Much over due Update!!

hi all,

im terribly sorry that i have not been updating my blog as much as i should, and im sure many of you are hanging onto the end of your seats, waiting desperately to hear what i have been cooking!! (wishful thinking)... so once again, i apologise..

But before i start, i am demanding an update from everyone who reads my blog: so EMAIL ME YOUR NEWS : emma.ack@gmail.com, because i like to know what you all have been up to too :)

right, im going to do my best to back track and remember what i have been up to, it really has been a jam packed, busy, intense few weeks.

so my last update i mentioned that we were doing eggs and bread... well that was true! we had a demonstration with chef sonia all about eggs, first we had a lecture all about eggs and where they come from and what they are, and some of the scientific facts and properties and cooking times and temperatures of the egg itself, and the yolk and the white.. who would guess there is soo much to know about eggs? then she went on to make eggs florentine, and poached eggs, and fried eggs and creamy runny creamy creamy s(cream)bbled eggs, i honestly cannot emphasise the fact that it was actually more cream than eggs!! haha, but thats the french way right? so not to argue!! then in our prac, with chef john, we had to make eggs florentine, which is a poached egg, on a bed of sauted spinach, covered in a juicy melting mornay sauce (cheeeeesy). and then a basic fine herb (which consists of tarragon, parsley, chives... all those lovely soft leaved flavourful herbs) omelet. so that was that.. eggs, done!!!

next: soup! so we again we had a demo with chef sonia, and im going to condense 2 days into 1 here, because we had 2 days of soups: so we did: leek and potato soup with julienne veggies, and a chicken and mushroom soup with poached chicken in it. then we did french onion soup, with greye cheese croutons toasted and melted on the top. and a crystal clear jam packed with flavour crystal clear, clear, clear consommé. so im not going to go into detail about the other soups, but the consomme, i am, because i think it is absolutely amazing. and as we speak, i am experimenting, and have a pot of chicken stock on the go with the intention of attempting to make it into a chicken and garlic consomme... so we will see how that turns out. so what it is, is a good quality, flavourful stock, clarified with proteins (egg white and other clarifying stuffies) , so all the floating bits in the stock, get stuck in in, and when the white coagulates (you home ec hommies will know all about that) it captures all the unwanted floaty bits, leaving you with a crystal clear soup.. and by gently reducing the stock while clarifying, you intensify the lovely meaty flavour of the soup... = delic!!!!

and another lovely thing that happened that week, was that my aunt was in town, and i got spoilt to an absolutely delicious meal... and a really fun night! and now, all i can think about are those amazing, melt in your mouth, buttery soft scallops... hmmm! Thanks so much sam :)! xx

moving on, the rest of the week was patisserie: Bread and a move forward onto cakes:

so we made soda bread and basic soft white bread rolls, and then got to play a little bit with the rolls, and could add flavours and make them into different shapes. so i made cheese and onion, and greyere and provincial herbs, for my flavours, and then made a few other little shapes, and poped an olive on here, and some onion seeds on there.. so just a bit of fun. 

then ... deliciously rich and soft and light and lemony lemon cake... hmmmm that was great. and little Madeline's, which are soft slightly lemony, buttery sponge cakes, in the shapes of shells.. im sure you know what im talking about, but i will attach a pic so you can see just exactly what i mean!

Then, then, oh then.. the big daunting day arrived, we were given our exam dish! oooo... scary stuff! and guess what, we have to present 12 perfectly turnned 7 sided veggies! this is giving me night mares, but i have got a smaller turning knife coming, so hopefully my problems will be solved, boggy having small hands! haha..

so the dish is Chicken Fricassee = chicken with a creamy mushroomy sauce and the turned veggies. and we have to do it all in 2 hours MAX, every minute we go over, we loose marks. so.... practice practice practice... and i already have once, and the story behind making the chicken consomme, is that i was practicing butchering my chickens (which i am now expert at, if i do say so myself) and then i didnt know what to do with all the chicken, so hence... experimentation!) 

then, we made poussin s, with a deliciously mustardy tarragon sauce, served with apple compote and boiled potatoes, finished off in a little butter just to add the extra french deliciousness to it. Chef john was our chef that day, he also did a really traditional homely french dish in the demo, guinea fowl cooked with cabbage and pancetta and sausage, so all the juices cook into each other... this is definitely something i am going to try this! 

then, the dreaded offal classes.... and they were awful! we did sweet breads, crumbed with a truffle jus, Parisienne potatoes and steamed asparagus. and calves liver lyonaisse (with onion) with sauted potatoes... and in the demo, chef sonia did lamb kidneys too... ok, granted, it all sounds delicious. but, that liver... my goodness, the smell and the texture... no thanks. not for me. i can almost just deal with the sweet breads... but lets just say, if i have a restaurant one day, no organs will me on the menu!

