Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

No, not the Big Friendly Giant, but today’s pastry challenge, a Black Forest Gateau. The day starts badly. Chef puts up a list of ingredients for the mise en place. I hear “cream” and think he wants us to cream butter and sugar. So I weigh out 320g of butter and 105g of sugar. My quality control partner E. points out that when the chef wrote “cream” he meant “cream”. I quickly hide the incriminating bowl and have just finished the correct preparation when chef realises he’s made a mistake and we only need 45g of sugar. So I, along with everyone else, have to start again. E., meanwhile has been making a cherry liqueur syrup. I should have volunteered for that.

Anyway, these BFGs are, like the fraisier, an exercise in construction. Genoise sponge soaked in syrup, chocolate mousse, more syrup soaked sponge, chantilly cream with griotte cherries, another syrup soaked sponge and another layer of chocolate mousse—first flattened with a palette knife then scraped with one slightly bent so we can add a layer of ganache (a joint effort with E.). Then the fun begins. We coat the ganache with chocolate pieces then spray paint it to give it a velvety chocolate look.

After adding a chocolate covering for the side (to hide the layers) and some piped decoration I’m pretty pleased with my end result. Here it is with chef’s in the photo room.

The afternoon session is devoted to working with eggs. Chef starts off by saying that Paul Bocuse never read CVs. He just asked candidates to cook the Omelette soufflé we’ll be preparing after an Oeuf mollet, sauce hollandaise et poireaux confits. Now, I’ve made hollandaise before (delicious with asparagus and much else) but always cooking the eggs in a bain marie. That’s for wimps, apparently. We have to whisk our eggs in a saucepan measuring the temperature with our hand and moving the pan on and off the heat as we whisk. And whisk. And whisk. And whisk. But eventually we get there and (gently) whisk in clarified butter. Our hollandaise is a little runny as we’re supposed to add lemon juice “Qs”—i.e. to taste or as needed—but my partner thinks there’s a weighed amount and adds all I’ve put ready. Chef, though, is happy enough with my plated result.

Next up is the Omelette soufflé and I have to admit being pretty chuffed with this. I melt butter in milk, whisk this into egg yolks whisked with flour and some milk then fold in egg whites I’ve whisked by hand. Chef admires the result although commenting, of course, that I’ve overcooked the base—you’re supposed to cook it until it moves freely in the pan but I had so much mixture that it couldn´t actually move so I waited to long. Anyway, chuffedness also because plating this from the pan isn´t easy either. A good end to the second week.

Actually, there’s a better end as J. arrives (a little late, but perhaps best not to criticise one’s personal shopper and laundromat), so there’s a double goûter today.