@Shelovescake

Week 6 was short and carb-heavy. Two days off for half-term (yippee!) and then pasta, cacio e pepe, mashed potato, risotto Milanese and white bread….freezer now re-stocked for a few weeks 🙂

We returned from a restorative four day weekend to a morning of slow cooking. Carbonnade of beef, lamb tagine and an Ethiopian mince beef stew. We learnt about the steps to success for browning meat (e.g. don’t over-crowd the pan, and wait for the meat to self-release) and enjoyed tasting the meat which just fell apart and melted in the mouth. Minchet Abish (the Ethiopian stew) was a revelation. Such interesting flavours paired with yellow rice and tangy toppings of cottage cheese (yes!), quick pickled cucumber, chilli, plum tomatoes, and parsley. In the afternoon, we made pasta by hand and by machine. We learnt that when ready the pasta should feel like chamois leather. Which took me right back to cleaning my dad’s Renault 7 on a Saturday afternoon circa 1990. Not what one normally associates with pasta! We made a quick basil pesto ahead of cacio e pepe. The pungent aroma of toasted pepper was heady. The emulsion of pasta water, cheese and butter created a silkily smooth sauce which was a perfect foil to the pepper and a more-ish coating for the tagliatelle. With a final shaving of parmesan, we were ready for service.

To kick off a group project where we will develop and cook a buffet for 25 fellow students and teachers, Grace and Helene treated us to a showcase of crowd-pleasing buffet-style dishes: poached trout with pickled cucumber and lime mayonnaise; courgette and ricotta galette; lamb shawarma with chickpea flat breads and tahini yoghurt; Middle Eastern squash with white beans, mint and lemon; Chermoula aubergine with freekah and yoghurt; and a baked vanilla cheesecake that somehow we all had room for. An inspiring feast which fuelled our creativity as we planned our own menus. One of the things I wanted to get from my time at Leith’s was fresh ideas and techniques and this task will certainly achieve that. My group decided on a South East Asian theme for our buffet which is definitely out of my culinary comfort zone.

On Friday we embarked on our first all day cook: 7 hours in the kitchen with just a 20 minute break. Good organisation, mise en place, and keeping on top of the washing up were key to success (and staying sane). Plus of course stamina and decent culinary skills! The smell of featherblade beef browning shortly after breakfast was strangely appetising. Having assembled our Carbonnade for a low and slow cook, we weighed out ingredients (including fresh yeast) for a classic white loaf. Whilst the dough proved, I got on with the mashed potatoes. The Leith’s way on mash is as exacting as its way on everything else. And I have to admit I was a little nervous about executing this basic comfort food to those standards. Mash made, I started the final dish of the morning: risotto Milanese. I don’t love the dominance of saffron in this dish but, slightly undercooked carnaroli aside, it’s difficult not to enjoy the slowly sweated onions, plump rice and sighing sunshine coloured sauce of butter, parmesan and saffron.

A quick 20 minute break to refresh my tastebuds with a salad and back in the kitchen to put the finishing touches on the Carbonnade and mash for service. The meat could barely keep itself together when touched with a fork; the sauce, whilst flavoursome, was thin. I used a beurre manie to thicken it and re-heated the mash adding the dregs of a warm cream, butter and milk mix to take it to a creamy dropping consistency. Unfortunately, I slightly over-seasoned both mash and carbonnade but you live and learn and they still tasted good! Meanwhile, my white bread was now out of the oven and looking well-shaped, proven and baked – my mum would have been proud.