Lesson 7: Lessons Learned

I had this post all written up and ready to go many weeks ago; however I have been preoccupied with work, family, and all sorts of stuff that has kept me away from both posting anything and working through the next meal.

I hope to get back on track with the next meal quickly.

Here is my list of Lessons Learned from Menu 7:

1. Chicken is a family-friendly, budget conscious, and in for this menu, an excellent substitute for Guinea Hen.

2. Don't buy cheap pastry bags, they aren't worth the price.

3. When cooking puff pastry, use your own oven.

4. I should let my nephew do all of the technical work (pastry work) so that I don't mess it up.

5. Cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen wasn't as bad as I expected, the oven may be a different temperature, but I didn't have to clean up! (sometimes there are trade-offs that are worth it!)

6. Cook with family, it is a good thing!

7. Cook this main dish again for a family meal! I suggest you do the same!

Lesson 7: Cooking and Eating

Final Plating

This is the first time that I have cooked anything from the book in another kitchen. It didn't throw me off as much as I had expected, but did have one very nice benefit...I wasn't as worried about all of the clean-up because I knew I didn't have to wake up to the kitchen a mess. 

It worked out really well cooking in my sister's kitchen and working with my nephew to cook this meal. I think and hope that he had a good time as well cooking with me.

Together we worked through the prep work on the Guinea Hen and Chicken, while I prepared the birds, he worked on some of the vegetables. Because we were cooking for more than 6, we prepared two separate dishes, one with each bird. This was also necessary because the chicken was so much larger than the guinea hen, and because I figured the flavors would be noticeably different.

There were lots of vegetables to prepare with onions, carrots and cabbage. I do really like the flavor and texture differences that appear when you cook onions at different temperatures for different amounts of time. It amazes me how different the flavor can be. In this dish, the onions were cooked very low, making them very creamy in texture and with a distinct flavor.

The cabbage also got special treatment by boiling and then cooking with all fo the other veggies. Then the chicken was added after being partially cooked in the oven. Liquid was added to the entire pot, along with the sausage, and cooking continued until everything was ready to eat.

As we cleared out the oven, my nephew worked to make the puff pastry dough. He did a great job of making dough that looked very good. 

Puff Pastry Dough

We loaded it into the pastry bag and I tried to pipe a few out onto the baking sheet. I managed to pipe two nice rounds out before breaking the cheap pastry bag. See the picture below.

You can see my handywork here

I turned over the technical work to my nephew who was able to finish piping the entire baking sheet without breaking the second bag.

My nephew's pan (much better than mine)

We cooked the puff pastry per directions, while also making the cheese filling. The directions specifically said not to open the oven for the first 15 min and then cook at a lower temperature for 10min or until done. After the first 15min the puff pastry was brown and overdone. This was sad because if cooked correctly I think the puff pastry would be easy to make and really good. I am going to blame cooking in an unfamiliar oven for this and hope that I can make them again in my own oven.

Again we filled the pastry bag and I started piping the cheese filling into the puff pastries. I managed to pipe 2 puff pastries full until I broke the cheap bag again. We solved this issue by using my first idea, using a ziploc bag as a pastry bag. My nephew poked holes in the pastries and I filled with the cheese filling from the make-shift pastry bag.

The puff pastries were good when hot, but the filling cooled very quickly and the exterior was definitely overcooked. The kids really liked these because they were bite size and crunchy.

When the main dish was done we took apart the guinea hen and chickens and plated all of the food. With the kids, we took the meat off of the bones and gave them lots of veggies. 

Guinea Hen, Sausage, Veggies, and Choux Puffs

I thought the dish was really great! The cabbage and other vegetables were very flavorful, and the guinea hen and chicken were fantastic. I wasn't overly excited about the sausage that I chose, and I would have been just as happy without it. I did think that chicken was a really great subsitute and would make this an affordable meal for a family dinner.

After all of the plates were cleaned up, we get ready for dessert. I would call dessert a mixed bag, not completely successful, but interesting enough in flavor that it might be worth a second attempt.

I had made the dessert the night before and chilled it so it would set up. Making the Creme Anglaise wasn't a big deal, adding in the gelatin, strawberries and heavy whipping cream went fine, and before going into the fridge, I tasted a bit. It reminded me of the frothy strawberry flavored drinks from Orange Julius that we used to get at the mall when I was a kid. I like the flavor, but found it strikingly out of place. I knew the final texture would be very different from those drinks as well.

