Um...something witty? nope...Just Stew.

Hmm. I really should be a little better at posting to the blog. Some days seem to mesh with past days, especially when the recipes are similar.

After we set up our stations for our test (in the previous class), the word “partner” came out of Chef’s mouth, and I was shitting my pants thinking that my partner was going to be the guy who cooked my (our?) carrot macedoine on the test. But when we got to class, a couple of people switched partners, but most of them remained the same. So when my previous partner suggested we work together, I JUMPED on it, and agreed. What a sigh of relief. There was a new guy in class today. This new guy had taken 2 classes with the FCI and then decided to take the career class, so he skipped level 1. So they worked together.

We made the chicken we marinated after our test (a red wine marinade), which was really delicious, and we made a lamb stew. Because the preparation of these dishes calls for low and slow cooking, breaking down fats and sinews, we had a bit of free time. So what did we do? We turned cocotte! Chef asked that we make 12 of each cocotte needed. That is, 12 carrots, 12 potatoes, and 12 turnips. This, believe it or not takes so much time. And even though we could have finished the lamb stew with plenty of time to spare if we did, say, 6 of each, we ended up rushing. Not to mention, we only had to present 3 pieces of each cocotte. So 6 pieces is superfluous. And for the record, carrot cocotte is really annoying because the core of the carrot CONSTANTLY messes up the fluid motion of the cut, leaving a slightly mangled piece of cocotte. Needless to say, my partner and I did do a pretty good job.

OH, the preparation of the lamb called for searing the cubes before covering and cooking them in liquid (water in this case). As we learned, and as our recipes clearly stated, do NOT over crowd the pan when you are searing/sautéing. What happens is you crowd the pan and not only does the temperature of the pan decrease significantly (this was most apparent when we fried just a handful of pommes frites), but when there is no room on the sides of the pieces of meat for the moisture to escape, you end up steaming the meat, and not getting the golden brown crust you’re aiming for.

With that said, I may have been the only one in the class who did not dump my lamb in all at once, and Chef came over and was very pleased and called everyone in the class to come take a look. A little embarrassing, but definitely a nice touch. Because of this, I took longer than others to get my lamb in the oven, which is the downside of doing things right.

The lamb called for being cooked for about an hour or so. Ours was tender in 45 minutes. The chicken also called for about 45 minutes, and ours was well overcooked in less than that time.

So the time that these recipes call for are pretty off, I feel. Keep that in mind.
Considering this, I made a chicken last night, and when I thought that it couldn’t be ready, but perhaps I should check the temperature, it was actually 145! 140 would have been ideal, but 145 is better than 165.

I was pretty happy about this.

Still, we need to work on our seasoning. Under-salting is better than over-salting, but under-salting just makes the food taste bland. Hence… get it right.