

And that's that. My meeting with probably one of my only 'idols'... a word I would have been hesitant to use until actually meeting him after all the years of watching him do something I love on telly. Today was a good day.

Dylan

p.s. Its a Ferrari California if you like those sort of things...plate reads "8 GJR" Gordon James Ramsay!

Week 3... and a healthy eating fundalmentalist

2010-01-27T17:21:00.001Z

A whole Lamb, just thought you may like to see it

Ok I lied again, I didn't post a recap of last week on Saturday evening like I said I would, what can I say, a bottle of Vino Tinto got in the way... so here is a very very brief recap on what we covered in no particular order last week at Tante Marie.

Pâté de foie de volaille (Smooth chicken liver Pâté) with Melba Toast, Pâté demi-feuilletée (flaky pastry), York fingers, Crème de tomates with croutons, Pavlova, Rack of lamb with garlic and parlsey crust, Potato purée with leeks, Bread rolls, another go at Pâté demi-feuilletée and finally we learned to make a 'Water lily napkin' to serve our bread rolls on.

Told you it would be brief!

There was not a huge deal of cooking last week as you can see, this was mainly because we had three demonstration mornings, a theory class and all day Monday we did our RSPH Level 2 in Healthier food and special diets... and this is what I want to talk about.

I guess the clue was in the tittle “healthier food” and should have prepared myself and the rest of the class for what lay in store, although I still think it would have come as a bit of a shock. We spent the day learning about healthier cooking methods, eating a balanced diet, special dietary needs of some people such as Celiacs who are gluten intolerant and so cannot eat wheat products for example. All very good.

One of our lovely Government handouts so we can eat properly. I dont see

the Pie group on here though??? How curious.

It was the “healthier food” section that was the winner on the entertainment front. I mean, why didnt I ever think of making a bechmel sauce with milk and thickening it with cornflour... no need for the butter used in the the roux, oh and while we are at it we can use skimmed milk to ensure that it completely devoid of any flavour. Salt, we dont need salt. Are you mad? Have you gone insane?Whats that you say? We could use low fat margarine to make our pastry with? Are you being serious sweetheart, are you? And the day progressed on this note. At first I thought the lady teaching the course was a comedian with a uncanny flare for a dead-pan delivery of her routine.... I was wrong. Seriously wrong!

Now don't get me wrong I understand the point of the course, its hypothetical, its the “theoretically you could do this” line, which yes indeed you theoretically could. But lets be honest here, just because you could does not in any way shape or form me that you should! If you cant enjoy food, if you cant have your butter, your salt, your cream... then what is the point. Give me a intravenous drip and feed me the nutrients I need to survive.

And this was what I think most of my fellow classmates were thinking. We are on a course learning classical French cooking techniques, and yes we use lard, we use cream, we use butter, we use salt, we make pastry all the time, and no we have never used margarine to make it! And this lady, lovely as she was, was attempting to rock the very foundations of what we were learning, it was as if she was trying to tell us that indeed the world is flat.

Enough of the ranting, I want to talk about the highlight of last weeks food very quickly, and that was the rack of lamb. My butchery skills are limited to hacking apart whole chickens whilst at Uni and trimming a couple of whole fillets of beef so just the perfectly cylindrical eye of the fillet was left whilst on a yacht. Getting stuck into a rack of lamb and French trimming it, removing all the meat, fat and sinew from the bones was great fun... and it tasted bloody good too.

Unfortunately there are none of my pictures of any of this due to the thieving scumbag who stole my camera, however the recap of this weeks work will indeed be in full technicolor. You lucky lucky people you!

Dylan

p.s. Please tell me any of your amazing substitutes for creating low-fat versions of things that should not be eaten in a low-fat form... I have a pen and paper ready to make notes.... promise.

Musings - The London Underground

2010-01-24T15:51:00.000Z

Have you seen this man?

Ok I lied to you, and I am not sorry. I did not post more frequently this week as it was confirmed my camera was 'thieved' by some scumbag on the course. I feel that a blog without pictures is like chips without the salt 'n'vinegar. Pointless. So my replacement camera is here now, but I wont bore you with last weeks happenings at Tante Marie until this evening. For now you will have to make do with my musings about 'the tube' in London. What has this got to do with cooking you ask? Nothing, but you are here now so shhhhhh yourself and listen....

Yesterday I travelled from Woking to White Hart Lane to watch Tottenham vs Leeds in the FA Cup, a game that was frustratingly drawn 2-2. But that is neither here nor there. I travelled by train and then by tube and noticed not for the first time how down right weird these people from “Landan Tawn” are.

A busy tube - is that the correct terminology?

So what is the deal with Londoners? Specifically those that frequent that wonder of a public transport system... the tube? Can you catch AIDs from making eye contact with a stranger on the tube? Has the government been covering this up? It seems like a silly question to ask if I am honest, but that is the only thing I could think of to explain how if someone makes the slightest hint of eye contact with someone else, theirs eyes dart away so fast their corneas must suffer some sort of whiplash in the process. It is the weirdest phenomena I have witnessed, yet makes a great game if you are as bored as I was. Just keep finding people to make eye contact with, when they glance away keep staring at them, they will look back eventually and when they do, throw them a wink... it freaks them right out! Its almost as good as getting into a lift that is full of people, and not turning round! You stand there, facing into the lift and smile and nod at everyone and watch how this blatant disregard for lift etiquette gets them completely weirded (don't think that is a word, but I like it!) out. Good times.