Moving on to stuffings and mousses... demo was veal, with a mushroom and veal stuffing. and then for our prac we made, chicken breast, stuffed with a chicken mouse, flavoured with chopped herbs. then poached, and served with courgette spaghetti (which is courgette cut on the mandolin so it looks like spaghetti) and a tomato, and herb butter sauce... this is definitely on my top 3 list of what we have made on the course so far. it sounds all fancy and strange. but the flavours just complement each other so perfectly, and i think the fact that there is basil and tomato and courgette on the same plate, makes me smile, thats my italian love slipping in there.... and the subtle hint of garlic in the courgette and the softness of the herbs in the mousse, go so perfectly with the garlicy tomatoey basily sauce, which has just a touch of acidity, balanced but a smidgen of sweetness and then the intensity of the tomato breaks through, leaving you with a softness of the butter that you have piled into it! hmmmm

right... so onto patisserie... Gateaux alhambra, which in english is a chocolate hazelnut sponge cake, coated in a decadent melting chocolate fondant, and garnished with a marzipan rose... 

this cake is really interesting cake, we learnt the history of it and why it has a marzipan rose on it (which we did make ourselves!!!!) and it is because the the alhambra gardens in spain, were full of almond trees, and lush roses, so some mad baker who wanted to impress an austrian king for some mad reason, made this deliciously decedent cake, soaked in a coffee and rum syrup, and coated with chocolate, all indications of wealth and richness. so traditionally, it has to have alhambra written on the top, and have marzipan rose on the top, and should have pistachio  nuts around the bast (but we didnt do this).

and then the other cake we made was a genoise a la frambais (or something to that name) which is a genoise sponge cake, with a home made raspberry jam and deliciously sweet buttercream in the centre, the cake is soaked in a raspberry au de vie liquor syrup to keep it moist. and covered in the buttercream, and decorated with piping, and chocolate piping, and raspberries, and almonds, around the bottom and on the top... the french way is decoration... and i dont like it, but you gotta do what you gotta do :-) and chef liked it. so then i guess its all good!

and that is that... i have managed to catch you all up... hope i havent missed anything out!

KEEP IN CONTACT,

and good luck to all those writing exams :)

xx

 eggs Florentine 

 my julienned veggies :) im proud of these

 leek and potato soup

 french onion soup 

 consomme

 soda bread

 all my bread rolls

 lemon cake and Madeline's 

 chicken fricassee and turned veggies 

 chicken mousse thing... i never took a pic of mine but this is the chefs one, just to see how it looks

 my very first marzipan rose :) 

 gateaux alhambra

peppery steak, sagey pork and swanny eclairs!

hello there all my lovely loyal readers!

hope everyone is doing well :)

i have had yet another busy, jam packed, fun filled, cooking mad week! 

monday was a bank holiday, yay.... fun! had a really relaxed weekend, which was just perfect because i actually needed a recharge, i've been so busy and on the go constantly, so was good to just do nothing. but i think i need to start doing more londony things... so planning to go, some time soon i hope to the globe theater to watch hamlet, so hoping to get tickets for that! 

 im also really excited as i have family flooding into london at the moment until june, so going to have some lovely family time! fun too...

now down to the real stuff ... all about the food...

we are really starting to get busy in the kitchens, and when i take a look back at what we were doing in our first weeks, and how long it took us to do that, and then now what we manage to cover now in the same time! just think what we will be doing in a months time, and in 6 months time... all very exciting.

so what have we done this week... 

veal with braised rice.... this was veal, cooked in water, then a volute sauce made from the cooking liquor and some stock... to be honest, it was a bit bland, and i really don't see myself making it again in the near future, but it was still interesting to learn how to make it, and then i can use the base of it and try to make it into something i would like better... but not just yet because i'm still learning the basics :)!

then... hmmmmmm STEAK AU POIVRE! that was delicious delicious delicious. pepper steak with potato rosti. i really liked that, and i had fun making it too. I still find it funny how you are showed one thing in the demo, and then the chef who takes you for prac, tells you different things. and again that just shows how there is just so much to learn, and there is so much room for interpretation once you know the basics. im really excited to be good enough to just know and do! oh oh, i forgot, we also did roast sirloin, with a jus and turned potatoes, (which i still cant get perfect, and chef david can do behind his back... serious show off... but seriously, one day i will do that too and then i too can show off). 

so those were the pracs on tuesday and wednesday. 

and then on thursday we had pastry... and made tartes aux fruits with the puff pastry that we made last week, it was really basic, just filled with creme pattissier and topped with fruit, its really great how chef matthew lets us be creative and decorate our things how we want, some of the other chefs like it their way or no way. we had a lecture on nuts and spices.... then on friday we only had 1 class!!! it was a pasty demo on choux pastry, and chef nicholas got us all in a spin about how hard it is and how there is such huge fail rate with the eclairs, as it is one of the exam pieces... but it wasn't that bad! i think they just want to scare us. it was a really busy prac, but it worked, and our eclairs and swans weren't too bad at all :) so that was a huge sigh of relief. 

