Savoury and sweet, and everything else in between!

The end of one chapter... and the beginning of another!

2010-05-04T22:28:00.008+07:00

Some of you may have known by now, that even armed with a CDI (contrat de durée indeterminé - basically a permanent job offer) I could not convert my titre de séjour étudiant to that of a salarié, due to very vague French bureaucracy, one of the solution was to apply for a work visa back in Singapore, with Hédiard applying as a sponsor from Paris. We agreed they would try and let me know if things went through with the manpower ministry. I bade farewell to the good folks at Hédiard and came back to to Asia in February.

I first went back to my school at LCB to talk to my chef instructors, find out what's happening in the F&B scene, picked up some names and some places to try. Bangkok proved to be quite difficult, I talked to 3 restaurants, Tables was ready to employ me but the HR director later replied that the work visa was not going through. Pl.A. said they would like to take me, but no budget at this moment. Marriott made an offer as well, but we needed to work out the kinks of my package, but by then, the red-shirt demonstrations were picking up speed and we scheduled for a later date for discussion.

Which was just as well, cos' back in Singapore, the Marina Bay Sands was going to to launch a soft opening very soon, and all along I've heard of some of the fine restaurants that were going to open in there even when I was in Paris. I sent in my resume, but it needed quite a bit of jostling to get some attention.

Meanwhile, I attended interviews at 2 local good French restaurants and received offers from both, but I asked to wait a little longer for a confirmation.

In any case, I am glad to let you know that I am now employed in the kitchen at Guy Savoy at Marina Bay Sands! I'm definitely excited by this opportunity, and though I admit I'll have to start at somewhere lower in ranks, but I'm sure there will be chances to do well, and move up along the way. I can't wait to get started in a kitchen again, it has been a while, and my hands (though been cooking for friends this while) are starting to get itchy again! Definitely there'll be incredible things to learn, and build up from my experience and knowledge from Auguste and Hédiard. I remember being fascinated just from reading the menu of the restaurant in Paris, and even that of Le Chiberta. Can't believe I'm in the kitchen and churning those out now!

Allez allez allez!!

First culinary job!

2010-01-29T05:41:00.005+07:00

During my internship, I chanced upon a job. Most people know Hediard as a specialty gourmet produce shop, bringing in spices, teas, coffees, jams, vinegars, oils, etc from all corners of the world, but not many people know that at on the 1st floor of the main store at Place de la Madeleine, there is a restaurant and a salon de thé. The main store has been in its current location since 1854, but it's restaurant has only begun in the mid 80's.

So, I began my first culinary job as a commis de cuisine. I am solely in charge of the garde manger section. Under my care are 5 dishes - foie gras mi-cuit served with prune chutney, wild game terrine with red onion confiture, cured salmon with fresh salmon tartare, served with chives cream and blinis, Spanish trevelez ham, and carpaccio of sea bream with mango vinaigrette and coconut and lime emulsion.

During the afternoons, in between service, we serve light nibbles of club sandwiches, quiches, croque monsieurs and salads, while we tackle our mise en place for the dinner service. I dread being on the roster for Saturday afternoons, cos' that's when the orders come flying in. I counted once, I made more than 3o orders between 3-6pm., 90% of club sandwiches (tandoori chicken, salmon or vegetarian), and some quiches/croques, at the same time, having to prepare staff dinner (for abt 18) hot and ready by 6.30pm - entree, main dish and a side dish.

Recently, I have been spending more time on the hot starters station. There are new interns and apprentices coming in from local schools, and while I make a check to see that all's in order, I have been working during evening services at the hot station. 2 soups - chestnut soup with a soft-centred egg (oeuf mollet), cappucino of shellfish bisque; vegetable tarte; golden parcel of lobster (aumonieres); and pan-fried scallops served with Jerusalem artichoke puree.

While Hediard does more of traditional French cuisine, and the dishes are less elaborate than a michelin starred restaurant, it was good to learn to pick up speed during service, organisation, the mise en place, and the functioning of a restaurant, within the kitchen team, and with the wait staff. The chef and the second are open to new ideas, recently, I've introduced them to the some products from the Japanese supermarket and how to work with them - silken tofu, yam, shiso leaves, miso.

Culinary Internship

2010-01-29T05:08:00.004+07:00

It's been a while since I updated my food blog. While my course has ended, it doesn't mean that the learning has. If anything, cuisine is a lifetime of learning and experimenting and discovering.

I think it is appropriate to include the various culinary experience I have gathered post-school.

I know I am late in posting them, so some parts of it have been forgotten, I will try my best to jog my memories as I go along.

I took up the internship at Restaurant Auguste after my Continuing Education at Cordon Bleu. I was put under the starters and dessert section with a Japanese girl who has been working there for almost a year now.

Under the starters, we prepared gougieres, we had langoustines wrapped with verveine in brick sheets (feuilles de brick), and served with either carrot or pea bavarois, little droplets of peas, a borage flower and drizzles of light creamy sauce. We have fresh oysters- shuckled, the shells plunged in hot water and scrubbed clean. We put the oysters back into their shells, and fill up the cavity with a red wine vinegar and shallots reduction. They are served in 6's, on little mounds of rock salt, a little dot of whipped horseradish cream on top of each oysters, and a sprig of shiso sprout - green and red shiso. There was also 'canneloni' of celeriac root filled with tourteau (a kind of crab).

We have a cheese course, I liked the l'Arguiole, 2 slices, served with a few (carefully selected) young spinach leaves, and a confiture which looked and tasted like honey.

There're the chocolate, pistachio and vanilla soufflés, served with speculoos, honey, and orange flower water ice-cream respectively. There was a dessert of blancmanger in creme d'amande 'soup'. There was banana tarte tartin as well.

Under the mains, we have seabass with olives persillade, roasted guinea fowl breasts with aubergines. We also introduced a ballotine of hare, and a square of stewed baby pork. Under garnitures, we had fresh tagliatelle pasta in lobster sauce.

Certainly the menu has changed now. It's a good idea to change your menu often, it keeps your customers coming back, and reduce the monotony of work.

Last day of School!

2009-10-06T17:32:00.007+07:00

I realised I forgot to update on my last day of school. Like the first week, we're given a mystery basket of ingredients to use. This time, there is no compulsory dishes nor ingredients, but Chef would like us to do 2 good dishes rather than 3 that doesn't work. Of cos' the 2 dishes has to be of .... 'star' standard! I felt it will be necessary to use sous-vide technique, the 'siphon', and include something crispy.

For starters, I used the pig's trotters to make a Thai-style salad "Laab" - it's basically seasoned with ground roasted rice, chilli powder, lime juice, salt (lack of fish sauce!), and some mint leaves in chiffonade. For foie gras mousse, I cooked the foie gras and passed through a sieve to get a puree, mixed with some cream and put into a 'siphon' to be plated at last minute. Some poivrade artichokes cooked sous-vide. Some salad greens with hazelnut vinaigrette. For crispy, oven-dried cured ham brushed with balsamic glaze.

For my main, I flattened a chicken breast and rolled it up with a salmon centre and bell peppers brunoises, with cured ham. This is quickly colorated and put to cook sous-vide. I made some carrots and celeriac puree by sous-vide which retains its colors and flavors very well! The chicken thighs didn't come in useful, but I dug out the chicken oysters, sauteed it in brown butter and finished cooking in chicken glaze. For crispy, oven-dried chicken skin and a slice of salmon skin. Sauce: Red wine with juniper berries and truffles brunoises!

I'm happy with my results. If I were to do it again, the siphon method for foie gras mousse came out very thick, next time I will just whip it with a whisk, with 'siphon' maybe I could add in some... chicken stock? Maybe add 1 more interesting item on the starter plate..tomatoes confits? For my main, I've not much complaints, but the cured ham was salty, so I think I needn't have seasoned the salmon/chicken. Chef was happy with both our contributions. The Spanish girl made some spanish-inspired dish (of cos!), but her portions were a little too large (but that's how they eat in Spain!), but tasty as well.

There ends my formal culinary training. I will be on an internship from next week at Restaurant Auguste in the 7th arrondisement with Chef Gaël ORIEUX. You can read up more on him on the net, he was the second with Yannick ALLENO in Le Meurice (3*) in Paris.

I chose a 1 * place and a smaller kitchen team so that I will be able to have more hands on, and more interaction with the chef.

Thanks for your attention all this while. I hope to put up something interesting time to time in my forage into culinary Paris!

This week in Modern Star Cuisine

2009-10-04T19:53:00.007+07:00

I know I haven't been updating this blog for 1 week. Well, it's because I moved out of my friend's apartment where I've been borrowing the camera-computer cable, and I could not download the photos from my camera. Good news is, I got a box from Singapore with my cable in it, along with other stuff, and here I am!

This week, we ran classes in a 'workshop', where basically, we end up cooking the 3 dishes/lesson alongside with Chef.

Modern star cuisine is exemplified by smaller but tasty portions of creative combination of ingredients. Presentation counts a lot. As well as different textures (and colors) of soft, firm, cold, hot, crispy, crunchy whipped into a dish. Less use of butter, cream, which 'softens', 'mellows' the taste in more traditional cuisine, modern cuisine has more stark flavors which comes across very directly to the diner to identify. The technique of sous-vide is widely used. I will explain more in later paragraph. The use of 'siphon' as explained in my earlier posts to create mousses is very popular as well.

Now! Let's go to the dishes!

This is a very unusual combination indeed! Foie gras and marinated sardines escabeche terrine. Somehow the use of 2 rather fatty ingredients made an interesting link to each other's flavors.

Sea bass fillet re-constituted to a darne with truffles centre. Various vegetables cooked to the point, and herb coulis. Very healthy! Fish and some of the vegetables cooked sous vide.

Sous vide, or its English translations means under vacuum, vacuum packed. Indeed the food is placed in a special plastic bag, vacuum sealed, and placed to cook either in hot water or a temperature controlled steam oven. Being cooked in its own juices instead of leaching out to the cooking liquid, or even to air, means that the flavors and moisture are preserved a lot more. Then these can be cooled rapidly (preventing overcooking), and re-heated easily again before serving.

Now, some of you, even myself, will ask, then isn't this just like frozen food packets we get in supermarkets? Yes and no. Well, if you start with raw ingredients and you watch the seasoning and cooking point, you're cooking, not just reheating pre-cooked food. Plus, you ensure the freshness yourself. You normally wouldn't keep food (sous vide or otherwise) more than a day or 2 (although technically possible), while the food on the supermarket shelves are (possibly laced with some preserving substances) intended to last for a much longer period of time, and no guarantees on taste and nutrition there.

Lobster on tomato bavarois and lobster sorbet(!!). Bavarois is a term we use to make dessert mousses, we apply pastry techniques into cuisine to achieve more interesting textures. This dish can be served in a martini glass, small shot glasses for catering, or on a plated dish, with an interesting molded tomato bavarois. Here, I made it into a 'tart'.

Tomato skin can be dried in oven to create a featherly item to catch the eye.

Rack of veal with rolled cabbage and vegetables chartreuse. Look at how pink and juicy, rosé the veal is!!! La cuisson est parfaite!

