LCB second week - Shortcrust

This week, we started on basic dough.  Out of the basic break dough, we made Pissaladiere, as you can gu

ess from the name, it's very close to pizza, it's basically an onion tart (on dough bread), and some garnishing.  Onion lovers will like it.  Whatever it is, don't say it's a French pizza, at least not to a French!

Apparently, this name came from the old verb pissaler - which means to salt, and it's from Nice.

However, we will pick up the bread dough lessons in a separate workshop - to be organised, as it is more extensive.

We also went further into shortcrust pastry, 

where you can produce Quiche Lorraine, for savory, and fruit/apple/pear/almond tarts for sweet.  The magic of working shortcrust pastry is, to work it as little as possible!  It should give you a brittle, crunch texture which is 'short', as in shortbread.  The more you work it, the flour has time to become elastic and upon baking, the pastry 'shell' will shrink and the patterns on the rim become non evident.  

That is a picture of wild 

mushroom quiche and Quiche Lorraine.  

In Pastry,  we made Tarte aux Pommes (classic French apple tart, and its variations), fresh fruit tart (with pastry cream in centre).

Genoise Sponge Cake

This recipe, we are studying Blanchir - incorporating air into the mixture with eggs and sugar, and leavening with whipped egg white.

Although it's called a sponge cake, it's essentially called Pain de Genes, Genoise bread.  It's very italian like the Pandoro that you get around Christmas, half bread (in texture) half cake (in taste).  Some people will find it dryer than the usual sponges.  But the heavenly crusty sliced almonds was delicious!  (Actually, I kept in the fridge over 2 days, and it got a bit more moist when brought into room temperature, with a light aroma of almond, it's great!)

The technical director took the class today, cos' our pastry teacher was on holiday.  He did a very impressive job fashioning something great out of a simple sponge cake!  Look at this!

And a lemon pound cake called Weekend.  Yes, you typically eat it in the weekend in France...*rolls eyes*

This was what we had to produce in class.  I think I like my marzipan roses!

Pop over to look at the roses in my balcony.

LCB first week - Pastry

Ok, for last week, we made some shortbread biscuits in varying forms and shapes.  We also started on butter and pound cakes.  We made madeleines, I swear, one of the best I've tasted.  All those times, I tried so many recipes to get a perfect one!  Now, I got it!

We explored 2 techniques of mixture - Sablage (aka rubbing in method) and Cremage (creaming softened butter with sugar).

Gateau Basque is a butter cake baked with pastry cream (creme patissiere) inside.  Ok, let's move on!

LCB first week - Cuisine

Ok, here they are!

I finally got my charger back Mac

 shop in BKK, and I've the chance to upload the creations of

 the past 2 days.  I'll come back to add in more details later.

Day 1:  Different cuts.

Classic and modern way of cutting veg.  Very impt to get regular shapes and thickness.  Why, because they will have differen

t cooking time.  

You will burn some whil

e others might be undercooked.

Potage Cultivateur (Rustic Vegetable Soup)

Well, throw in some cut veg and bacon and boil, simple as that!  Maybe not!  

Day 2:  Making brown veal stock and fish stock, out of which, we'll make Filet de Merlan Sauce Bercy, whiting filet with Bercy sauce.

The brown veal stock needs some hours to boil down, so we'll see the end product tmw.  Here's a picture of the finished fish stock.  Stocks are the foundation of French cuisine, instead of using plain old water to cook food, stocks can add a multi layered dimensions to a dish.  A lot of sauces (which French cuisine is famous for) spring from the basic stocks.

Here's the picture of the fish filets, I tasted them, and so fine!  I'll made a replicate of this dish in my practical class and the chef-in-charge tasted it and liked it!   Sorry, my fish looks a little 

Next day, we learnt how to make chicken rice and omelette.  No kidding!  Except it is French Chicken Rice.  It's poached chicken in supreme sauce, rice cooked in chicken stock, and a cheese souffle.  My souffle had too much cheese in it and it's a bit too brown on top (which burns easily in the oven).  This photo was what the chef did.

Today

... is the first day I'm stepping into LCB Dusit as a student.  Orientation day.  I guess they'll kit you will all the tools and uniform, and maybe a short speech, shouldn't take more than 3 hrs I think.

Can't wait! 

Last few days, my charger went out, I got it exchanged at the local macshop at Discovery Centre, it should take 3-5 working days, well, today is the 5th, I hope to get it ASAP.  Yeah, that's why I've been missing from my blogs in the past week.  I took lotsa photos, will share them soon, now, before my batt runs out, I'd better log off.  See ya.

First meals

I wonder if I should wait for start of school to being posting pictures of food from this stage of my life.  I guess not.  Well, I haven't broke the brand new kitchen in yet in my apartment, but I've been fixing some tapas dinner at home lately.  All you need, a loaf of good bread, the baguette rustique available at Carrefour is good (!), some cheese (oh my god, I bought a round of camembert made with unpasteurised milk from selected dairy farms in France, quality product of course! and it really stinks! I finished half of it already - in 1 week - it tastes excellent by the way, if you're curious, and no, I did not get sick), so, good cheese, some sausages (you're able to get real chorizo sausages and jamon from Spain, which is only recently made available in SG), a bowl of fresh salad, and a glass of wine.  I had some olives the other day too, but absent from the platter today as pictured below:

When I started chopping the flat leaf Italian parsley, the familiar sounds of knife on wood came back to me like a wave, unbelievable!  Can't wait to get started after the orientation on 17th Oct!

Beginnings...

That's right, Scruff's lifelong learning experience in gastronomic delights.

Friends suggested starting a blog to document the next chapter of my life in culinary and pastry pursuits.  I think it might be a good reference point in future to check back on my basics. 

Not known as someone who shares a lot, I hope focusing on a subject might help.

Please feel free to drop comments, notes, ...anything.  Stay in touch.