Lesson 5 - Beans & Legumes

Okay, this lesson was called beans & legumes, but we made miscellaneous stuff.  We made: split pea soup with croutons, nicoise salad, brandade, and pickled vegetables.

I was so excited to make something that we could eat &/or take home!  We had been working on the bases for so long that I wondered if we would ever make anything I could serve outright.  Well, we finally did.

Split pea soup is made with bacon, butter, leeks, carrots, onions, garlic, bouquet garni and cream. Of course, also split peas.  Chef Bruno told us to also use basil and lemon even though it wasn't in the recipe.  This is a very simple recipe to follow.

We made croutons to go on top, which is just cubes of bread cooked in a skillet with butter and tossed until brown.

The soup is fantastic.

Sometimes, we get to take a break.  Not every class, but sometimes.  When we do have a break, the 4 of us classmates sit in the break room together.  It is always a nice 15 or 20 minutes to just hang out and talk.  It was during one of these breaks that I learned that Amy is in public relations, Sheryl is in accounting, and Coba is a professional poker player.  No joke!  We all have a great time together and I feel fortunate to be taking the class with such funny & nice people!

Back to class: we also made pickled vegetables, which included cucumber, carrot, celery, turnip, mushrooms, serrano chile and dill.  This is then marinated in salt, sugar, cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, water and some spices.

A picture of the soup and pickled vegetables:

Next on the agenda was a nicoise salad.  Here is a picture of the chef demo:

Nicoise salad has a lot of components: new potatoes, eggs, tomatoes, green beans, green bell pepper, boston lettuce, canned tuna, anchovies, parsley or chervil, and pitted nicoise olives.  The dressing is made from garlic, wine vinegar and olive oil (w/salt & pepper, to taste).

To prepare the bell pepper, we had to char it and then remove the skin with a towel.  I have never charred something on the burner before.  Not sure I would try this at home:

The eggs are boiled, the tomatoes are boiled and skinned (by the way, that method is called to monder), potatoes are boiled beginning in cold water, the green beans are cooked a'langlaise (in a large amount of salted water and then cooled in an ice bath).  Lettuce leaves are rinsed.  All in all, quite a lot of work to make this salad.

Apparently, us Americans do not dress salad properly.  Each item is supposed to be dressed separately in a little bit of dressing and then placed on the plate.  I guess we have a tendency to just drench everything (most often in ranch!).

Here is the finished project:

The last part of our lesson was brandade, which the chef demoed for us.  It is this really gross mixture of salt cod and potatoes.  I guess back in the day in France, it was a blue-plate special.  Yum!

I had to take a photo of the pastry class projects that were on display in the hall (they are all made of chocolate):

Randome tip: do not keep fruits (keep in mind that tomatoes are a fruit) and vegetables together in the fridge because they will react chemically with one another.

Next lesson is salads. :)