Ok, back to sous vide. Fine with boiled or steamed food, but how do you prepare roasts?! You'll melt the plastic! Yes, so, the idea is to well-colorate the exterior first, get the sweet caramelised (actually Maillard effect) meat browning juices going, and chuck it into the bag, and cook in a steam oven at precise temperature not going beyond 60C. (You actually have to use a thermometer probe throughout the cooking and remove from heat immediately when cooked to the desired doneness) Why? Because it has been scientifically proven, that most (if not all) proteins coagulate at about 60C. When this happens, your food is cooked, but any further means that the collagen breaks down, and you'll start to get grainy, rubbery meat. When the juices are preserved in the bag, and with the addition of (for e.g. bay leaves, thyme), the flavors goes right back into the meat as it is cooking, and the result is amazing!! We are told to be careful with our seasoning because aromatics are multiplied by about 3 folds (why 3?) when cooked sous vide (due to lack of escape into the air, yes, when you're cooking and it smells so good, flavors chemicals and esthers are being lost in the air, not into your food!) This is part of what molecular gastronomy is about. (So, goodbye to good old fashioned cooking??)

And to get more browning in the end, you can put it under a grill, though, be careful not to cook it further.

Zucchini flower petals lined and cooked spinach flan, pan-fried langoustines.

Pig's trotters with foie gras, Potato terrines with truffles. My presentation above. Chef's below.

Marinated Sea bass Carpaccio on a Crisp tart, Leek cream, Salmon Roe Vinaigrette.

And the de-constructed version below......

What is de-construction? It's basically taking apart to its basic components, and re-match them together again on a different plating.

Potato Tourte and Caviar Sauce.

Veal sweetbread and 'Vin Jaune' fricassé. Plated into a macaroni cake. Morel mushroom sauce. The two mushroom halves aboved are stuffed with chicken filling.

Day 4 of Light and Natural Cooking

2009-09-26T05:06:00.007+07:00

Day 4 of Light and Natural Cooking leads us to Desserts! Of course these are nothing compared to the Pastry stuff. But it's quick and relatively easy to put together restaurant desserts.

Yes yes, it's another workshop again. 1 to 1 with chef! And 5 desserts! Lol, I'm getting more bang for my bucks now!

The first you see, is a pan roasted pear (cut in 'pyramid' to have even golden coloration) in a pool of caramel cream (from reduced fat cream).

Here, you will ask, if the cream has less than 30% fat content, one will not succeed in whipping it! That is true! That is why, the caramel cream was placed into a siphon and pressed out right, nice and moussy!! So, here's another advantage of the siphon!

Next is a Strawberries with Balsamic Vinegar, Yoghurt with Spice.

We made the yoghurt 2 days ago. It's really simple and delicious! Basically, you bring milk to 42C, not more, and at 38C, add some store-bought

yoghurt and milk powder, let it cool and place in little jars/pots, and place them into a yoghurt-maker (it's like an incubator) which will keep it at a warm temperature overnight, for the beneficial bacteria to grow.

After the overnight incubation, let it cool gradually, before sealing the jars, and place them into a fridge. The first day was a 'drinking yoghurt' consistency, the longer you leave it to mature, the thicker it will become.

Next is French Toast with Wine and Coconut Cream. Red wine and spices are reduced to a nice syrup, day-old bread immersed in it, and topped with some light cream moistened coconut flakes.

These are mini-bananas served with a light flan. That means no egg yolks which are normally in regular flans. We use the eggwhites only, and frankly, it taste like a cooked meringue. I prefer the real flan anytime.

Last but not least, are Duo of Mango and Pineaple, sauteed, and served with yoghurt and Fromage Blanc cream. Looks like a square pineapple!

See you next week for Modern Star Cuisine!!

Day 3 of Light and Natural Cooking

2009-09-26T04:24:00.006+07:00

Day 3 of Light and Natural Cooking leads us to Meats and Their Garnishes.

The good news is that, I had a one to one lesson with the Chef!! The Spanish called in sick, and since it's no point having 3 hrs of demo for 1 person, and then 3 hrs of practical, we passed directly to a 'workshop', where basically, I did together whatever the chef was doing! I got to complete all the dishes here!

You may guess the above escalopes to be chicken or veal, but they are actually flattened pieces of quail breasts! They call it 'picata'. Served with pea capuccino (again, using the siphon).

Next is Rabbit Saddle stuffed a la Grecque. Yummy!! Potatoes are cooked in chicken stock.

Next is Duck Breast cooked 'En Papillote', Citrus Jus, Three Savory Vegetable Custards.

The magret duck breasts are seared quickly, escaloper, and placed in a baking paper and wrapped tightly. As it cooks, the steam created puffs up the package and when presented to the customer, the package bursts open with whiff of fragrance.

The close up pics.....

The 3 savory custards are Beetroot, Carrot, and Peas. No, they're not chinese steam buns! No, they're not Raspberry, Mango and Pistachio ice cream! They were nicely 'souffle'd' when it was out of oven. By the time I took the photo, it deflated a little.

Day 2 of Light and Natural Cooking

2009-09-24T00:28:00.003+07:00

Day 2 of Light and Natural Cooking was to make fish dishes with its garnishes.

I have the pleasure of announcing that in this practical, we made 4 out of 4 dishes that Chef demo'ed!

First, is a Smoke-Infused Milk and Saffron Risotto, Haddock Petals with Asparagus.

Second is a Skate Escabeche, Fennel in Salt Crust. It's an interesting way to cook vegetables (and fish too! except it's more a salt/eggwhite crust) in a salt/dough crust. It's slowly baked till golden on the outside, and when you cut through, the vegetable, in this case, a fennel bulb, remains juicy and full of aroma in the interior.

You can eat the dough, but it's not that tasty.

In SG, we call skate, ray, or stingray, it's fileted and light pan fry, finished cooking with a sour sweet onion/tomato marinate called escabeche which is popular in S.American countries.

The third dish is Hake, Green Sauce with Shellfish.

You can use any shellfish, but today, we've only cockles (unfortunately, I don't like cockles so much, years of watching my parents devour bloody half boiled cockles gave me bad dreams!) But it seems that French cockles look and taste almost like baby clams, with a more iron aftertaste.

We don't find hake in SG (or Fr: Colin). It's a long slender quite a large fish, very tender flesh.

Last but not least, is the Grilled Sole, Little Gems (like a mini Tianjin cabbage) a la Plancha and Meat Jus.

To be honest, we didn't exactly grill both of them, we used the pan with very little oil. After the sole has been cooked, it's neatly filleted, the centre bone carefully removed, and pieced together again. The way the Sole Meuniere would have been done!

There, I proved myself the impossible to finish 4 dishes in 2.5 hrs!

Day 1 of Light and Natural Cooking

2009-09-23T01:05:00.005+07:00

In Light and Natural Cooking, (if it was even conceivable for butter and cream laden dishes typical of French cuisine), we aim to reduce the use or use reduced fat butter/cream, or use yoghurt in place.

Today, in Day 1, we learnt mainly Entrées. This is unusual cos' most of the time, Chef demo's 1 starter, 1 or 2 mains, 1 dessert. Well, this Chef decided to break up to day 1: Entrees, day 2, fish, day 3, meat, day 4, desserts. Which is a good break from usual as well.

First dish is a soup: Leek and Potato Soup, or Fr: Vichyssoise, which can be eaten hot or cold, according to the season. We placed some poached haddock in the middle, some diced Spanish piquillos in the bottom and on top. Some flaked almonds, and a sprinkling of Espelette pepper.

Chef liked it, though I would have placed more leeks in it. This photo is what I've made. (I thought for a change, I'll put my own creation in place of Chef's, but if you wanna see Chef's pics, lemme know, I'll post them up as well.)

Next are 2 dishes which we didn't make, but were Chefs demo's. The first is Cured Salmon with Ginger and Air-dried Beef (as the red crinkly juliennes in photo).

The second is Poached Tuna with Piperade garnish. Piperade is a delicious blend of blend of bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic. Some onion chips on the sides.

The next dish we made in practical was a toast of tomatoes confits (over dried tomatoes), and marinated young mackerel fish (marinate: garlic, olive oil, espelette pepper, cider, cider vinegar). At the end, the marinate is strained, and whisked into a vinaigrette. This was the dish I presented.

Next dish I presented, was Smoked Tuna on a Galette de Pommes de Terre (actually, a giant blini!). The tuna was first cured in coarse salt for abt an hour, and then washed. It's placed in a improvised smoking device (woodchip on the base of saute pan, fish on top of a round grill, covered and smoked slowly).

Day 3 and 4 of International Influence

2009-09-18T21:33:00.009+07:00

Update: Yay, I took the leftovers from school to bring to friends for dinner that night, and they took a photo! It's the next best thing.

Going clockwise from the top, the first dish is partly covered by the wine, it's the fish wrapped in crispy crepe, it's not longer crispy by nowfor sure.

Next to is it the pigeon with kumquats confits, below it the langoustines with mango salsa, on its right is another dish from earlier, lamb parcels, and the last is the beef tataki (like a carparccio). And a little apricot mango chutney from earlier as well. Served with 1999 (or is it 98?) Chinon red, from the cellar (yes, below the very apartment) of my friend!!

Day 3

a) Tuna and Mango, Wasabi Vinaigrette, Ice Plant Salad (extra: coriander and shiso leaf 'pesto')

Nothing really exceptional, except the ice plant is very unique, I've never seen it before. It's like a juicier watercress, with little bubbles of water/juice surrounding the stems and leaves, looks like someone spritzed it with water. It's soft to the bite, slightly 'sweet' and a little sour aftertaste. Very refreshing. The Asian 'pesto' was very good too!

b) Boiled White Fleshed Fish with Green Curry and Galangal

In french, they called it a Tom Kha Gai, but it's not at all! It's like a mix of that and Green Curry.

When I made it, I made it taste more Tom Kha soup, and I made the green come out of blendered herb greens and not so much from the green curry paste. Chef took extra spoonfuls of it!

c) North African Lamb Parcels, Quinoa Risotto, Apricol Chutney

Taste of well seasoned cumin, mint marinated lamb, very soft to the bite. My quinoa risotto was good too, except could do with a little more salt.

d) Fresh Fruit Minestrone with Pearls Tapioca, Tomato Cappuccino and Basil

Very refreshing, nice! You will not be able to achieve the tomato cappuccino without a whipped cream dispenser! Actually this device is getting very popular in modern cuisine with many ideas of foam. While it's very fancy sounding, I think it plays well with its light airy texture vs more denser items on your plate. And the mixture of air gives it an immediate 'lift' of flavors to your olfactory senses.
Ok, now it comes to the highlight of this week!

Day 4 is a workshop, where we have free play to create 4 dishes out of a 'mystery' basket of ingredients. Well, it's not so much a mystery, cos' it was given to us in the folder, but I didn't notice until Day 3, I thought it was a mystery basket till the very morning!

Well, we have to create 1 fish, 1 beef, 1 pigeon (squab), 1 langoustine dish. Use of foie gras is a must, either with the langoustine or in any of the above dishes.

My creation:

a) Beef Tataki with Shiso Leaves, blend of Ginger Sesame sauce.

