I made a pate sucree, a sweet tart dough and baked it briefly in the oven, lined with some almonds and lentils that I found in the pantry (I wouldn't recommend using the almonds though...they caught on fire in the oven, and then in the panic of all the smoke I picked up the tart pan so that part of the dough fell underneath, woops!) so that the tart dough wouldn't puff up too much. While the dough cooked, I sauteed the sliced plums, fresh and tart from the farmer's market with plenty of sugar, orange zest, cinnamon, allspice and cloves. I didn't really measure any of the spices and would definitely go with just cinnamon last time, or less cloves because it overpowered the fresh taste of the plums. I cooked the plums on the stovetop until they were fairly soft, but not completely cooked, then I arranged them in the tart, leaving the syrup behind, which I then added to whipped cream. I sprinkled some raw sugar over the plums and put it back in a 350 degree oven for about 35 minutes until the dough and plums were cooked through. Not bad for my first plum tart, and at least it looked good!Today was an eventful day at school. We worked on fish for the second day, although today we did a flatfish, flounder, which is filleted differently than the roundfish that we did yesterday. They're designated as either a flatfish or a roundfish based on their skeletal structure (flatfish are literally flat) and where their eyes are. Whereas a bass has eyes on both sides of its head (roundfish), a flatfish has an eye on only one side of its head. Flatfish also produce 4 fillets, while roundfish only produce two. Filleting the flounder was a bit easier than the red snapper and trout were yesterday, even though there were more fillets to cut and it involved removing guts. Yesterday the fish had already been gutted so we didn't have to deal with any of that good stuff. But the first thing we had to do with our flounder today was carefully cut around the head of the fish, being careful not to push down too hard and to cut up through the skin so that we didn't puncture the intestines and make a huge mess of the fish. I successfully navigated around the bones that indicate where to cut, pushed down hard to separate the bone that holds the head on and then twisted the head while pulling it out. More cleanly than I expected, a handful of fish guts and liver slipped out of the body cavity as I pulled the head off, leaving only a small trail of blood for me to wash out with cold water.
After slowly and carefully cutting out four fillets from the flounder, I went to rinse them and grab a bunch of paper towels to dry the fish because we would be frying them next. I needed a good bunch of paper towels to do this, so I grabbed four or five from the machine and put them down to the left of me. Next thing I know, the paper towels are in flames, one after the other lighting up and blowing around my station. I frantically tried fanning and blowing on them to put out the flames but it wouldn't stop! In a moment of panic I yelled "Chef!" while my old partner Christian ran over from his station next to ours and put the paper towels into the bucket of sanitation solution that we keep on our station. With the flames put out, we all started to laugh a little, while Chef Rogers came over to inspect the situation. With an amused look on his face, he looked at the now black remnants of paper towel covering my stovetop, raised his eyebrow and gave us a look that said, "Seriously?" and walked away. In case you're wondering how my paper towels lit on fire (no they did not spontaneously ignite), our stoves have pilot lights, so there is always a very small flame below the burner, which I stupidly put my paper towels right on top of. While my new partner Sam and I laughed about that look Chef Rogers gave us during lunch, he reappeared from his lunch, pushing a rolling cart with two salamanders through the door (portable broilers that create crusts on dishes like french onion soup, gratin, etc). With a loud BANG, one of the metal salamanders crashed on to the floor from the rolling cart getting caught on the door frame, with a yell from Chef Rogers, "Who deed that?!" He laughed to himself as he picked up the pieces of the salamander and put it back together with the help of a few other students. The more time I spend in the kitchen with Chef Rogers, the more I appreciate his lighthearted approach to cooking.
Here is a picture of my Gaujonettes (essentially fancier fish sticks) with two different sauces, a red pepper coulis and a remoulade or tartar sauce:
They were delicious, especially the sauces, but it involved a little more work that we were accustomed to, since we had to carefully fry the delicate potato basket that holds the goujonettes, fry the parsley, the fish itself and make the two sauces. It was worth all that work though when Chef Rogers saw our dish and said, "Wow, zat ees magnificent!"
After lunch, a buzz started to grow in the air, with students getting excited for the chef demonstration by Jacques Pepín that afternoon at 3:30, right after class. Jacques Pepín is one of the deans at the French Culinary Institute and is also one of the most famous classical French chefs in the world. Even Chef Rogers was excited for the demonstration, telling us we could leave 10 minutes early if we did a good job, which never happens (once he made us wait around for 15 minutes when we finished early, instead of letting us go before 3). In the afternoon we made a braised dish with what was left of the trout we filleted that morning. It was served with a white wine and shallot sauce, with plenty of cream of course. As soon as we were done preparing and then presenting the dish to chef, everyone started to clean up as quickly as possible, but we were running late. Soon we saw the Level 2 students from the classroom next door walk by, on their way to the locker rooms and then to the demonstration. We started to panic...there wouldn't be seats left! It was slowly approaching 2:55 and the kitchen was still a disaster. While some people were cleaned up and ready to go, others were still plating their dishes and hadn't even considered cleaning up yet. So we all started pitching in, helping everyone else get cleaned up and finally at 3:05 it seemed like we were almost done when Chef Rogers yelled, "This duck confit isn't going to wrap eetself back up and go into the fridge!" Several people scrambled to get the saran wrap and put away the duck confit. Finally at about 3:07, Chef gave us the OK to go and there was a stampede of chef whites racing out of the kitchen and down the stairs, some headed straight to the auditorium without changing. I got changed as quickly as I could, running into the eerily-empty locker room and throwing off my chefs whites. I ran down to the auditorium where seats still remained and Jacques Pepín was preparing his station with the help of some student volunteers. Here is a terrible picture I took from my phone of Jacques Pepín:
Before the demonstration, Pepín told the crowd he would be willing to take some photographs and sign autographs while we waited until 3:30. Half the auditorium of eager culinary students lined up to meet one of the most famous chefs in the world, each eagerly shaking his hand and then posing for pictures. I wished I had brought my copy of his book, The Apprentice with me for him to sign while the line of students hoping to get close to Pepin grew longer by the minute. Finally, the waiting students were asked to sit back down for the demonstration. He didn't really cook anything at the demonstration, but rather took the audience through a basic demonstration of kitchen technique and essential tools, like which type of metal works best for what in pots and pans, which knives are essential and how to perfect our knife skills. Being in his presence was awe-inspiring, and made me want to keep working on my knife skills so I can chop as quickly as he can! But after being in the kitchen for more than 60 years, I don't know if I'll be able to match up anytime soon.
Tomorrow we continue with fish, moving onto shellfish. Wish me luck, we have to kill our own lobsters!
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