@Shelovescake

Another week and another looooong list of skills practiced and dishes executed: pate sucree, soufflé by creme pat method, slow egg cooking, fish stock making, liver prep and cook and round fish gutting, filleting and de-boning. Plus a delicious soporific bread dem, offal and fish dems and two afternoon wine sessions covering white, sweet and rose wine.

Kitchen-wise we started the week sweet and ended savoury. Monday was a relaxed and mindful prep session. Revision of pate sucree, this time with the easier task of lining a large fluted tin (the small tins are so fiddly!). I made a lot of creme anglais over Christmas (mostly with large slugs of brandy added) but no creme patisserie. So it was good to be reminded of the method and to not be alarmed by the initial lumpiness of the sauce when it is cooking out. The creme pat was to be the base for a praline soufflé which we would make on Tuesday. The praline paste added to the creme pat smelt divine. I was day-dreaming about eating it slathered on toast for the rest of the day. The final prep job to concentrate on (whilst thinking of melting praline) was the filling for our lemon tart. A not too tricky combining of elements but again doing it carefully and with attention being paid to measuring out the exact quantities and not scrambling the eggs.

The earlier start to the kitchen session on Tuesday befuddled us: all we had to do was cook our tart and finish and cook our soufflé. Little did we expect the low and slow cook of the lemon tart would take over an hour, and for some nearly two. Vastly different oven temps for the soufflé versus the tart also slowed things down. But boy were they both worth waiting for! The soufflé ramekin was painstakingly lined, chilled, lined, chilled with melted butter and crunchy demerara sugar. The soufflé was light as air, and almost savoury in its nuttiness. As the spoon plunged to reach the now melted butter this was offset by the softened grains of brown sugar which provided a heady richness and sweet hit. A luxurious balance. Spooning the raw mixture into the ramekins was a somewhat less splendid experience; and one that requires practice. My ramekins were covered in soft egg mix and with hands the same getting the ramekins cleaned up was something of a trial, but I got there. Apparently previous students have been known to inhale three cooked soufflés immediately out of the oven. I can’t claim to have achieved such a feat but I did thoroughly enjoy devouring one as an entirely unnecessary pre-lunch treat. On to the tart…half-way through blind-baking my tart case revealed an irritating crack on one side. In some ways though this was fortuitous as I learnt how to patch and melt over the crack with some leftover raw pastry. This, together with filling the case with the lemon mixture, managed to conceal the crack entirely. A final blow-torching to brûlée the top resulted in a pleasingly professional finish.

Wednesday marked the switch to savoury: slow-cooked portobello mushroom and separately fish stock for use on Friday. The aroma in the kitchen was rather pungent. The mushrooms were nestled in an aromatic selection of spices which was later blitzed to create a pungent, chunky sauce and separate liquor to drizzle. A butterbean mash provided a creamy foil to the punch and heat from the sauce. Meanwhile, it was our first time making fish stock. It was quite something to be presented with the frames of eels and various fish at 9.30am. 3kg of frames were washed and pushed into a large stock pot together with veg and aromatics. Cooking time for a fish stock is shorter than for a meat one so we also had time to strain and reduce it down to a usable concentration.

It’s fair to say there was limited enthusiasm for Thursday’s calves’ liver cook. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed the cooking session and the resulting plate of food was well balanced with an array of salty, sweet and savoury flavours. The liver was also considerably more palatable than anticipated. In part thanks to the tare sauce which was brushed liberally on the cooked meat. Tare sauce is a savoury-sweet Japanese glaze made by reducing soy, mirin, sake and sugar with shallots, garlic and ginger. It is often used to provide umami to ramen, and will be delicious brushed on salmon or chicken. As a table we also made a vibrant coriander crumb. First we created a coriander oil with a blanched bunch of coriander plunged into ice water to set the colour and then whizzed in a Thermomix with rapeseed oil. We combined the oil with freshly toasted and crushed coriander seeds and panko. It provided a shock of colour and texture to an otherwise soft and brown dish.

Fish on Friday and it was a sea bream to fillet for the first time. Blue protective gloves were definitely advised for the gutting stage. I found filleting a round fish slightly trickier than a flat fish with the shape of the rib-cage more difficult to navigate without damaging some of the flesh. We served the bream with an intense white wine, cream and tarragon sauce, with our fish stock from earlier in the week providing a real depth of flavour. Also on the plate was chicory braised in butter, verjus and lemon thyme. Cooking the fish with juicy flesh and crispy skin was the final task. My test piece was over-crisp and my service piece was not crisp enough. Practice makes perfect!

The most enjoyable dem of the week was bread with Grace. Some revision of bread-making technique from foundation but for three new breads: focaccia, potato bread and a walnut and raisin loaf. The potato bread was brioche-like in its softness but without the sweetness. And the fruit and nut loaf was incredibly more-ish served with whipped butter and a drizzle of honey. We’ll be attempting the focaccia next week including the new technique of creating a biga in advance.

I ended the week tired but exhilarated; full to the brim with new techniques and flavours. On the horizon for week 4, our first formal assessment of the term and our first all day cook with an alarmingly long (and delicious) list of dishes to produce in a 6 hour window. Leith’s keeps pushing and we keep learning 🙂