Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

The dining area upstairs at Gastronomicom looked like an examination hall this morning with one trainee chef per table. Amongst other things we have to recall the compositions of tarte bordaloue and a black forest gateau, name the cheese in tiramisu, give the cooking temperature for a French meringue and list the ingredients for a brioche. I think I do OK, but draw a blank on the cooking temperature for honey in a frozen nougat and (probably) make a rookie exam error by not reading carefully enough and assuming a question is about “milk chocolate” rather than “white chocolate”. But I think I did well enough to pass.

Thence to the task of the morning which is to produce coated ganache chocolates. It’s D.’s turn to temper our chocolate so I decline to step in as she tires in the tempering—she has her revenge later as a second tempering is needed! Once the chocolate is tempered we move to the messy business of filling moulds and then emptying them out to leave a thin (but not too thin!) coating for the top and sides of our chocolates. Then we have to make the ganache and it’s my turn for action rather than prep or cleaning. D., meanwhile, is tasked by chef with cutting loaves of pain de mie for some mysterious reason. The ganache then needs piping into the moulds—a task for D., of course—during which time we retemper the chocolate. D. is on some errand or other when this needs pouring over the ganache-filled shells to make the base so there’s rather a mess on our bench when I’ve finished. But it all turns out well in the end and, although I have no picture to prove it, we have 32 chocolate pieces like those between the white logs and the feuilletine-decorated squares in this picture of chef’s productions this week.

At the end of the lesson we learn the reason for the pain de mie: not only do we have to produce chocolate spirals and cigarettes for our test tomorrow, we also have to produce—against the clock—an acceptable (i.e. warm) french toast dessert for Chef! Yes, we have the recipe from last week but we are warned there will be some twists…

It’s duck a l’orange for the afternoon or, rather, filet de canette a l’orange, croûte de noisette et carottes en croûte de sel, gel d’orange. C. and I each prepare a duckling breast then C. crisps the skin and prepares the base for the sauce whilst I work on the mise en place for the next stages and prepare the salt crust for the carrots. It’s a technique I know well in principle but have never actually used before. I find the salt crust dough to be rather sticky but it’s manageable and the carrot I ate this evening tasted pretty good so this is a lesson that will surely prove useful.

Just as D. enjoys her piping, C. likes making sauces so I cook the breasts whilst she extracts the baked carrots from the crust and prepares them for plating. As the breasts are resting I add a hazelnut crust that (along with an orange and ginger gel) was, in best Blue Peter fashion, prepared earlier. On to plating where I manage to recreate Chef’s example earning praise not only for this but also for the cooking of the duck.

So why the “but…” above? Well, chef thinks I can be more efficient. Our duck breasts were cooked pretty early but I was waiting for them to finish resting before adding the crust. Chef tells me off for this saying the crust can be added during the resting period—and he points out the consequences of me having waited: I have to queue to use the salamander to crisp the crust rather than being first in line.

Line… Wine… We learn about the Alsace region today and taste a Riesling, a grande cru Pinot Gris and a vendange tardive Gewurtztraminer. The standout wine for me is the second and adding that it was a 2011 vintage might help to explain why. It is rich and slightly sweet and would go well with chocolate desserts (perhaps flambéed as one participant suggests) as well as pairing well with salty cheeses as we learnt last week. It turns out, moreover, that the bottle cost just €37! Spectacular value for money.

In the “name the aroma” game, we’re back to naming scents we’ve sampled during the lesson and, leaving aside someone who has memorised the numbers on the bottles, I come top. Our star nose, however, is absent as she was taken to hospital yesterday with a suspected appendicitis. Nothing so serious, but the coming week’s holiday will doubtless be good for her and the rest of us.

And. given that we are on holiday from tomorrow evening—and that J., N. and I will be in Beziers this weekend for the fête de St Aphrodise—the next update(s) may be a little delayed.