Twice as Delicious

After the first 5 lessons of chopping, turning, stock, doughs – we finally moved on to cooking something bloodi(-ly good)!

“Braised Lamb Shanks with Red Wine Jus served with Risotto, French Beans & Turned Glazed Carrots” was the menu of the day –

[LEFT] Chef Darren’s demo specimen
[RIGHT] My creation – except for my risotto portion which was slightly too big, everything was fine. Chef Darren commented that my sauce was the best one around 🙂

And yes – did I mention I have excessive amounts of Quiche Lorraine and Pissaladiere in my freezer right now?! They are ‘ta-paoed’ (take homes) from Lesson 4 & 5 and I certainly do not want them all in my tummy…I have resolved NOT to be a fat chef! Will freeze them and share them with my friends in the city when I attend Sunday Service @ Hillsongs City Campus.

[LEFT] Quiche Lorraine From Chef John’s demo
[RIGHT] My not-so-pretty tart 😦 – I did not do a neat job in rolling out my pastry and laying it on the flan. Nevertheless, it turned out short (which is good) and flavors were tasty enough for Chef John to ask for a piece of mine for specimen…yayy!

[LEFT] This is Chef Mark’s presentation of Pissaladiere which is a traditional french pizza with anchovies, capers and olives topping – a combination of my least least least favourite toppings (Eeks! And no cheese too!). Surprisingly, it turned out not only edible…but pretty damn good for an appetizer (this nice salty stuff really whets one’s appetite)! Mine turned out well but I was in too much of a hurry to snap a shot.
[RIGHT] Rice Pudding French Style made by me – I managed to emulate Chef Mark’s creation successfully. However, it is defo not my cup of tea – so sweet & starchy I am certainly not going to waste my calories on it, hoho!

Yet another exciting week in school awaits – I am all packed, ironed and ready to go!

Meanwhile, I am also working hard on my back-log of wonderful places that I visited in the past months (mostly in Singapore before I left):
– Pique Nique
– The Adventures of Tiong Bahru with K
– L’atelier Robuchon
– Joel Robuchon
– Tippling Club
– Tetsuya’s

…Stay tuned.

Thought of the Week: Happiness is a choice…so why not choose it?

Since LCB only offers a 3-day week, there’s quite alot of free time at hand…here’s what I have been up to:

1) Cleaning Up – both literally and in a figurative sense. The process was unpleasant and even difficult…but it was necessary in order to achieve my desired results (and hopefully it lasts).

2) Creating – when I heard the wonderful news that a friend here is expecting her first, I got reminded of the rice wine recipe that was passed down by my granny. My mom’s really great at it and I have been relying on her for too long – so what better time than to get down and start mastering it myself! I really hope I will be able to make a good jar of wine by the time the baby arrives :D.

I managed to get all the necessary materials from East Wood and Haymarket (Asian supplies are aplenty here, I must say!).

3) Absorbing –  oh did I mention the college library is AWESOME. I spent most of yesterday lost among the shelves after shelves of everything related to food and cooking!

I also brought some home to devour during my free time.

It’s back to school again tomorrow at 7.30am – am excited!

This is what we did last saturday (which was also the first time we plated and served up for grading) – Eggplant and Tomato stew served with turned vegetables. Turning was such a pain!!!

[LEFT] Prepared by Chef Daren during demo (Pic taken using Panasonic LX5)
[RIGHT] Prepared by me during practical – Chef Daren fedback that the eggplant is slightly overcooked (Pic taken using iPhone 4S).

Takeaway: Time is precious/Life is short – focus on Big Rocks always and when in doubt, run back to your Personal Mission Statement (these are learnings from ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ training which was a corporate training I attended previously. It is a great training btw…for me, it was life-changing :P).

Cutting vegetables is something that each and every home-cook think they would have mastered – including me. However, after today’s lesson….vegetable cutting takes on a whole new level!

For lesson 1, we spent 2.5 hours on doing just one thing – cutting vegetables. It includes zesting, segment, julienne, brunoise, mirepoix…among others. Everything has to be cut to precision (ie. Julienne = 2mm by 2mm by 40mm) and for a wild/crazy moment I actually thought of bringing a ruler to class the next time 😛

Everything that we needed to accomplish for today’s prac (these were done by Chef John during demo session)

Garlic paste was on the list as well as chopped parsley – both relatively easy. We also made a bouquet garni – which is a combination of herbs wrapped in muslin cloth (popiah-style) and tied. It is used like a seasoning packet for soups and stocks – which we will be preparing tmr!

To keep up the excitement, I went home…dropped my bag, opened the fridge and took out every vegetable/fruit I could lay my hands on. Since I did not manage to take a photo of my work in class, I made sure I snapped a couple of shots of what I did at home –

As can be seen – I only have onions, carrots and lemon in my fridge 😛

I ended up with too much carrots and onions:(….so I made egg white omelette! 😀

Takeaway of the day: Chopping greens is far from easy – especially to achieve precision. (I cannot imagine when we have to start turning vegetables from this saturday – it’s going to be tough I heard!). The other major takeaway (for me at least) is that we are not required to wash our own dishes at LCB – WHEE BIG NEWS!