We had the Choux prac and our pork prac on saturday... back to back pracs is exhausting, but they fly past and before you know it 6hours has gone and it feels like you have just got out of bed. 

to the pork... we made sage pork chops with mash and honey, lemon and mustard and sage jus... it was reallllly delicious! the sweet porky lemony jus complements the pork so nicely. and the mash... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!! thats all i can say. butter and cream are the french's best friends! 

and that was that.... it was a great week. 

we have another fascinating week coming up this week... its all about eggs and bread, so moving away from the bread for a little while. will let you know how it goes.

have a wonderful week all!

x

here are some of my creations from the week:

 steak au poivre

 veal stew 

 palmiers (pigs ears)

 tarte aux fruits

 pork chop with sage jus

 choux swan

 swans and coffee elcairs

a coffee eclair

butchering meat!!!

well, another week at le cordon bleu has flown past!

i honestly cannot believe how fast it is going, in a month and a half, i would have already finished basic, and be getting ready to moving on to intermediate! 

lets back track to what i have been up to since my last update...

i went to lincoln for the easter weekend to spend time with my lovely family... and had the most fantastic time. we camped in the garden, and made brownies and cup cakes, and custard and roast chicken, and had enough easter eggs to last until next easter... and we played table tennis and painted our nails with union jacks, all in celebration of the royal wedding which was on friday. so, once again, thank you so much my lovely strange family!!!

so it was a short week this week, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't jam packed full of exciting food and learning!

on Tuesday, Chef john butchered an entire lamb in front of us, with such ease, it was almost as though, one minute there was a sheep on the counter, and the next it looked like we were in a butchers shop choosing what to buy! he sawed away, and sliced and hacked through bones and hey presto... we had a rack of lamb, all perfectly french trimmed and ready to be roasted, which was to be our practical. he mad a bayaldi to go with that, which is like a ratatouille. its layered up aubergine, and courgette and red pepper with a layer of concasse de tomate (deliciously cooked tomatoes with onions and garlic and herbs) in between them, then baked in the oven!!! 

Then we had our practical, using the puff pastry which we had made the previous week... we made allumettes au fromage... which is as i mentioned before, filled with a mornay sauce (a cheese sauce), mine came out pretty well... the pasty was well layered which was a massive surprise to me, as the kitchen was so hot that we all thought that our pastry would be a disaster, as is the butter melts between the layers, it will not rise and for the millions of layers... but it did! so that was a huge sigh of relief.

after that prac, we had another demo with Chef Sonia this time it was a side of beef that was butchered... and my goodness, was that a side of beef! was huge!!! im not going to go into a whole lot of detail here, as once again, this entry would go on for hours, and i want to keep my readers interested!!! but basically she butchered the side, taking off the fillet, and the sirloin steaks and other cuts to make what she was making... which was prep for boeuf bourguingon, and contrefilet de boeuf roti (roast sirloin of beef) with jus, Entrecote sautee a la bordelaise (deliciousness) and steak au poivre (peppered steak).... this was in two demos, the second one was on wednesday morning. but it was amazing to watch her with so much going on at once, and still get everything just about perfect and to come out with such fantastic flavours. and if you look at it all, it is all basic, simple flavors  combined together, with not a huge amount of effort, and come out with the most intense flavours all complementing each other with such subtleness. 

then... we had our pasta prac :) that was such fun... making fresh pasta, rolling it out, making a fresh sauce... wow, italians are geniuses!!! the sauce was made with creme fraiche, and chicken stock infused with black peppers, some (some, phe) butter stirred in, and last minute, fresh chiffonade of basil and oregano.. and it was yum!!!

thursday.... we did puff pastry again, this was for patisserie, and of course made in a different method to what we did in the cuisine class, because thats what the french are like, their own method is always best. but is great that we did have some knowledge of what was going on, and had a bit more experience.

so we made our puff pastry, under the supervision of chef chrstophe. his words of wisdom for the day were... "pastry never lies, only students lie",  "when you drink too much, it doesn't matter, because by the time you have drunk that much, you forget anyway" and a few more... he is just hilarious! crazy french man if you have ever met one. but absolutely ingenious when it comes to pastry. he has such passion, so inspirational.

then, friday was the royal wedding... what an extravaganza!! we never braved the streets of london, but did have a little tea party in celebration with cucumber sandwiched, scones, tea, pimms, g&t, sponge cake... and that was that!!

had our lamb prac on saturday morning... this too was a fantastic prac! had such fun in the kitchen. butchering and cleaning the rack of lamb, preping the veggies, roasting the lamb and making a deliciously lamby (supposedly, but mine had too much carrot so was a little too sweet) and then plating it up. we really are rapidly becoming little chefies!! 

i am loving every moment. 

this week coming up, we have a beef pracs, then moving on to veal and pork, and will be turning veggies again!!! so will keep you updated soon!!

hope the weekend was fantastic for all...

hope to hear from you all soon!! 

x