Lesson 22 - Seafood

Our final class of the Culinary Techniques course... :(  It was a bittersweet ending for us all, because after 110 hours of being together (10 hours a week for 11 weeks), we would not be together anymore.

But we all felt like we had accomplished and learned a lot! To celebrate, we made ourselves a huge, wonderful seafood dinner.

We made a bunch of different things, not much of which is in our book.

I believe this was for a broth to cook the lobsters:

Chef Bruno - pulling the lobster's leg???

Look, he's so giddy - probably relieved that this is the last time he has to put up with us!

Lobster guts (yum!):

Coba with one of the lobsters:

Aren't they beautiful?

I had to hold one too (one thing I wouldn't miss - that damn hat!):

We used some of the shells to make lobster bisque:

We added some vegetables:

Flambe!

We also learned to shuck oysters and clams.

Oysters and clams, oh my...

Twice, when I opened a clam, a tiny crab jumped out at me! Not kidding - see:

We made mussels in a tomato broth - they were fantastic!

Chef Bruno helping Amy push the lobster bisque though a sieve:

Chef Bruno made scallops baked in cream sauce (can you say heaven?):

We used the lobsters to make lobster salad:

This is the lobster bisque:

The spread - mussels, lobster bisque, lobster salad, scallops, clams, and oysters (AMAZING!):

Chef Bruno was taken by surprise when we gave him a gift card to thank him for being a great teacher and putting up with all of our fooling around.

At the end of the class, we were presented with certificates of completion.

Chef with me:

Chef with Coba:

Chef with Sheryl:

Chef with Amy:

Saying goodbye to the break room:

And Chef Bruno...

My certificate:

And that, my friends, is the end....

Until Saturday 3/3/12, when I begin the Essentials of Italian Cooking course!!! The class is from 9-2 Saturdays for 8 weeks. I may keep blogging ~ I will let you know. :)

Lesson 21 - Pot-Au-Feu & Bande De Tarte

In this lesson, we made pot au feu (simmered beef with horseradish sauce) and bande de tarte (puff pastry fruit strip).

We had some extra puff pastry, so Chef Bruno and Sheryl made some apple turnovers:

Is that a giant tub of horseradish?:

The completed apple turnovers (OMG, these were so good!):

The pastry class came by and gave us some treats:

Chef Bruno's pot au feu:

My pot au feu (of which I ate only the vegetables because the meat was so UNBELIEVABLY fatty):

For the puff pastry fruit strip, we cooked the puff pastry, filled with pastry cream and arranged the fruit on top. Then, we brushed it with apricot glaze. This is Chef Bruno's puff pastry fruit strip:

Another class brought us sandwiches on homemade bread with chips (which I was pretty happy about since I didn't eat much of my pot au feu!):

This is my puff pastry fruit strip (YUMMY) - definitely the most impressive thing we made (it was huge) but I probably won't be making it again because it was so time intensive to roll and fold and rest the dough:

It is with sadness that I say there is only 1 lesson remaining... But I have an announcement in the next post - stay tuned!
:)

Lesson 20 - Buttercream, Foam Cake, Creme Anglaise, & Puff Pastry

For lesson 20, we started to make puff pastry to be used in lesson 21. It is basically dough with a huge stick of butter in the middle:

Then folded and rolled...

And folded and rolled...

And folded and rolled...

The puff pastry has to rest in between foldings and rollings, so it wasn't until the following Tuesday that we could actually use it.

So, we began our foam cake:

This is Chef Bruno's foam cake with a coffee flavored buttercream and toasted almonds (you know, of course his looks professional because he owned a bakery in Florida for 20 years):

This was my foam cake with regular buttercream and completely covered with toasted almonds.  It was good, though it dried out pretty quickly.

The buttercream was very simple to make: 

14 oz sugar

5 oz water

6 egg yolks

25 oz butter, softened

Mix sugar with water in a pan; should be similar to wet sand.

Using a wet pastry brush, clean all sugar crystals from the side of the pan before heating. This reduces crystallization of the sugar. Cook to a soft ball stage (235-240 degrees F and syrup can be shaped into a ball that flattens out when removed from water). Do not stir the sugar while cooking.

Whisk egg yolks in a mixer. After sugar has reached the soft ball stage, pour it down the edge of the bowl with the whipping egg yolks.

Change to paddle attachment.

Add the butter. The directions in the book stop there, but I am pretty confident that you need to keep mixing until the butter is fully incorporated and the buttercream is smooth.

Fun fact: buttercream may be kept in the refrigerator almost indefinitely because the high sugar content inhibits bacterial growth. Doesn't that make you wonder how long restaurants keep it around???

Because our course was ending soon (and I am guessing he was bored), Chef Bruno made this decoration with icing:

And for Sheryl, he made this special message (though he spelled her name wrong)!

For dinner, Chef made us duck, potatoes, and a salad. It was fantastic!!!

Our last task was vanilla custard sauce (creme anglaise). We didn't do anything with it, but it looks good.

That was it for lesson 20 - only 2 more to go!