I seared the sirloin and cut strips of 2mm slices, arranged in a radial pattern, alternating with Jpn seaweed and shiso leaves. Good!

b) Pan Fried Langoustines with Mango Salsa

Juicy mango with shallots, chilli, lime juice and zest. And a small side of salad green. Was good too, until I forgot about the mango salsa! I hurriedly sent it up!

c) Sea Bream Fillets with Mediterrenean Vegetables, wrapped in Crispy Warka (like spring roll skin), served with Light Mango and Curry sauce. Was good!

d) Roasted Squab stuffed with Nashi pears and Foie Gras, side of candied kumquats. Very similar to the quail dish we did in Superior class. Problem is, I served it still a little on the rare side! Booboo. I liked my candied kumquats, but I think I could have done a more alternative jus, maybe a bit more galangal, and could have added a small potato or rice side. Like yeah... do I have time!

Where are the photos, I'm sorry!!! Try to imagine the dishes!!! I didn't have time to take any photos as once the dishes were ready, I sent it up right away!! I wasn't late, but the Spanish girl was so quick! I couldn't lag behind! She doesn't take photos of her dishes at all! When I was chatting with chefs while keeping my tools, she was out of the classroom already! Actually, quite rude...!

Best of all, we had a bottle of champagne at the end of Day 4! Yay!! I didn't realise it was a test! Well done!

Day 2 of International Influence

2009-09-17T13:56:00.006+07:00

a) Quails 'Yakitori' marinated with Lemongrass, Port Wine Glaze, Lime Sauce - served with potato fondant on a bed of baby spinach.

The quails are marinated and grilled yakitori style, and there's a dollop of miso/cream in the hole of the potato.

Chef liked it, but warned that because of the sugar in the mirin, it could burn easily, mine was still ok, but not more than that.

b) Shortbread with Crab, Lime and Lemon Balm, Green Mango and Lemongrass Sauce.

The white rounds you see are Japanese yam. Topped with some crisp serrano ham.

This is an extra, since we were using foie gras in a later dish, Chef showed us another way of using it - Pan Fried Foie Gras with Balsamic and Cocoa Sauce, and some warm apples.

c) Scorpion Fish with Foie Gras, Bouillabaisse-style Vermicelli, Turmeric and Chorizo.

The vermicelli isn't the kind we get in SG, it's actually a pasta, angel hair, broken in smaller strands.

The fish and foie gras are lightly pan-fried, sandwiched, and steamed. Personally, I didn't like too much turmeric, so I added less in mine.

Chef liked it too, though my cut of the fish was a little thick, so the middle was still a liiiiiitttlllleeeee raw.

d) Sweet 'sushi'!! It's actually Thailands' mango sticky rice, but fashioned to look like sushi! Served with some pineapple/coconut sauce, and a ball of red pepper sorbet!! It was good, Chef approved. My sauce was nicely thick, cut of the fruits were good too.

First Lesson in LCB Paris

2009-09-16T00:26:00.007+07:00

Some of you may have waited for this post with bated breath. Well, it's here, I officially had the first day at the LCB school in Paris.

To start off, we have 4 days of "International Influences".

Day One

1) Guinea Fowl "Ban Ban Ti" (poached and cold cut) with Sesame and Green Papaya

2) Tangy Jumbo Shrimp and Crunchy Seasonal Vegetable Soup (sorta like a French version of Tom Yum - er, I like Thai version better! Sorry!)

3) Sea Bream Fillet with Black Spices, Wok Fried Vegetables, Creamy sauce with Spicy Chorizo

(er, this is really a mix of everything... am not too fond of it)

4) Bitter Cocoa and Matcha Green Tea Cappuccino and Crisp

Ok, back in LCB Bangkok, Chef usually demo 1 starter, 1 main (which we do for our practical class) and 1 dessert. Here, in the same frame of time, Chef did 2 starters, a main and a dessert. Fair. And for our practical class...... it is compulsory to do 2 dishes, and the 3rd one when we have time!! 3 dishes in 2.5hrs!!! My hands, pots, tools were all over the place!! You're seriously juggling!!

I seriously lack practice after my last class in Superior, and what a way to start!!

In the end, Chef liked my Tangy Shrimp soup very much (hey, I've been drinking Tom Yam like water in BKK!), the cold cut Guinea Fowl was very good too, but for my Fish, I forgot to strain the sauce, so it had some bits of chorizo in it, and it had to reduce a bit more.

Ok, first steps, baby steps!!

Last of Superior Cuisine

2009-07-14T14:43:00.010+07:00

In this week, we had the same 3 demonstrations, but only 1 practical. The other 2 practicals were taken up to prepare for, and the final practical exams itself.

Starters:

1) Green asparagus and crab charlotte, verjus sauce. Verjus is actually the juice made from unripe grapes and lends a tangy taste, thus an alternative to citrus or vinegar.

2) Lobster salad with citrus fruits

3) 'Greek style' artichokes with saffroned mussels

Mains:

1) Stuffed guinea fowl breaks cooked 'en cocotte'

2) Crisp wrapped lamb fillet with provencal vegetables

3) Roast rabbit legs tandoori-style with herb salad. The green juice in the shotglass is cucumber juice to reduce the heat of tandoori. Tandoori is normally served as a whole, but this was sliced to for the photo.

Desserts:

1) Warm mascarpone souffle

2) Raspberry souffle, tropical fruit salad with spices

3) Orange and lime sorbet, sweet wine jelly balsamic vinegar dressing

Thus ends our journey with Le Cordon Bleu Dusit, Bangkok, Thailand. I hope you enjoyed the sensory delights of these dishes, desserts, pastries and cakes as much as I did.

Looking back, it was quite a dive into the deep end, but the best part of all is the satisfaction of knowing your level skills have improved by a couple of notches.

Still a long road ahead in this absolutely fantastic journey! Stay tuned for more updates as I take up an internship and September in Paris for Cert IV "Professional Perfecting of Skills".

Superior Cuisine Exams

2009-07-03T20:06:00.002+07:00

This photo was taken just as I was about to finish plating. Afterwhich, I drizzled some basil oil around the tomato confit and caramelised onion tart, I moved the millefeuille (bottom left of plate) around to point the tip in another direction, and put some chopped herbs around the grilled veg terrine (bottom right).Unfortunately, the eggplant 'frites' started to turn a little soft (damn the humidity of tropical Asian weather!). I also forgot to put some fleur de sel, and grind of pepper on top of terrine.

Ok, the verdict!

1) Individually, the taste of each sides are very good, but when put together, some chefs found it had too much taste, overwhelming (!! I never knew it could be a problem!)

2) The lamb is cooked well, rosé, but it could have remained in the oven just a min or two more.

3) Too much aioli, it's a strong sauce, just a drizzle will do. I agree, actually, I wanted to put into a sauce bottle and drizzle some designs on the plate under the lamb, but as I said, last minute jitters made me forget everything!

4) The crust of the tart was a little tough around the rim, most likely pressed too hard when putting into the ring.

5) Chef liked the eggplant 'frites' and fig.

6) Millefeuille was good, but maybe the fig compote was a little too sweet. (I didn't add any sugar, it must have come from the dried figs and the port wine. I'll use just plain red wine in future, and maybe blanch the dried figs.)

7) Sauce (lamb jus, etc) was good!

I was supposed to serve at 11.05 a.m., so I tried to delay a bit to make sure everything ended up warm and crispy/crunch on the plate (re: humidity), but in the end, small little hiccups happened that needed some quick fix, plus the anxiety of the final exams just got a little too much. Hands were trembling. By then the workstation was messy, and my plate started to get cold. I'm sure those cost me a few marks.

What I learnt: Start plating already. It's prob going to get a little soft anyway, chef will understand, but of course it should be as soft as a wet towel. That I should use a hot potato to make aioli. Mine split halfway, and chef suggested a quick fix. And that a good assistant is absolutely vital!

I couldn't come down from the adrenaline after I submitted and took a photo with chef! A good 2hr Thai massage was soooo good after that!

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Finished, it's over!!

Oh gee! What a relief!! Man, I'm so tired now, and I've a headache, I can't write a lot, but will just say it went well. I was a little late for my presentation, a little last minute panic at the last moment when everything had to be ready and warm.

I forgot to take a picture of the serving plate (to the judges), but the school admin took one, I'm gonna get from them. But meanwhile this was the large silver platter for 3 that we have to piece together as well.

I stayed back voluntarily to help the other students in the exams in the time slots after mine, so, I've been on my feet since 8am. I need a good rest!!! I'll write more in a few days time.

Superior Pastry Exams Practical - My creation: La Dolce Vita

2009-07-02T20:19:00.001+07:00

I'm all smiles! I finished ahead of time, it turned out well.... Chef liked the taste. I changed the format of presentation a bit from my trial at PG's apartment. I think we all did very well. Well, this is formally the end of my Pastry training. When I continue with Cert IV in LCB Paris in Sept09, I plan to do so for Cuisine only. As much as I've learnt, and enjoyed, a lot in Pastry, within me, I still feel more for Cuisine.

The interior of the cake is very similar to the one below. However, I totally left out the cherries in the middle layer, and chose to put them on top as deco instead.

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For our final pastry exams, we are given free reign on creating our very own cake. Only limitations are that it has to be an entremet of 18cm diameter and 4.5cm height.

We are given a list of common cake ingredients, including various fruit purees, nuts, chocs.. and we are also allowed to bring whatever (local) ingredients not listed. Last term, someone made something with gula melaka, someone with ginger.

I thought hard about it, tempted by orange or apricot and choc, or banana caramel something, and decided to come up with a gelato-inspired cake: cassata encased in chocolate joconde sponge with a pecan dacquoise, amarena cherry mousse on top, with a red glaze.

In case you're wondering after all my descriptions, here're some photos of the trial I made this weekend. Enjoy! I call it, La Dolce Vita.

What I'll do differently on the actual day, I will have to include more decorations on top, maybe a simple sugar work, a marzipan modelling, and I'll cut the cherries in halves and place them facing down, in a more even layer. The choc joconde sponge was too thick, I didn't have the right baking tray as we have in school, it should be thinner. Another thing, I'll replace the sprig of chervil (lol) with actual mint leaves which I didn't have when I made it this weekend. My glaze wasn't completely set when I removed the cake ring so it sorta drooped down the sides a bit, not very nice... I'll be more patient next time.

2 written exams and Cuisine preparation day

2009-07-01T20:16:00.000+07:00

Nothing can prepare you for 2 1/2 hours of preparation for the Cuisine exams.

This is when we start to prepare the preliminary ingredients for our final 2 1/2 hours practical exam the following day. I had planned out a list, but in the end, I kept switching back and forth between tasks. You're nervous, excited, a bit lost, disorientated by the noises of others with different preparations from yours. I did all, except to 'french' the rack of lamb, which anyway, I won't cook until the actual day, so it's ok in the end.

They're very strict with their timing. When they say, pack all into your box (that goes into the chiller room until your D-day), they really mean it, otherwise they will not accept any more.

I made my tomato confits, my caramelised onions, my shortcrust dough, grilled my veg and made my terrine, made my fig compote, blanchi my garlic and infused olive oil with saffron.

On the exam day, I have to make my aioli, french the lamb rack, make my goat cheese mousse, fry my eggplants, make crispy my warka dough, bake my tomato-onion tart, and serve! Yes.. there's still a lot to do, oh my god, I think maybe I challenged myself too hard.

