Week 31: The cruel hand of fate

I am excited about this week with its promise of interesting dishes including several variations on pork, game meat and offal, things I don't cook a great deal and about which am keen to learn more.  However, I should have stayed in bed on Monday morning.  By Wednesday I do stay in bed.  But let's start at the beginning.

Pork belly dish components..

On Monday, we make a fabulous dish: pork belly on parsnip purée with fennel salad and chili caramel sauce.  We steam the pork belly having taken the skin off to roast in the oven.  The crisped crackling is chopped into the fennel salad and this really adds a level of texture and flavour that you don't expect.  On taking the parsnip purée out of the oven I place the pot on the stove top and immediately forget the handle is as hot as the core of Fukushima.  Yow!  Although what I actually shriek is a word for someone who has indecent relations with his mother.  My hand doesn't blister badly and in the face of such adversity the finished dish is divine - all four elements complementing each other perfectly.  Sublime. 

...and plated at home for dinner

Also on the cooking menu that day: smoked pork fillet which we marinate in an Asian style marinade before smoking. I haven't cooked mine yet and have vac packed it for a later date. (see Week 23: Omega 3 and me for a description of easy to do smoking).  

Marinated pork fillets ready for smoking

I eschew the sweet and sour pork. Technically we should make everything but tutor Trevor has a moderately relaxed attitude, seeing it as our choice - or funeral - as the case may be. He has a point, but one hopes that on graduation from the course people can cook!  Some students are incredibly instrumental in their approach to attendance, turning up only on the days when we are cooking dishes that are part of assessment.  Others, generally those who actually are interested in cooking, are there every day like me - barring disasters (or when I bunked off to go to Stewart Island). Speaking of disasters.... 

On Tuesday morning as I am making the bed I put my back out. Yow!  I am in pain for the rest of the day, though it improves after the osteo pops the rib back in.  I don't feel up to working in the kitchen for four hours so I miss making the Duck Confit (the hunter gatherer has been LIVING for the Duck Confit), the Braised Rabbit and the Cervena (farmed venison for those who don't know).  I text Trevor that I won't be there and beg him to cook and keep my Duck confit for me.  With anti inflammatories and pain killers on board, I sleep well and look forward to the next day's offal adventures.

On Wednesday morning the alarm goes off at 6.30 (we have early shift).  I twist my back as I get out of bed and am back to Yow! again.  No Lamb's fry and bacon; No Devilled kidneys; No Steak and Kidney pudding! No Crumbed Sweetbreads with Remoulade!

Marquise potatoes ready for the oven

We get to Thursday - assessment day again this week, so I struggle in. The menu is Grilled sirloin with Béarnaise sauce, Marquise potatoes, glazed green beans and Macedoine of beetroot Vichy. So, knowing how disappointed you were last week not to see the flash potatoes, I remembered to take a photo.  


I spoil my run of Distinctions this week and pass with Merit.  Next week is the last week of class and we have our final practical assessment. The main is set but the desert is a "magic box" from which we choose ingredients. I am not sure what the rules are yet.  After that the adventure continues with three weeks of work experience.

Week 30: Around the world in multiple meat dishes

Another week criss crossing the globe - Thailand, Russia, India, France - I'm exhausted.

We start the week at the business end of cookery - that is with a hunk of beast (no, not the tutor) and a demo of boning out the fillet and the sirloin. 

We cut 160gm sirloins, vacpac and set side til Thursday, and slice up another 180 grams to make something I haven't made since the late 1970s - Beef Stroganoff.  Stroganoff - now that drives me off to my friend Wiki immediately.  It has its origins in 19th century Russia and is popular in various forms around the world, from Portugal to Brazil to Japan to Sweden. Wiki reports many recipes and variations exist, and goes on to add somewhat frighteningly: "with or without wine, with canned sweet corn, with ketchup ..."  Hmmmm.

Chicken Kiev. The height of sophistication in the 1970s. Where did this dish originate? Wiki is uncharacteristically brief and tells me the name comes from the capital of Ukraine, Kiev (duh!)  However, the Russian food historian  William Pokhlebkin claims that Chicken Kiev was not invented in Kiev but in the Moscow Merchants' Club in the early 20th century and was renamed Chicken Kiev in one of the Soviet restaurants in later years.  So now you know as much as I about the etymology of the dish.  What I find more interesting is that when Marks and Spencer first introduced ready made meals in 1975, guess what was first off the block?  Pay attention, you may need to know this for a pub trivia quiz one day... Yes! Chicken Kiev.

Pound a chicken breast and stuff with cold garlic butter with herbs, then pane (i.e. flour, egg, breadcrumbs and egg and breadcrumb a second time to ensure the fillet is well sealed) and fry or bake.  I stop short of either and freeze the stuffed breasts for future baking.

We break down (chef talk for cut up) another chicken into sauté cuts: 8 pieces, comprising 2 drums, 2 thighs, and 4 breasts. Don't be alarmed, I know the hormones they feed poultry are bizarre but the birds we break have only two breasts,  each one is cut into two, yielding four breast pieces in total.
 

We make a Thai Green Chicken Curry using half the chicken we sauté cut on Monday, having already prepared Thai green curry paste. The other half of the chicken becomes Chicken Chasseur.  Chatty girl, the one who never stops talking, gives a dissertation on how she always thought  "chasseur" meant shoe - she works in a shoe shop part time.  An easy mistake: la chaussure is shoe and le chasseur is the hunter.  Yes, aside from the spelling and difference in pronunciation, note a gender difference: shoe is feminine and hunter is masculine. You can see from the photos they are two entirely different things!

 



Chicken chasseur

 


Christian Louboutin chaussure





  We continue the curry theme across Thailand and the subcontinent: we make spice mixes for Thai red curry with beef, and for an Indian Lamb Korma.  

I have my suspicions about the origin of korma, and entertain a notion is is an English curry bastardisation of an Indian dish.  However, my notion is unfounded.  Although the origin of the word korma is Turkish, the dish is traditional Mughlai cuisine and can be traced back to the 16th century. 

What else this week?  A delicious crusted lamb rack.  First we French trim the rack, taking off every skerrick of sinew and connective tissue to leave a clean bone, then smear Dijon mustard and herbs over it, crumb and cook.  We also grill the sirloin steak and make Duchess Potatoes - a puree of potato, egg and butter with a pinch of nutmeg, piped into a conical meringue shape, egg washed and baked to give a crust on the outside.  I am sure you've eaten these at some time or other. 

We also make one of the many Duchess derivatives,  Marquise Potatoes.  This involves piping the potato into a nest, filling it with sweated shallots, concassé tomato and parsley, then egg washing  before baking. I SO wish I had my camera to show you these little beauties.  Actually they taste better than I expect. 

Way, way back in Week 3: Hot stock and several smokin' sauces, I talked about how a base stock or sauce becomes so many others. the derivatives are the same with potatoes - a base puree then countless derivatives. A basic roast potato and countless derivatives. A basic sauteed potato and - well, you get the picture.  I could write a whole blog on potato derivatives but I will restrain myself.

Next week? More meat - including an exciting installment on offal. I will cook sweetbreads for the first time. Stand by.