Friday 27 August 2010

Graduation

So, here it is. The final day of the diploma course August 2010. I was quite sad today. No more legitimate excuses to overindulge. Now it's just pigging out and feeling guilty about it. Day 20 has come around so quickly. It seems like just yesterday, we were starting out, with Darrin introducing us to what's coming up. The final menu consisted of making sushi in the morning, the 45 minute exam after lunch, certificate presentation, then photographs and farewells. Joe and Phil were with us for the last day.

The first order of the day was for Joe to show us how to make sushi. It's a common mistake that people make to think that the word sushi means raw fish. Sushi is actually the name of the rice used. Sashimi is raw fish. We used salmon and loin of tuna. Tuna fish swim with dolphins because their main predator is sharks, who are scared of dolphins, so the dolphins act as kind of bodyguards for the tuna. The reason you often see 'dolphin friendly' on tuna cans is because some tuna is caught by using nets, which catch the dolphins too. Then the fishermen often sell the dolphin meat on the black market. We used grade A tuna which cost £60! The higher the grade in tuna, the tighter the flesh fibres are knitted together. You should use grade A when making sashimi as otherwise when you cut the tuna, it will just fall apart and be no good for your meal.

We made a textured egg pancake, which was just made of egg yolks, but really thin layers which were then rolled over and over each other. It was used in our sashimi making and can be used for vegetarian sushi as all of the layers imitate the layers of fish and also give you protein. Cooking sushi rice is an art in itself. You have to let it gently simmer for 13 minutes precisely once boiled and then take it off the heat to steam for 10 minutes, leaving the lid on at all times. Then spread it out on a tray to cool it down immediately, to stop bacteria growing on it and making you ill. Phew!

After Joe showed us what to do, we were let loose to play. Sushi making is really fun and once you get going, you can whip them up rather speedily. We made maki which uses tuna, cucumber, egg pancake and red pepper, Californian rolls which use salmon and avocado strips, and nigiri which are sushi rice balls/ovals which are tied together with nori (strips of dried seaweed 'paper'). You can put wasabi in the rolls if you wish, but I didn't want to as it's so strong and really hits your sinuses hard. I had a tiny bit on a bit of raw tuna which Phil gave me and boy, was it hot!!! After lunch, Jonny had a large pea sized amount of wasabi. Big mistake!! He went bright red and was coughing and didn't look good! Evil stuff, wasabi.





















We also made a teriyaki marinade for the rabbit loins that we had taken off Bugs Bunny previously in the course. We pan fried the loins on skewers and then reduced some extra marinade to go yummy and sticky. So then it was time for the final lunch.

Maki, Californian rolls, nigiri, a teriyaki rabbit skewer, soy sauce, pickled ginger and wasabi

I didn't eat the wasabi- I put it on the plate just for decoration. That much wasabi would blow my head off! Did you know that the Japanese eat pickled ginger in between different flavours to act as a palate cleanser? I really enjoyed the sushi and sashimi. I've only had sushi once before and can't really remember it, but I've decided that I do like it. Delightful. The rabbit teriyaki skewer was absolutely delicious too. I love teriyaki anything. Yum yum yum! Whilst we were eating, Joe and Phil were outside the dining room- it kind of looked like we were exhibits at a zoo and they were visiting us!

After lunch, it was exam time! I had revised a bit the night before and had read my theory notes as I got them as a bit of bedtime reading, so I thought I'd do alright. It wasn't too bad actually and I got 85 out of 100! Joe said that anything over 76 was first class. Woohoo!! I wasn't bottom of the class and I wasn't top. Margaret got 90.5. Well done MGT! Then we had our certificates presented to us, along with a snazzy apron and it was time to say goodbye and go home.

So, that's it. 20 days of intense cookery knowledge and experience. Completely worth the money and time and I'm so glad that I did it. Diploma: done. Now what?!!

I'd like to thank everyone taking the time to read my blog and hope you've enjoyed it. I've definitely enjoyed rambling on about this nut and that scone. Just the way I am! I'm going to keep this blog going, updating it with different things I make (but only if it's photo-worthy!) But probably not everyday. My everyday life isn't as exciting as it has been for the past month! Maybe a weekly blog. And I'll update about anything cookery related that I do, for example, hopefully my journey of cracking into the culinary world professionally!

