88 Pork Chops

"Cooking is the only thing we do that involves all the senses." -Heston Blumenthal

I thought the quote above by Heston Blumenthal, the chef at The Fat Duck in England, was appropriate to what I had to do today, although I would have preferred to have one less of my senses (smell) while we were forced to clean out the fat from the inside of a huge pile of pig rectum, on its way to becoming sausage. Today was our first day in the kitchen with Chef Pascal, who was on vacation all last week. And what an interesting first day it was. He is working on making all the charcuterie for an event with the James Beard House, and six 20 pound boxes of the pig rectum (he technically called it pig asshole, but I'm just trying to be a little more discreet) is destined to become what will hopefully be delicious sausage. Since we finish up all our cooking by 1 pm everyday in Level 3, we have free time in the afternoon to go over what we made, do extra dishes or....clean pig rectum for Chef Pascal! Earlier in the day he asked if anyone wanted to stay after to help him with some charcuterie work and about half the class raised their hand to volunteer. But he asked again while we were all elbow deep in pig rectum, the smell of pig poop/vomit lingering in the air, and only a small handful were still willing to stay and help out. As I write this on the train (I feel sorry for whoever is sitting next to me), I can still smell it on my hands even though I was wearing gloves. I'll let you imagine the jokes going around the classroom, even Chef Pascal getting in on them, as we literally cleaned shit out of a pig's asshole, (pardon my French) They wouldn't quite be appropriate for me to share.

Today we started a new group of four recipes, and it didn't go as well as we would have hoped. Every week in level three we make four different dishes at each station of four people, everyone rotating through the dishes so everyone has a chance to make them once. In addition to that, we also make an amuse bouche every day, which in case you didn't already know, is not only the name of my blog, but also a small bite of something that is meant to awaken the palate before a meal. Our recipes this week are poulet roti grand mere (a roast chicken with some fancy garniture), Barramundi Americaine (basically flavorless fish with a lobster sauce, mussels and shrimp), a salad of macedoine (dice-shaped) vegetables with a poached egg and hollandaise sauce and a lemon tart. Today I was responsible for making the roast chicken, which involves a lot of work because of all that goes into making the garniture, which consists of crisped bacon, mushrooms sauteed and browned to perfection in bacon fat, pearl onions glacier a brun (caramelized pearl onions), pommes rissolets (turned potatoes blanched, sauteed, then finished in the oven) and a jus from the roast chicken juices.

Two of us at the station had just come back from homecoming weekend at our respectful universities (Vanderbilt and Richmond, of course), so in our post-homecoming depression and recovery we were not quite on our game. I was moving at a snail's pace and didn't manage to mess anything up too badly, but was just really rushed for time when I had to present my four dishes (we have a time everyday for when we have to present our dishes, and we are discounted points if anything is presented early or late). I also managed to get a pretty badass burn on the palm of my hand from trying to pick up a pan that had just come out of a 425 degree oven. You can actually see the mark of the handle on my palm. Luckily it's not too bad of a burn and I iced it right away so there shouldn't be any permanent damage done. And then in the afternoon...the pig rectum. I actually thought I was going to vomit for a few seconds from the smell. I don't know if you've ever smelled the inside of something like that, but I really do not recommend it.

On Friday we had our first mock midterm, which is to prepare us for what our midterm will be like in a few weeks. Each person had to present two dishes at specific times during the day. On friday it was beef consomme and pork chops with green peppercorn sauce, and each person had to present four dishes of each. Four pork chops for 22 people equals a whole lot of pork chop...88 to be precise. And unfortunately a good amount of it ended up in the compost because we just cannot eat that much. It was a very stressful day, trying to plate everything on our own, but I did alright. We encountered a slight issue when my large bicep muscles popped the spring that keeps the oven door closed (just kidding. it wasn't actually my biceps). But that left us with one oven for four people to heat plates and finish up the pork chops. But there were no major catastrophes to report. Tomorrow I'm making lemon tart...hopefully it will be easier than the roast chicken!

Will post some pictures tonight of everything we've been making and a class picture, featuring Chef Rogers!