And god forgive the person that speaks on the tube, even more so if it is to a stranger. Yesterday I witnessed on multiple occasions that these tube users will not utter one word to anyone even if it is clearly in their best interest to do so. At one stage the train was packed, we were like sardines crushed together in a can. The train stops. The doors open. A few people get off, a few more get on. I watched a man try and force his way through the sardines without so much as a word. He tried to slip and slide between the bodies of strangers forced naturally close to one another with out making a sound. I assumed he must have been either an Mi5 agent covertly tracking a suspect, or a Ninja assassin slowly creeping towards his target unnoticed. Truth was not as exciting as I hoped, he was a guy trying to get off at that stop but could not bring himself to say something as ground breaking as “excuse me” or “sorry, can I squeeze past this is my stop”. I assume he must have been in fear of offending the whole of London with his bold and forward thinking, that or he didn't want to distract them from their strenuous efforts to not make eye contact with one another. I must say I did find it quite funny when the doors shut and he was still no where near the door! Next stop for you laddie boy!!

Another classic I have witnessed before occurred as I strolled towards the correct platform to take me north on the Victoria line, a gentleman comes flying past me at a near sprint to try and get to the train. He misses it by five seconds if that. Then the most amazing thing happened, he went nuts. He literally freaked out and started shouting, swearing and screaming while hurling himself about in apparent disgust at himself and the tube service. Very peculiar behaviour indeed and it got me thinking why would one get so upset of such a trivial matter... but before I could finish this thought, actually, before I could barely start my thought, I was rudely interrupted by the next train arriving! They run every god damn two minutes... TWO MINUTES... unless you are drowning two minutes is not really a long time. Have a think of what you could do in two minutes... not much, you could probably make a brew, but you couldn't drink it. Two minutes, all that fuss over two minutes... sort your life out sir!!!

White Hart Lane Stadium - Home to Tottenham Hotspur FC

So then it happened, as it always seems to happen to me... my meeting with the local nut job. I was off the tube at this point but I feel I may as well continue on with this rant for my own psychological well being. As I awaited my father to meet me outside White Hart Lane, the resident nut job decided I would like nothing more than to become his new best friend on a chilly Saturday evening. As he began telling me about how the police horses were freaking him out I could do nothing than do the the very English thing of smiling and using the occasional nod all the while wondering how the hell to best get away from this guy... but in a polite manner of course. The conversation he was having at me was at a intellectual level I am not yet ready for...

“you see mate, if they used tigers instead of horses it wouldn't be so bad, tigers will only bite you on the shoulder, but you get a horse.... mind you it has to be a clever horse, and not all horses are clever... the horse can kick the tiger and kill it. They are the same as elephants that's why elephants don't get killed by tigers, they are smarter than us. But they always use these horses and they scare the shit out of me, horses and tigers, they freak me right out.”

Seemingly this is not one of my mans "clever horses"

And this continued for a few more minutes until thankfully my phone rang and I could beat as hasty retreat to meet my father over the road. I must say he was a polite nutter and thanked me for my time and for “talking” to him. I wonder if he is on Twitter or Facebook..... might have been nice to keep in touch....

Dylan

Week 2 part 2 - Breakfast Salad, Calves Liver & Angelica... yes Angelica!?!?!

2010-01-17T17:42:00.000Z

Previous part of this post can be found here.

Next up was 'Truite aux amandes' to my mother, or Trout and almonds to me and you. Our first chance to gut a fish and our second go at filleting one. We then tried our hands at turning some potatoes, to make them into pretty barrel shapes, a traditional French technique. We then had our first theory class, in which we received the dates of such delights as our 3 day wine course... yes it involves tasting, wines, spirits, champagnes, liquors.. everything. Yes spit buckets are apparently provided, no you don't have to use them if you think spitting in public is vulgar, as I most certainly do, Mother just wouldn't allow it!

Thursday – Morning was a demo, followed by making the pastry for the Latticed Apple Tart and blind baking, assembling with our previously made filling, baking and then completing with a heavy glaze. We also made Crème Asphodele, a lemon mouse set with gelatin. I found this to be very retro, what with the angelica garnish and all! Seriously.... angelica!!??! Traditionally one would use two diamond shaped pieces of angelica placed together to form a heart like shape. I was told that my two off centred strips making an 'X' shape added nothing to the dish, and we should endeavour not to add things to the dish that doesn't add anything to it. My response was simply “So why are we adding angelica to the dish? It adds nothing but a bright green, awful textured, over sweetness to the dish... which isn't good a good thing” my point was seemingly missed. I cant see Crème Asphodele being used too much nowadays unless as a component of a dish, and only if the amount of gelatin used is reduced to create a less dense texture (like the ones I made... shhh don't tell anyone or I may get in trouble for not following the recipe).

Friday – Saw us make a 'Salade de petits déjeuner avec oeuf mollets' (breakfast salad with soft boiled eggs), Glazed calves liver with sweet potato mash, stir fried brussel sprouts (yes I said sprouts, stir fried, pay attention!), Anchovy cheesecakes and finally Tart Frangipane as mentioned at the start of the earlier blog. The salad was a straight forward affair, the only bit that needed attention was the egg. Oeuff Mollets has no English translation apparently, but what it is is an egg cooked half way between the usual soft and hard boiled eggs. (You can see an example in the pic at the start of this blog, the egg that occupies the top and central portion of the pic) I decided upon a time of 5 minutes after slyly watching some of my class mates undercooked and over cooked attempts. Remember in my earlier post when I said 'NEVER AGAIN'? Well seemingly I forgot my previous statement and I left it to my onion soup partner to make a note of the time, put the eggs into boiling water, add 5 minutes to the noted time then remove to ice water to stop the cooking, whilst I got on with some washing up. Seven minutes (not five) later the eggs came out.

