News about our practical exam dishes.

The list is in - no real surprises. It just means I have to study recipes a bit now. The written exam is next Wednesday and the practical exam is another week later.

The latter is all about roasted duck, stuffed salman, fish stew, guinea fowl (pan roasted or stuffed), monkfish, stuffed rabbit, chicken sautee, lamb fillets and stuffed trout. The technical dish is a bearnaise sauce (Cuisine de Base, can't remember, I have to look that up....)
Please read it out loud in French - now it sounds a lot better and nicer !

Long, long, last demo of the week - nice dinner though!

Our last demo today was all about the Languedoc region. This time chef made a salt cod puree with a tapenade for a starter, a traditional white bean stew (cassoulet prepare comme a Toulouse) for the main course and for dessert a apricot and figs gratin with lavender honey / oh yeah!
Well, the chef had quite a few relevant and irrelevant ´petite histoires´ in this session, but the end/result was actually very good. The stew was super (lots of work / we´ll do that next Monday), but timewise it was very long session. We finished nearly half an hour late - but hey - the stew was good! Can´t complain about that. Thank you chef and bon week-end!

big stew

dessert

starter

Chef portioning the white bean stew - that was a nice early dinner before we went to the cafe for a few beers.

Happy birthday Katie !

Today was Katie's birthday. Congratulations ! We're in the same class and right before the last demo today, I asked chef Marc Thivet to make one extra dessert for Katie's birthday. Marc did a nice job - merci chef !

Chopping lots of fish - bouillabaisse !

blog, blogspot, Cordon Bleu, Intermediate Cuisine, Paris, SjoerdAfter yesterday's demo about the bouillabaisse, it was now time to chop up the fish ourselves. First I went to the cafe (7.30 am) on the corner for two espresso's, had a chat with chef Patrick (in Franglais, interesting) and was at school before 8 'o clock. Since I was still assistent, I was there early because there was actually quite a bit of work to be done; 3 big trays of different kinds of fish, a tray of general ingredients and 2 trays of veggies had to come from the basement to our kitchen on the second floor; but my co-assistent didn't show up this morning...... he was in class, but not early enough to set up the stuff. %$#@ ! Well, I got it all out on time with a bit of help from James and off we went... Today, there were only 9 of us, one didn't feel like chopping up fish on an early morning I guess....

Today's dish; this is my creation.

chop,chop,chop,chop ! veggies, fish, rinse, chop more veggies, filled the fish, remove all the pinbones, deseed and skin tomato's, chop more fish, sweat the stuff, cut fishbones and pop the eyes, remove gills of the suckers without getting hurt, brown the fishbones, chop more veggies, add water, add tomato puree, add more tomato puree, slice potato on a mandolin and slice off some skin as well (idiota!), cut onions, crush garlic, clean the blood (of your finger) on the chopping board, and clean the blood again 20 seconds later, and above all: add lots (and I mean lots) of saffron! To cut a lot story short - we made bouillabaisse.

Not a bad dish, but a lot of work. My result was sort of OK, the liquid was just a bit too thin. Too bad, better luck next time. The fish was cooked to perfection though! (If I may say so myself.)

King of Chinoix - strain/sieve the soup!

Plating the dish at the end. Everything looks yellow from the saffron.

Merci Karine Carroy for your translations!

Today, it was Karine's last day of translating chef's work/explanations in our cuisine class. Karine normally works at the reception desk and she is not a professional translator, but since quite a few translators are currently unavailable, she was doing this job on the side; Thank you for a good job over the last few days - today's session was slow, but a lot of fun in the end. As chef Thivet would say: Bon travail ! (et aussi avec une petite histoire...) Thanks.

Karine with chef Patrick.