Flying Solo

Although last nights class ended with two hours of wine tasting, it was the first half of the class that gave you the spins.

I can only explain it in one word. Disastrous.

I don't know. Maybe that is an exaggeration. I won't know for sure until we get our feedback tomorrow from our Chef. However, it felt like a disaster.

We were on our own for the first time last night. On my side of the kitchen all the students had to make a dish called Chicken Grand-Mere. This is actually a nice dish. Its a roasted whole chicken served with garnishes of bacon, sauteed mushrooms, caramelized pearl onions and potato's that are sauteed till crispy and golden brown. The chicken is broken down into 8 pieces to produce 4 plates and all served over a jus.

My partner and I did a pretty decent job when we did this dish together. However, on your own its a completely different story. When we made the dish together, we had 2 and a half hours to get it done. Last night, we had less than and hour and a half. You can also no longer share burner space with your partner because they have to do the same dish as you. So, we each had half of the amount of space to work on, and had to share the oven.

We had to have the dish ready at 7:52. None of us were on time. I finished about 5 minutes late, which was in the middle of the pack. There is just so much to think about. I really thought I had a good plan of attack. However, when you are running around and doing everything on your own sometimes your brain freaks out. For example, how exactly do I break down this chicken again? It has to be done in a very precise way and we have to plate the pieces paired in a specific way.

I'm not 100% sure I got all the pairings right. Also, when we roast the chicken, we take it out of the oven when the breast reaches 145 degrees (chicken is not really done until about 160-165). But it continues to cook when it rests and then after we break it down and before service it goes back in the oven so it is served hot. The biggest reason for this is that the breast cooks much faster than the legs so if you left the whole chicken in until the legs were done the breast meat would be dry. Anyway, I'm worried that maybe some of the pieces were not cooked all the way through, which is not that big of a deal with other meats, but when it comes to chicken, it must be done. Don't want to give your customer salmonella! I am also not entirely happy about all the garnishes. The bacon was too crispy, and I had taken the potatoes out of the oven thinking I was going to start plating, but then decided to put the chicken back in the oven another 2 minutes, so by the time the plate was actually composed, the potatoes were soggy. Gosh darn.

I found some comfort in the fact that my entire class felt the same way I did. We were all pretty frustrated by the end of night. And if it was not bad enough, after I presented my plates to the Chef, I turned around to go back to clean my station and who is standing in the doorway observing? No one other than the great Jacques Pepin. Can I crawl into the 400 degree oven now?