Ok, for the written exams, I knew I wasn't sufficiently prepared for pastry. I got 80, but for my cuisine, I'm happy with my score of 96!!!

I got a Pastry practical exams tmw, 5 hrs, make my own cake and decorate it. Man, I need a massage.

Here's a backdate of my posts:

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Chef accepted my submission:

Main dish:

Carré d’Agneau “du Pré” à l’Alioli

Roasted Rack of Lamb "From the Meadow" (well basically, after roasting, I apply a layer of mustard and press on it some freshly chopped herbs) on a bed of saffron Aioli. Most are using almond or breadcrumb crust, brown's a bit dull, so I'm livening mine up with fresh green instead.

I'm roasting the rack with some dried fennel stems, pinch of lavendar, garlic, thyme, and half a lemon. After roasting, I will deglaze and add the pan jus to the ....

Sauce will be based on mirepoix and shallots with lamb trimmings, Madeira wine, veal stock, and pan jus from roasting the lamb.

Side dishes:

1) Millefeuille de Crottins aux Herbes Fines, Compote de Figue

Millefeuille of Goat Cheese with Herbs and Port wine Fig Jam

2) Compressé aux Légumes Grillés

Terrine of Grilled Mediterranean Vegetables

3) Croustillant d’Aubergines et Figues au Miel

Eggplant "Frites" with Figs in Honey

4) Tartelette aux Tomates et Oignons

Oven dried Tomato and Caramelised Onion tartlet

I'm making the mise en place on Wednesday 1 Jul 4-7pm, and my slot for exam is on Fri 3 Jul 8.30-11.30am. During exam, a pair of students will be placed in the Demonstration (aka lecture room) kitchen, and the chef will attend (like a role reversal, except you don't have to explain every step). Each student is given a specific time to present his dish in a room upstairs, where external judges will grade behind closed doors. Back in the kitchen, you prepare a large silver platter for 3, take a photo, and come back to the judging room altogether (4 students, 2 demo room) to receive feedback.

Wish me luck!

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Ok, after much coffee and sleepless nights thinking of my submission for Cuisine exams, here are what I have in mind:

Main dish:

Roasted rack of lamb with Light Lavender Crust and Aioli

Side dishes:

1) Millefeuille of Goat Cheese with Herbs and Fig Compote

2) Terrine of Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables

3) Eggplant "Frites" with Figs in Honey

Of course, I will have to use the lamb trimmings to make a thick sauce from mirepoix, Madeira wine and veal stock.

Ok, any other suggestions or comments if I should make some alterations, please tell it to me before Friday!!!

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Cuisine:

We just received our list of ingredients for exams:

Compulsory items:

1 lamb rack

4 eggplants: 2 big, and 2 long

8 pcs of fresh figs

2 pcs of goat cheese (crottin)

150g whole almond

1 pack of brick sheet (something like spring roll skins)

The following items can be opted out, but the more you make use of your basket, the more points you will receive:

2 zucchinis

2 red bell pepper

2 yellow bell pepper

8 pcs of dried figs

1 kg of potatoes

8pcs of tomatoes

Fresh herbs

Basil (*compulsory)

Tarragon (*compulsory)

Coriander

Flat Leaf Parsley

Chive

Chervil

Dill

Rosemary

Besides these, you have the whole wealth of LCBD store such as wines and alcohol, dairy products, stocks, some aromatic elements (carrots, onions, garlic, etc), and flour, starch, seasonings, etc.

You are allowed to bring non-perishable items not in the list above, but to consult the chef beforehand. Of course, no pre-made (commercial or otherwise) foodstuff allowed!

Wasn't it some blogs ago when I mentioned that a style of cooking I enjoy a lot is the Mediterranean use of tomatoes and fresh herbs and zucchinis, eggplants, bell peppers?? Is this not a prayer come true? But to be fair, what I have done back in SG with friends are rather simple country-style Mediterranean fare. Now....

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The idea is to present 1 main dish, and at least 2 side dishes (more is encouraged). You have 2.5hrs of preparation (mise en place), and on the actual day of exam, another 2.5hrs of cooking and presentation. We have to cook for 4: Prepare a plate for 1, and a large silver platter for 3.

We are free to use our creativity to put together this menu, but it has to include a kind of dough (shortcrust, puff pastry, etc), and a sauce. (2 basic elements that typefies French cuisine.)

Alright, time to put my mind to it. I have to submit my (original!) recipes by 19 June!

Certainly, there is still the written exams to do.

I will talk about Pastry exams in a different entry.

Pastry Sugarwork Exam Entries

2009-06-30T19:57:00.000+07:00

Standing on your feet for 5hrs straight, sweating and puffing, faced with a heater lamp, and even hotter melted sugar on your hands is no joke! And we have to do it twice!

Yesterday, we had a trial run. To discover where we were slow at, what could be improved, what worked, and what didn't.

This was my trial entry:

I didn't do any planning, I just made a lot of decorations and piece them up when time came. Chef didn't really like it. Although my handiwork was good, there were too many colors. Should keep to 2-3 colors, or even shades of 1-2 colors to make it more soothing to the eye. (Unlike chocolate where OTT seems to rule.) Important to give flow and movement to the showpiece. Many of the other students' were quite disastrous. 1 collapse (she didn't cook the sugar to the right temperature, and it started warping and breaking as she was piecing it up.) One was stuck on the marble table when she left it a little too long, and had to scrape it off with a paint scrapper.

Anyway, today, I think all of us improved tremendously!

There are 9 of us in our class SP1. 1 student threw her entry into the bin after grading. I didn't think it was so bad. There are another about 10, I think, in the other class SP2, but they took their exams on a different day, so I couldn't capture their entries here.

These 2 warrant special mention. Chef said they were excellent. I think so too!

And mine, and 2 others were very good. This was my entry.

I chose a color theme of green, white, and orange... come to think, it's very Irish!

I made a rough sketch in the morning, something softer, elegant, with clean lines, fit for a spring wedding. With various poured, pulled, blown sugar pieces. In time, maybe I can work in Murano.... fat hope!

I'm glad this is over now! No more sugarwork!!!! Well, maybe just a little more... I'm making some 'corals', and some caramel to dip my cherries for my cake entry on Thursday.

Sugarwork

2009-06-28T10:41:00.001+07:00

Sugarwork - Boiling syrup to 165C and stop immediately by sinking the pot in a bed of ice water for only 2 secs. Pour unto a SILPAT, a few drops of coloring and you're ready to go! *wink*

Yes, and a pair of heat-resistant gloves of course!

Sugarwork has always been a reason why some do not want to complete Superior Pastry. It's one of our entries for exams, and they cannot take the heat! Those petite hands that were excellent in making cakes and pastries and piping, find themselves excessively burnt from the heat of syrup. These blobs of 'molten glass' are stretched, poured, pulled, blown to various showpieces that you can see here.

These below are chef's demonstrations.

These below are what I created from the practicals:

Because of the humidity of tropical Asia, the sugar pieces will start to become sticky quickly, and over the course of a day, start to melt. Even in air-conditioned rooms. The only help is a dehumidifier, but you can't turn that on all the time.

Monday, I'll have a 5 hrs session to put together what we've learnt so far to design a piece I'll have to replicate and present on Tuesday, to submit for exam.

Countdown for last Cuisine entries

2009-06-24T10:58:00.000+07:00

Yes, it's all coming to an end soon, and this is my last week for Cuisine lessons. Next week are all exams, both Pastry (Sugar work and your own cake creation), and Cuisine (mise en place as well as the actual exam), not to mention written exams for both. On top of it, I was chosen to give a speech for the graduation. So I have to prepare a draft for chef. Busy busy busy.

I will update this entry with more dishes along the week.

Starters:

1) Tatin of endives with goat cheese, sweet sour jus

2) Crispy tart with tomato, langoustines and pistou

3) Taboule with fresh shrimp and vanilla oil

Main:

1) Beef Wellington with turned vegetables. Bouquetier-style means to fan out the turned vegetables in ordered alternatives for presentation. The beef is roasted, brought down to colder temperature, stuffed with foie gras mousse in the centre, wrapped in mushroom and crepe, and again in puff pastry, and baked till crispy. Note: the beef should still be à point, and not overcooked! Served with truffle sauce.

Over several dishes in Superior, they want to test how you can perceive the doneness of your food, when it is covered, in crust, in cabbage, etc. It's simple to roast or to pan-fry and know when to take them out. But when you have to cook the crust and yet not overcook (or undercook) your meat, is a different challenge!

This was what I served to Mel, Kev, Soogee and Kenneth who were visiting from SG.

2) Noisettes of venison with "grand veneur" sauce

3) Red mullet fillets with crispy potato scales

Desserts:

1) Figs roasted in rosemary, cinnamon mascarpone. You can also see some edible crystallised rose petals and borage flowers.

2) Caramelised coconut cake with roasted mini bananas

3) Soft macaroon, candied fennel ice cream, wild berry coulis. The flame-like toppings are fennel chips. Fennel sliced thinly and dried in oven to a crisp.

Pastry - Showpieces

2009-06-24T10:37:00.000+07:00

In addition to Chocolate showpiece, others commonly seen are Pastillage and Marzipan. Pastillage is made from a crazy amount of icing sugar, some gelatin and cornflour. It is more tricky to work with than Marzipan, as the surface tends to dry out very quickly. Traditionally, different shapes are made in advance to dry out properly over 3-4 days, and assembled, and only then can you get something standing.

It is also used for wedding cakes common in the US or UK where its pastel colors and clay like modelling abilities allow you to create small decorating bows and ribbons and piece them altogether on a large pastel piece to cover the wedding cake.

In school, we only have 3 hrs, so we made hats. I made the pink one. The chef said oh, it's very feminine... and I said, yes, it's for a girl afterall, I'm not gonna wear it.

Compressed sugar are basically normal caster sugar colored and placed inside molds, not unlike making sand castles. After drying out, they're quite solid. What's useful is that you can make a towel of different colored 'sand' to use to prop up a showpiece.

Marzipan: at 33% almond paste. I made the farmer boy and the poodle. It's all freestyle, there're no molds or direction, it's only your imagination.

2nd last week of Superior Cusine

2009-06-18T22:19:00.000+07:00

It's been almost 9 months since I'm in Bangkok, and coming to an end to my 3rd and last term in Le Cordon Bleu Dusit. Time flies... well, onto more photos!

Starters:

1) Line Caught Whiting fish (Fr: merlan de ligne) grilled with warm salad and condiments from Nice.

2) Lightly pan-fried Scallops with Scallop Parmentier and Carrot butter. Incidentally, this was our 2nd dish of the week to prepare for our practical. I guess the chef wanted us to work with live scallops. Yeah, live, not just in the shells, but their shells are clamped tight! We have to shuckle them as we would to live oyster, remove the 'beards' for the parmentier. They are very delicate and you have to be careful in handling them. I love scallops, as raw as possible!

3) Duck bavarois, mesclun salad and tomatoes confits. Bavarois is a term usually reserved for a type of cream based dessert mousse. However, over the years we have seen the lines of terms becoming blur between pastry and cusine, and I guess how this term was coined. It is in fact lightly cooked foie gras and magrets of ducks sifted and lightened with whipped cream and chilled to a paté consistency. Yummy! Served with smoked magret sliced thinly that taste like jamon.

