tips & tricks, part 2

Kitchen tips (from chef and others)

cooking rice in the oven;
no room in the kitchen? not enough plates to cook on ? Make your rice in the oven !
Fry a finely chopped onion or a few shallots in vegetable oil or (better) butter until golden then add the rice to the same pan and stir on the hot plate. Add 1.5x the volume amount of water (chicken stock is better!) to the rice/onion mixture, bit of salt and stir. Put a (baking paper) lid on and put in the oven for about 16 minutes. Great result ! When cooked add a knob of butter and stir well. To put in some more colour, add really,really thinly diced carrots,courgette and grean beans. (Cook/fry the veggies first quickly before adding to the rice.)
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Make your own fries (patat).
cut nice long strips from potatoes - 1 x 1 x 5 cm.
Cut a potatoe first to a nice big square block, then to smaller blocks and finally to strips.
keep in salted water.

there are 2 options now:
1. put in cold water and bring to boil. (blanching) take out, dry and then in 180degC hot vegetable oil until golden. Take out, salt them and serve.
2. Fry the dried strips first in 140degC oil and the again at 180degC until golden. salt, serve.

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Mushrooms; yes, they can be washed but do it quickly. Clean with your hands in a bowl of water.
After rinsing take them out and sprinkle with lemon juice. This stops them from browning. Process as quickly as possible. Do not leave mushrooms in/under water!!

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eggs; this is a tricky one, also very personal.

in general, when boiling an egg, put it in boiling water. After 6 min, take out and put in cold water. it should have a slightly runny eggyolk now (I hope)
Boiling water, 10 min - cool in cold water: result hard !
Boiling water, 2.5 min - cool in cold water: result dip toast in egg

COLD water, put egg in, to the boil = ready. Result is a snotty breakfast egg.

And shell the eggs in a bowl/pan of cold water. First of all it is better for your hands (HOT), but the shell comes off easier.

Overcooked eggs have a (thin) black line at the yolk/white line.

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That's it for now,
Sj

9 Dec - back online - Duck/Stroganoff/beer

Today,we had 2 practicals and a demo.

We started with a whole fu&%$!ing duck ! at 8.30 in the morning... horrible.

We had to truss the bird, burn it off and then put it in the oven for 45 minutes. In the end it should still be pink(ish). As I said, horrible. I did a pretty good job I think - chef S. liked it. Joel from classB took it home to the family where he stays - they like (raw) duck.... yes, they are French !


After that stupid duck a demo; but first, chef Stril explained a few detais about the exam next week on Wednesday. That's the practical exam - should be OK.... I hope.



Taking notes during class; Yong Soon (r) and Cher Ling.


Demo was about langoustines, jumbo shrimps, salmon and Stroganoff. Nice demo - halfway, a big group of Chinese people stumbled in (NOT noisy at all...), took pictures of our class and demonstration - and left. Well, they probably pay LCB big money for this...


I liked the dishes of the demo;




Chef Lesourd - one of the 8 little brothers (remember the 7 dwarfs...) tasting the stroganoff dish.
Qui, ca va - c'est bien - tres bon etc etc. Can't do anything with that !


After class a petit bierre.... or 3. Nice. Now dinner - today's stroganoff with rice.

see you all tomorrow,
Sj