Enough said.

The calves liver was a delight, with the balsamic and herb glaze, really quite splendid. The sprouts were sprouts... so long as they are not over cooked they are edible. The only thing to talk about was the 'cheesecakes'. These were not the cheesecakes you and I would recognise. They indeed contained cheese, but rather than a cream-cheese they contained a nice mature cheddar. Rather than having a buttery biscuit base, these has a cheesy pastry base. Rather than having a lovely sweet topping, these had a filling of anchovies and butter in between two of the pastry 'bases'! Alas, these are cheesecakes in the loosest sense of the term and are indeed little nibbles one may consume with some champagne whilst debating the latest exhibition at the Tate Modern. Quite tasty and very morish, despite what their name may suggest.

So that's it for now, I will try and get myself back to full health this week and post a new blog every couple of days rather than a big recap like this. If I find my camera I will update these two blogs with pics, if not I guess I will have to extort some funds from someone in order to purchase a replacement. A blog without pictures... what's the point in that???

Dylan

p.s. For those of you that know me personally and are disappointed at my lack of rants that have made their way into this blog... fear not! I can feel one or two slowly bubbling up from deep inside where I have kept them quite well quashed. How much longer I can keep them confined to my mind is anyone's guess. Lets just hope it doesn't rain any time soon, and I don't find myself following some ****head again with the worlds largest umbrella meandering around a crowded town centre, obliviously blinding half the population of Woking. They call them 'Golf Umbrellas' for a reason, think about it!

Week 2 part 1 - Trout, Omelette Arnold Bennet, French Onion Soup and More!

2010-01-17T14:41:00.000Z

***SORRY FOR THE LACK OF PICTURES... I EITHER LEFT MY CAMERA IN MY LOCKER... OR LEFT IT ON TOP OF MY LOCKER.. I HOPE IT WAS THE PREVIOUS! WILL UPDATE THIS IF/WHEN I LOCATE IT ***

Ok I am sorry I have lapsed a little with the blogs, mainly due to coming down with some good old flu and a nice fever to boot. The number of emails I have received quite literally threatening me with imaginary physical violence if I don't post again soon, have been really quite underwhelming.

To illustrate the extent of my illness, on Friday afternoon we baked a Frangipane Tart, something to which I am quite partial, although it doesn't hold a candle to a good Bakewell Tart. My tart was excellent, great pastry (pâte sucrée), excellent filling made with triple the amount of Kirsch (what can I say I was knocked while measuring it out) and a fine drizzle of icing. So what did I do with this fine example of a almond and cherry flavored tart you ask? I gave it away! Why? Quite simply because the way I was feeling by the end of the day, I could not gather the strength or motivation to carry it home. Its a sad tale I know.

However on this glorious Surrey Sunday I feel I should make the effort to recap some of the things we did last week and take a look at what is on the menu over the next 5 days.

Monday – Was a full day in the kitchen making a number of items. I say items because it seems we are not learning complete and refined dishes at this stage, but more of a mix of components that may or may not be a suitable accompaniment to each other. I believe this is purely to introduce skills that are all of a similar level of complexity to one another to ensure the less experienced in the group do not struggle so much with the tasks at hand.

The items were as follows: Brown Stock, Omelette Arnold Bennet, Coleslaw Salad (Sauce Mayonnaise), Plum and Blackberry Cobbler, Basic White & Brown Bread, Celebration Cake (pt 1.), Mexican Choc Chip Cookies (dough)

The star of these was the Omelette Arnold Bennet, a Omelette with the inclusion of poached smoked haddock covered with a Sauce Mornay flavoured with the milk from poaching the fish, then browned under a grill. The bread making was enjoyable, something about seeing and feeling the dough change whilst kneading is quite satisfying... along with the later consumption with copious amounts of foie gras courtesy of my mother at Christmas. Ta Doris.

Tuesday – We had a demo in the morning, followed by cooking in the afternoon. Quite a straight forward day really, we finished our celebration mixture and baked the Mexican Cookies we started on Monday and made the filling for a Latticed Apple Flan. Using a gas oven was a bit of a nightmare for the cookies as you cant bake two tray successfully at once due to the differing temps between the two levels. We ended up with one ok tray, the other spread to much as the fat melted before the other ingredients had a chance to set meaning they spread out like a mofo. If you would like a definition of the term 'mofo' click here.

Wednesday – After a good 3-4 inches of snow fell over night there were a few students missing from class so we baked their Celebration cakes for them. We are nice like that. We worked in pairs to cook a Soupe á l'oignons (French Onion Soup) something I made every week for 5 months on a ski season. I therefore left the crucial browning and caramelisation of the onions to my partner who had never made it before. As more students slowly dribbled in late, I moved downstairs to another kitchen leaving my partner explicit instructions to stir the now 'fudgey' onions every 60 seconds for 5 more mins or it will catch. I should note at this point that French Onion Soup is my favourite soup, there is nothing better than a perfectly executed example, and nothing worse than an insipid undercooked one. The key is in the onions, they need to be browned so very slowly over 40-60mins stirring regularly especially towards the end. Imagine my pain when I returned just 5 minutes later to add the previously made Brown Stock, to see my partner scraping the bottom of a pan, so thick with carbonised onions it probably had to be thrown away. Devastation doesn't come close to describing my emotions. I turned and walked away in a mixture of despair, anger and self loathing that I hadn't stayed until the crucial moment. NEVER AGAIN!

Part 2. to follow shortly....

