If God Is A Lobster...

Then I'm in trouble.

A few weeks ago we had to prepare a dish called "Lobster A L'Americaine", which is pretty much lobster with a tarragon sauce.  No big deal, right?  Yeah, no big deal...except for the fact that the lobster was obviously still alive when we got it!

Here are a few pictures of the chef in demo showing us how to um...take care of...the delicious little sea creature.  The chef's suggestion?  Make sure not to remove the rubber bands until after the lobster is dead.  

We were supposed to force the knife straight down behind the head and push forward to kill it before cutting it in half.  Hm...exactly what I want to be doing at 08:30 in the morning.  Not only did I have to fight to keep the thing on my board because it kept trying to move away from me (I wonder why??), but I'm sad to report that he definitely suffered because I didn't hit it in the right spot the first time.  Whoops.  Why couldn't we just throw them in a pot of boiling water?  I definitely wouldn't have screwed that one up.

Here is a picture of the aftermath...

I think I was cursed from that point on because my practical didn't go as I well as I had hoped it would.  The chef said my lobster was overcooked (which I didn't necessarily agree with), the rice was undercooked (definitely true), and the sauce that I worked so hard to perfect was ruined at the last minute because I added too much coral (the reproductive organs from the lobster that acts as a thickening agent...yummy).  We also didn't have to plate this dish so I don't have proof of my catastrophe. 

The chef's plate from demo

Oh well, not my best performance, but it's the first time I've ever really dealt with lobster by myself, so I've learned from my mistakes.  Perhaps I'll let someone else do the dirty work next time...

Remember the ballotine from my birthday?  Well, get excited because it's time to reveal the after pictures!  After stuffing it, we had to wrap the beast in lots of plastic wrap, poach it in court bouillon, and let it sit overnight.  In the next practical, we had to clarify the court bouillon, add gelatin and serve it cold.  Pretty disgusting, but fun to make!  We could also decorate the aspic with blanched vegetables, so I worked FOR-E-VER on a tomato and leek rose, only to have it get covered up by the ballotine because the chef made us use tiny bowls for plating.  The nerve!

Next up, a dish that was affectionately known as "meat pie" because, well, that's literally all it is.  In class, people kept joking that this guinea fowl tart seemed more like something that would be consumed in a roadside tavern en route to the Crusades, washed down with a glass of mead.  The chef in practical told us that the dish has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, and it is actually the type of pie that bakers and pastry chefs used to make before switching over to sweet treats.

                                           

The picture below does not really do this next dish justice.  It is a trout stuffed with morel mushrooms and braised in Riesling wine.  It looks pretty simple below, but let me tell you, trout sucks.  It has sooo many teeny, tiny bones that the chef neglected to tell us about in demo.  So, I walked in that morning ready to fillet yet another fish, until I actually cut the stupid thing open and realized it was going to be much more difficult than I originally anticipated.  All went well with the dish, and fortunately the chef only looked at the fish and didn't actually taste it because I can guarantee he would have gotten a bone.  I took this piece home, but kept Jonathan on the phone with me while I ate it because I was so paranoid that I was going to choke on a trout bone.  Not that he could have done anything about it on another continent, but it was comforting anyway.  The best part all of this?  Word on the street is that this is definitely going to be an option for our final exam.  Looks like I'm going to be buy a whole lotta trout in the next month!

Next up, I have a couple of examples illustrating a serious issue that I've had the past couple of weeks: plating!  Basic was pretty easy because we were actually supposed to replicate the plating that chef showed us in demo.  In intermediate, however, they obviously expect more from us, and that equates to more creativity with our plating.  Hm, well...creativity and artistic ability are not two of my stronger points, so, let's just say I desperately need to channel my inner artist.

Sometimes I surprise myself and end up with beauties like this:

Bordeaux-Style duck breast with potato and bacon rounds -- DELICIOUS!

I got a "très jolie!" from the chef on this one, and I was pretty proud of myself! 

A few weeks later, however, I produced this...

Lamb fillet with peppermint jus, along with a mushroom, spinach, and tomato side dish

I suppose it could look worse, but the chef went a little bit crazy on me saying that it was too condensed to the center of the plate and I needed to spread it out.  At first I was a bit annoyed, but he was totally right!  What was I thinking??  There was a lot of great stuff on that plate that I could have played around with.  He said that the flavors and seasonings were good, so I guess I had the difficult part correct, right?  Anyway, yes, I am going to be working very hard on my plating and creativity from now on.  Watch out!

This traditional dish is called coq en barbouille, and it is essentially beef bourguignon made with rooster...and thickened with blood.  True story.  We had to reduce the sauce, bring it to a boil, then add the pig blood.  Eww!  Although I couldn't taste it at all because I added very little, I still couldn't bring myself to take this meal home.  Also, in practical, we made the recipe with chicken instead of rooster because apparently rooster takes at least 6 hours to cook.

And, last but not least, below is a picture of the most recent dish that I've prepared.  It is a braised lamb with potatoes and onions.  We didn't actually have to plate it because the chef said it is typically served family style, and it was pretty darn delicious!  The potatoes fell apart because I boiled them at the beginning rather than quickly poaching them.  C'est la vie!

So, there ya have it.  Y'all are all caught up on the cuisine dishes that I've prepared so far.  Overall, I would say this session has been going well.  I'll admit that I definitely haven't knocked every recipe out of park, but I feel that I have improved over last semester, which is the important part!

 Random side note, I passed this dog walking to class the other night and he just cracked me up.  Don't you ever wish you could just lay out on the sidewalk and relax every once in a while?

Also, in the spirit of Valentine's Day, I'll leave y'all with a cute window display I passed the other day.  Love it!

- a tout à l’heure!