Here's to the diploma course of August 2010. It's been a fantastic month!

Thursday 26 August 2010

And now, the end is near...

...and so I face the final curtain...

The penultimate day of the cookery course brought Stuart back to teach us one last time. It was good to see him- we hadn't had him for 3 weeks as he'd been on holiday. He said that we all looked at bit fatter. I really hope not! But I fear that he may be right...September is definitely diet month for me!

So, day 19 was Mediterranean Day. It was quite a light day, not too strenuous. Maybe the chefs were giving us a break as it was almost the end of an intensive month and from the past two manic days. On the menu was tapas for lunch and a Morrocan lamb tagine with minted couscous for supper, followed by a honey and greek yogurt panna cotta with roasted figs for pudding. Stuart showed us how to make the panna cotta, then we prepared the marinade for the lamb and we got cracking with the tapas. We made four different things. A Spanish tortilla/omelette, orange and red onion salad, tiger prawns with a rosemary and anchovy butter and shrimp fritters. Yum yum.


The salad was very different from a typical salad you'd expect. It had red onions, orange segments, sunflower seeds, raspberry vinegar, sultanas and almonds. I really liked the raspberry flavour, but I don't particularly like raw onion. The shrimp fritters were really good and the prawns with the anchovy butter were fabulous. The tortilla was fantastic too. Lots of nice flavours. We had a little pudding too- Donna and James' left over puddings. Chocolate pots and chocolate cointreau mousse. They were divine. Especially when combined on the spoon.

After lunch, we were allowed to play with tuilles. Tuilles are basically thin biscuits that are used to garnish a dish, usually puddings, although you can get savoury ones. Stuart said that he once did veal tuilles to go with a main course. I played around and made some shapes- some ready made shapes and some freehand. I made a spoon and a knife by myself, but couldn't do the complete cutlery set as a fork was just too difficult. Maybe I'll create my own stencils to make some really good looking cutlery?!

We started the tagine and put it in the oven to slow cook and break down the meat and bring out all the different flavours whilst we were having a revision session in the afternoon. Stuart made the mistake of giving us some big pots of chocolate buttons to help us revise and give us a sugar rush to wake us up. They didn't last long. The purpose of the revision session was to review any bits of theory over the course and to prepare us for the FIFTY QUESTION EXAM tomorrow afternoon!!!! Poor Stuart, he kept trying to move on from each theory section and we kept throwing questions at him. He handled it well though. We also had a cheese quiz. I only got a few answers right, including one about yarg cheese. Going to university in Cornwall has paid off! (I'm only joking- I loved my time at uni) Anyhoo, then we went into the kitchen to finish our tagines and prepare the couscous.


Moroccan lamb tagine with minted couscous

I don't think I've ever had a tagine before, but i really liked it. Lovely flavours- it was delicious. I even liked the dried soaked apricots which were in there and I normally hate that kind of thing. I would definitely make it again.

Before pudding, I shall give you the answers to the wine quiz that I gave you yesterday.

1. There are over 10,000 wine grape varieties existing in the world today. Can you believe that?!

2. It takes about 600 grapes to make a standard bottle of wine.

3. Italy is the world's largest producer of wine. It overtook France in 2008 and produces just under 10 billion litres of vino a year. Wow!

Pudding was also delicious. Greek yogurt and honey panna cotta with orangey roasted figs and tuille biscuits. The panna cotta was very silky smooth and the figs were wonderful. I loved the orangey syrup that we made to go with it too. The tuilles were great and gave a different texture to break up the smoothness of the panna cotta and soft figs. Unfortunately, my biscuit spoon broke in the heat of the kitchen and made it go a bit soggy, so I had to sacrifice it (by this I mean eat it) and replace it with a biscuit twirl.

Overall, a relatively stress free day and very enjoyable. All completely yummy and satisfying. Plus I loved the extra chocolate treats we had. Tomorrow is the last day of the course. I can't believe how quickly it's gone! I really don't want it to end, but as they say, all good things must come to an end.

Wednesday 25 August 2010

Shot of wine?

