I apologise in advance for the length of this post but this week has been a very intensive one, not sure exactly why but I feel we have done so many things in just 4 days! So I have loads to tell you!
I said 4 days because on Monday we had our first all day butchery session at school led by retired butchers Peter Holmes and Graham Portwine. As a friend posted “The demo room looked like a scene of an Alfred Hitchcock film”. This is how we were welcomed with:
After an exhibition of their personal knives (with their history) and a little history about straw hats (wore them as a protector umbrella from the blood drippings of the hung meat) they left the room to appear a few minutes later with a whole lamb. I should be pretty good now at dissecting sheep as that was my 2 intensive class after Bruno Loubet’s one. (Wait for my chopped whole lamb on the barbecue in the summer!! 😉…Maybe not!). Next on the table was half a pig, with half of the face still on! And to finish the session they appeared with the hindquarter of a beef. Naively of me I thought we would have the whole cow!! I know now why not!!! It is massive!!!!!!Like really enormous!!!
5 hours later we had the whole worktop covered in different pieces of meat and they were all for sale at a discount! I managed to get home half a lamb shoulder and I don’t think Patrick wasn’t very pleased when I asked if I could get the bone marrow. After 5 hours of meat sawing and chopping the last thing he probably wanted to do was saw through the cow’s bone! I did regret at that point asking for it, sorry!!! I did have them that night roasted and scooped on toasted sourdough. Yummmmmmm!
Tuesday was a full on all day cooking where we made steak and kidney pudding (steamed for 5 hours in which we constantly had to remember to top up the water in the pan, some people with more luck than others as I could smell burnt pans around), beer bread, and a salt and spice roasted pork belly with a caramelised peanut and chilli dressing served with hoy sum and kailan (= Chinese leaves). On top of all that we had to squeeze eggs benedict to be served at 1pm. Great! That was my lunch! I think the day was a success. My pudding was beautifully coloured and well season (it tasted very bland to me though. I don’t think I will be making that at home), my pork was juicy with an amazing crackling and the beer bread was very tasty (although a bit overproved). Eggs benedict? What can I say…? They lasted less than a min in my plate!
On Wednesday we had to fillet and skin a sole for Sole Bonne Femme. I do like filleting flat fish but this sole was so slimy it took me a couple of minutes just to be able to get it out of the fridge! Lots of kitchen paper and a few heaves later I had 4 beautiful fillets folded into delices. They were poached and served with a creamy mushroom and white wine sauce and puff pastry fleurons. No idea what they were but I can tell you now they are just half-moon shaped puff pastry bits. My dish could have been a bit tidier and on it but Ansobe was happy everything was warm and perfectly cooked. Apart from the sauce which needed more seasoning! (That’s because I completely forgot to season it!)
After that most of us had to run to join Richard Bampfield, our wine teacher, in Covent Garden for a Louis Latour wine tasting evening. It was such an informative and lovely event and I went home with 2 new favourite wines! For wine enthusiast these were: New Zealand Craggy Range Aroha 2012 Pinot Noir and Chilean Viu Manent El Incidente 2011 Carmenere.
A bit hungover on Thursday we made vanilla soufflé, espagnole sauce (no idea if it comes from Spain or what the relation is, will research!) and honey bavarois with poached tamarillos (weird bitter fruit) and pate sucree biscuit (mine with cardamon and lemon zest). The soufflés were delicious, well risen and really light and fluffy! But I should advise you, serve them immediately or they will collapse within minutes!
I also got my first “what a beautiful plate” from Phil with my honey bavarois. I felt so proud!
On Friday we use the espagnole to make a Madeira sauce to go with veal chop and rosti potatoes. I was going out that evening but once I had the first bite I couldn’t stop eating it! Oh well… I will just pass on the pudding.
This week we also enjoyed two demonstration on pasta, one by Italian Ursula Ferrigno and one by our lovely ex teacher Louisa (she and Rupert left the school that day to set up their own school in Scotland, good luck!!). I was really excited all week about these demos and they didn’t disappoint. Ursula’s pasta was made of half 00 flour and half semolina flour and Louisa was made with just 00 flour. Honestly I couldn’t choose. I love them both and as much I love pasta (dried) there is nothing better than fresh made pasta. Tip? Keep rolling (hopefully you will have a pasta making machine) until one setting less than the thinner setting in the machine or, as Ursula suggested, until you can see a love letter (I get plenty of those! 😉) through it. Another tip: the pasta dough need to be quite firm. And that has been tested as my friend Angela and I decided to make lamb ragu papardelle for our private chef job on Saturday.
It really is a lot of fun making pasta (even more if you do it with a friend)! We had to make 1.3 kg of pasta and I can tell you I felt I was in the gym trying to knead it (another tip: do not try to knead all the dough at once, small batches please).
The pappardelle were delicious and we got back really clean plates from our clients and guest last night! To carry on with our Italian theme we served seared scallops with pancetta and hazelnuts crumbs on cauliflower puree for starter and ricotta and confit lemon cheesecake for dessert. Happy clients, fun day and great comments from the guests. Another successful team effort!!
Great note for the cheese lovers: “No guilt should go into eating parmesan cheese, it is good for your eye lashes and nails!” Ursula Ferrigno 4th Feb15. 🙂
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