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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Well, Friday was "Restaurant Day." Yep, on Halloween, the school turned us loose in the kitchen. We could prepare anything we wanted, though prior approval was necessary. We were split into groups and each group had to choose a theme for it's "restaurant." We had to prepare and serve seven meals, each a minimum of four courses. We had all week to plan it out. My group chose the theme of a New England Country Inn. We prepared five courses. The appetizer was to have been Welsh Rabbit with an oyster but unfortunately didn't go quite as planned. We were running behind schedule and I got really busy and ended up burning the toast. Our cheese sauce didn't work either as the cheese didn't melt properly (it wasn't a good melting cheese). But one of my partners managed to save enough of the sauce to serve with the oysters and our appetizer simply became an oyster on the half shell with cheese sauce. Very tasty. The schedule got messed up because at the last minute they told us that we couldn't serve our meals in courses, we had to present every course at the same time and I was preparing parts of three different courses and had planned on doing them one at a time. The salad was a cold beet salad with red and gold beets and a honey-orange vinegrette served over baby greens. Very nice. The highlight of the evening (IMHO) was the pumpkin soup. It was my recipe, but was prepared by one of the other guys in the group. He did an excellent job, especially since he had never fixed it before. The entree was cornish game hen with cornbread stuffing. I roasted the game hens (which were perfectly done) and one of the others fixed the stuffing. It was funny to see the moist, but crumbly outcome of the stuffing. The guy who made it turned the cornbread into crumbs and didn't use much liquid. He also didn't put any eggs in it to hold it together so it was more like a pile of cornbread crumbs on a plate. He also forgot to put the smoked oysters in it. But it was quite tasty. The real problem was more cultural that anything else. The guy was Mexican and he had never even eaten stuffing before, let alone ever prepared it. He had no idea what it was supposed to be. Dessert was a warmed pear cake with a muscat wine sauce served with hot spiced apple cider. I made that one entirely. While I liked the pumpkin soup, both of our chef instructors thought the dessert was the best course so it kind of made up for my burning the toast for the appetizer. Overall, we were judged mostly on our teamwork, professionalism, and presentations since most of the stuff we were doing had not been taught in class. The chefs loved our menu (we stuck to our theme and presented a very seasonal cuisine) and they liked way we overcame our various problems by working together. They have a bad habit of never telling us what our grades are, but based on the comments we received, we got high marks. One chef said that she thought that we could have charges anywhere from $30-$50 per person for the meal and would have had some very happy customers.
The whole evening was quite fun for everyone and provided a nice break just before our final exams which are coming this week. Ugh!
Think good thoughts,
e
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Congradulations!!!
Can I get a table in your Restaurant? Might be a tough ticket to get very soon!
Glad your doing so well.
Kevin
"Be excellent to each other, and, party on dudes"!
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First off, hugs for our little vowel, hehe!  Second, it was really cool reading about the preparation of the meal (though it was a pretty solid chunk of text - unlike your stuffing!  ), I was a bit worried for you when reading about your mistakes, but it seems you guys pulled through and did a super effort! That's way cool.
The salad sounds really yummy, and the dessert too. Heck, I'd loved to try the soup and the cluck-clucks as well! Dunno about oysters - I love sushi, but oysters look so weird. (Oh you know what I mean by that, I don't have to explain! ) If they're cooked I bet they taste really good though. 
Anyway, hooray for you on your great success!
How's the lil granddaughter doing?
Hugs!
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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If it isn't too much to ask, I would love your recipe for the pumpkin soup.
I've never really had one that worked well.
The pear cake recipee would be nice too;-D
Marc
PS
Oh, didn't the cheese on the oyster kind of overpower its delicate flavor?
What cheese did you use?
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Good food usually grabs my attention!
Thanks for sharing your menu with us.
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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You guys can have a seat at my place anytime. ::-)
{{HUGS}}
Think good thoughts,
e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Here's the recipes you wanted:
Pear Cakes
2 eggs
1 c sugar
1 cup flour
2tsp baking soda
pinch salt
tt cinnamon, nutmeg
½ c milk
3 tbs butter, melted
6 pears, peeled, cored, slice lengthwise
¾ c white wine, hot (port or red wine can be used also)
Grease 8, 8 oz ramekins (or use a 2 qt baking dish). Beat eggs, add ½ c sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Whisk in milk and butter. Pour mixture into ramekins. Place pears on top of mixture. Sprinkle remaining sugar over pears. Pout hot wine over sugar. Bake in 350 oven until golden brown. Garnish with vanilla ice cream, dust of powdered sugar and mint leaf.
Pumpkin Soup
10 c pumpkin
3 c carrots
1 ½ tbs oil
¾ tsp mustard seed
½ onion
½ tsp tumeric
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp ginger
¾ c heavy cream
2 tsp honey
salt
Simmer pumpkin and carrots in water until completely cooked. In saute pan heat oil, pop mustard seeds. Add onion. Add celery. Cook until translucent. Add spices. Deglaze pan and add to pumpkin. Puree in blender and add honey. Salt to taste. Add cream.
We left out the tumeric because one of our chef instructors is allergic to it. Hope you like it.
Think good thoughts,
e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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The cheese we used was a combination of a French Cheddar and Gruyere. The cheddar was the one that didn't melt properly and just sat in a big glob on the bottom of the pan. The rest of the sauce was beer (hefeweizen), worcestershire, paprika, and cayenne. We strained out the glob of cheese, added some cream, and reduced the remaining sauce to serve with the oyster. We served only a little sauce on top of the oysters and it worked pretty well without really being overpowering.
Think good thoughts,
e
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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Yup, cheddar was the first thought that came to mind. It is always so hard to melt.
I can see using Gruyere (one of my favorites), and it is relatively mild. Next time try garnishing the cheese portion with a toasted walnut half. Yummy.
The pumpkin soup sounds wonderful, It is going on the Thanksgiving menu.
The pear cake..... I just have to try that one too.
Thanks for the recipe's
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I'd love to sit at your dinner table.
I'd even eat DESSERT with beer in it and smile!
*hugs*
-L
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Dessert with beer. Actually the beer was more or less the dessert. A chocolate stout with vanilla ice cream making a sort of "beer float." The bitterness of the beer contrasted very nicely with the sweetness of the ice cream and the roasted, chocolatey flavor of the beer was very complimentary to the vanilla flavor. Mmmm-Mmmmmm good! ;-D
{{HUGS}}
Think good thoughts,
e
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On fire! |
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
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Hi Nick! I think food has a way of grabbing everyone's attention.
Think good thoughts,
e
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Cooking School Story 
Hi Kevin and Lenny 
I fixed that once! 