Mains:

1) Thick Tuna steak with burgundy style garnishes and potatoes fondants.

It's your regular pan seared tuna, still rosé in the middle, but we added a bacon wrap. Served with red wine sauce, and potatoes slow-cooked in chix broth till melt in your mouth consistency.

2) Squab (Pigeon) wrapped in cabbage, legs stuffed, tartlets of wild mushroom.

3) Sole stuffed with mushrooms and glazed, with surprise crêpes parcels

We just finished with this dish today, it's quite interesting, the sole is split in carefully cut in the middle, fileted, but still attached to the body, and carefully, you have to remove the skeleton and keep the fish whole! So there is absolutely no bones at all when you cut into this dish.

Desserts:

1) French toasts (!) with berries and rhubarb compote.

I know traditionally we know french toasts as sandwich loaf dipped in sweetened beaten eggs and pan fried. Well, not the case in LCB! We make a crème anglaise to soak the bread, and sure it has to go with some healthy fruits!

2) Chocolate tart with marmelade filling. Marmelade is very easy to make, easier than jam. Prick some oranges, half submerged in water, boil till soft, take out, slice them (if you like, in traditional thick slices). Then cook them again peel, pith, and juice (except seeds) and all until a jam like consistency. Adjust to taste with sugar.

Chocolate sweet dough (pate sucree) half baked, fill with marmelade and cover with ganache lightened with whipped cream, and bake.

3) Cherries pan-fried in port wine and caramel ice cream

Mad about Chocolate

2009-06-13T18:04:00.001+07:00

I know some people who loves chocolate so much, it drives them insane, they will have no problem choosing an ice-cream flavor at a parlour, but for me, chocolates are alright, but I'll like to listen to other suggestions first, namely something fruity, esp red fruits-raspberry, cherries, etc....

Anyway, I've learnt to respect chocolate a lot after this course, and I now believe there is a god of chocolate. Why I say this is because... tempering chocolate can be quite tricky. You have to melt (dark) couverture chocolate to 45-50C, bring down to 25-27C, and bring it up to 30-31C for use. It's not as simple as just heating up and waiting for it to cool down. You will take an hour or two for that, depending on the quantity. You have to use a bain marie, a very accurate thermometer, and a good marble top to spread and cool the choc down. This process is called tablage. You really have to give it time and a keen eye and respect what is happening and you react according to it. You don't do what you want with chocolate. Chocolate lets itself be done, it teaches you. Unfortunately, it's easy said than done. The perfect tempering at 30-31C can be very elusive, I myself, had a run-in and had to temper twice during one practical. (Maybe the cocoa god was punishing me for not prefering chocolate at other times.) There was a girl who had to temper 4 times in the same practical. *shudder* She was almost crying. She didn't have a lot of time to piece up her model.

Only then is it ready to be used for either pouring into molds, or shaping to the various showpieces you see in the photos here. And once it cools, it can solidify quite quickly, and if you're not careful and break some, pray that you have enough tempered chocolate to begin again. Otherwise, you will have to pick all your scraps, go through the whole roller coaster of temperatures again to temper them. So the next time you purchase a S$2-3/pc of gourmet choc and wonder why does it have to be so expensive.... well, it does!!!!! It's a lot of work!! And skills to make it a beautiful piece.

When chocolate is well-tempered, it gives that glossy shine, it breaks with a snap, and maintains hard in regular room temperature. The colours you see are edible coloring. These past week and half, we have been steadily building up our skills and techniques in handling chocolate, from basic spheres and hemispheres, blocks, to little hearts, and other shapes, and finally freestyle. We had to produce 2 show pieces for our practicals. Needless to say, as time ticks towards the H hour, everyone is frantic, hands are thick of choc and oily, the whole table is filled with choc stained spoons, spatulas, bowls.... and praying hard that the pieces you just stuck together doesn't come undone! All these with a clean set of uniform, of course!

I leave you here with some of my 'creations', LOL!

I filled the the rounds with apple caramel (with lotsa calvados) filling that burst in your mouth when you pop one into your mouth.

The main piece took 2 practicals to complete - the base is a chocolate box that we made out of a cake ring, and a lid of solid choc disc. You can use it to contain those yummy bite size chocolates.

This was what it looked like before I added more shapes and the final touch of the choc flower.

I know many people say it looks over the top, I agree too, lol! But then again, there're always people who shop at Versace...

Yes, everything (I mean, everything!!) is edible!!!

Cuisine this week...

2009-06-13T10:22:00.000+07:00

Cuisine this week:

Starters:

a) Buckwheat crisps with crab meat and crab 'mustard' - I must explain more about this mustard, it's basically the cream at the back of the brains of crustaceans that gives a rich creamy seafoody sweet taste when mixed into sauce or soups.

b) Terrine of duo salmon and leeks, shallot vinaigrette

c) Sauteed green asparagus spears and langoustines, beetroot vinaigrette. The pink quenelles you see on the left are whipped cream colored with beetroot juice. First time I had a salty whipped cream! As you notice, this cuisine chef of mine likes pink and hello Kitty!

Mains:

a) Crusted Seabass, Lemon and capers, and Chicken Jus, with Maple almonds

b) Filet de boeuf a la ficelle (Tenderloin in bouillon), celeriac "bone" with beef marrow, horseradish sauce.

It's cute, we cut the celeriac and dug a hole in centre to make it look like a bone with a hollow, and stuff some real beef marrow in the edible 'bone'.

c) Lamb rib roast in bread crust, artichoke puree with hazelnut oil. We made a country bread dough, flatten it out, and rolled a lamb noisette (chops without the bones) in it. When it bakes, it looks like a large loaf of bread, but when you cut it open, surprise! lamb and vegetable trimmings!

Desserts

a) Apple crisps with pineapple sorbet, lemon balm-lemongrass syrup

b) White and wild rice with vanilla milk, pan-fried mangoes and honey milk granita

It's essentially Thailand's famous Sticky rice with Mangoes! Sorry, didn't capture the photo well. The crisps covered a bed of rice pudding with sauteed caramelised mangoes on it. I was too mesmerised by the hello Kitty! cut outs..... I told you my chef is crazy about pink (pink icing sugar) and hello Kitty!

c) Seasonal fruit clafoutis and streusel with mango-passion fruit sorbet. Gotta be one of the best mango sorbet I tasted!!

Hard Candy... and soft ones too

2009-06-08T11:02:00.001+07:00

You'll notice that we have made any cakes in the last few weeks, that was the end, until we have to produce our creations for our final exams.

Instead, we are now focusing on chocolate and sugar works and showpieces, the likes of which you see on the buffet tables or at a wedding reception.

Sugar and chocolate are very temperamental, and they're not easy to work with, it's as though they are living creatures, and you need to tame them into obeying your wishes to form the shapes and structure and consistency for your artworks. We started with soft candies and will gradually proceed to more difficult pieces.

Loukoum, othewise known as Turkish delight (or Greek delight, whichever side of the Aegean sea you're on... Incidentally, IMHO, the best loukoum I ever tasted was found on Mykonos, at a small tea shop, fabulously decked out for sure, it's Mykonos after all! It has a good soft yet chewy consistency and yet not too sweet and a nice layer of pistachio nuts for added bite, I would go back again just for the loukoum. In my practical, I tried to re-create those loukoum by bringing my own pistachios, and I think the result wasn't so bad.)

On the same day, we also made a strawberry/raspberry jam, and milk jam (confiture de lait), yes it looks like condensed milk, but it's made from fresh milk, it has a fuller value and lotsa vanilla seeds!

Fruit candies with marzipan. Mielina - a sorta nougat-y soft candy made from honey, cream and nuts.

Our initiation to sugarworks was a nightmare. Basically sugar is melted to 160C (yes, i'm not kidding you!) and poured unto a silicon mat, upon it's cooling down, while it's still pliable (and still at about 120C) you pull stretch roll the sugar to the shapes you want. We need special gloves for that, and a heater lamp to keep it pliable. Once I stretch out a piece of sugar nice and fine so as to wrap some praline, I placed it down on the board too hard, and it being thinner, it cools down very quickly as well, and like a window pane, it shattered like glass!!! I was devasted. The solution: Gather all the broken shards, re-melt them gently (you don't want them to turn to caramel) and start all over again.

Anyway, in the end it still turn out alright. Sugar works will be one of the other component, than your own creation of a cake, on the final exams. Oh boy, we're gonna have a good time.

Just to give you an idea what we have to submit as sugarwork for exams. Yes, all from sugar!

Fish and more fish!

2009-06-08T01:30:00.000+07:00

Yeah, about half of superior cuisine's mains has to do with fish, I am guessing the chef who is in charge of us this term likes them a lot.

Starters:

a) Foie gras terrine. Cooked in a bain marie, it needs to rest for a few days, followed by..

b)Presentation of the foie gras terrine. Foie gras should be eaten with something sweet and a little sour, it should work well with chutney, like this beetroot and red onion. The pink swirls are tuiles made from rice flour colored with beetroot juice. Also on plate, fig bread.

c) Haddock and Potato Terrine

Mains:

a) Red Mullet with Tapenade sauce. We made the fresh egg pasta ourselves in class, it's so easy, I'll never pay for over-priced pasta at Da Paolo Gastronomia ever again!

b) Herb crusted salmon supremes with mushroom flan and red wine sauce. Delicious! Who knew red wine can be paired with a fish! You actually can, for fatty fish, e.g. tuna.

c) Sea bream sauted, squid filled with cilantro flavored langoustine risotto.

Desserts:

a) Frozen choc parfait, orange cream and citrus fruits and basil

b) Inversed peach melba, red currant jus flavored with hibiscus (rosella)

c) Crisp sweet puff pastry with berries

More Cuisine!!!

2009-05-29T20:39:00.000+07:00

The problem with putting away updating your blog is that you suddenly have too much to do!

Starters:

a) Creamy Capuccino Mushroom Soup in a Cup

b) Mackerel fillets, cucumber and cream with lamb's lettuce salad

c) Duck Foie Gras Terrine and wild mushrooms

d) Cold French Scrambled Eggs with Botargo, herb salad and green olives coulis

e) Tuna Carpaccio with parmesan cheese

Mains:

a) Roasted Lobster Tournedos, zucchini, risotto and fennel confit

b) Thick Veal Medallions with lemon and ginger, macaroni cake

c) Chicken breasts with langoustines in a light curry sauce

d) Roasted squabs (pigeons) with new potatoes and fava beans

e) "Black Prince" saddle of lamb and country-style bacon-potato cake

Desserts:

a) Mango Pineapple and vanilla "kebabs" with gingerbread and coconut

b) Figs in spicy strawberry wine, cocoa crisp and yoghurt sorbet

c) Soft-centred chocolate cake, pistachio ice cream

d) Apples slices with cinnamon mascrapone mousse

e) Mango and pineapple chutney, avocado sorbet

Happy feasting (with your eyes!!)

Plated Desserts

2009-05-29T20:15:00.000+07:00

As lovely as the cakes we made so far are, at the end of a restaurant meal, it's very unlikely you'll sink your teeth into one. As a result, restaurant desserts are rather simple but elegant affairs, usually a few small bites, some mousse, some fruits, some coulis, to cleanse your palate and not make you feel too stuffed. The important lesson here, is to learn how to plate desserts. Some creatively, some flair, some intuition go a long way to make the (possibly very full!) customer delight at the sight and want to take a bite. I introduce here, together with last week's soufflés, a few plated desserts which I hope will please you.

