Killing Lobsters

2 days of cooling and class foto

Monday and Tuesday were 2 very similar days for group C, from 8.30h until 12.00h practical and from 12.30h until 15.00h demonstration. So besides doing my homework, i washed (again), ironed and did little else.
On thurday we had our class picture taken. Paolo, thanks for making the same pictures with my camera. It was a pity that 7 of our class did not show up, so the group seems smaller as it actually is. Here some pictures of the last 2 days

Monday: We made a pigeon salad, duck again this time with a horrible gnocchi paste and a nice swiss roll with ricotta and mandarins.
They actually found a way to get rid of the pigeons in Paris at Le Cordon Bleu: Cook them and eat them. In fact it was not as bad as you may think.
For those who want to get of pigeons in the rest of the world: here is the recipe:

4 persons

·         Ingredients

o    4 pigeons, taken directly from the Champ de Mars (that is where the Eiffeltower is). The tourists feed them so much that here you find the biggest and fattest samples, they are so tame, you can just take them by hand. Kill them by stangeling them to keep the blood in the meat.

o    5 ml oil or goose fat

·         Pigeon jus for the vinaigrette

o    50 g shallots

o    50 g onions

o    80 g carrots

o    1 Bouquet Garni

·         Garnish

o    200 g lambs lettuce (veldsla in dutch)

o    200 g cultivated mushrooms

o    ½ bunch watercress

o    40 g pine nuts

·         Vinaigrette

o    50 ml wine vinegar

o    10 ml truffle juice

o    100 ml hazelnut oil’

o    100 ml pigeon jus

o    S&P

1.     Prepare the pigeon

a.    Cut the feet & wings, keep wings for jus

b.    Cut the back open

c.    Make incision in throat, take spine with fingers, cut at end of neck

d.    Take out intestines with fingers from the back, keep the liver and the heart

e.    Take out pockets in the neck that contain grain, do not open or damage them, they stink

f.     Remove fat pockets in the back

g.    Remove lungs

h.    Cut off the tail, (croupion in french)

i.      Take off the glants (located at the back side of the pigeons back, smells horrible)

j.     Cut excess neck skin

k.    Remove the wish bone and make a wish

2.     Put veal stock in a casserole to reduce by ½

3.     Brown the pigeon in sauté pan with duck fat

a.    Season inside with salt & pepper

b.    Put in oven 180 °C for 10 minutes

c.    Let it rest, keep the pan

4.     Cut up the pigeon in 4 parts, 2 legs and 2 breast/wing parts

a.    Put cutted carcasses and trimmings in sauté pan (3)

b.    Debone legs, take out upper bone, cut around joint, french upper part of lower bone, cut with cleaver.  French under side of lower bone

c.    Add bones to sauté pan with trimmings

d.    Add legs and breasts, skin side down, put on high heat

e.    Turn, add liver, put on low heat

f.     Take out breasts and legs, put on warm place under alu foil, covered with butter, should become pink

5.     Make the sauce

a.    Cut shallot, onions and carrot mirepoix

b.    Add to sauté pan with trimmings, cook

c.    Strain the fat

d.    Deglaze pan with vinegar

e.    Out back garnisch & trimmings

f.     Add some veal stock (not in recipe) or water

g.    Let it cook as long as possible under paper lid on low heat

h.    Strain the sauce

i.      Add vinegar to deglaze, scrape

j.     Add hazelnut oil

k.    Add truffeljus

l.      Strain through same chinois, press well

m.  Reduce to right consistancy

n.    Add fluid from resting pigeons    

6.     Roast pine nuts

7.     Cut white part of mushroom in cubes

a.    sweat in peanut oil

b.    keep until use on warm place

8.     Wash watercress & lamb lettuce, put in bowl

a.    add vinegar 1/3, add olive oil 2/3

b.    season S&P

Plating:

·         Put watercress salads in pastry ring

·         Put pigeon legs on side

·         Cut pigeon breast in slices and put on top of salad

·         Add mushrooms on side

·         Cover mushroom with vinaigrette sauce

·         Put pine nuts around

·         Cut liver in 2, put on plate

Salade de pigeon parisienne

Salmis de canard et cabouillade

Biscuit roulé, ricotta et mandarins

Thomas, Victoria and Jennifer enjoying Pigeon

Tuesday we made a roulade from goats cheese, a pie filled with guinea fowl (parelhoen) and ravioli made from pineapple. Excellent dish if you would make it without cilantro (koriander).