So today, day 18, it was our turn to relax, taste various wines and enjoy food that other people had been slaving away on all day. Sounds perfect to me! We all turned up at 11, after having a lovely lie-in. The team of Donna, Margaret, Jose, Amy and Jonny were working in the kitchen and looked rather stressed, probably how we looked to them yesterday! So, Matt was telling us all about wines today. We began with white wines. Matt tested us on recognising smells. We had ten little bottles of certain essences/flavours and had to decipher what each one was. Some were flowers, some were not. It's very difficult to tell what something is, just by sniffing it. I was pretty rubbish at it. I only got two out of ten right! Unfortunately, I seem to have developed a cold and today it was well timed for when I actually needed to use my nose! After a lot of guessing, Matt told us the answers. It made so much sense once we knew what it was as we sniffed it. Obviously. The bottles had all sorts of smells in them, including grapefruit, butterscotch, vanillan oak, melon and peach. Then it was on to trying the vino. Two glasses before lunch? Yes please!We tried various whites, including a Montelciego Rioja Blanco, Paua Bay Sauvignon Blanc and a Siegel Reisling. The Reisling was my favourite of them all. Quite sweet, so I don't know if it would be to everyone's taste, but I prefer sweeter wines. Then, just in time, before the wine went totally to our heads, the risottos came out for lunch.

Their task for the risotto was the s
ame as ours yesterday. This one was Margaret's which was very pretty and I appreciated the thought that had gone into it and the parmesan crisp on top, but it was a little stodgy and it shouldn't have been able to stand up in the ring. It was my favourite out of all of the risottos and quite creative, using red wine, giving it a lovely colour. I enjoyed all of the risottos. Many of them used goats' cheese in them which gave them a lovely creamy flavour. We had no idea whose food was whose, just as the tasters had no idea yesterday. We all debated together what comments to give and what to score them. We scored each dish out of five for presentation, taste and creativity. I tried to give constructive criticism, some points to improve on and what I liked about the food.
Throughout the day, we had flavoured breads. We had three focaccias, a spiced bread and a brown bread with tomatoes. My favourite of the breads was Amy's bread which was the only one to give us a dip of olive oil and balsamic dip which I appreciated. It was a shame though, as some of the breads came out straight from the oven and so were steaming hot, which isn't good for your digestion. But they were all tasty.

Then it was time for the starters, using scallops as the main ingredient. There were some with bacon and garlic, some with a basil pesto which was unusual but tasty and some with a saffron sauce. Jonny's was my favourite. He made scallops with parisian potatoes, crispy bacon and a lemon butter. It was quite delicious.

After the starter, it was time to change to red wine. We had another sniff test, this time of red wine elements. I got none out of ten right. Whoops! I assure you that it was rather difficult to tell what each one was. Then we tried some red wines. I much prefer white wine to red, but there were a few that I could definitely drink rather easily. This particular one, chateau La Roca from France was very smooth and velvety. Mmm. There is just so much to learn about wine. Grape growers keep crossing grapes to make new varieties. I'm going to give you a little quiz now, to see how much you know about wine. I shall reveal the answers tomorrow!

1. How many varieties of wine grapes exist in the world today?
a. 1-99 b. 100-200 c. 1,000-2,000 d. over 10,000

2. Approximately how many grapes does it take to make a standard bottle of wine?
a. 100 b. 300 c. 600 d.1,000

3. Who is the world's largest producer of wine?
a. France b. America c. Australia d. Italy

Main course time, where the chefs had to use rump of lamb. I would have liked to have seen some braising of the lamb, but everyone had roasted it. It was all very yummy. My favourite was Donna's. She had made some delicious duck fat roasted rosemary potatoes which were amazing. The sauce with it was fantastic too.



Last, but not least, it was pudding time. I think that this was the best course collectively. There was a chocolate and walnut cake, chocolate pot with a white chocolate and cointreau sauce and some fabulous orange biscuits, mocha ice cream, white chocolate and lemon tart with white chocolate sauce, chocolate and cointreau mousse and chocolate brownies. My favourite was again, Donna's amazing chocolate pot. The orange biscuits tasted so good and had a wonderful orangey fragrant flavour and the sauce was amazing. Mmm mmm mmm!