The ones on a grey granite background are what I made in practicals.

a) Creamy pistachio, coconut sago cream, and pineapple dessert cups

b) Frozen nougat and financiers with fruits

c) Fruit kebabs (cooked in caramel), with sweet couscous, pistachio ice cream and orange soup.

Soufflés!

2009-05-26T21:46:00.000+07:00

One of my earliest memories of pastry was at the old Paragon shopping centre. When I say old, I mean really old, like about 20 years ago, where the sleepy old building had a spiral walkway-staircase that goes all the way up to to the 4th (5th?) level (there was Pierre Balmain!). On the ground floor, there's a little path that leads to the back to the one of the first Body Shop in Singapore (I used to spend hours reading their labels and memorising all the said-attributes of each herb and natural extract used in their lotions. I digress....) Behind the Body Shop was Temptations (I think that was what the pastry shop was called.) And one of the heavenly sweets I (rarely) treated myself to, was the Chocolate Soufflé. Actually, come to think of it now, I don't think it was much of a soufflé. Sure it was oblong looking, and a raised choc mousse that looked 'soufflé' (for non-French speakers, soufflé means to be blown up, expanded, thus describing the effect of the hot air rising from the pastry base and meringue, giving us the much beloved light and airy texture.) So, I think what I had was actually a choc mousse cake given the appearance and name of a soufflé. I used to think to myself, wow, so exotic! This new language and food. Maybe it started, sub-conscientiously, my journey into things French.

What you see here is the classic Chocolate Soufflé, and a Calvados Soufflé - we carved a receptacle into an apple and baked a souffle out of it, it's quite pretty. Next we prepared a plated Crêpe Soufflé. Making crêpes is quite easy once you get the hang of it.

Have you ever munched on a hot crêpe on a cold wintry Parisian day, its citrus-y Grand Marnier filling up your nose, and your fingers getting sticky from the sugar? If you had, in the midst of her alluring monuments, you'll soon realise that life indeed can be quite beautiful.

Continuation of Last Week's Cuisine

2009-05-25T22:01:00.000+07:00

Ok guys and girls, sorry for the delay! Here's part of cuisine last week.

Starters: 1) Fresh peas tartare flavored with Peppermint. 2) Eggs stuffed with truffles, port wine glaze.

3) Crab and tomato with Avocado cream and orange powder.

Mains: 1) Puff pastry 'pie' of quails and lamb sweetbread with shiitake mushrooms

2) Lamb rolls filled with vegetables and parmesan crisps. (the plate with the 'sail' of parmesan crisp is mine)

3) Sea bass in a crust Coulibiac style, stuffed eggplants

Desserts:

1) Chocolate Nougat glace with cherry coulis.

2) Sago with fresh pineapple, jasmine tea ice cream. What we call sago in SG, it's apparently more commonly known as tapioca or Japanese pearls.

3) Lemon grass cream, strawberry jelly and rhubarb crisps.

A Macaroon Diversion

2009-05-18T23:11:00.000+07:00

Yes, macaroons!! Again! This is the second time we made the little bite size macaroons, but this time with a slight difference in technique - we used Italian meringue instead of the traditional French meringue, and end result is that it holds its shape better and removing from the baking sheet is a piece of cake. The large macaroon 'cake' we made earlier this month was also from the same technique.

What's so special about macaroons, those who are not initiated, would ask, it's just ground almonds, sugar and egg white? Or is it...? There's a lot of care and preparation that goes into its fabrication and nothing less than love, one for its pure divine taste, and two for perfection, can one really succeed.... Of course, putting the fairy tale book down, you will need a good pastry kitchen, well-controlled humidity and room temperature, a good oven, a good hand and a good eye in the techniques required.

As you bite into a (good!) macaroon, your teeth meet some resistance on the shell, which snaps and gives way completely to a soft crumbly, moist centre. While grains of ground almonds play on your tongue, you slowly begin to pick up the flavors. Cool, palatable, fruity, exotic, well-balanced. Sometimes sweet, sometimes a bright flash of citrus, but always well-controlled, poised, elegant, much like the two berets of macaroon biscuits pieced together in total equilibrium.

I made those in the first picture, chocolate macaroons with a variety of fillings - a) chestnut cream b) banana chocolate, and c) milk choc with orange. All with a light 'swish' of gold dust.

And I will be happy to try (again!) to reproduce them in Rumia.

Current trend is to try out different shapes and sizes of macaroon and different style of presentations. But classic still holds its grounds.

Also in petit-fours, last week, we made some bite size miniardises - choux with ginger lemon cream, green apple 'jelly', cheese mini-cakes, and soft almond mini cakes with passionfruit mango gel centre.

But still, nothing like macaroons.... of course!

Rose, rose, I love you......

2009-05-13T23:38:00.000+07:00

It's no secret that I love roses, and what better way to appreciate these beauties than to eat them. Rose flavored mousse with a sandwich of milk choc cream, that is. You see all the rose petals on it. The other cake was a Vanilla and White Chocolate mousse with Red fruits base, sprayed with dark choc for contrast. (Unfortunately, chef also decorated it with some leftover rose petals, but this cake has a dark choc sponge base, you can make it out.)

The following practical, we made small dome cakes of lychee and orange cream, as well as Hazelnut praliné mousse with crispy centre. (Like my choc deco topping?) It was such an indulgence to bite into one!

A Date with Mr Cod

2009-05-13T23:16:00.000+07:00

Starters: Spicy vegetable 'jelly' with avocado cream (Fondant de Légumes Epicés à l'Avocat). Why some menus insist on using the French terms is because, and I find this case a good example, is that, something is lost in the English translation. Fondant in French means 'melting' as a noun, de legumes, of vegetables. It's a cool, melt-in-your-mouth consistency, yielding to small brunoise of vegetables rolling on your tongue, as its sweet and spicy flavour warms up from your palate to your nose.

Mains: "Roasted Cod, Basil Gazpacho, Vegetable and Chorizo skewers" is very tasty, and reminds me of the kind of food I like best and would love to make, Mediterranean... eggplants, zucchini, bell peppers, herbs.

Desserts: Stuffed Dates wrapped in phyllo pastry and saffron ice-cream (!!) Delicious!!!

Interestingly, this is the 2nd cod dish we produced. The other being Cod with Red Cabbage in Beer Jus Vinaigrette. The cod we receive is unlike the 'black cod' that we get in SG. Although the cod is also a white fish, it is far less oily than what should be correctly termed as 'Chilean seabass'. The taste is more delicate and the cooking is definitely more so! It risks of drying and flaking very easily once overcooked. The chilean seabass is more forgiving as it exudes plenty of fish oil when cooking, and this fat absorbs flavours very well. I should count myself lucky to be able to work with the genuine cod, as its species are on the brink of extinction.

Beef cheeks, Duck breasts, and "Hello Kitty!" sugar

2009-05-09T10:48:00.000+07:00

In Cuisine this week:

a) Starters: 1) White fish ceviche guacamole. b) Marinated herring mixed with cream and caviar, served in little cucumber cups.

b) Mains: 1) Duck breasts baked in salt crust dough, vegetable "tagliatelle" and crispy potatoes. 2) Beef cheeks "Miroton" style with cumin carrots and stuffed turnip

The duck breasts came out nice and rosé, perfumed and flavoured by coarse sea salt dough studded with chopped herbs. It was also a delight to crunch into the wafer thin potatoes!

The beef cheek stew is a rather traditional dish, the meat was so tender by the end of our 3 hr class, nicely gelatinous in the middle, flavoured with red wine and herbs, sliced and breaded with light herb seasoning. Very heart warming when you bite into a piece. Also, an ingenious way to serve turnip in cups filled with mushroom duxelles and ham.

C) Dessert: Warm strawberry soup flavoured with ginger, served with yoghurt sorbert (made during class, of cos') 2) Light tiramisu-style mousse and sugared raspberries.

Golly! Giant Macaroon!

2009-05-09T10:11:00.000+07:00

We looked at more innovative logcakes this week, and a macaroon cake. Ok first for the logcakes, don't you love the pretty sight of what I call a "Chanel bag" square logcake? I thought the patterned indentation reminds me of an expensive fashionable purse or bag. Sitting on a sweet tart dough, the inside houses a disc of vanilla pear cream, and a smaller disc of fleur de sel caramel, suspended in vanilla mousse, then encased by praline biscuit, and then, the outermost with coffee caramel mousse! *pant pant* Needless to say, we didn't make it, it would have taken us maybe 5 hrs!

Instead, we made the mango raspberry logcake which you can see mine in the pale yellow creamy logcake. We laid some dacquoise, which soaks up nice and moist, in between layers of mango and raspberry cream.

Another demonstration was a vanilla apricot mouse cake, while for practical we made the technically more difficult macaroon. This recipe uses Italian meringue. While it holds up the batter more easily, it also gives a more chewy texture to the biscuit. I know the soft crumbly texture is much desired in the 'usual' macaroons, but I think it will not work in this recipe, as the minute you pick up these 18 cm discs, it would have fallen to bits or you would have given it undesired cracks.

Pastry week 2

2009-04-29T12:22:00.000+07:00

This week, we made the infamous Baba Au Rhum Vieux - it's essentially a brioche recipe baked very very dry, and soaked in syrup and rum till it puffs up so much and so wobbly! The one in the grey background was my baba (I used a lot of rum in mine!). Using (more or less) the same brioche recipe, we made the Alsatian Kugelhopf, and a sorta puff pastry tart. In Italy, you will have the Panettone.

And more creative tarts! omg, I've never seen a diamond shape mini-tart before. It's lemon mousse with an apricot jelly centre, sprayed with pink chocolate and resting on a crunchy pistachio tart base.

The ones we made in class, Eskimchococassis, (quite a mouthful, and when you bite into one, it's quite a mouthful too, lol), are made to ressemble an ice cream stick resting on crunchy choc tart bases sandwiched with choc mousse. The "ice cream" - eskimo - are made from freezing a blackcurrant (cassis) jelly centre in a tube filled with delicious! choc mousse, dipped into dark choc glaze, and ends dipped into either almonds or pistachio.

Magnum, anyone? Eva Longoria, this might be your strongest temptation yet!

Continuation: The end of the week saw 2 more variations of creative tarts. One was coconut mousse tart with pineapple topping, the one we made in the end.

Another came as a rectangular block of pistachio mousse on a Bretonne shortbread, you might ask what is so 'tart' about this, shouldn't it be a mousse cake? No, because like a classic tart, you have a crunchy base, and pastry cream (or its variations) has been used. You can see a cross section of the apricot jelly 'buttons'.

Cuisine Week 2

2009-04-29T12:11:00.001+07:00

I have a break on (most) Wednesdays this term. Take the opportunity to upload more regularly.

Dessert: Baked bananas in its skin, with red fruits sauce and banana sorbert.

Starter: Foie gras flan with morel sauce and herb salad.

Main: Hake fish wrapped in parma ham and grilled baby eggplants, side of olives and fava beans with turned carrots/celeriac root/zucchini, sauce fresh tomato and olive oil with herbs. You will see 2 platings here, the one with a more yellow background (landscape) is the chef's demo, the (portrait) one with dots of sauce is my dish served to the chef.