Dylan

Clarifying Stock - Ice/Gelatin Filtration Part 2

2010-01-11T18:10:00.003Z

So I explained in part 1 yesterday the process of Ice/Gelatin Filtration in this post, today I will show you how I got on when I put the theory into practice.

Lightly colouring veg for the stock

I started by making brown chicken stock using some chicken wings, an onion (skin left on to aid the colour of the stock), a diced carrot, few bay leaves, garlic cloves and whole peppercorns. I roasted the chicken wings first to help with the flavour and colour of the stock, and brown the veg in a saucepan for the same reason.

Lightly roasted chicken wings, I could have gone for more colour if I wanted

I added the chicken to the veg, making sure to scrape the sticky 'juicy bits' from the tray and added water to just cover everything, then set it over a moderate until it boiled, then turned it down to a simmer for about an hour. I made the point of not skimming any impurities and fat from the stock as I wanted to really test how well this method would 'clean' my stock.

Un-skimmed stock being brought to the boil

After an hour a drained the stock and passed it through a sieve to remove any large particles. It is CRITICAL that the stock is well seasoned at this point to how you want the final product to taste, any seasoning added after the stock is clarified will cloud the stock. Allow the stock to cool completely and freeze overnight.

Sieving the stock

The following afternoon I removed the stock from the freezer and placed it on some muslin that had been folded three times and set that in a sieve. I place the sieve on a large pan and place it all in the fridge to slowly defrost for the next 24hrs. Remember that defrosting in the fridge is crucial to ensure gelatin remains solid so it can filter the melting liquid, and the fat stays solid so it doesn't re-emulsify back into the liquid and leave us with a greasy stock.

Frozen stock on muslin - the white stuff is frozen fat. Tasty

All we need now is time... time and patience. Fortunately I had a day at Tante Marie to complete allowing me to be distracted by other matters before returning home to see the results... and here they are....

The stock had nearly all melted leaving a nasty looking residue on the muslin

Spot the difference... no prizes will be awarded.

I had the foresight to save some of the original stock for comparison purposes, and as you can see the experiment was a resounding success and I am very very happy with the outcome. Even the smell of the cold stocks vary considerably, with the clarified stock smelling fresher, or maybe crisper would be a better description!

So what are your thoughts on this technique? do you think as I do that it could be a valuable tool in the kitchen or a waste of time? Let me know below in the comments section....

Dylan

Clarifying Stock - Ice/Gelatin Filtration

2010-01-10T17:52:00.002Z

Late on friday night I stumbled across an episode of Heston Blumenthals 'In search of perfection' on Youtube. In this particular episode Heston was trying to create the perfect Peking Duck, and one of the courses he was creating involved making a stock, a clarified one at that.

The traditional method (simplified) to clarify a stock would involve blending some meat in a food processor (if its a chicken stock you would blend chicken breast, for a beef stock... beef) along with some egg whites and add this mix to the cold stock.

The next stage would be to whisk the stock continuously with the egg-meat mix and slowly heat it all up on the stove. When it boils you would stop whisking, reduce the heat to a slow simmer for 45-60mins and keep an eye on it, too heavy a simmer will destroy your work to this point. As the mixture simmers, the egg white mixture will form a soft crust on top of the stock through which the impurities will rise and be filtered. (If there is no natural break in the crust through which the stock can bubble up, gently clear a hole with a ladle.)

Next, scald a clean tea towel or muslin in boiling water and wring out to remove the moisture. Line a colander or sieve with the tea towel and set it over a bowl. Slowly ladle the stock through the strainer being careful not to disturb the crust. Do not squeeze or press down on the contents of the strainer, or the stock will become cloudy; leave it to filter through the tea towel and strainer. Remove the strainer carefully and discard the contents. You may then degrease the stock in the bowl by pulling strips of paper towel across the surface. You would then admire your crystal clear consommé that you have created.

The difference between what Heston did and what I noted above, is that Heston uses a technique called 'Ice Filtration' or 'Gelatin Filtration' which appears to achieve the same result but with a number of differences. The process involves making a stock, straining it roughly and then freezing it. Once frozen you place it onto of a few pieces of muslin that you have lined a colander with, place it over a bowl, and put the whole lot in a fridge for a day or two until melted

The way this technique works is to exploit the gelatin in the stock. If you have ever made a jelly and tried to freeze it you will know it wont set properly. This is due to the ice crystals formed during freezing effectively tearing through the bond the gelatin has created. The same thing happens with the stock. The second part the gelatin plays is to then filter the stock.

As the stock slowly melts the muslin traps the gelatin, the gelatin then forms a net like structure that will allow water to slowly pass through it, but not all the impurities in the stock such as the sediment from the meat, veg and the fat. It has to be defrosted in the fridge to keep the gelatin solid so it can act as a net, and to keep the fat solid so it doesn't end up back in the stock.

Once complete one should end up with a crystal clear stock that is full of vibrant and undiluted flavour...

Tune in tomorrow and see the step by step process I followed to inorder to try and recreate this technique at home. Below is the stock I made yesterday and the froze over night... will it indeed become crystal clear, or will be a complete failure!?!?!?!?!

Part 2 is available by clicking here

Simple brown chicken stock ready to go in the freezer

I would love to hear your thoughts on this method or the traditional one....

Dylan

Days 1 & 2... getting started a Tante Marie

2010-01-09T20:45:00.001Z

Tante Marie - 2 days before the snow fell....

After the first day of classes did not go ahead due to the snow on Wednesday, Tante Marie was open for business on Thursday and Friday.

Here is a brief account of what happened.

