This week we had one of the most important lessons of cuisine and that’s making a dark stock (which is used all the time in the kitchen to make sauces, season a dish, reduce to Demi Glace and glace, make jellies and basically it’s very essential). It’s plenty of work but this is what determinism a quality of a dish. The whole week our group, Anglo A, had taken over by Chef Antoine (Same one from Pastry Mondays) because Chef Sebastian had a forced vacation (he didn’t want to leave us but he was forced to!). I think it’s not bad actually to be working with another Chef, you can lean so many different things from each one of our professionals. Chef Antoine’s style is more laid back and calm. On the other hand, his critic is pretty harsh. He has a lot of appreciation for presentation but he’s not that fanatic about organization like Chef Sebastian. Organization is important in the kitchen and can be a priceless tool to grow with right from the beginning, this is why I’m very happy to have Chef Sebastian. On the other hand, you wouldn’t want it to be hanging over your head at all time, as this is not the goal of a day in the kitchen. So I’m basically very happy with the combination of the two Chefs.
Back to the Stocks, we already made the “white” veal stock for the Potage Saint Germain and also Fumet de poissons for the Fish soup, which is like stock but you should not call it “Fond” because the fish takes 1.5h to give all their taste and then it’s done. And now we made the “Fond Brun de Vueu” which is the dark veal stock and we also made a Marmite which is like a beef soup which is then clarified and used for clear soups and jellies. We also made a small “Jus au veal”, different technique of adding the water a bit by bit, to get a different consistency and flavor. All this we did on one day and then the next we continued to cook the dark stock all together and used the Marmite for a Consommé and Onion soup.
First day: Making the base, Fond de Veau, Marmite and jus de Veau:
You can see right away that Chef Antoine's instructions are not as organized as Chef Sebastian's
Starting of the Demo
Cleaning and tying the meat
Finished
Claire and I starting the cooking of the marmite
Roasting the veal bones for the stock
The veal's feet is blanched and the ribs are roasted as well
The taste of the vegetables is added, thinly sliced, to the bones
Concentrated tomatoes, scraping all the flavor from the bottom of the roasting pan
Adding a little water
Everything goes back to the pot
Covered in cold water, left to boil
Big pots are on the stove today!
Defoam and degrease is the key with stock
Burnt onions are added for the brownish color
Claire defoaming and degreasing our boiling stock
in the meantime, the Veal jus, the veal ribs cut and colored in a pan
Nice and brownish but not burnt!
Carrot, celery and onions chopped thinly
Mixed with the veal ribs
Tomato, parsley, thyme, then water added gradually
Our marmite is cooking in the meantime, with it's B.G.
After staining the marmite, chef showing us how to serve the marrow bones, with rock salt, freshly grounded pepper and thinly chopped parsley.
Our Marmite, strained over the pieces of meat. Tagged for tomorrow
All the strained stocks and Marmites going to sleep and rest until tomorrow
Don't forget to tag correctly!
All the Veal jus was collected together and saved (see the different color achieved with this technique)
The next day: Clarification and making of the soups
All the veal stock is going back to cooking (it needs 8-12 hours of cooking and reduction)
The Marmite needs to be clarified. Demo of the process, starting with egg whites. This bottle is a bottle of egg whites 🙂
Mixing minced meat to the beaten egg white
In this process we want to clear the liquid from all the particles, the egg white help doing it but takes away from the taste, this is why we add the minced beef as well
Adding more Garniture Aromatique, we want to preserve the concentrated taste
All will be as one unit of clarification
Some Crushed white peppers for the taste
Adrian pours the Marmite to the clarification mixture
Back to the pot, mixed until the albumin and egg protein begins to heat and harden
When boiling leave the process to work alone
This is our Marmite being clarified
A yaki Volcano is starting to pump
The cleared Marmite is strained and now referred to as Consommé
Our Marmite is strained over some parsley stems, crushed pepper and rock salt
The egg white with the meat and vegetables. Thought it could make a good meatball in sauce.
Our Cleared Comsommé!! That's all that came out from this whole two day process! The meat goes to a second round of boiling to get some more light stock for the onion soup.
Some vegetables are cut to Brunoise (2-3 mm squares), bleached.
Chef's plating
Consommé over the vegetables
4 Chervile leaves on top, ready!
My Plating is in the metalic plate
Steamy hot!
Chef tasting my soup. A bit more Pepper!! Chef likes pepper.
In the meantime, Onion soup, the onion is thinly émincée and put in a pot with butter to cook slowly
Then it looks like that
needs to get some color, but not burnt
Chef's soup is ready, being plated
Toasts on top and handful of Gruyére
Generously with the cheese
Came out the salamander, Sizzling
My soup is wetted with the marmite that was left
My final presentation. Remarks: The bowl was not clean enough, the soup was too sweet (more salt is needed)
The finished Veal Stock was taken to be chilled quickly in the blast freezer, marked Anglo A but sadly stolen by Anglo B, the greedy group!
alot of work and we eat everything in seconds…
I still have some of it left, in the fridge. Want some? 🙂
Anyway, your point is right. People should eat slowly after all that work!!
Mark up another great post!
did you direct the “eat slowly” comment to me???
No, just meant that food is consumed relatively fast after all the time it took to cook it
so, what did happen to the egg white with the meat and vegetables???
poubelle (went to the trash), I can only carry as much as I can!
[…] STOCKING; CONSOMMÉ BRUNOISE, SOUPE A L’OIGNON […]
[…] In culinary school it’s one of the first and most important lessons. […]