First Lesson in LCB Paris

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!!

2nd last week of Superior Cusine

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

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!!!

Soufflés!

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

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

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!