So then it was time for Joe to give us some feedback on all of us. We also got all of our score cards from the tasters back to see how we were scored and give us some constructive criticism. Just as I thought, my risotto was undercooked, my rosti wasn't crispy enough, my bread needed a bit more oomph, but my chilli jam seemed to be good. Not sure if anyone noticed my secret ingredient?! Apparently my pork was well seasoned, my calamari was good and my pudding went down well. Joe said that my presentation was really good throughout and I had some good flavours. Then Joe and Matt announced a winner from the two days from our scores. The winner would win a bottle of champagne. All of our scores were totted up and...it was very close, but it turns out that I won!! I couldn't quite believe it actually. I thought that some of my mistakes would have cost me, but apparently not enough. I'm so pleased! And very proud of everyone else. It has been a wonderful couple of days and I've thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Tomorrow is Mediterranean day. Tapas for lunch, anyone?

Tuesday 24 August 2010

It's the final countdown!


Doo doo doo doooo. Doo doo doo doo doooo.

Luckily, I didn't have any dreams of sunken souffles or solid chocolate fondants last night. But I was very nervous this morning! Joe told us what we would be doing in the day. We had to produce some kind of risotto for lunch at 12.30pm, a flavoured bread to serve any time, squid for the starter at 2pm, pork tenderloin for the main course at 3.30pm and a pudding where chocolate is the main ingredient at 4pm. So it was James, Jess, Rachel, Emily and I in the kitchen, cooking for the others, Joe and Matt, who was doing the wine-tasting. We had until 11 to look through cookery books and our notes to devise a menu and get inspired. I was the last into the kitchen with ten minutes to spare. I was panicking already about what to do and when. I simply didn't have time to devise a time plan, so I went with the flow and tried to think logically. Last night I had been thinking of trios of chocolate puddings, but I decided to do a white chocolate parfait instead. I knew I wouldn't have time to do three separate elements well in the time provided, so I went with doing one thing really well. I'd also never done a parfait (a mousse which is then frozen, kind of like an unchurned ice cream) before and as Joe had told us to get out of our comfort zones and to do something different than we normally do, I chose to do a white chocolate one. I didn't have a recipe for a white chocolate parfait, but had one for a vanilla one and adapted it. I had to get the parfait done first, to give it enough time to set in the freezer. I also had to do the bread, or it wouldn't have enough time to rise and then prove. I also had to make the risotto- all in an hour and a half!

I chose to make a herby clay plantpot bread, using the recipe of the garlic and oregano bread, but leaving out the garlic as I would prefer it without. Unfortunately, the plant pots were up the road in the new cookery school, so I improvised and just shaped the rolls nicely. I would have done a new flavoured bread that I hadn't done before, but I was already experimenting with other recipes, so I didn't want to give myself too much to do and other things that could go wrong. I tasted some of the left over bread and it was pretty good. Rosemary, sage and thyme bread rolls. Mmm mmm.

You wouldn't think that making a bread dough and leaving the yeast to do the work and making a parfait would take up a lot of time, but it does. Especially when you don't have all of your ingredients already weighed out and ready to go! And no work partner to help you tidy up after yourselves. So, all of this resulted in my risotto being a little more al dente than I would have liked. I kept it simple and made a saffron and tomato risotto. My hands were actually shaking when I was peeling the tomatoes. When you watch cookery programmes, such as MasterChef and you see people shaking and think 'oh, I would never shake and be that nervous', but believe me, under the stress and pressure of it all, you really do shake! I was so rushed that I forgot to add my freshly chopped herbs into the mix, so had to sprinkle them on top instead. Bugger! But it tasted good. Just a little...chewy!


After the initial panic and rush to get the risotto out on time, which mine was (ish), the atmosphere in the kitchen relaxed a bit as we prepared for the starter. Joe showed us how to clean a squid. Apparently they're about 80p each- a bargain really! I chose to make calamari with a sweet chilli jam. I tried to follow a Jamie Oliver recipe for the sweet chilli jam and it turned out alright, but I realise in hindsight that I forgot to season it before serving. Whoops! I'm sure it will have been picked up on in our group feedback session tomorrow afternoon after the other half of the group have cooked. I also made an error in the jam, mistaking one ingredient for another. Normally I would never do that, but pressure and stress makes you so silly things! I won't tell you what I did as I'm rather embarrassed about it. I just call it my surprise chilli jam! I'd never cooked quid before, so I made up a tempura batter and deep fried the squid rings and served them with some salad and the jam. I was happy with the calamari, but I would have liked the jam to be more of a dipping consistency. But it tasted alright. The calamari that I tried was tasty though.


