Preserving goods

This was our Saturday class, and quite frankly I don't recall everything we did. I do know that we burned a couple of the dishes, and yet, we got away with one of them.

The general idea is that there are different methods and ingredients used to preserve foods. One method which was demo'ed for us was gravlax. Salting the a fillet of salmon for a few hours (I believe we did it for a few days), and then rubbing in your alcohol of choice and preserving.

Another was the confit. We salted duck legs for a couple of days (maybe too long, but since we didn't have class between Saturday and Tuesday, it had to do), then we cooked it submerged in its own fat. It cooked at a very low temperature for a few hours. We didn't taste it, but we will for the next class.

Most importantly, we prepared a couple of vegetables "a la greque." Its preserving the food with an acid, in this case lemon juice and a little vinegar, I believe. We burned the cauliflower pretty badly, but when it was time to taste it we took only the most perfect fleurettes (least burned, and cut off the burnt parts) and plated them for the Chef to taste. Sure enough, he LOVED it! Perfect texture, and the cauliflower was seasoned pretty well. The mushroom and zucchini were almost as good as the cauliflower, according to the Chef. I broke down in laughter when I returned to my desk...

Unfortunately, we burned the tomato fondue too badly to disguise. The fondue requires enough tomato to cover the pan, however, we did not compensate for lost mass when we removed the seeds and some of the liquid in the middle. Although the mixture DID taste delicious, it was not the proper dish. Fondue means melt. The tomatoes are literally supposed to melt to a near mush. Quite interesting. A low and slow cooking process. Ours was pretty darn low, but it still burned.

Also, apparently the guy who I counted out, with 3 absences, showed up. He was very sick, and had a pretty nasty cough that probably shouldn't have been in the kitchen. I was glad to see he stuck with it though.