Lesson 4: Lessons Learned

Here is my own picture of the Pineapple Sorbet

The lessons from menu 4 are Crepes and Sugar Syrup, or rather I should qualify that these are the two NEW lessons. Skills learned through previous lessons in Roasting, Deglazing and Roux and Flour-Bound Sauces were also needed.

This illustrates clearly how the progression of skills from one lesson to the next is really critical. Having practiced making Bechamel for the Oeufs a la Tripe I was better prepared for what to expect, as well as more experienced and therefore much more comfortable with whipping up the Bechamel sauce for the Gratin de Blettes.

I appreciate this progression as a teaching and learning tool, as well as confirmation of one of my reasons for choosing Le Cordon Bleu AT HOME. I do have a bit of concern that making each dish in order will be a challenge when selecting fresh ingredients, of which I have not had too much difficulty up to this point. However, I am going to go to check out the current fish selection today in order to do a little reconnaissance for Lesson 5 and Lesson 6. I am worried about the timing of these two dishes, as they both contain seafood, of which scallops and mussels would be best fresh. My guess is that scallops could be found frozen, however not ideal I am sure, and mussels will only be available if fresh. I hope that the timing will work out just fine, but I have no idea. As for other fresh ingredients, I feel fortunate to live in an area with a very moderate climate year-round, as well as a place fairly rich with agriculture. Therefore I can usually find most of the vegetables and other related items (with the exception of pearl onions when I need them) pretty easily.

Maybe I should get back to the main event...lessons learned through menu 4!?!

Crepes--As explained in the lesson, crepes can be "served hot or cold, rolled into cylinders, folded into triangle shapes, or even stacked one on top of another" (23). I followed the directions, making the batter, which by the way is very simple, and letting it rest. I used an old crepe cooking contraption my mother let me borrow that consisted of a round electric heating element and a pan that you place upside down on top of the heater. You are supposed to heat the pan up and then dip the bottom of the pan into the batter, flipping the pan upside down back onto the heater to cook. This definitely helped keeps the crepes very thin, and was much easier than using an omelet pan. The ones I cooked in the omelet pan were much thicker. The crepes were easy to roll up and I had great results with the dish. Overall, something I found pretty easy, although I would buy two crepe pans (as instructed) for next time as well as give myself more time to cook the crepes.

Sugar Syrups--Another lesson that I thought was pretty straight forward and easy, requiring some patients to allow the liquid to heat up on low heat so that all sugar is dissolved prior to boiling. Nothing to exciting here, until the simple syrup was combined with the pinneapple and frozen in the ice cream maker...then...magic!

As for the other lessons, roasting the leg of lamb will take some additional practice to get the proper doneness all dialed in (although who knows the next time I will buy a leg of lamb and roast it again?), but deglazing the pan with water was a breeze and produced my favorite sauce so far!

I am not so sure that I learned it through this lesson, but I confirmed that entertaining is definitely more complicated than cooking for family at home. I do enjoy entertaining, as I enjoy sharing good food with others at least as much, or even more, as I enjoy eating good food myself. Having extra people around was helpful as I used the extra helping hands around the kitchen to help with grating cheese and making crepes, both required more time than I had budgeted.

All in all, I have to say again that this was my favorite meal so far. I am sure glad to have the confidence from making all of these dishes pretty much failure free the first time around so as not to embarrass myself too badly in front of my guests.

Lessons Learned: Thanksgiving

The family is gone now, the dishes cleaned, the oven still a bit dirty, and leftovers are ready to make paninis or whatever other leftover goodies you could imagine!

I felt like this year was a bit anti-climactic, as I was hoping everything would be perfect, or rather that every year I could see a noticeable improvement in my cooking.  This year, even after having practiced much of the cooking techniques, I felt that some of the food was rather hit or miss.  Below I will review, using the four things I have been learning through LCB as a reference:

1. Roasting--I am going to roast the turkey, as I always do, however I hope the practice will continue to improve the end results. The turkey was pretty darn big (26lbs) and barely fit in the oven.  Because of this, it was very easy for parts of it to dry out as it was cooking.  The flavor was excellent, I think one of the best I have cooked, however I have done a better job in the past with a better cooked turkey.  It is pretty obvious that the way you carve also has a big impact.  My grandfather usually carves the turkey (and I found out this was so he has an excuse to not make gravy).  He sliced one side of the breast really thin, like a traditional way, then he and I worked together to carve the second breast in one piece.  He liked how easy that was, and I liked seeing how much better the breast meat held its moisture and didn't fall apart.