Thursday morning – We had a talk from Andrew Maxwell the school principle who took us through some additional paperwork (why is there always more paperwork? Always!?!) and handed out our chefs whites, knife sets and recipe folders. We had a familiarisation tour of the school and were put into our two groups of ten students. We then had a chance to have a look through our recipe files while we waited for current students to prepare our lunch.

Tante Marie recipe folder, chef whites and Victorinox knife set

Bare in mind that both the 'Cordon Bleu Diploma' (3-terms) and the 'Intensive Cordon Bleu Dipolma' (2-terms) are the same course with the same qualification being awarded upon completion. Both courses are designed to be undertaken by a complete kitchen novice, the difference being the Intensive course moves at a faster pace and is usually attended by more senior students who already have a strong work ethic. The 3-term course is usually attend by school and college leavers.

Thursday afternoon – Our first demo. We were shown.... some basic knife skills and how to maintain the blades with a steel, how to prepare Brown stock, White stock, Warm goats cheese and honey salad, Lemon and herb roast chicken, Saumon cuit au four et sauce moutard (Baked salmon with mustard sauce), Wilted spinach and finally... Orange whole-wheat cake.

We then had to sample all of these... tough life I know, before slip sliding our various ways home on all the ice covering the roads and foot paths.

Saumon cuit au four et sauce moutard

Friday morning was our first chance to get behind the pots and pans and make the Salmon dish and the orange cake from the demo the day before. It was a little bit of a struggle trying to get used to where everything is kept as well as to how we are expected to work. The only tricky component of the items we were cooking was filleting the salmon tail we were each provided with. On reflection I think if I had no cooking experience it would have been a challenge to complete the items, but not impossible. Lots of guidance was available when needed and everyone produced a good end result that was then hastily demolished for our lunch!

Orange Whole-wheat Cake

In the afternoon we had another demo consisting of the following items: Coleslaw, Sauce mayonnaise, Basic brown and white bread, Herb omelette, 5-6 egg Omelette Arnold Bennett, Soupe a l 'oignon, Petit pots de chocolat au rhum.

Once again we were put through the agony of having to taste all of these... of which the French Onion soup was my favourite what with it being my number one choice of soup of all time!

Delicious.

And that was that. My first two days down and very much looking forward to next week when we get to cook all the items from the demonstration, and looking at my programme... a whole lot more. I hope to see you back here next week, I will take more snaps (of better quality... hopefully) of what I am doing so you can see what is being learnt. Presentation is something I really need to work on and I hope when I look back through these pictures I will be able to see my progression.

Unfortunately after much discussion with my lawyers, I have been advised not to publish any of the contents on the recipe file we have received from the school, what with it being a copy-written document. I will however be able to post recipes for my exam dishes when the time comes along with a few things I have been thinking of trying at home.

Dylan

My Cooking Experiences - Part 2 - Chalets and SuperYachts

2010-01-06T22:25:00.001Z

Val d'Isere - taken from Solaise

Part 1 can be found here

My next job requiring me to create rustic culinary delights was in the French Alpine resort of Val d'Isere, also known as Val d'Izzle* to Snoop Dog and other gangster rappers around the world. (*this is unsubstantiated conjecture).

I spent the winter of 07/08 working as a 'Chalet Bitch', or to go by the official tittle 'Chalet Host'. I was assigned the largest 'single host' chalet that had a quirky layout over 3 floors and included an underground passage to the games room, sauna and two of the bedrooms! Each week I would have 8 guests come to stay with me and it was my job to ensure they received their hot breakfasts, freshly baked cake for when they returned from a day on the slopes, a three course meal in the evening as well as cleaning all the rooms, providing them with info about events in the town, runs to do and runs to avoid and all the frivolous banter they could handle. All this for a whopping £70 per week with one day off, with a pint costing 7euros, or in the few bars that offered 'seasonairre prices' 4euros, our 'wages' did not stretch far!

A little video I made of my time in the mountains

Earnings were quickly spent in the age old chalet hosts tradition of consuming as much alcohol as one could, and in my case on doctors bills to treat a dislocated shoulder and a 'put out' back on two occasions, so as ever it fell to the 'chalet wine' to provide the merriment. Ahhh yes chalet wine, how I have missed you!

Extra earnings could be acquired in the form of tips from the guests. It was at this that I excelled despite being barely able to talk after contracting glandular fever in the first week of the season, which lasted right through until April! I did this predominantly by consistently serving the best food my guests said they had had during any of their previous ski trips. A compliment, but not as big a one as you may think judging by the 'talent' of some of my associates.

Chalet Seraphine

Upon joining the company I worked for, myself and the other 30 or so hosts embarked on 3 weeks of training in resort before the season kicked off. We would learn to cook a menu consisting of three courses each night for 6 days, and veggie options to go with it, along with how to clean our chalets and fold towels. Gripping stuff. It became apparent early on that I was one of the better, if not best cook out of the hosts. It baffled me that some of my colleagues could barely boil an egg, let alone fry or poach one! One female host, fresh from completing her A-Levels at an oh so very posh school asked when we were discussing cheese... 'is that where the cheese comes from, Arge?' We looked at each other perplexed and asked her to explain what she meant, she said 'Well you keep going on about the cheese for the cheese boards, saying they are from Arge, why are they all from the same place?' In case you are unaware, the French word for cheese is Fromage, and in no way what soever means they come from a place called Arge!