The pork was next. I didn't follow a recipe for this dish. I just made it up as I went along. I treated the pork tenderloin like a fillet steak- not overcooking it as it's very lean and there's no fat in it to keep it moist. I sealed it and then finished it off in the oven with a knob of butter and a sprig of thyme. I made a potato rosti to go with it, glazed carrot, green beans and a reduced thyme, sage and red wine jus. I thought that my pork was overcooked as when I temperature probed the meat, it was 85 degrees, when it was meant to be 65! But then when I carved it for serving, it turned out to be pink in the middle. I must have stuck the prob into a part close to the outside of the meat. Phew! I was proud of my jus though. Rather yummy, if I do say so myself!

Roasted pork tenderloin with potato rosti, glazed carrots, green beans and a reduced red wine, thyme and sage jus

Finally, with half an hour to go until freedom, it was pudding time. My favourite section of the culinary world. I was extremely pleased because my parfait had set. Success! I also piped out some chocolate run outs, including the work 'enjoy' to go on the top of the parfait. I made a chocolate orange sauce to go with the pudding, but unfortunately it set a bit on the cold plate when I was putting it together. That's why it looks a bit messy. I would have done a raspberry coulis, but we only had about 8 raspberries each. Not enough for a satisfactory amount of coulis. I soaked the raspberries and orange segments in some orange juice and cointreau and made an orange cream to help the raspberries stick to the plate. The kitchen was so hot that unfortunately, my parfait had started to melt! I tried some of the pudding as I had made back-ups in case I mucked it up and it was delicious. Very smooth indeed.
White chocolate parfait with chocolate orange sauce, raspberries
and oranges

This was some of Emily's left over chocolate mousse which was piped to resemble dog poo, especially for Margaret. Joe even added some authentic blades of grass. I tried some before, and it tasted lovely. I hasten to add that I didn't try it from the plate above with the grass. We don't get our feedback from today until tomorrow, after everyone has cooked, so you'll have to wait to see what everyone else said about my food. The food tasters said that everyone's food was all very good and nothing was inedible. Brilliant! Tough day. I'm glad it's all over. I would do it again, but not straight away. I didn't have a break all day, apart from two minutes to have a speed wee. Any breaks meant less time cooking! At the end of the day, it was time to clear up the kitchen that looked like a bomb had hit it. Joe even said that 'Saddam Hussein had officially regenerated and brought World War 3 into the kitchen!'

I'm looking forward to wine tasting tomorrow, whilst everyone else sweats away in the kitchen, hopefully not in the food, bringing plate after plate of food out for us to consume. I also don't have to drive tomorrow, as some of my relatives have kindly offered to give me lifts to and from school. Fantastic! Can't. Wait.

Monday 23 August 2010

Healthy eating day


The last in-between weekend of the course was very enjoyable indeed, despite the rain. I drove up to Wales to see my university ex-housemate Pete who lives in Port Talbot and my other ex-housemate Frankie. It was a mistake to drive up on a Friday afternoon though. It was stop-start all the way from Exeter to Bristol on the M5 and bucketing it down with rain. Still, the cheese straws and some lemon fanta kept me going! We went to Barry Island on Saturday for an adventure and saw where the sitcom Gavin and Stacey was filmed. We even went inside Stacey's house- the lady who lives there let's you and you can even lie on the bed. Amazing!