2. I am going to cook the dish Petits Pois a la Francaise--SPRING PEAS WITH LETTUCE, CHERVIL, AND ONIONS from Lesson 1. I think this will make an excellent dish to go with the Thanksgiving meal. I will not bother with pearl onions because I liked my white onion substitute and know they are easy to find and easy to work with. I overestimated the amount of peas, as I pretty much doubled the recipe and then overcooked the peas because there was so much going on. The peas tasted fine, just a bit overdone.  I still like this recipe a lot and will make it again.

3. I will be making stock use with a recipe I created for roasted butternut squash soup that I called "Thanksgiving Butternut Squash Soup". Last year I used chicken stock, but I may make vegetable stock so that I can have the flexibility to make it vegetarian if desired.  I made stock for everything, and am sure glad I did!  I didn't make the soup, as we had more than enough food and would have had way too much, as this soup could double as a meal on any normal eating day.

4. Successfully use a liaison to thicken a sauce--gravy. I tried to use corn starch as the liaison to thicken the gravy, and it had an interesting result. My grandmothers all use flour, and I worried it would get too lumpy. Their experience, however, is something that I am lacking, but will earn/learn with age. We had quite a discussion, and they let me sink or swim with the corn starch. If you have never used corn starch with kids to make Ooblek...corn starch and water that has properties of a liquid when no pressure is applied, but properties of a solid when pressure is applied...I'd recommend trying it out...it's lots of fun, and I think helps me think of the end results of the gravy.  I used the corn starch and water slury a little at a time.  What was interesting to me is that when added to the broth, the broth became cloudy, milky white, but once cooked for a bit, the gravy returned to its original color. This is the first difference that I found between using corn starch and flour. The second was the final consistency, as  I wasn't sure how much corn starch to use, I had to add a bit at a time until it was thickened. As it was thinkening, I could tell the consistency had a sort of gelatinous feel/look to it. This was clear when my dad took a bite of his mashed potatoes and the gravy just stayed in the middle without flowing out. The consistency was therefore a bit think, and a little jelly-like, but had a nice light color to it. More practice, much more practice needed.

I didn't really take pictures, mostly because I didn't take the time to do so, but also because my mom usually has her big camera out.  For some reason she didn't have her camera shooting pictures, so I don't have that much to share this time.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lesson Thanksgiving: The Menu

Thanksgiving Butternut Squash--My practice run for this year

I want to write about Thanksgiving because I feel it fits perfectly with my goals of cooking Le Cordon Bleu AT HOME. As mentioned going in to it, French food wasn't the primary draw. Instead the draw being learning the best techniques to apply to all my other cooking, although I am feeling a slow conversion and growing aversion to French food and cooking.

For Thanksgiving I am hoping to use the following things that I have learned from LCB to improve the meal I serve for my family:

1. Roasting--I am going to roast the turkey, as I always do, however I hope the practice will continue to improve the end results.
2. I am going to cook the dish Petits Pois a la Francaise--SPRING PEAS WITH LETTUCE, CHERVIL, AND ONIONS from Lesson 1. I think this will make an excellent dish to go with the Thanksgiving meal. I will not bother with pearl onions because I liked my white onion substitute and know they are easy to find and easy to work with.
3. I will be making stock use with a recipe I created for roasted butternut squash soup that I called "Thanksgiving Butternut Squash Soup". Last year I used chicken stock, but I may make vegetable stock so that I can have the flexibility to make it vegetarian if desired.
4. Successfully use a liaison to thicken a sauce--gravy.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because of the food, I LOVE IT! I also really enjoy the entertaining and the family. I began hosting Thanksgiving meals about 8 years ago in college because I forgot to bring leftovers back from home. I had a friend who worked at a grocery store pick up a turkey for really cheap and had everyone bring over dishes that they prepared. We filled our living room with tables and had a great time (word is one of my roommates met his wife at one of these meals).

The first Thanksgiving after my wife and I bought our house, we hosted our families for Thanksgiving. This was in part to make it so we only had to travel for Christmas rather than for both Christmas and Thanksgiving, and so that we could have extra help with fixing up our house (having 15 extra hands to clean up the yard, paint doors, and repair many items was a huge help).

Now that we have moved to be close to our family, we have been hosting Thanksgiving so that I can continue to cook and because we have a place that is big enough for everyone to get together.

