Pot-Au-Feu

We have begun our entry into cooking with meat. Eddie and I prepared this dish Pot-Au-Feu and made several mistakes that we would learn from during the next several weeks with chickens, braising, etc. This is a nice dish to prepare because it involved several techniques and it can be any one of the following dishes: meat with a side of vegetables and soup -- meat, vegetables, and sauce, vegetable soup and meat, or stew.



First thing when making a this dish, the meat, in this case a beef brisket, has to cook up to 3 hours at a low temperature. So get the meat in the stock and start it and then cut and prepare aromatics and everything else. Keep the temperature low. Vegetables are cut rustic style and are each contained in their own cheese cloth sack and removed when tender (this can be done near the end to keep the vegetable warm).

This is made with a tougher piece of meat and if it boils the proteins harden and it will become a tough to chew instead of melting in your mouth. Running behind, we boiled it, oops, and therefore we sliced it thin. Finally our last mistake was to season it before reducing the sauce instead of seasoning at the end with salt, pepper, and lemon. After the meat and aromatics and vegetables are removed, the stock will boil down and any seasoning will be intensified. Wait until after reducing to season.



I remade the Pot-Au-Feu at home hoping to learn from my mistakes. I used pork instead of beef. It was delicious, ask the family. The vinaigrette dressing really adds a nice tang to the pork and vegetables. There is so much sauce left that the next day I blanched vegetables, sauted chicken breasts and then added it to the sauce making a nice hearty soup.

Bananas Foster

This was a fun dish to create because it was one of our first team efforts. It is very sweet and best when served right off the fire with some vanilla ice cream (or ginger, cinnamon, etc). I think we made whip cream in this photo. Toasted pecans makes a nice finish, too.



When flambeing be sure to move the pan around immediately after so that all the liquor gets consumed. Plus it looks more impressive to get the whole pan lit up.



Finally, here's a picture of the whole gang of culinary misfits. This is the second class of the semester so if we seemed a bit dazed it maybe noticeable otherwise hopefully we are feeling a bit more home in our new environment. At least we know where our Spirits are located.

Torta Frangipane Con Pere

Another tasty treat. The crust is a variation of the classic Pate Brisee. The liquid is a egg yolk and TBL cream. Also included with flour is baking powder, sugar and lemon rind. Follow steps for pate brisee: mix dry with fat then slowly add wet until desired consistency. After pressing dough into tart pan we added a layer of thinned (with Kirsch -- gotta love culinary school) then strained apricot preserves.



We added some cinnamon to the almond paste. The day students gave a hint when scooping out the pear seeds: use the melon scooper. After it was done baking we sprinkled a little cinnamon and sugar combo for a light dusting. Serve this warm with coffee, ice cream, or whipped cream. Yummmmmmmmm.

Creme Caramel -- 1.22.08

Beggars' Purses with 3 Cheeses

Amy and I worked on this and the finished product had a wonderful taste plus we were able to make a bechamel. In terms of notes I would say that this recipe had a lot of separate steps and new techniques and I sometimes felt lost in all of it. The crepes were pretty straight forward. We did add some cognac to lift up the flavor. Be sure crepe pan is super hot and once the butter has cured on the pan after a few crepes, you do not have to butter it every crepe. When buttering get push the cloth into crevices of pan.



The bechamel and the filling were heat and time sensitive. This is also were I became a little lost in the steps. We also doubled the amount of cheeses because the amount of filling looked a little small. When we took it out of the oven it was drippy with cheese fat which Chef said is natural when heating these cheeses. The taste was delicious.

Amarene Souffle with Creme Anglaise -- 1.23.08

This was a real fun recipe to put together because I could really see this being served in a restaurant and being a center piece dessert. The puffiness draws the attention and the color and flavor are a bit exotic.



What went wrong: I strained the cherries after pureeing them and then I tossed the cherry pulp into the hopper. Oops. We corrected by taking some of the amarene cherry juice from the container to give the base more flavor and body. Also Chef added lemon curd to the base to give a little more thickness/body. He said he would have also used pasty creme if it was available. The base waited quite a bit before the next step and perhaps that thinned it out.