A blog about my culinary experiences in Paris and around the world.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

First Restaurant Service...


Wednesday evening and Thursday afternoon, both Anglo groups prepared our first restaurant service. It was a great experience to know the life of the kitchen, but it's definitely hectic when your plate is up and you have to make sure of the timing, especially the dish that goes to the dining room before you!
Despite several cuts and burns (a normal outcome of the day), I had a lot of fun, I was excited about the opportunity and despite certain times of stress, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience.

Dining room before service
Anglo B's menu as follows:

1. Amuse-Bouche: Veloute de champignons, espumas de lard fume, brunoises de cepes (Isabel)

Getting ready for plating



2. Le saumon (fume, marine, rillettes) (Carolina, Natalia and Sinan)

Hard at work in the garde-manger




3. Pave de lieu noir, au coco de Paimpol, vinaigrette de jus de volaille et balsamique (Maniko, Yi Yu, Matan and Joppe)





4. Filets de Canette et sa cuisse en Pastilla, Jus Court aux Epices, Gratin de Topinambours (Rosella, Roberto, Dionisis and Me)


Showing us how to burn off the duck feathers


Preparing the demi-glace for the duck...Loving this picture!
Final presentation of the canard

Very tiring last 2 days but an unforgettable experience...can't wait for more!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Alain Senderens/Hors D'oeuvre Froids

Last night, I was invited to dine at Alain Senderens (formerly known as Lucas Carton), a 3-star Michelin restaurant headed by Alain Senderens himself in the 8th arrondissement and arguably one of the 'founding fathers' of nouvelle cuisine in France. I read last week in Gayot that the chef himself wanted to renounce his stars as he wanted to simplify his cooking and reduce the average check to about 100 euros. 


I was not an immense fan of the restaurant decor. Once you go through the glass doors, you are met by red lights in the restaurant almost like a lounge/club adorned with long mirrors and flowery furniture. We sat upstairs in the second dining room which was well lit, more quiet and decorated in solid light colors such as yellow and green. The service, unfortunately was a bit slow, perhaps too informal for a 3-star Michelin restaurant and I think too overstaffed, as many were standing around and chit-chatting while I was trying to wave my hand to get their attention. But they were friendly and attentive once you caught their eye, the sommelier too was very knowledgable and recommended well-priced and a suitable wine for our meal: 2001 Saint-Emilion (Chateau Milens).


I wasn't expecting any overseas influence in his cuisine but was surprised to see a cast of mediterranean and asian (particularly Japanese) ingredients in almost every single dish at the table. We were a party of 4 and 2 of us wanted to get the tasting menu, but apparently, if one customer ordered it then all customers at the table had to do the same; so we opted for a la carte instead - which I thought was a great decision!
The dishes are well-portioned for their price and the plating was simple yet colorful.


First Amuse-Bouche: Pasta with minced shallots and caviar accompanied by a jus
Starters:

Crusty langoustines, coriander and herbs

Thick slice of half-smoked salmon, shredded celery with remoulade sauce and radish "au caviar des champs"
Sweet Cevennes onions, garden peas with perfect yellow egg, crispy bacon
Main Courses:

Filet of duckling, marinated 18 hours in Sake, fresh figs and sultanas

Traditional French veal and langoustine tartare served with Chinese noodles  and an Italian Parmeggiano Reggiano parmesan 


Crusty whiting "with fresh and cooked" cep mushrooms 
Dessert:

Selection of ice-creams and sorbets

Final Amuse-Bouches:






Bourbon gelee with taro and apple cream

Dark chocolate tarte and Apple filled custard





Overall, a good meal!


Alain Senderens
9, Place De La Madeleine, 75008
Metro: Madeleine
01 42 65 22 90

Today in class we continued with les hors d'oeuvre froids greek style (but more french style).
We had to cut artichokes, zucchinis, baby mushrooms, baby carrots, celeriac, pearl onions, and cauliflower with sultanas and cook them separately with diced onions, garlic, white wine and some water with herbs and coriander grains and then put them in the blast freezer to be served cold. The end result tasted great! Though I have to remember to put more cooked sauce! 

Chef turning artichokes - be careful in the middle there are spikes!

Vegetables a la grecque

Roberto loving his mini-carrots





It was a bit more hectic in the kitchen this morning but good in preparation for tomorrow - DINNER SERVICE (hopefully I'll have time to take quick pics, but if not forgive me!)



Pâte a Choux

Yesterday was a rather lenient day with our pastry class, but it was freezing in pastry class with all the fridges and the room set at a lower temperature than the average kitchen of course.

We made Pâte a Choux (pastry dough) used to make profiteroles and eclairs. It's a lot of fun making them but I definitely need practice as mine did not come out as perfect as Chefs. You really got to have the right consistency because you don't want them too skinny like noodles or too chubby like a banana...and don't overcook them as they turn dark brown (mine were a little light colored for my taste)

To make Pâte a Choux, you need to melt butter in a pan with water, sugar and salt and then incorporate little by little the eggs while beating the mixture (and making sure you don't cook the eggs!), a yellow doughy mixture should come about and it should be fluffy (to the point that when you dip your finger, the dough is soft that it curls a little bit.