Continuation: We looked at a creamy pumpkin soup with truffles and smoked duck breasts; main: pot-au-feu of monkfish in a herb butter sauce. The photo with the snowpeas radiating outwards on a dish is chef's, mine was a centralised plating with 2 'discs' of chopped herbs at opposite corners. Dessert: Liquorice flavoured panna cotta with some crunchy sugar studded choux allumettes!

First of Pastry (Superieur)

2009-04-25T08:13:00.000+07:00

We started classes mid-week, as such, we only had 1 lesson so far, and thus few photos. It seems we always start the term with 'travelling' cakes - sort of pound cakes that you can bring along, as opposed to mousses and cream which looks pretty, and will never survive out of the house.

The first, a chestnut cake, and on the right, a carrot cake topped with mini panna cotta whose centre is filled with apricot jelly - looks like a mini fried egg, yeah - cute. For practical, we made some tube cakes, filled with strawberry mousse with a coating of banana compote inside; next are florentins (sticky almond cookies) half covered with choc. Simple, to start us off.... it will soon be a lot of heat (for sugarworks), and stress (chocolate showpiece) and the finale of our very own creation of a cake!

First of Cuisine (Superieur)

2009-04-25T07:44:00.000+07:00

In Superior Cuisine, we open up our horizon to take in international influences and modern restaurant menus, while keeping a very central French core. A good example was on Thursday, we made some Tandoori spiced fish, but the sauce-making and side dishes are very French. Parmesan cheese from Italy are grated to make crisps to go with asparagus. The next starter dish, however, is typically French - frog's legs in herb sauce and garlic puree. The main we made yesterday was a double chop of lamb, with truffle coating, green beans wrapped in bacon, and artichoke crisps.

The desserts are Blancmanger with kiwi coulis, and red fruits melba with chibouste (personally, I think the chef made too much chibouste).

If you think that the mains are more complicated in Superior, you are right. There are a lot more steps to get to the final product, and this is the term when we work in teams of 3 or 4.

We distribute the work process. E.g. instead of 3 person fileting 3 fishes, 1 person will filet 3 fishes, while the other one starts with the vegetables (quantity for 3 persons), and the other starts with the side dishes (also for 3 persons). The actual cooking is done by that person, but however, you should just watch out (in case he makes some mistakes, and correct him gently). Once all the products are done, the actual plating is done individually, according to your creativity. The result is, the cooking and taste will prob be similiar for the 3, but what shines out will be your presentation.

I should remember to take photos of my plating next, before I rush off to present to chef! But you know what a rush of adrenaline it is as the clock inches towards service time!

Results for Intermediate!

2009-04-01T19:16:00.000+07:00

This just in!!

I got 2nd for Intermediate Cuisine and 4th for Intermediate Pastry!! I'm very happy!

On the whole, our averages were quite close, but the overall class average for both disciplines moved down. That means we all didn't do as well as in Basic. My averages were a point or two lower than last terms' as well. However, I guess I manage to scrape past a few other contesters to try to remain in the Top 5! I don't know how it will be for Superior, but I'm excited to find out!

Right now, my friends and I are gonna kick back some beer bottles!

Exam pieces!!

2009-03-30T20:48:00.000+07:00

Ok, I'm done with both my pastry and cuisine exam, man, what a relief!

Cuisine: Braised stuffed cabbage.

Pastry: Plaisir. (Choc and vanilla mousse with crème brûlée top).

Here are the pictures to remind you!

Both pieces are not too difficult, but it's not easy to make it look pretty either. I guess I'm glad that all went well, finished on time, and no comments from chef (no news is good news, right?) Chef remarks only on what went wrong.

Will I get top 5 again, I don't know. Some of the other students have improved quite a lot this term. My written exam scores are quite decent though....., anyway, all will be revealed on Wednesday night!! Stay tuned!

Last of Intermediate Pastry

2009-03-30T19:32:00.000+07:00

This week, we had a bread-making workshop, we made some baguettes (of cos!), country bread (part rye), some sandwich loaf and foccacia. It's another reason to want to go into French culinary - the bread!!

It's not easy at all, making good bread, it's a lot of chemistry and adapting to your current environment. There needs to be a lot precision. Afterall, a dough is a living, breathing, eating, reproducing organism until we chuck it into the oven.

Other pastries we made were the Orange Flower Mousse log cake, an Earl Grey tea mousse cake with milk choc covering. A cheesy lemon tart and a warm raspberry tart.

This is the last of the term, see you in Superior Pastry!!! Oh by the way, in Superior pastry, we will have to come out with our own recipe of a cake. We can use anything under the sun. So if you guys have some sentimental flavors and tastes you would like to suggest, please feel free to drop a line! And no, I don't think durians quite strike the right picture....

Last for Intermediate Cuisine

2009-03-29T22:53:00.000+07:00

Calamari in Marseille-style, shellfish soup, bouillabaisse with rouille, veal "orloff", a cassoulet of pork medallions and chestnuts, and on its right, the plated version (vs. the one-pot-all version).

Pastry, last for Intermediate Course

2009-03-23T07:25:00.000+07:00

Although there will be just maybe 1-2 cakes this last week, as well as a workshop on breadmaking, last week sees the last of the cakes to be entered into the exam.

Blackcurrant mousse cake, caramel and hazelnut mousse cake, a raspberry and green tea mousse cake called Zevert.

And the last you see here, the elaborately decorated 'fruit cake', is actually..... drum roll..... a cheese cake!! We envelopped the whole cake with whipped cream and laced the top with various fruits. American recipe, French presentation!

Cuisine - more exotic!

2009-03-23T07:11:00.000+07:00

Last week, we made quails. We deboned the whole bird through the opening of the neck and back, so that the bird still looked 'whole' - just 'deflated', and we pumped it up with foie gras laced stuffing. Man, for so small a bird, it has a lot of blood!! I felt like a midwife.

Live crayfish, they were crawling around and trying to escape, their claws snapping away. We have to 'castrate' them by pulling out the mid portion of the tail fin first before dumping them into boiling water briefly. They are served with Nantua sauce and fish quenelles (French fishballs?)

The last noteworthy dish is the rösti looking potato pancake, which has a mushroom filling. It entails flipping it in midair! We all managed quited well.

Return of the killer cakes!

2009-03-13T23:12:00.000+07:00

Killer cakes are what I call cakes that takes a lot of preparation and time, that if you ever get them in your exam, they will 'kill' you. You heard of the Opera already, this week is the Passionata - a mousse cake of passion fruit and raspberry, with intricate sponge deco for sides, centre of coconut dacquoise.

Slightly easier from my cuisine class, we had a taste of the traditional brittany crêpe, with home made ice cream and caramel sauce, you can make all sorts of fillings with these versatile sheets, from sweet to savoury.
Fruit jelly, today was apricot passionfruit, but we can replicate the formula with other fruits.

Another cake we looked at was the Dome cake (doesn't the spikes reminds you of a durian?? but no, it's not a durian cake) with chestnut mousse and cream, protected by a fine layer of dark choc from (an industrial) spray gun. It has 3 layers of hazelnut dacquoise in between, it gives a warm feeling in your heart when you take a bite.

The first cake we made this week was quite a mouthful, some dacquoise with coconut mousse, topped with pineapple slivers, seasoned with (open your eyes and ears) sprinkle of black pepper and chopped coriander leaves!! Not kidding! I had a shiver when I first stated it. Chef said we are free to opt out the black pepper and coriander, which I did.

Getting exotic (relatively speaking)

2009-03-13T22:53:00.000+07:00

Cos' it happens that this week, we received our very first truffle to work with!!

It was for a truffle sauce to be served with grilled steak, celery flan and potatoes confit in goose fat, as you can see from the above. The 'sua koo' me, took a photo of the black diamond on my cutting board in class. Well, I always knew where to buy some in SG, but I guess I'm not doing it any justice if I don't learn how to use it well, but now I know...... Definitely not content to tiny bits that you (don't!) see on your plates when you dine out, I had mine in tasty slivers, and yes, the chef liked my sauce.

Another exotic food item is the foie gras, we'll get to cook some next term, but chef made a demonstration and when we had the tasting... it was so good!
In class this week, we also made some monkfish encrusted in fresh herbs, rolled in bacon, served with braised artichokes. The other, a hearty meal, called Cassoulet (comme fait à Toulouse) - white bean stew with lamb and sausages, with duck confit, Toulouse-style.

For demo, we had langoustine, and a warm starter salted cod dish called brandade de morue. Salt cod, once used to be the food of the poor (cos' they could not afford fresh cod) of European countries along the Atlantic ocean, are now a treat for all classes, as cods are now a dying breed. This salted cod soaked overnight, cooked and flaked, mashed with some olive oil, potatoes and cream, and served with parsley garlic cream.

Regional cuisine: Touraine, Cote d'Azur

2009-03-08T21:50:00.000+07:00

From the delights of Touraine region, we debond a rabbit, rolled over forcemeat of hind legs, and stuffed with mushrooms and prunes, served with goat cheese stuffed baked potatoes.

From the delights of Cote d'Azur, we made beef provencale stew with handmade raviolis with tomato fillings.

Last but not least: Tian d'Agneau, lamb medallions balanced on a trio layers of tomato concassées, mushrooms, and spinach sautéed in beurre noisette, served with its peppermint flavoured jus.

The other starters we had raw tuna on puff pastry, warm salad with lightly smoked pikeperch (a kind of fish), marinated filets of fresh sardine with tomato and basil.

Pastry: Mousses and chocolates

2009-03-08T21:31:00.000+07:00

Out of the cakes and pastries below, Rus who visited for 3 days this week, had the pleasure of tasting the Douceur Chocolat, base: hazelnut dacquoise (sponge) with creamy choc mousse, a crunchy choc disc balanced in between, another layer of choc mousse and another choc disc with deco. Sorry guys and girls.... this could not be brought home, it would have melted. I hope the chocolate pieces will be satisfactory. We did a lot of chocolate this week....

Every tried 'creme brulee' on a vanilla/choc mousse cake?

The last pic you see, is a coconut mousse sandwiched with choc joconde, and topped with mango-passion fruit mousse, aptly called Jamaica.

Regional: Auvergne, Basque, Ile de France

2009-02-27T17:17:00.001+07:00

In Cuisine this week, we reviewed regional dishes of Ile de France (of which Paris is a part) with Asparagus d'Argenteuil with mushroom flan, Cotes d'Agneau Champvallon (lamb chops cooked in a potato gratin, which made a very yummy dinner above). From the Basque country, where a very tasty blend of Spanish and French cuisine gives you piquillos peppers stuffed with salt cod, chicken basque-style (rolled in bayonne ham and cooked in a tomato based stock), and from the Auvergne country, a very interesting stuffed cabbage dish. The sauce is delicious! The picture with the red check tea towel was my cabbage (wrapped in caul's fat) before cooking.

Cakes!! Give me cakes!! - Marjorie from "Little Britain"

2009-02-27T16:59:00.000+07:00

It's easy to see why the Fat Fighters are so crazy about cakes, it's pleasing to the eye as to the tongue, not many pleasures in life give you that....

