For our final poultry week we had one of the busiest and hard weeks in the course so far. It was 5 days of cuisine, learning new techniques and working with new ingredients. Now I can appreciate the wonders of a pastry break day , without it, it was not easy. Started off Monday with Chef Stephan, Anglo B’s chef, who substitute for Antoine. We made a roasted chicken. Then the day after we continued the chicken theme with a cocotte chicken. The day after, a rabbit two ways: stuffed saddle and the whole rabbit in sauce champignon. Yes, rabbit is considered to be in the poultry category. It fits because it taste just like chicken so he might as well be a kind of bird. Thursday was my favorite: duck in orange sauce. Classic! Then on Friday we started the meat theme by making a great lamb navarin. It was not an east week because: 1. the week started with a French test that was kinda weird; 2. learning new skills and having to practice them right away and fast; 3. another early week once again; 4. the rabbit day started with a rush back home and back to school after realizing I forgot the heating on; 5. working with heavy iron pots and ovens under pressure caused many burns. I was lucky not to be burnt too bad; 6. cleaning the stoves when the ovens were on the whole day was harder and hotter then usual, we felt all of our burns soaring. By the end of this week I feel I was able to prep the chicken quite fast and do it with confidence. There’s some kind of satisfaction doing a task with confidence.
Lundi: Poulet rôti sur canapés, pommes gaufrettes
Chef Stephan handling the chicken
Pieces of feet scales burnt and peeled off the legs of the chicken
My chicken cleaned and ready to roll!
Learning to trust the chicken for a roast
Thrusted and stuffed with herbs
Aluminum foil to protect the feet
Color the skin before roasting it
Making a proper liver paste. Start with grounded pork fat frying on a pan
Fry shallots with it
Wait for it to sizzle
Add the livers
Flambe with Port and Cognac
The roasted chicken, did not want to picture well
Stephan's trail making Pommes gaufrettes failed because the fryer didn't work
...
Plating, begins with the roasting jus and the canape fried bread stuffed with liver
And the chicken sits on it, water cress on the side
My canape, too tall
Canape collapse when the chicken sits on it
Take away
One thing about this dish: the chopped liver was awesome! This is how it should be done. mixed with the sauce at home it was even better.
Mardi: Poulet cocotte grand-mère
Alissa thrusting the chicken in front of the whole class
Marking the chicken before baking it
Chicken sits on chicken bones and vegetables
Making the garnish, champignon, bacon lardons, pearl onions and girolles, were all cooked separately and reheated together last minute
Chef's perfect glazed chicken
My blondie chicken :/
".. it's that way.."
There were also some turned potatoes in this story
Yes, they were all blondie compared to the chef's
Summery, I wasn’t crazy about the outcome. I gave this whole chicken to my building guardian, trying to glaze it in the oven made it too dry.
Mercredi: Laperaux aux champignon, Rable farci rôti aux basilic, pommes fondantes
"..I'm a fuzzy cute little creature! "
The rabbit in two pieces
The prepped rabbit with debonned saddle
Some champignons, how can we cook without them?
The saddle I debonned to fill
Tendering the skin that covers the saddle
Stuffing: Pork, chopped herbs, pine nuts, egg, parmesan, rabbit kidneys
Piping the filling over basil leaves
The rabbit roll
Rolled in caul fat
You wouldn't believe these potatoes. We actually made a rabbit stock to cook them in it but hadn't enough time to finish cooking so we tossed the whole thing
The rabbit in the sauce with the mushrooms
The rabbit dish!
A cut through the stuffed saddle
In summery: Reut and Nadav enjoyed the rabbit this evening when I came for dinner after school. I still taste no particular special taste different than chicken. See no reason to eat rabbit rather than chicken.
Jeudi: Canard cuit sur coffre à l’orange, pomme gaufrettes
Ducks ducks yum yum yum. They were actually the canette, female of the duck, small and not fatten
My duck half prepped, with chicken and duck bones for the sauce
The coolest potatoes fries so far, by far. How we mandolined these shapes, was like magic to me!
My chips, Genius!
My presented dish
My mistake was overcook on one side and undercook on the other. Anyway, there was so many work to this dish, but it was totally worth it.
The chips were awesomely shaped but not as tasty as I wish
Vendredi: Navarin aux primeurs (Ragout à brun d’agneau)
Shoulder of lamb
Coloring pieces of lamb. Can you imagine how smokey and stincky the kitchen was?
Concentrated tomatoes and flour, roasted in the oven, to loose flour flavor
Best veggies went with this dish. Turnips, carrots and pearl onions, all caramelized in butter and sugar. There was a lot of turning work this day, but it was worth the effort.
Served with lots of yummy sauce and freshly glazed vegetables
I couldn't hold from cooking rice for this dish as soon as I came back home. Rice works so much better for lamb
Conclusion: I had low expectations but high impression from this dish. Usually slow cooked meat dishes are ok with me but I’m not drawn to them. The meat was very good, as well as the sauce and the best part was the vegetables, they are more tasty turned (and sugar buttered) – cooked separately.
שבוע מאוד מלא אין ספק
אני התרשמתי מכולו בעיקר מהפרצוף של הארנבת
בכלל מנת הארנבת נשמעה מדהימה עם המילוי ועניינים
חבל שלא הייתי שם לקבל את השאריות
אבל ההערה הזאת מתאיה לכל השבועות
can’t you just call the guardian to turn off the heating at home?
poor cute rabbit…
[…] classical French dish we learned in school was Orange Duck. It was a quit complicated recipe, the kind that you wonder why go through all the trouble, but […]