Then you put the mixture in a douille (piping bag) and push out your mixture on a buttered baking pan (this is probably the hardest part!). Then baking time of about 20 minutes until golden brown and the bottom not too burned out and you set them aside while you make the cream filling.

Chef Thierry's perfect piping skills
Brushing a little butter before oven time....

Ready!
To realize the cream, in one bowl you heat up milk (making sure it doesn't burn), while in another, you beat eggs with sugar and then pastry flour and then add all mixtures together to get a yellowish cream that is spread out on a baking sheet and chilled in the fridge. 



Afterwards you can either add chocolate or coffee flavored liquid to the mixture. It is then piped into the pastry dough (which has been poked with entry holes at the bottom so THAT'S how they get the cream inside! and that's it!

The sweetest part of the dessert is probably the glaze at the top - I used coffee again because I found chocolate too sweet!

We also quickly made them with chantilly inside!

                         

My little baby of a creation :)

Pâte a Choux family photo



The whole family
It was a good day, but I did feel a bit sick at the end from eating little bits and pieces on the way...very dangerous!



Sunday, September 26, 2010

BBQ Galore

What happens when you round up 15 culinary students and 20 bottles of wine? A feast of course!
Maniko, Eddie and Bali invited the Anglos over for a BBQ dinner and luckily we were graced by the sun and some clouds (without rain!) on a beautiful balcony!




Snacking starts early
There was food for every palette: kimchi, saucissons, salami, salad, cheese, bread, salsa, chips, grilled meat (pork chops, beef, veal chops, chicken, beef patties), grilled vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, onions), and of course dessert (cakes, biscuits and chocolate souffle)! Who could forget the alcohol (red, white, rose, shoju) and shisha to top it all off!

A glimpse at some of the grilled meats
Letting Eddie relax at the bbq - just for a bit! :)


Matan and his new best friend Bali

Dionisis and his sous-chefs Maniko and Nicole preparing Chocolate Souffles
Dessert time!

Getting rowdy: Marysol, Natalia, Maniko, Isabel and I


Big Thanks to Maniko, Eddie and Bali again for welcoming us to their home and for being great hosts. We all had an awesome time! 




Bali - (who ended up with a huge fan club at the end of the night!)


A new week starts tomorrow with our first dinner/lunch service on Wednesday and Thursday and then the Regional Menu of Normandie. Busy Busy Busy! But tomorrow, a sweet start with pastry class!

Friday, September 24, 2010

Crudités Variés

Today we moved onto cold hors-d'oeuvres with raw vegetables. Most were thinly sliced if not cut in julienne seasoned with different vinaigrettes or sauce mayonnaise.

Love the colors of the various tomatoes


The boys loving the sliced fennel with vinaigrette that Chef prepared for demo. 

We did an assortment of vegetables today:
- Carottes à la julienne: orange, blanche (white), jaune (yellow) et violette (yes...purple!) seasoned with salt, pepper, oil and dark vinegar
- Celeri (celery) rave à la julienne with mayonnaise (1 egg yolk, salt, pepper, mustard, ground nut oil and a little lemon juice whisked together)
- Radis (radish) taillés en fleur (shaped like a flower)
- Tomates mondés (skinned tomatoes) à la vinaigrette with thinly diced échalottes (shallots)
- Concombres (Cucumber) with crème fraiche and chopped ciboulette (chives)
- Choux rouge (Red cabbage) with vinaigre blanc (white vinegar)
- Feuille de Chaine (lettuce)


Can't believe it's already been a week since I first started at Ferrandi...time passes by so fast but loving every minute of it!

Next week is our first dinner/lunch service...it's going to be intense but well worth the wait! TGIF! Now...time to party!




Thursday, September 23, 2010

A Servir Très Frais

Today we explored the world of agrumes (citrus fruits) and practiced our taillage (cuts) on limes, lemons, oranges, pomelos and grapefruits.

We made a gelée out of the citrus fruits but forgot to take a picture...my bad! But in the meantime...

Refreshing drink made from cut orange, pomelo and grapefruit supreme and their juices, grenadine, tonic water, lime zest....just need the vodka and we're set!
Orange carpaccio with fresh juice, shallots, coriander, sesame oil, olive oil, salt - which can be served with raw fish/seafood
Orange and Lemon Basket - possibly putting fresh fish seafood on the top
I also had a video of how Chef made the basket but the website can't upload it for some reason. After I get it fixed, I'll post it!


But we also smoked salmon (from scratch!) by putting the whole piece on a grill in an oven where below there is smoked wood and egg carton pieces - for a couple of hours.


Chef (below left) putting hetre in the cocotte with some torn egg cartons and burning it (below right) just before going into the oven. 



Salmon is ready to go (below left) and in the oven with a bucket of ice underneath to keep cool and the smoking cocotte right at the bottom. 



End Result:

Smoked salmon

The salmon is then put in an air-tight vacuumed bag until serving

Tada! Smoked Salmon