Last Friday after the restaurant service we had our Menu Regional day. I was so so happy during this day, kept busy the whole time. Cooked some really weird dish I never done anything like before. It was interesting, and the lunch was fun and delicious.
Strangely we started with red, went back to white and then red again. First time that happens in France. Luckily the first one was beaujolais neveaux.
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Cervelle de Canut
Soufflรฉ au Comtรฉ
Cervelat Pistache Sauce Vigneronne
Quenelles De Brochet Aux Ecrevisses
Poularde de Bresse Demi-Deuil
Bugnes Lyonnaises a la fleur d’oranger, sauce au chocolat, Glace a la praline rose.
Cervelle de Canut: dip of fromage blanche with shallots, vinegar, taragon, chive, chervil, parsley, garlic and peanut oil. Served with a baguette toast.
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Was simple but I liked it. Reminded me of eating white soft cheese at home. This one is like 40% fat but still ๐
Soufflรฉ au Comtรฉ: The classic cheese soufflรฉ using grated comtรฉ cheese.
Running from the oven to the dining room trying to serve these soufflรฉs risen
Until it got to the table it was half way back down. Eaten with juice of dark veal stock, as seen in the picture way up in the post.
Cervelat Pistache Sauce Vigneronne: Pistachio pork sausage wrapped in Ericka’s delicious brioche. Sauce of veal jus with port.
A present waiting to be opened
Brioche bread if it wasn’t enough
Slicing the sausage after presented whole to the table
Self served
Reminds me of the same dish we already made in pastry class.
Quenelles De Brochet Aux Ecrevisses: boiled pike dumplings with crayfish tails in crayfish sauce
A delivery of living crayfish arrived
Cute
But angry
Just tails, ready to be cooked
Turning bright red-orange when fried
The quenelles batter
Cooked in boiling water
Plating time
Plating
Becoming pretty
Why is their tail so small?
I really liked the Quenelles also, like fish cakes
Poularde de Bresse Demi-Deuil: Bresse chicken is aย famousย AOC chicken,ย controlledย and supervised product. This one chicken can cost 30-100 euro. His special taste meat derived from the Bresse area’s terrior, meaning, the soil that comes in contact with the chicken and practically effects the quality of the meat just like wine. Does it taste any different? This is what we were meant to test (not really, for the French the answer is absolutely yes). Anyway this chicken, cooked in a bouillon of chicken stock, with black truffle butter under the skin. Then one chicken was inserted to a pig’s bladder, served with cooked vegetables and chicken with black truffle cream sauce.
This baby has a medal
These chickens are known for their blouish legs.
Burnt and pealed
Head ready to be decapitated
A lot of chicken stock which was cooked in low temp over night, degreased from a huge amount of fat (in the middle)
Herbs bucket, for the truffle butter
The black truffle
Slicing truffle finely
Kept some of them like that for the presentation
All the rest was chopped to get into the sauce and the chicken’s skin
Butter, herbs and chopped truffle
Cooked in the bouillon
All the vegetables cooked separately
Vegetables reheated in the steam oven
Chicken cooked and pulled out of his cloth
Shinny from butter
Pig’s bladder. Rinsed about 6 times over 72 hours
Chicken in the bladder with some bouillon
Heated in a pan
And the steams from the bouillon blows it up like a baloon
Based with the liquid to keep bloated
A small pause for explanation. Why did we put a chicken in a pig’s bladder? We couldn’t understand ourselves so we tried to get the idea by asking. Does it give taste/aroma? Hopefully not because this is a bladder – taste and smell of urea. Does it cook the chicken in a certain way that makes it better? No, we inserted the chicken there after it was already cooked. Is it beautiful? Yes! this is the right answer and the shocking reason for serving a chicken in a pig’s bladder. It looks nice! So the story is that Chef Sebastian wanted to try thisย ancientย way of serving a chicken. Last time it was a disaster and had a urea smell so we had to wash it several times until it had no smell what so ever. It was impressive, in the old days fine dining restaurants would have served this way to the table then carved in front of the customer. We just opened it in the kitchen before plating.
Carving the chicken
Some breast and some leg to each one
Plating
Delicious sauce
The bodies that we left in the kitchen while eating
How was it? I could not possibly taste this special bresse flavor. Maybe because the breast was overcooked (as I suspected, too much time in the bouillon!)
ย Bugnes Lyonnaises a la fleur d’oranger, sauce au chocolat, Glace a la praline rose: Lyon style doughnuts flavored with orange blossom, chocolate sauce and pink praline ice-cream.
Chopped almond pink praline
The doughnuts
Andreea plating in her own design
Plat half way
Zeynel’s first quenelle of ice-cream in the left plate
Sharping their quenelle technique
Sweet ending to an awesome day
ืืงืฆืืฆืืช ืขื ืืฉืจืืืค ืืื ืงืฆืืฆืืช ืื ? ืืขื ื ืืคืืืืข ืคืืฉ? ืื ืืืืจ ืืืจ
ืืขืืฃ ื ืจืื ืขืืฃ ืืื ืฉืืคืืืืช ืืฉืชื ืฉื ืืืืืจ ืชืจืื ืื ืืืืืช ืคืืืช ืขืืฃ?
i’m running out to get a pigโs bladder… i just got to have it! no, but first I must get some live crayfish to tear apart while alive… i just don’t know what to do first… so maybe i’ll just bake a simple chicken with pumpkin, fennel, lentils, bulgar, mustard and apple vinegar and sweetener – ho yes Ethiopian spices too and just throw into the oven for 2 hours… we all enjoyed it, but everyone kept asking for the pigโs bladder… no matter what you do they are never satisfied… next time a pigโs bladder for sure!
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