Easter pie....
Cock, eh, coq au vin day - first the demo, then the practical.
Started early at 8.30 with chef Caals.
He was in a good mood and joked around a lot.
The starter was interesting: Easter pate. Since today is Thanksgiving (that is some kind of a big $$$$ day in a certain country - not in Europe!), the easter dish was 'very appropriate'. Next was the coq en barbouille (whatever that means) and a pear and walnut tart. All in all, not bad.
chicken - no coq !
The coq. Well, this time we were in for a surprise - it wasn't a coq - it was a bloody CHICKEN! Main reason: The cooking time of a rooster is 2.5x longer then the cooking time of a chicken. No,no,no, a chicken is a lot cheaper...... it's (also) about euro's! (is the general thought in class)
Coq or chicken au vin is easy. Marinade the 8 pieces of chicken wine and cognac with lots of berries and veggie's (preferably overnight), Fry the coq, make a very reduced sauce, garnish it with soft onions/vinegar, blanched and fried lardons, a slice of bread fried in clarified butter and put a parsley leaf on top. Easy peasy! I did well, although the sauce should have been a bit thicker. (Chef: 'It's not a jus, it's a sauce.' - but then in French)
Speaking of the thickness of the sauce - we could make the sauce thicker with either using starch (in a bit of water) or blood. And yes, we had two full bottles of perfect nice very bright red blood in the classroom. The blood would thicking the sauce perfectly, but it would also make it look a lot better - read: darker = black. As it should be. I did mine with the starch solution.
Later that day - the cafe; 2 beers and a plate of nice ham/salami etc later, we decided to open my coq-container and eat it. Had a few pieces, and threw the rest in the 'bin' and flushed it. sorry about that.
Marc
Xavier, Frederic et Patrick
encore Bruno
Marc
