Sunday, August 27, 2006

Day 5 – Sautéed Spinach, Haricots Verts Amandine, Mayo

Funny that we did spinach only because I had never cooked or eaten spinach until about a month before school started. I made a decision to try as many different things before school started so that at least I’d have an idea of the item when school started.

The spinach was cooked in butter and garlic and must say very tasty. My presentation was very good and chef said my use of garlic was excellent. Next up was the haricots vert, which in English translates to green beans hahaha. This is a recipe I cook at least once a week but I always called it brown butter green beans. This dish is extremely tasty because of the flavor of browned butter (not burned). You add the sliced almonds to the butter as it’s browning thus adding another layer of flavor. The beans are BSD (blanched, shocked and drained) then added to the butter and heated through. Mine came out very good in flavor and presentation, but they weren’t as crisp as chef wanted.

Next up was the mayo. I’ve always wanted to make homemade mayo. This is one dish the chef will not taste, so you are graded on look and texture. The reason for this is because of the raw eggs present in the dish. If you have never had homemade mayo, make some. It takes about 20 minutes but the flavor cannot be beat. It will last in your fridge about 2 weeks.

This night went pretty well for everyone. At least no fires. The Juniors brought us over some of the dishes they were preparing. Slow roasted pork cheek (don’t cringe this is one hell of a tasty dish), saffron risotto, a duck/fig salad (I now love figs) and an inverted apple tart with homemade vanilla ice cream. I think this was the first night I actually ate very healthy because I ate my spinach, then the pork and rice and desert.

The down side? Well since we got done so early we had plenty of time for some deep cleaning. (wait…cleaning..not cooking? Yes cleaning) Of course there were the few who just stand around with a rag in their hand walking around but not actually doing anything. But the rest of us cleaned the stoves, changed the tray liners, cleaned out sinks, wiped down all shelves, restocked all condiments at all stations, all utensils and some things I can’t even remember.

Next week we start making pasta. My favorite!!

Until then…

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