The increasing pace and breadth of the curriculum certainly kept us busy through week two. Between teaching demonstrations and hands-on kitchen sessions, we covered various sauces and batters, hummus and crudités, basic bread dough, veg prep and cooking, jointing and cooking chicken, and making our own white meat stock using chicken carcasses and veal bones.
There was some respite, of sorts, for the start of week two. A morning completing the Food Allergen Awareness certificate. One of the more engaging online training sessions I’ve completed, which really brought home how crucial it is to take full responsibility for ensuring you are 100% confident that what you are serving or selling someone won’t harm, or in extremis, kill them.
In the afternoon, we were back in the kitchen focusing on one of the 14 food allergens: eggs! I usually leave the omelette making to my husband having never had much success. Turns out more butter in the pan is the answer (to this and many other culinary dilemmas). As we started cooking, I had a quick word with myself to relax and enjoy it! I produced a very neat, well seasoned classic French omelette with a smart snipping of chives and just the right amount of baveuse. Success! Then on to scrambled eggs. I had thought I was something of a connoisseur here but it turns out that my usual flake size could be compared to what Ryan, our teacher, described as ‘cat food’. Clearly something to aim off if at all possible! Take a look at the pic – I think success here too 🙂
Our knives finally arrived this week. And sharp is most definitely the word. Or perhaps it is cut, since most of us managed to nick a finger during the course of the week. Blade covers to be purchased this weekend!
Our first formal assessment looms large in the week ahead, with everyone leaving school on Friday evening ordering chickens-a-plenty to practice jointing over the weekend. A more relaxed peer assessment was experienced on Friday afternoon following an enjoyable kitchen session making pan-cooked pizza using pizzaiola sauce and dough we had prepared earlier in the week, alongside a Green Goddess dressing using the mayonnaise we had whipped up by hand (yes!) using a small sauce whisk. Making mayonnaise by hand felt strangely akin to the practice of simultaneously patting your head and rubbing your tummy i.e. tricky! Whilst whisking the egg yolk, we had to continuously transfer drops of oil from a gastro into the egg, at speed, and without stopping. By the end of the session, I had a very oily bench, and thankfully a tasty, and importantly, not split, mayonnaise. With somewhat tired wrists, we moved swiftly to making a roux and basic white sauce. Quite the arm work-out!
The pace and breadth of the washing up and kitchen cleaning are also something we are quickly getting to grips with. The steam bath from standing over hot washing up water is, sadly, a far cry from a spa facial.
My dad was an expert at a classic French salad dressing. I’m not sure he would have been swayed by the idea of Green Goddess, at least not if he was on salad duty. Meanwhile, there were deeply felt memories of my mum this week during the bread demonstration and making. She made bread, by hand, to the same recipe, nearly every week of her adult life. And the image of her doing so is firmly and forever fixed in my mind. I think it’s unlikely she would have been impressed by my Grissini attempt this week, unevenly shaped and baked as they were. Hopefully I can do a better job of scones next week!
@Shelovescake 
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