11.00h out class foto was taken:

Goat cheese roulade

Guinea Fowl Pie

Pineapple raviolis

Intermediate cuisine Nov-Dec 2011

Weekend at school and the Versailles market

Saturday was a normal school day , not so bad with first a practical starting 12.30h where we made the Chicken recipe from Gaston Gerard, this is a typical Burgundy recipe with Dyon mustard and Comté cheese. We made it with herb blinis.
After pratical demonstratio where chef Thivet made as a starter: Chicken salad with apples and mustard. For main dish: Stuffed sea bream fillet (dorade) wrapped in lettuce leaves, and as desert: Mirliton with apricots and rosemary. 18.00 we were done.

Chicken salad

Sea bream

Mirliton

Hiroshi wants fish

Nancy helping chef Thivet

 Celebrating an intensive week we first went for a beer with the guys at "Le Commerce" . It was a good week and we evaluated the first week. As you can see below we had fun. André, a very nice guy from Brasil invitd all of us over for a drink at his house, but as i had already promised to go to have dinner with Audrey, Satoka and Nancy (yes, dinner with 3 women), i could unfortunately not go to André's place. Ilse had planned to join as well, but as her neighbours had a party going on until 6.00h am. she had not slept very much last night, so she was desperate to goo early to bed. Dinner was al Hez Janou, http://www.chezjanou.com/ , a very nice but small bistro near place de la bastille. Audrey was sure that no reservations were needed, but that was not the case anymore. There were no seats left, fully booked, but as we suggested we might eat outside, they still made a reservation for us. Incredable, 19th of November: eating outside, it was a very nice evening.
Nancy got completely lost so she joined about an hour later. Nancy and I had a risotto made from grains with scallops. We both agrees the recipe would hav been much better with normal risotto as the grain risotto overpowered the delicate taste of the excellent made scallops. Audrey and Satoko had duck breast with rosemary sauce. Excellent dish with an amazing sauce. Unfortunately both duck breasts were burned outside, but inside they were nice red to pink. (Why not use the Oven i woudl suggest to the chef???).
As Audrey lives literaly around the corner, we travelled home together and i was home round 1.00h, not too bad. I wonder how the rest did at André's.

The guys at "Le Commerce"

Sunday i was awake early as usual. Juliëtte has a problem with her computer so i wrote long e-mail with instructions how to solve it. In the evening i found out it was her i-pad, so i could have saved my time on the solution i thought out at 7.00 am. First to the market at Dupleix. Grabbed a baguette and than straight to Versailles to go to Notre dame market. I was there round 11.00h. Nice market  with lots of local produce.

At the market i bought myself a picknick (baguette, chorizo and water (€ 2,75 all together) to eat in the gardens of chateau de Versailles. It was a wondefull day, full of sunshine, bleu sky. I was in a good mood so i decided to WALK to le grand Trianon, the palace of Marie-Antoinette. What a mistake that was. It is a far too long walk for a guy with a walking limitation like me and if you have seen chateau Versailles before, disappointing. Luckily i can get in for free, using my magic card. The walk literaly killed my feet, so had to take the train back. I stumbled over the doorstep of my appartement 16.30h and went straight to bed to give my feet some rest. By 18.30h i was recoverd , made dinner (a chinese version of the chicken i took from practise, without the cheese ofcourse), it was very good, but simple aacording to LCb standards. Evening doing my homework for school. To bed 1.15h as i have to wake up 6.45h.