Iron Chef?

To say that last week was a doozie is an understatement.

To say it almost f*#$ing  killed me is closer.

 First, on Wednesday BOTH of my teammates were out and rather assign me to another group for the day, the chef thought it would be fun to see what I was really made of. I had to make the meals for my entire table by myself. True, it was only me and one person but I am finding that it’s not the amount of food in this class that takes time, it’s the technique required or the preparation involved.

On the menu were:

Deep fried frog legs on dollop of mayonaise

Cheese omlette (the French way – no color)

Roasted pigeon (not street pigeons that we see on the street. they are farm raised) with a vinegar and demi-glace reduction sauce

Garden vegetables (all tourned)

Sauteed Cabbage

Pecan Pie

Thankfully, my team and I tourned a bunch of vegetables the day before everyone dissapeared. This would have easily take close to an hour which would have screwed me.

Somehow I rose to the challenge and delivered on time and didn’t do a half-bad job either. The entire class clapped for me at the end of service, which was a bit embarassing. People who know me – KNOW that I don’t like to draw a lot of attention to myself.

The following day was our “market basket” competition. These are essentially iron-chef style competitions, where we are required to use three ingredients provided by our chef in addition to anything else we can get our hands on. We have four hours to produce three courses.

The ingredients required were shrimp, pork tenderloin, and pears.

One of my teammates was required to complete the school’s sanitation course (you might remember me complaining about it on earlier posts) but he was able to meet with me after class and help come up with a plan for menu.

We decided to serve the following:

Poached shrimp in a court bouillon, served with basil/garlic mayonaise and deep fried, julienned red and green peppers. This may sound like a weird combination but for the French, this has everything they like – acid, sweetness, salt, and bitterness combined with a variety of textures – creamy and crunchy.

Roasted Pork loin stuffed with dried cherries that we marinated in a pork and veal stock reduction sauce. We only used the cherries for stuffing and served the sauce on the side for a stronger presentation – this way, nothing was oozing out of the meat.

Tourned (I know I just complained about them and I really do hate them… but it shows respect to a pretty complicated technique and our was that they would appreciate our efforts…) vegetables and green beans

Turnip Gratinee, which is a new dish I learned by making very thin slices of turnip and baking them in garlic and cream with salt and pepper – it’s very good and we thought the creaminess would go well with the meat and vegetables.

Pear tartlette with vanilla mascerpone cheese and carmelized pears.

The four hours that followed were complete chaos. Everyone was freaking out and clean pots and pans were a precious commodity toward to end.

At 12:30 our plates had to be in front of the judges table.

At 12:27, our deep fried pepper slices were destroyed by the deep frier and we had to very quickly, roast some remaining red pepper slices instead. We needed the color and taste contrast…

At 12:30, the judges entered the room. The judges were our chef, the president of the academy and the head of the pastry department, who would be judging our desserts.

We all knew that there would be judges but I must say that I was totally surprised by how, very formal the whole process was. All staff members were invited to watch the judging in addition to whatever prospective students were visiting that day. One of my classmates got yelled at for having his hands in his pockets during presentation and two of my classmates, who are currently dating, were barked at for snuggling (I think we all saw that coming). The president of the academy also made us present the name of our dish – as in give it a name, which none of us thought to do – nor were we told. So many of the dishes began with “uh…”

We were third in line and as we presented our dish, the president of the academy cut into the shrimp and it was… UNDERCOOKED! Immediately, he shot me a look and said “raw.”

It wasn’t raw but it might as well have been. Neither of us had ever poached shrimp before and because we were cooking with an acidic broth, we knew it did not need to cook as long because the acid would continue to cook them – even after it was removed from the stove. Our intention was that by the time, we presented it, it would have been perfectly cooked through. Not so much…

He tried the tail end, where the meat was thinner and therefore, cooked through. He told us he liked the acid of the shrimp and that our mayonaise was very tasty. All in all, he liked the idea and said that with the exception of the shrimp being undercooked, it was a perfect dish. I still took the compliment even though I felt bad for my team because it was the one who actually prepared the shrimp.

Our pork, he said was slightly overcooked, which is debatable. I think this is a cultural difference. I feel that 85% or more of americans would have loved it. But I need to keep in mind, that I am being taught to cook for that snooty 15%. He also liked the idea of the cherries and really liked the sauce, thought our vegetables were cooked perfectly (I sauteed them) and adored the turnip gratinee, which I was very happy about since I took the lead on that dish.

Our dessert at first was the underdog because the team next to us did a pear tartlett as well but I think our vanilla mascerpone gained a respectable amount of chatter. According to the president of the academy, it “has very good flavor” – according to many of my classmates, it was “f#$%ing delicious”.

Considering that we were working with a man down, I think our first market basket was a success. There were no major disasters.

In any case, we were all proud enough to justify getting drunk later that night.