Anyway, back to the cooking. The final week began with a healthy eating day. I had been looking forward to this day as I was eager to learn how to cook healthy food that is both delicious and exciting. We started by making some breakfasty things. Violetta, who is German and extremely healthy, showed us how to make raw porridge with a fresh fruit salad. What?! 'Raw porridge' I hear you cry? You soak oat groats in water for about 24 hours which brings the energy out of them and softens them to aid digestion. Blitz them in a blender to break them up, add some cinammon, natural sweetener and fresh fruit of your choice et voila. It was good. A little chewy, but I think I'd get used to it. I'm just used to cooked porridge. But it does you a world of good, so maybe I'll be eating this for breakfast often in the future?! Slow release energy etc. We then made a smoothie out of raspberries (yep, got it, sounds good), mint (ok...for flavour and freshness) and curly kale (umm...what?!) It also had oranges, apples and apple juice in it. Kale is very good for you- rich in iron, calcium, folic acid and cancer phytochemicals. It's the best of the 'green' veggies you can eat. It made the smoothie a little browner than pink from the raspberries than you'd expect, but it was quite nice. I think I'd strain out the raspberry seeds though, as it was a bit chewy and I didn't like the sensation of the seeds being stuck in my teeth. Violetta suggested juicing kale as it's really good for you. Or having 'green' juices such as cucumber or celery. I really don't like those kinds of bright green juices, so I'm not so sure.


Organic steamed salmon fillet with basil pesto, rocket and edible flower salad and lightly toasted seeds

For lunch it was steamed salmon. Steaming is the healthiest way to cook food, you know. We made a pesto without the standard parmesan cheese, which is actually called 'pistou'. It was really delicious. The pesto was really good, even without the cheese. Absolutely delectable. Perfect for a light lunch, but full of goodness. We then made a gluten free pasta. Do you know what the magic ingredient to give gluten free pasta dough its stretch is? I feel another fact coming up! It's xanthan gum which is used to make chewing gum. But do you know where it comes from? That's right, it's a slime from a certain type of bacteria. Mmm! Anyway, we were all excited to see if we could taste the difference between normal pasta and gluten free, so we rolled out the pasta dough, cut it into tagliatelle and angel hair, cooked it, tossed it in the left over pesto and had it as a starter with some pine nuts, green lentil shoots and parmesan. My partner, Margaret and I were like a well-oiled machine today, working well together as a pasta-making factory line. (There's a running joke in the group, that whenever we call Margaret's name, it sounds like Matt Lucas from Little Britain calling 'Margaret? Margaret?...Yes??' I think it just started from when teacher James started doing it and we've all picked it up).

So we had the pasta as an impromptu starter and I really couldn't tell the difference between normal pasta and the gluten free. The gluten free was just a bit thicker as you wouldn't be able to roll it as thin as normal pasta because there isn't any gluten to allow it to be super thin. I like thick pasta anyway. Superbly divine.

The supper main course was poached chicken roulade stuffed with roasted red peppers, sun blushed tomatoes and olives, served with a chilli, chickpea and red pepper coulis and steamed green vegetables. We made the chicken roulade by butterflying the breasts and then flattening them to thin them out. Rob said as he heard some people bashing their chickens rather harshly, 'remember, they're already dead, so you don't have to bash them too hard!' Haha! Then we simply added some olives and sun blushed tomatoes, rolled up the breast and then steamed it until cooked. You could add some cheese in the middle if wanted, perhaps some mozzarella. But then if we did that today, it wouldn't have been so healthy!

The meal was scrumptious. I especially enjoyed the moist steamed chicken and the chickpeas. I felt my body appreciate the nutrition of the steamed greens too. Mange tout, pak choi and sugar snap peas. Mmm mmm. The coulis was good too. Not too much heat from the chilli either. Perfect.

Then it was pudding time. A dark chocolate mousse that is dairy and egg free. Suitable for pregnant women, the young and the old, as there's no raw egg in it. Now I hear you cry (again) well how on earth do you make a chocolate mousse without double cream or egg whites? The answer is, you use mashed avocados as a base and a setting agent. You don't taste the avocados at all. And you also add some medjool dates for sweetness.

Dark chocolate mousse with a banana choco nut smoothie.

When you taste it, apparently, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between this mousse and normal chocolate mousse. I noticed a slightly gritty texture of the dates, but it was very tasty. Margaret gave her verdict on its appearance, 'a dog poo with a raspberry in the middle of it!' Oh Margaret. The smoothie was made with almond milk, bananas and cocoa powder. There was a technological problem with the blender though. The bananas were frozen when blended to make the smoothie cold and to give it some substance. However, there was an awful noise of what we thought was the blender struggling with the frozen bananas. However, when we transferred it to the food processor, it turns out that the turner bit of the blender had actually broken itself and the plastic had crumbled. Anyway, the mousse was good, but I think I prefer the fatty, creamy version. But a good alternative. People might say that this mousse isn't very healthy because of the avocado as it is quite fatty itself, but it's good fats. I tried the smoothie, but I really don't like bananas and it tasted too much of bananas for me. It needed a lot more chocolate to cover up the banana taste. But I enjoyed the mousse.