Moi

Anyway, I felt immediately at ease whipping up the same menu week in week out and had the tips to show for it each Sunday night in my local, the Morris Bar. I quickly tired of the menu and set about changing it slightly to both entertain myself and create better dishes for the guests. A classic was guests not liking the sound of the “Lamb and Apricot Stew” which was the main course on Thursdays. I could usually direct the guests with some subtle language skills and my powers of suggestion, to have them ask me if they could have something else, thereby sticking to company policy of not offering alternate dishes. Of course my answer was yes and a nice lamb curry was usually the preferred option, doing away with the salad starter and replacing with onion bharji' and Pakoras! Quite delightful if I do say so myself. My chalet manager became firstly suspicious and then annoyed as to why at half way through the season, in 7 out of 9 weeks my guests asked for curry instead of the usual dishes, to which I had no answer other than 'that's what they asked for boss'.

The following winter my next cooking job arrived, I got a job on a 44m motor yacht that was to be berthed in Imperia, Italy, for the winter, where I would cook for the 5 crew and help with some deck work in the afternoons. This job came with a job as the crew chef on the owners new 60m motor-yacht that was due to launch some months later in May. I enjoyed the time in Italy and trying new things out on the crew who were mostly appreciative of my efforts... there is however always one!

The yacht moored in Imperia

As the winter came and went it was time for me to join the new yacht in Cherbourg, France, where she had been built. My job was to cook lunch and dinner for 14 crew and a vegetarian ;-) everyday, and help the main chef, Geoff, prepare for the guests meals.

All in all it was a very interesting experience, one I will likely do again. I learned a lot from Geoff in regards to cooking techniques and increased my knowledge in certain areas a lot. Crucially I also learnt a few tips specific to catering on a yacht for demanding guests, that will come in handy if find myself back on the seas. The experience also highlighted the areas I fell short in and is a major part of why I am attending this course at Tante Marie. Geoff had such a wide variety of dishes in his head that came with many years of experience, and it amazed me on a number of occasions as too what he would come up with. My organisation and tidyness in the galley also improved substantially as would stop me routinely stop me working until I had organised my area better.

The new office in Cannes, France

So having had many jobs and always seemingly somehow ending up back in a kitchen, it seems silly to fight what my mind wants to do. It may have taken longer than most to get there, but finally I feel I am ready to get stuck into a career, and that career will be behind the pots and pans. Where those pots and pans are to be located, is however yet to be seen....

Tomorrow is the first day of class, I have packed my bag like a good boy, laid my clothes out and even chosen which watch I will wear. All that stands between me and my first day is a slippery 15min walk up a slight incline to the start of my new career...

Somewhere in the Med...

So I will see you back here soon, where you will be greeted by less of this meandering filler and more of posts on the subject matter this blog was designed to cover.

Dylan

My Cooking Experiences - Part 1 - Pot Washing and Poker.

2010-01-06T18:25:00.001Z

So today was the first day at Tante Marie, well it would have been if it hadn't been for all this damn snow that has fallen in Woking! Anyway, rather than ranting about how the country grinds to halt when a little snow falls, something I'm sure you don't want to hear, I thought I would run through a couple of jobs I have had in between non-cooking jobs over the years.

Having done a few weeks pot washing at a local Italian restaurant, whilst in Sixth Form studying for my A-Levels, a friend of mine Chris (aka Gringo) called me one Thursday and asked if I could cover his shift pot washing at a local cafe bar/restaurant the next day. I asked him why he couldn't do it, “I am going on a date with this really hot bird” he said, begrudgingly but being a team player I agreed to cover his shift and my 18months at the Foyer Cafe Bar & Landing Restaurant began. Incidentally Chris recently married his “hot date” and I didn't even get a mention in his speech... how rude!

The Gringo and his beautiful wife

To cut a long story short, I spent a short while on the pots before being moved on to the heady heights of cold starters, vegetables and bread after showing an interest in how the dishes were made. I was also put in charge of teaching Chris the correct way to slice hot bread so as not to crush it and create a stodgy “dough ball” in the middle, a task he never succeeded in mastering to this very day. Sad sad times. It was fun to work there, but looking back I think we would have been a real contender for Gordon Ramsays Kitchen Nightmares show, especially with the mishmash menu consisting of Tapas, pasta dishes, wraps, steaks, pheasant... and pretty much anything else you can think of! I had just completed my first year at university when I left, and my next job involving cooking was to come on the other side of the world some 4yrs later.

My cooking experience down under on an Australian island came by after winning a couple of grand playing drunken online poker for the first time... to clarify, I was drunk and it was the first time I had played poker online, its not a niche market where one has to be drunk to play! I started with a mere £50 deposit, kept drinking beers from my fridge, and 8-9hrs later crawled to bed thinking I had won £2000. Waking up mid-afternoon with a serious hangover I proceeded to log into my poker account and see just £1200 in my account. Assuming I must have made some bad plays and been a little silly to lose £800 and not remember, I popped out to Tesco for some hangover cures and nourishment. Eventually I got around to checking my email and was, to say the least, very surprised to see an email from Emirates confirming my flight to Perth, Australia departing in 3 weeks time! After some research it appeared that a drunken me had decided to go to Australia for 6 months. Having recently returned home from working on a yacht as a deckhand for the previous year, in the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas, I was unemployed and looking for something to do. Turns out I had paid for the flight on my credit card and then then wired the £800 from my poker winnings to my card to clear it... amazing the feats one can achieve when they can barely see 2 feet in front of themselves at sill o'colock in the morning!

Cottesloe Beach. My favourite beach in Perth

So, I spent the first month enjoying the beaches by day and the bars and clubs of Perth by night. Pretty soon I found my funds were running low and in desperation not to return home to a British winter, I ended up falling into a job selling satellite TV door to door... a whole other story and one that doesn't fit the remit of this blog. After 3 months of selling subscriptions in suburbs of Perth, enough was enough. I went to a local “backpacker job shop” and asked to see what was about job wise... nothing as it turned out. I reverted back to my pre-door-to-door selling days and partied by night and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the beach by day. Wonderful.

