Day 4 - Carrots and Soups

Well day four was our first day of timing everything and putting out three full recipes –

Glazed Carrots
Carrot Soup
Vichyssoise

I have my own system of reading all recipes the day before and creating a chart so I know exactly what I have to pull to my station. (Mise en place) I also put my recipes in order of how they need to be prepared. In this case I started on my vichyssoise first since it needs to be presented chilled and will need time to cool down. Then I began my glazed carrots so I can present those and then use them for my carrot soup.

My glazed carrots got high marks, my vichyssoise got very high marks and my carrot soup got good marks. I forgot to heat the bowl for the carrot soup and I forgot to strain it so there were air bubbles. Well needless to say I won’t do that again (I hope).

We had one mishap with one student who burned their carrots very badly and another who caught their cartouche (a lid of sorts made from parchment paper) on fire. I think the chef instructors need to remind students not to panic and to just cover with a lid to snuff the fire out. Instead they used tongs and pulled the flaming cartouche and carried it to a sink. I shudder to think if they had brushed up against anyone and caught their hair on fire.

Most got all their dishes presented and there were a few who didn’t manage their time as well. One that didn’t help was we only had two hand mixers for 21 students so there was a wait. There are also a few students who don’t clean up after themselves so instead of taking items that we all need and cleaning them for the next person they just leave it at the sink. I want to remind them this isn’t a competition or a contest as to who can finish first.

I can see by reading ahead in my book that we have some intense things coming up. Nothing I haven’t done before, but haven’t done them all in one night.

Let the Cooking Begin!!