Day 136 – Cuisine mock exam and pigeon and shrimp salad, lemon grass consommé with veal and foie gras ravioli – Fri 17th August

Today we had a cuisine mock exam which ran for 4 hours and we had to produce 2 identical plates of a first course and a main course.

The first course was a poached egg on a tartlet of asparagus purée and asparagus tips, with hollandaise sauce.

The main course was lemon sole paupiettes with scallop mousse, crayfish tails, mussels mariniere, turned mushrooms, cucumber spaghetti and crayfish sauce.

It was a very busy lesson and, while it went ok, I hope I can do it better in the real exam.

Next was a demo from chef John who started with a lemongrass flavoured consommé with poached veal piccatas and foie gras ravioli.

Lastly was a salad of roast pigeon breast and shrimp with a violet mustard vinaigrette, baby vegetables and pigeon jus.

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Day 75 – More light cooking – Fri 4th May

First of all, happy international Star Wars day to everyone!

In the demo today the chef completed the salmon gravadlax. He washed off the marinade and the surface of the salmon was a deep pink colour. He sliced it thinly and served it with a quenelle of sour cream and a dill flavoured olive oil.

Next the venison carpaccio was sliced very thinly and arranged with a small rocket salad.

Next the chef made a pinapple ravioli. Very thin slices of pineapple were filled with a sweetened mascarpone flavoured with coriander and mint, and served with raspberry coulis, sliced strawberries and shards of orange tuile.

Lastly the chef made veal piccatas with lime, and herb noodles. Veal escalopes were quickly pan fried and served with a piquant lime flavoured sauce, julienne of lime zest and herbed noodles.

Next we had 2 practicals, first making the lobster and risotto, then the veal and noodles. Both were delicious and provided my lunch and dinner on Friday. Yummmmmmmmm!