So tomorrow is judgement day. I'm one of the five people who are cooking from the mystery box tomorrow for everyone else while they wine taste. Arghhhh!! Rob told us that we'll definitely be making a risotto, a flavoured bread, we'll be given a piece of fish or shellfish, some form of meat for a main course and the pudding must contain chocolate as the main ingredient. We can't really prepare much for it, but maybe we can think of potential recipes. So now I'm off to bed, to dream of kitchen failures. Wish me luck for tomorrow!!!

Friday 20 August 2010

Canapes, canapes for everyone!

Week 3 of the diploma course drew to a close today. Nasty weather- it didn't stop raining the whole day! Joe was back with us today, setting us a canape challenge. Before the impending panic of canape making, we prepared a scallop starter. There was a worry that we wouldn't be able to have any scallops today- the divers don't go out when it rains as it breaks up the sea bed and makes it harder to hand pick them. Our scallops were hand picked. Most scallops are aggressively trawled, using nets to pull the scallops off the sea floor. This damages the sea bed and apparently takes seven years to recover! These scallops cost about 50p each, whereas hand dived ones cost about 80p each. You're paying for the divers' time, but it's more economically friendly.

I've never opened scallops before. so it was exciting to see how it's done. Quite simple, it turns out. You just need some force and need to be careful that you don't cut the scallop in half. Some of the scallops were still pulsating when I had cut them out of the shell. Another fact for you- you can tell a girl scallop from a boy scallop by seeing how big the coral is on them. The coral is the orange roe bit of them. If it's large, plump and bright orange, it's a girl. Did you know that scallops can change their sex if they wish?

We made a pea purée, simply by blitzing some cooked peas in a blender and adding a squeeze of lemon juice and my good friends, salt and pep. We also made a saffron foam- very cheffy. Then it was time for the pudding preparation, a tart tatin with a caramel sauce. Mmm mmm! We flambeed the apple slices in some brandy- very impressive, seeing the pan flame up- you can just about see the flames in the photo. We then laid them out in a pretty pattern in some really cute little individual tart cases. Then we tucked the apples in for the night with a duvet of puff pastry and left it to rest before cooking. The caramel sauce was made, simply mix some caramel made from melted sugar with some double cream. Extremely healthy! Before the canape challenge, it was time for the starter.


Pan fried scallops with a pea purée and saffron foam

Then it was time to turn up the heat in the kitchen for the canape challenge. The challenge was to make two canapes per team of two and we had a time limit of an hour. Margaret and I were assigned the job of making the parmesan cheese straws and teriyaki chicken skewers. We quickly devised a plan on what needed to be done and when and successfully whipped the canapes up. It was great to see everyone doing something different and it all coming together at the end. Then it was time to eat! We had ten different canapes to munch on. They were cheese straws, blue cheese and sesame biscuits, smoked salmon pinwheels, sausage and mash, mini yorkshire puddings with rare venison, parmesan crisps, bread tartlets with mediterranean vegetables with halved soft boiled quails' eggs, chicken teriyaki skewers, mini filo pastry tarts with avocado crab and mini puff pastry olive tapenade and tomato tarts. All so tasty and simple to do. Now I have some great ideas of what to make, other than the classic cheese and pineapple on a stick and cocktail sausages.

For the last time this week, it was pudding time, and boy it was good! We did some caramel work, manipulating the caramel into different shapes. I even managed to form an accidental flower. The caramel went everywhere. A very messy affair. It even got into my top 3 of my favourite puddings. Number 1 being the lemon tart, number 2, the treacle tart and number 3, the tart tatin. I think there's a theme of pastry growing here!

I'm looking forward to the last week of the course. I expect it to be pretty busy. We're doing our mystery boxes, wine tasting, healthy-eating day, sushi, exam...and much more. Then, next Friday, it will all be over. Boohoo! Maybe I'll just do all the courses at ACS and blog forever!