Pommes Dauphinois

Ok, Erik, this one is for you :-)

250 ml cream (1 cup)
500 grams Idaho Russet Potatoes (about 2)
1 garlic clove, minced
grated Gruyere cheese, about 1 cup but you can use more or less depending on how much cheese you want to put in
nutmeg (optional)
salt and fresh ground pepper

-Bring cream close to a boil, remove from heat, season with salt, pepper, nutmeg.
-Peel the potatoes (peeled potatoes should be held in cold water to prevent browning), cut into slices about 2-3 mm thick (mandolins are handy)
-Place potatoes and into the warm cream, return to heat, bring to a boil and simmer over medium heat, stirring carefully so nothing sticks to the bottom. Cook until the liquid is thick.
-In a gratin dish, rub the bottom with a little butter and sprinkle with some minced garlic
-layer the bottom with potato slices, season lightly with salt/pepper and sprinkle with cheese.
-continue layering with potatoes, seasonings and cheese until the dish is full. Try to get in as many layers as possible, it will baked down in the oven.
-Top dish with enough cheese to cover.
-Bake in oven at 375 for about 30 minutes or until brown and potatoes are tender.

A Potato a Day

I spared you a recap of last Fridays class, where we basically spent hours shaping different vegetables into footballs that were 5cm in length. Sounds fun, huh? The French term for this is "tournage" and basically it sets standard shapes and sizes for different vegetable cuts. The purpose behind this is uniformity and aesthetics. Basically, if 5 people are asked to produce 20 "cocotte's" of potatoes, you should be able to put us in different rooms and we would all produce identical sized football shaped potatoes. This will also ensure they all cook at the same rate. We did get to cook the various vegetables too. My favorite was the caramelized pearl onions (however this was the one vegetable we did not shape!)

Anyway, back to potato night. It was fitting that the family meal for dinner was steak, because by 8:30 we had made our own french fries and Chef made some amazing ketchup. His method included mangoes in the recipe which added the perfect sweetness to the ketchup that balances out all the flavors...and you would have never known it was in there if you did not see him make it!

I have included below some the dishes I made - my favorite was the Pommes Dauphinois. This consisted of thinly sliced potatoes that get cooked lightly in cream and then layered into a ramekin with Gruyere cheese and baked until browned. So good!


Pommes Dauphinois:





Pommes Darphin:





Pommes Anna:

Bao Down

One of the best perks about school are the Chef demonstrations. It's as if we have our own Food Network cooking show, but at the end of the show we actually get to TASTE the food! So awesome!

Yesterday, Chef Michael Bao Huynh came and gave us a demonstration on a 3 course Vietnamese meal. It was delicious. Chef Huynh has multiple eateries around the city, including Mai House, Bao 111, Bar Bao, Baogette, Bao Noodles.....the list goes on. If you remember Spike Mendelsohn from the Top Chef season in Chicago, you may know that he was the Chef de Cuisine at Mai House when he was cast for the show.

The Chef cooked up a great meal starting with a shaved fennel and tiger shrimp salad, followed by a bean curd glazed cod and then finished with a braised pork belly. Every course just melted in your mouth!

It was interesting to see so many new ingredients and how they are used, including a salted lemons (brings a great taste to the dish!):



and daikon rice cakes.



Salad:



Black Cod:



Pork Belly:



Thank you, Chef.

(More pictures in the photo album!)

P.S. Anyone who is interested in any of the recipes for the dishes, let me know and I can send to you.

It's Not Easy Being Green

The excitement had been building in anticipation of last nights class....salad! Ha, ha, just kidding. However, given that salad is served raw (for the most part), it is important to understand the proper handling and serving of the dish. The French also have certain classic salads and specific ways they must be served. We also had to make all the different dressings for each dish.

The fun part of the evening was also getting to plate and present our dishes to the chef, and within a specific time frame. On the fist dish I was just starting to plate when Chef yelled out, "one minute left". Um, is this Top Chef?