Unfortunately my funding soon became critically low and I was forced to return to the job shop and see what was available or go home... success. “I have a job but I don't think you will be interested, Its on a massive 80km long Island miles from anywhere, there are no shops, no bars, not even a letter box! Just a family of four, their homestead, the 12-14 guests they have stay with them, and a maid”.... Mmmmmm maids (in the style of Homer Simpson if you will).

Dylan the Explorer on DHI

Never being one to turn down an 'experience' I gleefully accepted the job on Dirk Hartog Island and two days later embarked on the 10 hour drive north to Denham, where I met Kieran and his eldest son on their boat 'The Eendracht', named after Captain Dirk Hartogs ship that discovered the island in 1616. We cruised the one hour or so it took to get to the island, and my time on DHI began.

The view that greeted me one morning while preparing to cook bacon and eggs on the BBQ... no photoshop, no filters, no nothing. To this day I am yet to see a more spectacular sunrise

My job on the island was to cook breakfast for the guests, make pack lunches for their fishing trips on the 'Eendract' and finally cook whatever they had caught. Of course we would have some meat in reserve just in case the fish weren't biting that day.

Me with hair cooking up steaks on the 'barbie' in my Foxtel sales uniform!

The main catch was the tasty Pink Snapper, with massive Spanish Mackerel also on the menu along with the occasional Tuna.

Me with hair, and a my first medium sized Pink Snapper

I spent 8 weeks on the island enjoying learning to fish, kayaking, the occasional 4x4 ride to explore the deserted island, staring at the stars when I switched the generator off each night, and seeing Tiger Sharks close up... like 20 meters from shore close, while being 18 meters from shore! Good times indeed!

Guests filleting their catch at sunset.

In part two... doing a ski season as a chalet host and cooking aboard a 60meter SuperYacht, you know you want to hear what that is about! So click here for the second part of this post

Dylan

My Culinary Influences... Part 2.

2010-01-04T20:44:00.001Z

Part 1 can be found here

So Jamie Oliver gets most of the credit for getting me in the Kitchen on a regular basis and experimenting with a very wide spectrum of results. But it was a certain Gordon Ramsay who came crashing into my life in his series “Boiling Point” that changed my view on what was possible in a kitchen.

The series followed Gordon setting up his first restaurant “Gordon Ramsay” at Royal Hospital Road, after walking out of “Restaurant Aubergine” following a dispute with the owners. This was an eye opening series for me for a number of reasons. Before I saw “Boiling Point” I never knew this class of restaurant existed, and it was truly inspiring to see what went on “behind the curtain”. I also never knew you could get away with talking to your staff in such a manner without ending up in court charged with some form of abusive and threatening behaviour. What a guy, what a show!

You see Jamie was, and still is, about good tasty rustic home cooked food packed full of flavours, and that is great for home cooks. Gordon is all about perfection, the fine balance of flavours, the difference a change of texture can make to a dish, the meat and fish and veg cooked to perfection... and if it isn't all of these things and more, if even one little component isn't right, then the chefs hard work goes in the bin and has to be done all over again. Little wonder that his restaurants were so successful (things have changed during the credit crunch with Gordon having to close some of his establishments) and generated large profits. I have never eaten at a Ramsay establishment, but I yearn to... because I want to sample the food of any man (or women... no discrimination here) who is so blindly focussed on serving you the best dishes he can possibly create, no holds barred.

Follow this link to Youtube and wait for the fireworks to start 45 seconds into the clip, I have transcribed the “discussion” Gordon has with a chef below. Gordon in bold, and the chef he is “speaking with” in red italics....

What is going on here you? What is going on, one ravioli one f***ing foie gras, hey you, a**hole, you lost it again? You lost it again! What's your big deal? Why don't you f*** off home then! Go on f*** off home then! Hey a**hole... Yes Gordon... why don't you f*** off home then? Why don't you f*** off home? ...Because I don't want to Gordon.... Why have you f***ed it up? Have up lost it? ...No Gordon... Well f***ing wake up d***head!...Yes Gordon...

That should sort that out shouldn't it Gordon, you sure put him back in his place and focussed his mind on the task at hand?.... apparently not...

What's the big deal, one ravioli, one f***ing sautéed foie gras?!?! Do you want to go home and cry to mummy again?...No... Like a big f***ing wuss?...No Gordon... Guy puts himself in the s*** across the kitchen stands there blubbering like a f***ing baby!...Sorry Gordon... You got any bite back as a guy, you have any bollocks you?...Yes Gordon... Have you f***! As far as I am concerned you don't know your a**hole!

You could be be forgiven... once again for thinking that the chef has definitely been dealt with now and we can carry on with service, once again we are wrong....

What's he doing, Mark? One f***ing bass, one sautéed foie gras, one ravioli and you haven't even got the f***ing endive on! What's going on in your mind you? What's going on in your mind?...Not sure Gordon... What is it then, can't keep up? Tell me then!...Not sure Gordon... Your minds back at the f***ing beach again is it?...No Gordon... Unbelievable! Wake up ...Oui Gordon... or next time don't even set your f***ing alarm clock stay in your f***ing piss...Oui Gordon... then directed at another chef for brushing against him ever so slightly, so slightly I cant see it on the footage.... Do you mind not knocking me like a f***ing punching bag because I'm gonna lash out, do you understand?