I have submitted my post on the Opera cake in the other blog, so here, we have, a Jamaica: mango - passion fruit mousse on thin layer of choc sponge filled with coconut mousse with rum pineapples.
We have Royal Chocolat - soft smooth choc mousse cake with a crunchy layer in between, very delicious. We also have a Lemon chocolate mousse cake, and a vanilla/chocolate 'buttercake' lined with roasted almonds. A small dessert from Cuisine: Strawberries in Red Wine "Soupe".

Sweet endings...

2009-02-22T19:03:00.000+07:00

The last practical for pastry for the week was a very simple chocolate lava cake with a mousse and coconut ice cream, but the important point was to test our plating. (Mine is on the grey marble). We also made a strawberry cake (fraisier), which I believe most people incorrectly label it as a strawberry shortcake, in fact there's nothing 'short' about it at all ('short' meaning a heavy butter-based crisp, crunchy e.g. shortbread biscuits, tartshells). This is just a plain and simple sponge with mousseline cream and fresh sweet strawberries. The green layer on top is marzipan, edible of course!

For cuisine, we deboned a fish (while keeping it whole!) and stuff it with mushroom duxelles, we made an easter pâté in puff pastry (with lotsa eggs! Doesn't it look like a SG 'steamed meat bun??), typical of Le Berry region of France, lastly, cod (real cod!) panfried, served with flemish-style red cabbage and beer jus vinaigrette.

Other dishes on demo, was a 'belgium pizza' - flammenkuchen, potjevelesch (a sort of jellified cold dish with various meat in it, it reminds me of some chinese cold appertiser), rooster in red wine finished with sauce thickened with fresh pig's blood. 2 plated desserts: mirabelle parfait, and caramel chibouste with speculoos (a type of thin spice cookie), and le poirat - pear tart.

Sweet Beginnings

2009-02-16T18:08:00.000+07:00

St Honoré - Named after a famous street in Paris, très chic, with lotsa pastry shops, or named after the patron saint of patisserie, either way, this cake is yummy. Chibouste cream with crunchy caramel choux puffs, we made some spun sugar for deco. The criss-cross chibouste cream piping is not easy.

Bavarian Cream cake in Three Chocolate: It's very light! I think I can eat half a cake at one time!

More puffs.......

2009-02-12T21:04:00.000+07:00

One of my earliest recollection of French pastry was.... the classic marbled millefeuille!! Din and Moira had the (good?) fortune to taste it last weekend during they trip over here. Sorry for the rest of the guys, it should be consumed within a day for better taste! Another variation is the hazelnut praline type.

Next, chocolate souffle with orange ice-cream, and a type of brioche popular in the south of France in replacement of northern France's King's cake, eaten during Epiphany, which you see here in a golden disc of puff pastry with crème frangipane (almond and pastry cream) -Pithivier.

Lobster and terrine

2009-02-12T20:15:00.000+07:00

Lobster, an item you see on the menu, but never dared order it, cos' it costs way too much! Well, we had a chance to make our very own lobster dish. The grey/black lobster (before) flew in the very morning, almost late for our class, still alive of course..... the legs were moving and it was trying to get away from my platter of ingredients for that morning. Sad fact is....we had to kill it. No freezing, no dipping into boiling water. Just a sharp knife, tip goes in, 'crack!' and split the head in half. Squirmish girls may beckon the french chef instructor, ever willing to help..... Lobster a l'americaine, the red one (after), with raisin pilaf rice. Why american? Legend has it that a few americans showed up at a parisian restaurant late one night, for lack of ingredients by the time the restaurant was closing, a pair of lobster was idling in the fridge... the chef created a new recipe, the americans loved it, and it went on regular menu.

We also made guinea fowl with cabbage pie in class.

Starters: Eggplant caviar on toast with semi-oven dried tomatoes, verrine (terrine in a glass "verre") in 3 colors (tomato, goat cheese, avocado) with raw sea bream marinated in vanilla-infused olive oil. Second, millefeuille wit tomatoes and confit fennel. Third, white boudin, with caramelised apple. We stuff our own sausages, of course. (... and we hide it well too.)

The next dish on practical took over 2 sessions to prepare: ballotine of chicken with foie gras mousse and pistachio. It's like a sausage, or a terrine, if you like, wrap in a whole chicken, deboned. Man, it's hell trying to debone a whole chicken in one piece! Why they have so many bones anyway? (By the way, we also have also made our own sausages in last week's recipe of duck legs pot-au-feu, fun stuff.) It has to be slow cooked in prepared stock, and leave it in until it cools, thus, we only had the product today. That is not all. This is typically served on a buffet spread, and you need to have a presentation platter. The first layer is a thick white coat of milk and gelatine, and next you make some decoration, and set it with a layer of thickened chicken consomme. Each year there is a competition in France for such presentation platters. Yes, you can each everything on the platter. The squarish platter was the chef's demonstration, and the roundish one, mine. I think I have to go for some fruit and veg carving class after this. It's a very pretty picture. You may not see it so well in the pics, it's like an archaic mirror.

Cuisine this week...

2009-02-04T20:56:00.000+07:00

This week, we made a grilled sirloin steak with potato cake - it's basically thinly sliced potatoes, lined up in a cake mould and filled with cheese, herbs and some bacon. Starters, we had a apple and walnut salad with chicken, and young mackerels with fresh crispy veg salad.

Today's practial was a Ducks' Legs pot au feu!

Did i hear somebody say.... macaroons?

2009-02-04T20:33:00.000+07:00

Yes, finally!! The second other reason for having to choose to take up Pastry... the perfect macaroons!! (The other reason, if you're curious to know, was to know how to make rich flavorful, flaky and light croissants! We did that in Basic last term).

Is it difficult? No! Are there many ways you could go wrong, YES!! But luckily for me, we made a good mixture and respected all the parameters to make a good macaroon, and the result is fantastic!! We went back to puff pastry again, this time with the inverted method, where the butter is outside of the dough. The result is a surprisingly light and flake texture , less puffy, but still flaky, and it has a more melt in your mouth taste.

Cuisine, we looked at rhubarb and vanilla cream with shortbread cookie, and a "Hello Kitty" cake, I shall stick to that name.

Cuisine week 2

2009-02-01T21:18:00.000+07:00

Starting to get a little more adventurous now, we began recipes with pigeon, langoustines, crayfish. We made some duck served in 2 styles (salmis de canard en cabouillade). What happens when you roast a duck whole (at least French style), is that, the breast is nice and rosé, but the legs are not yet done. So, we serve the duck breast in magret style, and the legs are further cooked in sauce, a little like confit style. It's one of the more delicious ducks I've tasted.

Seafood stew in dry cider isn't exactly a stew that you expect. It's very lightly cooked seafood in very well prepared sauce. We worked with langoustines (they're very very delicate!), crayfish (one of which, we have to turn the claws back as a showpiece!). Next is roast rack of lamb. Yes, they are very small, and in restaurants, they are very expensive too. Because you start with a rather large rack, and as you clean it up, take out the excess flesh and (LOTS!) fats, you're left with the very tender noisettes, which should be most important to you. The last picture is prob not very clear, but it's not chopped bell peppers sprinkled on fish slices. In fact, we thread the slivers of bell peppers into chunks of seabass and cook whole, when done, we slice up thinly, much like maki sushi.

Pastry and Desserts- Week 2

2009-02-01T21:06:00.000+07:00

Check out the labels for this post and guess which is which....

2nd half of Week 1 in Intermediate

2009-01-23T18:52:00.000+07:00

To finish up the first week, we made sauteed guinea fowl with caramelised apples (man, it's such an ugly bird, check it out here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guineafowl .) Starters was a cassoulette of shellfish. Typically it could be served in a baking dish, but this version was a savory tart. Easier to portion and cleaner dishes!

Pastry-wise, we made Galette Bretonne, a shortbread actually, and Pain d'Epice a l'Orange, spiced bread/cake with candied orange. On demonstration was Far Bretonne, a typical baked fruit dessert, not unlike clafoutis. Another (rather simple) dessert was fine apple tart on puff pastry with caramel ice-cream.

Hope these wet your appetites.

Have a good weekend!

Let's go again!!

2009-01-21T20:46:00.000+07:00

Welcome back. I hope you did not miss the weekly features . Well, school started

on Monday. Your eyes (at least) will be in for a treat.

In intermediate cuisine, we will be following different regions of France and their regional specialties. In intermediate pastry, we are using the basic building blocks of basic pastry, with more creativity, piecing different bases with different mousses, creams, tastes, colors, etc. These usually takes more time, so organisation and planning is key.

To start off, here are some 'dryer' cakes that keeps well, aka 'travelling' cakes - which you can bring with you on a journey and need no refridgeration. (Hint hint: One of them will travel with PG to SG over this CNY.) These basic cakes can be embellished with choc glazing, fresh cream and fruits like the photo above. These will definitely sell in a pastry shop window. Some other plated desserts, snow eggs in creme anglaise with blackcurrant, apple charlotte.

In cuisine, we had tomatoes stuffed with goat cheese and aromatics, shellfish soup with garlic glaze. For our practicals, we made spring chicken with spring vegetables (notice the herb butter under the skin, like how I showed Idah how to make before?). Stuffed salmon rolled in cabbage leaves with red wine sauce.

Good thing this term we finish all our cuisine practicals at 7pm; perfect timing to bring them back home for dinner!

Cuisine last week for basic course at LCB

2008-12-25T21:07:00.000+07:00

This week is the last for us newbies, we looked at an escargots tart with wild mushrooms, the famous canard a l'orange with waffle chips (which is what we did for our last practical), pan-fried fish steak with ratatouille, jambonette of chicken thighs (partially de-boned) with caramelised apples, and warm goat cheese salad for starters.

This will be the last of this course at LCB. Thanks for your visits to this page, and look forward to more dishes from 19jan09.

Pastry, last for Basic Course

2008-12-25T21:02:00.000+07:00

In the spirit of Christmas, this week, we made 2 logcakes, on which is the traditional logcake in coffee buttercream, and another : layered pistachio in chocolate glaze. Next, chocolate mousse with orange flavoring. We made a 'bread pudding', called Diplomate for pratical, I remind you, this is not the basic bread pudding you see on the buffet spread in a hotel. It's made from fresh lady finger's biscuits, aka savoyardi, and good vanilla pods. The taste of course, is far better, light and delicious without being cloying like most bread puddings you might have tasted.

This ends the basic pastry course in LCB.

Pastry week 13

2008-12-20T22:58:00.000+07:00

We had an easy week - scones, muffins, brownies. On the other hand, we made christmas logcakes with some fanciful deco.

Cuisine week 13

2008-12-20T22:49:00.000+07:00

This week in Cuisine, we came back to fish: pan-fried with fennel, fish terrine (inspired by Kenzo, lol) with beurre blanc sauce, and smoked salmon scrambled eggs. We touched briefly on guinea fowl pot roasted with cabbages and morteau sausage.

Cuisine this week...

2008-12-15T23:39:00.001+07:00

Last week, pork chops in charcutiere sauce and potatoes dauphin, trout flan in truffle sauce, and as a treat, fruits in sabayon, caramelised with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. This week, we started with sauteed chicken in tarragon sauce with more turned veg (groan!), and gnocchi in basil/tomato sauce. More to follow.