The first day of School...

So I arrived at the original Ashburton Cookery School this morning, eventually, after getting lost, Hannah-style, ready for the 9.30am start. I felt quite nervous, but I think it was nerves of excitement of what lies ahead in this intense month of the '20 day Cookery Diploma'. After introductions, we were briefed about the day ahead and a little of what would happen in the upcoming 20 days, including a fifty question exam on the last day eeeep! I haven't done an exam since A-levels, 4 years ago. There are only 10 of us, so it allows for good tutor student contact. Spookily, there's another girl graphic design graduate and a girl who comes from Penryn, just outside of Falmouth where I went to university! What a small world...

Today we mainly focussed on vegetable cuts, such as julienne and paysanne (pretty shapes, don't you know!) We were shown among many things, how to make proper chicken stock, vegetable stock and leek and potato soup base (ready to complete tomorrow). For lunch, we made a tasty tomato and cheese omelette with dressed salad leaves and even edible flowers. The secret to a fantastic omelette is to keep it slightly underdone when serving as it continues to cook and denature on the plate. Here's my attempt. It was pretty darn tasty!

After lunch, we were shown how to make chocolate and cointreau mousse and then piped our own chocolate decorations, or run-outs, using melted dark chocolate. I made a few things, including a treble clef and bass clef, complete with staves, a flower, random shapes and stars. It turns out that it's really easy once you get the hang of the flow of the chocolate. Practice makes perfect! These decorations were used to go onto the mousse for pudding, dusted with some icing sugar to make it look pretty. We then made a vegetable broth with tiny, supposedly paper-thin slices of veggies and smoked bacon lardons. Some of my slices were rather chunky. I just can't seem to grasp the concept of the proper way to chop safely, with your fingers away from the knife. I think I just need to practice. It doesn't help that one of the knives we use a lot is a giant death knife!

So, during the course, we make our lunch and supper each day. With supper, we get an added bonus of vino, red and white. Shame I have to drive home! We have supper around 5.30 as the day finishes at 6pm. Early, but at least it leaves time for digestion.

Here's the vegetable broth my work partner, Jonny and I made. It's drizzled with some truffle oil, darling, naturally. It was really tasty, and relatively healthy, compared with some of the things we will be making during the course! The mousse was looooovely and smooth, and as Darrin says 'like eating chocolate air!' My mousse was a bit cluttered with chocolate decorations, but I just wanted to show them off. And eat them.

Of course.

Overall, a good first day of school. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, as I heard on the grapevine that there will be sorbet, made from scratch. How satisfyingly sweet! We are also going to butcher a chicken, even removing the head and legs. Watch this space!