Quack Quack

Level 1 is rapidly coming to a close in the next few days...with our Level 1 test on Friday! The test is both a written and a practical test, meaning it will be a comprehensive written test of everything we've covered (all the French vocabulary, cooking terms, temperatures, etc) and a practical exam testing our ability to julienne, jardiniere, tournage and make a few basic recipes. If we don't pass, we don't go onto Level 2. But I think they just say that to scare you...everyone usually passes.

After a very relaxing weekend of hanging around the house and enjoying a pedicure plus lengthy foot massage for my very tired feet, I headed back into the kitchen on Monday to continue with our Introduction to Poultry. We cooked two recipes: Sauteed breast and braised leg of duckling with orange sauce and pan roasted quail with rice and sausage stuffing (Two things I had never tried before...I'm not too adventurous with my meats). After our chicken lesson on Friday, we were all familiar with the general anatomy of the duck, which is quite similar to the chicken, but larger and with more fat and darker meat. Our first recipe, Duck a l'orange, was probably the most complicated dish we've had to make so far. After grabbing our ducks from the refrigerator, some classmates pretending to fly their plastic-wrapped ducks back to their stations while going "quack, quack," we attempted the recipe. First we had to quarter the duck, separating its breasts from its legs. Next we used the duck bone trimmings and wings to make a braising liquid for the legs. We added some carrot and onion to the duck bones, along with some veal stock and added the legs to braise in the oven for about 40 minutes. While the legs braised, we made a gastrique, similar to a caramel (you brown the sugar, then add vinegar), which would flavor the final sauce of the dish, adding sweetness and a hint of tartness from the vinegar. It gives off a very strong vinegar aroma when you first add the vinegar to the sugar, and I'm pretty sure I lost a few brain cells by accidentally inhaling it.

Next we rendered the fat from the duck breasts, slowly cooking them in a sautee pan on very low heat to get rid of some of the fat on the skin side, while being very careful not to cook the actual meat of the breast. Every few minutes, we had to take out the breasts and drain the fat off, and at the end we were left with a significant amount of duck fat and a crispy layer on the outside of the duck breast. When the legs were finished braising, we strained the liquid they cooked in and reduced it down to a sauce consistency (called nappant, which means when the sauce can coat the back of a spoon, it is nappant and thick enough to actually be called a sauce). Next we added a bit of the gastrique, some orange liquer and orange segments to the sauce and finished it with...butter of course! We served the dish with the breast sliced into aguilletes (thin slices of duck breast) and one leg cut in half, bone in and topped with the sweet orange sauce. I was hesitant to try the barely cooked duck breast, so I decided to nibble on the most cooked slice on the plate, and realized that I really liked it! It was moist and richly flavored...so much more than a chicken could ever wish to be. No wonder the French are so enamored with their ducks!

After ducks we moved onto stuffed quails, which are quite possibly the smallest thing you could ever imagine eating. A whole quail is maybe one inch larger than my very small hand and whenever Chef Rogers said quail during the demo he would say, "Your leetle quail," in a squeaky high voice. We made a stuffing with rice, zucchini, carrots, mushrooms and Italian sausage that we stuffed into the teeny cavity of the quail and then trussed it very carefully so that the sausage would stay inside the quail. The quail is usually deboned when it arrives in the kitchen, leaving two holes on either end that make it quite difficult for stuffing to remain in the stuffing cavity without the crafty assistance of some twine. I tied my little quail up like I would wrap up a Christmas present and prayed that enough of the stuffing would remain in the cavity during the cooking process. First we sauteed the quail to brown the outsides, while basting it with butter. Then we finished it in the oven and served it with a demi-glace and a fried basket of potatoes filled with a frisee salad. (I took a picture, which I will try to upload when I am not feeling so lazy). Unfortunately because quail are so small, they are very easy to overcook, which both myself and my partner did. I wasn't crazy about the flavor of the quail either (but I also forgot to salt it before cooking, which may be why). It was pretty flavorless to me. But the stuffing was good! Our recipes turned out pretty well that day...although I was feeling very clumsy and kept burning myself on everything! I took a hot pan out of the oven and 3 minutes later put my hand around the sizzling hot handle, searing the palm of my hand. But a little ice bath cured took care of that! Only teeny burn today, so I'm doing better! I'd rather be burned than cut because I do not like to see blood.

Today we cooked two types of beef dishes: Grilled Strip Loin Steak with compound butter and Beef Medallions with Sauce Bordelaise and pommes frites. When I arrived this morning, I got everything ready at my station, got all my ingredients...checked the clock and saw that it was past the time when my partner usually arrives and decided to get her station ready for her. But then it was 9:00, time for attendance, and she still wasn't there! I knew she wasn't coming in when Chef Rogers skipped over her name during attendance. I quickly panicked...doing these recipes on my own! Usually we split the tasks between partners, so we never make a full recipe on our own. Then I thought to myself...Now's the chance to really prove yourself, that you can do on your own what everyone else is doing with two people. And so I did. Luckily it was a relatively easy day, but I kept up with everyone else.

After watching Chef Rogers carve a massive bloody chunk of fillet in the beginning of our lesson, we were sent out on our own to make two compound butters and a sirloin steak for the first dish. We grilled the sirloin steak, attempting to make a perfect quadrillage (those criss-crossed grill marks) on our steaks. Unfortunately mine did not turn out so perfect, for some reason the middle section of my steak did not have the same marks as the outside, but hey...it was my first attempt at grilling. When we brought our dish up to the chefs to test, we were supposed to guess how the steak was cooked (medium, medium rare, medium well ,etc) without cutting into it. You're supposed to be able to push down on the flesh of the steak and be able to tell how cooked it is. The chefs taught us this cool trick for feeling how a steak should feel at certain degrees of doneness: Touch your index finger and thumb together and then pat that little piece of muscle under your thumb that pops up...it will feel like a rare steak. Do the same thing with your thumb and your middle finger...medium rare. Thumb and ring finger, medium well, thumb and pinky finger, well done. If you can remember how that feels, you'll always cook a steak to your desired doneness!

Easier said than done though! I guessed right on my sirloin...medium well. Although I intended to cook it medium rare. On my second steak, the beef medallion, I guessed medium rare, but it ended up being quite rare. For the beef medallion, we sauteed it in a pan instead of grilling, after molding it into a perfect circular shape and tying it with twine. While we sauteed it, we basted the beef with butter, of course. We also cooked a sauce bordelaise along with it, which consists of a red wine reduction with shallots and peppercorns and then a demi-glace (a reduced veal stock), and of course the sauce is finished with butter. Mine overreduced at first, turning into a deep purple syrup, but with the addition of some veal stock and a little heat, I was able to fix the sauce to the perfect consistency and flavor. Next we made some pommes frites while the cooked beef medallion rested (so the juices can redistribute and you don't lose the precious juices, which are "liquid gold", according to Chef Rogers, when you cut it) after putting a few potatoes through a mandoline to get a thin julienne shape. When everything was ready, I pulled a hot plate out of the oven, spooned some sauce bordelaise on the bottom, carefully placed my beef medallion on the sauce and topped it with a heaping pile of pommes frites and a flourish of watercress (Anyone's mouth watering right now?) Even though it ended up being cooked rare, it was tender and delicious...but that can easily be attributed to the fact that during the cooking process it was bathed in a mount of butter. Those chef pants are getting a little tighter from all this buttery, rich food!

Tomorrow we have a big test on poultry and beef (we have to label the meat cuts from a diagram of a cow, ugh) and then we move onto pork and lamb for our last two lessons of Level 1.