Macedoine Salad - A "macedoine" is just the cut of the vegetables (small cubes). The salad is traditionally tossed in a French style mayonnaise. On Monday we focused on emulsified sauces, such as mayo, vinaigrette's, sabayons, etc. My poor little whisking arm is so sore from this week! Here is my plated dish:



Next up was the "traditional" Nicoise Salad (this one was done with my partner) - Our plating below represents what the traditional version is supposed to look like. Well, with a few exceptions. The egg is actually supposed to be quartered into wedges. We had an issue with the eggs in that we were running out of time and were not able to let them cool the standard 5-10 minutes in the ice bath before cracking. As a result, when we tried to get them out of the shell, they cracked in the middle making it impossible for us to cut into wedges. So, we had to slice them as seen below in order to get them on the plate with out looking like a mess. Chef was not too happy about that. Additionally, our green beans were apparently cut too short and we plated too much tuna. All things to correct, as this dish can end up on the midterm. Anyway, as you can see below, the tomatoes and green peppers need to be peeled, and each item needs to be dressed separately just before plating. It's all about moderation - the French would never pour dressing all over their salad like we do here. The dressing for this was a white wine vinaigrette.



Finally, we did a plain frisee salad with tomatoes that was tossed in a sherry/mustard vinaigrette and topped with fresh herbs. We had the option of plating this with the duck confit we had made. Or, we could take the duck confit home with us. I chose option B - the duck will probably end up on the dinner table at home in some way tonight ;-)

The Kitchen

Just wanted to give you a look inside to see what our classroom looks like.

Developing an Appreciation for the Soup Nazi

I have a little catching up to do. I wanted to share with you our soup lesson from Wednesday night. We made a split pea soup and a potato leek soup, which we were allowed to bring home :-) This made for some good lunches during the week! We also made a beef consomme, which was based off the beef stock we made last week, and french onion soup.

A consomme is just a purified and clarified beef stock. To clarify the stock, and bring out all the impurities, a mixture of ground beef protein, julienned vegetables, tomatoes and egg whites are used. The acid in the tomatoes and the blood from the meat protein, help to set the egg white, and are essential in ensuring a clear and brilliant clarification. A "raft" forms on the top of the pot, which catches all of the impurities. I thought that this was an interesting process, so I wanted to share several pictures with you to take you though the different stages.



Here, you can see the "raft" beginning to form:



It forms over the entire top of the pot:



Once the raft forms, a hole must be made through the center with a ladle. After an hour of simmering, the consomme needs to be ladled out through this hole. In making the hole, you need to be extra careful not to break the raft, or your consomme will be cloudy:



Once the consomme simmers for an hour or so, it is ladled out and strained through a chinois covered in cheese cloth so only the liquid remains. Here you can see the fat on the top of the consomme. To remove the fat, you skim the top with pieces of parchment paper. The fat sticks to the parchment. This is done until all the fat is removed.



My consomme after the fat was skimmed:



Final presentation. This is a classic dish in french cooking. The broth should be crystal clear and the vegetables should be uniformly cut into small macedoines (cubes):



Additional pictures to be added to my photo album.

What's Up Doc?

Sorry, Bugs, but I think you taste pretty good.

Chef Alain Sailhac, the Dean of the French Culinary Institute, performed a Chef demonstration at school on Tuesday afternoon. Chef Alain is well known in the food industry. In the 1970's, he was the Executive Chef at Le Cygne in NYC, which earned the first ever 4 star food rating from the New York Times. He also spent 8 years as the Executive Chef at New York City's legendary restaurant, Le Cirque, in addition to time at the 21 Club and the Plaza Hotel.

Chef Alain is someone who I believe truly enjoys his time teaching students at FCI. I often pass him in the halls and he always stops to say hello, asks how things are doing, and asks if we have any questions about anything we are learning. In watching him work during the demonstration, I envied him because it was so clear that this is a man that genuinely loves his job.

His demonstration was a sauteed saddle of rabbit, a fricassee of spring vegetable, a confit of rabbit leg and thigh, and a gibelotte of rabbit breast and shoulder (ragout). He worked with six burners going at once, prepped and cooked everything in front of us, and made it all seem so easy to do 100 things at once.

While the Chef is doing his demonstration for us, there are actually a handful of other chefs in the back kitchen preparing the same meal so that there will be enough for everyone to taste. This is great, but I don't want to taste that....I want to eat the one made by the man himself. Luckily, I snagged a seat in the front row, so was able to get to his dishes before it was all gone. And, I must say, it tasted fantastic, and nothing like what came out of the back kitchen. Sorry guys, it was a good effort, but Chef Alain put out a dish with much bolder flavors, it was 4 star.

I have uploaded pictures in my album - it covers the butchering, the prepping and cooking, and the final presentation. Here is a taste, but please have a look!