Gordons 3 Michelin Star food may have made him famous, but it is without doubt its his “management technique” that made him infamous! I have heard many people who's first experience of Mr Ramsay was in “Hells Kitchen” or “Kitchen Nightmares” and they thought he was putting a persona on for the show. I for one don't believe this. As the “Boiling Point” series showed it isn't an act, it is him down to the bone and I for one loved it! Find me another character in any profession whom can get away with the kind of things he has said and done to many of his employees? And the best bit, they always came back for more because they knew how good he was and how much they could learn from him.

I find it understandable that he loses the plot a lot, he doesn't want much from his chefs, he just wants it doing right. Right to you and me would undoubtedly fall far short of his definition of the term, as his is most likely linked steadfastly to the term already mentioned in this post, perfection. If Gordon had chosen to be a builder I am sure he would have built some of the finest, well detailed buildings in country that were thoroughly thought out, sat exquisitely in their surroundings and prompted a yearning for one from those that saw it. Perfection just seems to be what he is about and if it isn't forthcoming I for one wouldn't like to be standing in his way!

So Jamie Oliver may have got me into the kitchen to cook, but it was Gordon Ramsay who made me strive for a final product that was good if not excellent, if not perfect! He also added an expletive or two to my vocabulary (which my mother isn't happy about, sorry mum) and showed me a world I never knew existed... and now, in a little over 24hrs, I am to attend the culinary school he is a part owner of!

What have I done? What have I let myself in for.....

Come back soon and find out!

Dylan

My Culinary Influences... Part 1.

2010-01-03T21:20:00.001Z

Well after a fairly uneventful trip from Manchester down to Woking today, I have moved into my diggs, met my new house-mates; Venus, Mark, Liam and Mark and pretty much unpacked. Only two days until my course starts at Tante Marie on the 6^th January when I can get down to business with this blog and working towards "its" goal as well as "my" goal. Until then I thought I would share with you some of the chefs and programs that have influenced me over the years in one way or another.

As I said in my first post, I grew up watching the usual cooking shows that were on TV about 15 years ago you probably watched. The one that probably got most viewing time would have been “Ready Steady Cook” because it was on shortly after returning from school. Of course my favourite chef on that show was Ainsley Harriott, and why wouldn't he be! He is an imposing figure, full of flamboyance and flair, especially when it comes to his usage of good old “Percy Pepper” and “Suzie Salt”... good times indeed. However I cannot give credit to “Ready Steady Cook” for furthering my interest in food massively, I found it entertaining but never had the urge to rush off to the kitchen and cook after a show finished, it did indeed keep the spark of culinary intrigue alive within me, so deserves some credit for doing that.

Most credit would instead have to go to that fresh faced, scruffy haired Essex boy that burst onto our screens all those years ago when I was 16 or 17 years of age. With his enthusiastic and liberal use of a language I, and it would seem a large portion of the UK's population had not heard before, it was a challenge just to decipher what he was on about let alone keep up with what seemed like a revolutionary cooking style. You see around that time the culinary stalwart for the home cook was a certain Delia Smith, some of you may remember her for teaching us all how to boil an egg, first by boiling water! Genius! and others may remember her as Norwich City Football Clubs chairman and this famous half-time rant at her own fans when she thought they weren't cheering the team enough!

I was never a fan of Delia Smith, not because of her food, from what I could tell it looked great, it was more to do with her (no offence D). Being in my mid-teens it was clearly evident that this show was for my mothers viewing, and as with all my mothers TV viewing it was not to my taste. It didn't help that she looked like one of my school teachers, and watching one of her shows felt like it was “class time” again. Another reason I found to dislike Delia was that at the time of her becoming really big, I was 16 working in the local Sainsburys supermarket whilst doing my A-Levels. The amount of irate customers I personally had to deal with venting their fury that we were sold out of Sea-bass or Jerusalem Artichokes or whatever she had been cooking the night before, within ten minutes of the store opening, was quite unbelievable... not least because I worked on the pet food isle well away from anything Delia would have been promoting in her show! Alas, her shows were a phenomenal success and I got to see proof of this first hand in the buying habits of the public after her latest show had aired, and see just what a force she was in the home cooks culinary world. In full disclosure I have to admit that I have visited her website on a number of occasions when I have wanted a recipe that I could rely on, and one recipe I keep going back for is her Ultimate Carrot Cake with Mascarpone, Fromage Frais and Cinnamon Icing just don't try and make me watch one of her shows! Try it out you wont be disappointed!

Hmmm... I seem to have digressed somewhat, where was I? Oh yes, Jamie Oliver of course. That somewhat dishevelled, seemingly whimsical bag of lispiness who burst onto our screens by “chucking” a load of “clobber” into a pan, chatted to some posh sounding women off screen, dipped his fingers in the sauce and then served up something that apparently tasted “pukka”! This certainly wasn't the dulcet tones of Delia coming from my TV that's for sure, and that was part of the appeal to me. Jamie seemed to be just a few years older than I was and so I felt I could relate to him more than I could with any other TV chef. More so it was his cooking style rather than his use of the English language that I found to my liking. No longer were we shackled to a recipe in order to cook our dinner, now we shall put as much or as little of what we like into our food. You like it spicy? Bang some more chilli in. Not a fan of rosemary? You can use Thyme instead. Don't like fish? Will go well with chicken too! For the first time it felt like we were in control of our own dinner and there was hardly a measuring spoon or set of scales to be seen anywhere, it was amazing! It seemed like we were given permission to tinker and take ownership of our kitchens, and I, like so many others never looked back!

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2. when I will discuss the effect of Gordon Ramsay and anything else that meanders into my head.... Part 2 click here!

Dylan