As I took the dessert out of the mold, or bowl that I had used, it spread out over the entire plate like a squished UFO. 

Strawberry Bavarian Cream (UFO)

I don't know if it was the shape I used, or that the gelatin hadn't set as firmly as I expected, or maybe a combination of both. The kids sure didn't mind having dessert that wasn't as firm as I had excpected, and to me there was a suprisingly positive response. The taste was again like a strawberry Orange Julius and the texture was more like yogurt. It wasn't as sweet as some of the other desserts, and I think would make a nice addition to a summer meal with fruit to go with it.

I would give this a so so on the complete execution of the meal, as well as a so so on the full meal, however I really enjoyed cooking with my nephew and spending time with my sister and her family. I would definitely make the main course again, substituting chicken as a family meal-flavorful, hearty and really not that technically difficult.

More to come in Lessons Learned.

Lesson 1: Cooking and Eating

I had been looking forward to this for months, and I had all of the ingredients, we had friends coming over to eat and I had a plan.

The plan was clear: start cooking at about 3:45pm for a 5:30-6pm dinner time.  Enough time for our guests to arrive a few minutes late, socialize a bit and then sit down to a warm meal.  

I had all of the dishes planned as to when to do the prep work and when to cook.  It was a great plan…

The plan went out the window about 3-3:15pm, when I got antsy and needed something to do.  I started prepping the fruit salad, with the exception of the fruit that would brown, and then peeled and sliced the cucumbers.  It’s a good thing the plan went out the window because both of these prep items took a lot longer than I had budgeted and would have delayed something down the line.

The fruit was very fresh and I knew the fruit salad was shaping up to be a big hit. The cucumbers, well if you don’t like peeling a million little cucumbers then I would suggest buying the big cucumbers rather than the pickling cucumbers.  The pickling ones allow for consistency in size and it makes a good presentation on the plate with a little extra work.

3:45pm rolled around and I followed my previous plan in stride, beginning with the chicken.  I have roasted turkey for the last 5 years at Thanksgiving, to the great pleasure of my family; however roasting chicken has always been a difficult task for me.  I don’t know what the difference is, but it always seems harder to work with a smaller chicken and get a good result. 

This time was no different in working with the chicken, but let me tell you, the results were TOTALLY different. The bird was perfectly cooked and tasted great!

After the chicken was off to the oven, I had a break to clean up and get ready for completing the fruit salad.  After turning the chicken in the oven after 20 minutes, I completed the fruit salad with its cointreau sauce.  The chicken got turned again and it was the peas’ turn to hit the stove.

Peas remind me of my mom’s, not so pleasing, tuna casserole with canned tuna, mushroom soup, pasta, peas and of course wheat germ topping.  Never a favorite of mine.  So I was skeptical of this dish, and much to my surprise it came out as an amazingly easy, tasty dish that I will cook again for my family at Thanksgiving!  It was a big hit with the adults and the 1 year old that we had over for dinner, and a healthy dish that I am going to cook for my sister and her kids!

Next the chicken came out of the oven perfectly browned, with crispy skin.  It rested and the pan juices were skimmed for fat and reduced to create a perfect drizzle for the chicken.

As I tried to carve the chicken, I always think to Thanksgiving—I roast the Turkey and my Grandpa carves it.  He has been trying to teach me the past two years, but I don’t feel confident in it.  I did well slicing the breasts off of the chicken, they were amazing pieces of white meat, which my wife and our guests really enjoyed.  The rest of the chicken, as you can see from the picture, was pulled and picked off the bone.  This is on my list of things to learn—carving meat.

My wife helped me plate the dinners, with the extras in dishes for the table.

Here is a picture of the dish...I didn't take it until the next morning, so if the peas look a bit hungover you know why.  It does illustrate my carving techniques, although to my credit there wasn't much leftover!  I'm not happy with how the picture made the blog...it was a little messed up, so I will try to upload it later and figure out how to get more pictures on the blog.

How was the first French meal I cooked?  It was easier to cook than I expected; it was extremely flavorful; it was, by my guess, very healthy; it was something my wife and guests enjoyed; and it was a meal I would undoubtedly cook again as well as recommend to others. 

It left me excited about what the next 89 lessons have in store for me!