NOT happy

I'm not mad, necessarily. I'm just not happy today. We had a practice practical exam today, paired with another person (in the real one, we won't be paired). There were a lot of problems today. First, the chicken was frozen, so when we cut it the skin shrunk. The bain marie got kind of pushed to the back, so our sauce and soup were cold. The oven we used wasn't on, so our plates weren't warm when we got food on them. I sauteed the zucchini in the chicken juices, which made it taste good but there was too much liquid and they were squishy. The picture above is the meal. I was proud of the plating, which I came up with, but other than that...unhappy. The good that came out of it is this: I learned what worked and what didn't. I know what needs to be done first and what doesn't need to be done until the last minute. And I know what to watch out for when we actually do the practical. Oh, and I learned that while I'm undersalting on purpose (I like a lot more salt than most people do), the food is still not salted enough. Oh, and the potatoes are quenelles. They're little diamondy shapes. I'm rather proud of those. I think plating was the only thing that chef actually thought was noticeable on our team. Maybe the sauce too.

Vinaigrette

Menu

Composed mediterranean salad with vinaigrette (Mine)

Turned zucchini

Turned potatoes

Tomato sauce

Stuffed chicken leg and thigh

Chicken consomme

Today Dad and I both ended up on vinaigrette, and I'm telling you we do not plan these things. They just happen. Mine was decent, his looked like mayonnaise, but still tasted good (he had to thin it out a bit). I was kinda...off today. Felt a little floaty and weird all day long. Dunno why. But the food tasted okay, we need to have a better idea for plating before we go into this, and I dislike stuffed chicken a little bit. I'm not entirely sure why, but I very much prefer tasting just chicken and sauce. In any case, I now have pictures off to the right of Chefs Adam and Rebecca. It was from our wine tasting today, which I will post some thoughts about as well.

Pomme anna

Menu

Chicken consomme

Stuffed chicken leg and thigh (stuffed with mousseline in half and olive/bread stuffing in the other on Team A)

Braised leek

Pomme anna (potatoes anna, explanation below)

Mushroom sauce

Composed salad

Kay, so my contribution today was the pomme anna. Basically you get some clarified butter in a pan. Make thin slices of potato and layer them into the pan in a rosette, weight it down, cook until crisped on the bottom, and flip it. You then get it back into the pan (and this was not an easy task, believe me), and cook that side. You take it out, let it cool so the starches in the potatoes can seal themselves and make a crispy potato...pancake...thing. After it's cool, you can cut it and heat it back up in the oven to serve. I think it came out okay, but it needed salt. For the rest: I don't like leek that squishy. It tasted fine, but bleh on texture. I LOVED the mushroom sauce, loved it. The chicken was good, but nothing spectacular. The skins weren't as nicely crispy as I'dve liked. Dunno why really, I think it just got served too chilly. The consomme was very good. I love clear soups (as I think I mentioned yesterday) and the flavor on Team B's was nice. I liked it quite a bit. Oh, and the salad was good. Composed its where you have all the ingredients and componenets all separated out so the person eating it can mix it the way they like.

Piggy...

I'll get to the menu in a minute. I got to cut up a piggy today! Not the whole one, we had ribs and loin. But it was still pretty cool, that was one of my favorite things ever. Tomorrow we take apart a chicken for a grade. Nervous about that one, I wasn't great at chicken. Anyway.

Menu
Braised pork loin (Mine for today)
Turned steamed potatoes (see tourne on 1.19.09)
Turned glazed carrots
Lentil soup with applewood smoked bacon
Salad with vinaigrette (see a pattern? Check pics for differences)

The way the pork was cooked wasn't ideal for the cut of meat. The loin isn't all that tough and braising is for tough meat, generally. So it was a little more tough than I'd have liked (overcooked texture). I braised it in coffee and chicken stock, which turned out better than I'dve thought, but the meat didn't taste of coffee. The sauce did a bit, but I'm thinking a little more coffee in the future (or at least more grounds in satchels). I do like cooking with coffee though. It's...temperamental, so it's a challenge. ^_^ The veg came out good, I liked the other side's carrot glaze. I'm rather fond of sweet veggies, so that was nice (two days in a row, even). Potatoes were good, about like yesterday. Kinda like mini mashed potatoes. I like tourne, it just takes a lot of work to get it right. The soups were pretty good too. I'm not fond of soup, in general. I don't really like eating it, I don't really like making it, but I'll try it. As a rule, I like the clear ones, more like broths and consommes than anything. I like Japanese clear soups very much. Oh, and miso even though it doesn't count. But stuff with chunks in it? Just not my thing. So I'm a little biased. Maybe Dad can give a better idea of the soup, he really likes them.

Tourne

No, this is not my team's main dish. This is Team B's, I'm on A this week. But I wanted to show the tournes and theirs was visible and looked better.


Menu
Pork loin
Potato tourne (which is a seven sided round shape, you'll see it)
Sweet glazed turnip tourne
Salad (this'll be pretty standard)
Cannellini bean soup (my contribution)
Apricot demi glace


Pretty happy with the soup other than the beans being slightly undercooked (which I personally like). Wasn't all that happy with the teamwork. We didn't do so well today, and I know we can do better. Tomorrow we have another practical, pretty sure tourne will be on it, and a similar menu. Our group leader has put us on a sort of rotation, so tomorrow I'm on grill. Or whatever meat product we end up with. Oh, and today the meat was dry, so I was sad.