Our menus usually have similarities, however we try to add something new or different each year, with varying degrees of success. Two of my students are taking French class at the local community college, so I asked them to translate my meal into French, to go on blog.  In fact, I also found the Nov. 12 post at Easy French Food to be helpful as well.  Here is the menu that I think we will be cooking this year:

	Lesson Thankgiving
SOUPE DE LA COURGE AU JOUR D'ACTION DE GRACE Thanksgiving Butternut Squash Soup ___ PATATES DOUCE AU LARD GRAS "CHEZ GRAND-MERE" Grandma's Sweet Potatoes with Bacon Fat ___ DINDE ROTE AUX HERBES AROMATIQUES Roasted Turkey with Herbs  ___ FARCE AUZ SAUCISSES ET CHAMPIGNONS Sausage and Mushroom Stuffing ___ SAUCE AUX CANNEBERGES Cranberry Sauce ___ SAUCE DE LA VINADE Gravy ___ LES PETITES PAINS Rolls ___ TARTE AUX POMMES MAISON Homemade Apple Pie

My own thoughts and notes go a little like this: I like to stuff the turkey (I have read much of the don'ts on this one but love the moisture and flavor) and cook some separately as well. Grandma's Sweet Potatoes-I don't know exactly what she does to them, but I like the flavor...not overly sweet. She slices them diagonally and there is word that she fries them in bacon fat that she collects all year. These are served warm or cold and are a great topping for leftover turkey sandwiches or paninis. Pie-homemade apple pie, pumpkin and mince meat pie. We usually buy the last two, and my wife and I took over making the apple pie last year from one of my grandmothers. We are improving in our pie making and will probably be doing more baking this year than in the past. Apple pies turned out well last year, as I think we made about 8 apple pies between Thanksgiving and Christmas for three of use to eat. This year I hope to try pumpkin pie (although I had a previous bad experience with pumpkin so am not really a huge fan of the flavor). Can't forget the cranberry sauce and gravy!

I want to post again about Thanksgiving and my use of the things that I have learned from the first three lessons. In addition, I am not planning to cook Lesson 4 until the week after Thanksgiving. I am planning to host my coworkers who selected Lesson 4 as a meal they would eat, and we can't get together until then because of our schedules.

Lesson 1: Lessons Learned

A big part of the draw to this book for me is the teaching/learning aspects of the book.  Here are my thoughts on what I have learned, or at least what I can take forward as I tackle the next 89 lessons:

In Lesson 1, the instructional pieces were Roasting and Preparing Fruits.  

As mentioned, I have roasted chicken, roasted turkey, and I think in college I roasted some game that one of my roommates brought from home.  My feelings are that the Thanksgiving turkey is so much easier than a chicken, and that roasting, like most things, can always be a learning experience.

After I initially wrote this post, I traveled away for the weekend to a friends summer cabin.  We were in charge of dinner and he ended up buying 2 whole chickens at the market.  I challenged him to cook one and I would cook the other and we would see how it turned out.  I used the same techniques I learned and practiced, and found it was much easier, even with limited supplies, and space in the kitchen and oven. My chicken turned out fantastic and my carving was seeing some improvements.  The eaters/judges wouldn't put one chicken over the other, as they said we were all winners with such good food!

The lessons in Preparing Fruits, the technique for peeling the orange known as peler a vif is something I have never bothered to do...probably like most people making a fruit salad--peel orange, slice orange, throw in salad is the norm.  The little bit of effort to eliminate the membrane, if that is what made the difference for this fruit salad, I am a believer. I will need to perfect the timing however on boiling the peach, dropping it in a cold water bath and peeling.  I will have many opportunities to see again how long is appropriate.

Being a teacher, myself, I realize much more can be learned from the experience that the instructors may not plan for, and that may not be learned anywhere else.  Here are those things that I think I can take forward.

Up first, the bad:

1.  Don’t assume that ingredients you are looking for will be at any of the local places I currently shop.

2.  My carving of a chicken needs some work (I am putting it lightly here).

3.  Communicating ideas in an orderly, coherent way, is a work in progress.

4. Who knows about photos?  I am still trying to figure this one out.

The good:

1.  The substitutions I made for this menu worked well.

   a.  The chicken was great, even if it wasn’t free range, "appellation controlee" french birds.  I would like to find one to eat to compare though.

b.  The peas were a great dish even with frozen peas (did I forget to mention this before?), parsley instead of Chervil, and white onions instead of pearl onions (Lesson 3 has pearl onions, so I better find them soon--someone recommended frozen or canned?).

Things to do:

1.  I need to find the best place to buy meat products.

2.  Practice my knife skills.