Day 3 of Light and Natural Cooking

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.

Last of Superior Cuisine

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".