Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

Those arriving at school early this morning were greeted by a smell of burning, especially on the first floor. Apparently chef had left the burner under one of our stock pots on too high a setting and it had boiled dry. It seems he was woken at 6:30 by the security patrol who were a little concerned. Fortunately for sauce workshop attendees there were a) two stock pots and b) more bones in the freezer so chef set to work making more as he dealt with the aftermath.

But my attention was soon devoted to what I correctly predicted as a fiendish decoration challenge for our rhubarb and lychee desert. And even worse for me as my partner was absent. I looked on the bright side, though: I had two attempts at all the challenges. Also, two previous partners, K. and E., were working at nearby benches and were a great help with the different mises en place.

So, what did we have to do? First a two-tone glaze and then prepare coloured and white chocolate spirals akin to those for the cheesecake yesterday but using a procedure that is meant to be more time-efficient for producing multiple spirals. After tempering our coloured chocolate, though, we first had to make a stripy chocolate coating for the side, something we did by painting cocoa butter onto an acetate strip with a toothbrush, letting this set and then adding a coating of our coloured chocolate and quickly fitting this around the proto-entremet.

To produce the spirals we needed to spread tempered chocolate on a plastic sheet, rule neat rectangles and then their diagonals, put a parchment sheet on top, turn these into a slightly angled cylinder around a rolling pin, sellotape the cylinder shut and put this in the fridge to set. For me, twice with coloured chocolate and twice with white. And in between, thoroughly clean and dry my bench.

We were supposed to work quickly to avoid the chocolate setting so much that it cracked as it was rolled into a cylinder. Mistakenly, I thought I had let my coloured chocolate set too much so I made sure my white chocolate was at the top of the temperature window as I spread it across the plastic sheet. It turned out that the chocolate for my coloured spirals was at the right consistency. And, of course, my white ones were therefore a disaster. E. opposite, though, gave me some of her perfect production for my decoration. Which you can see below.

To best understand our cooking challenge, you have to know that our chef lives in Sète, a town just up the coast famous for tielles. The story is that a group of Sicilian fishing families settled there and the menfolk needed food to take on their fishing expeditions. Pizzas were no good as the topping fell of so the womenfolk produced enclosed pies with a filling based on the octopus that were readily available in the area (and probably not much in demand so therefore cheap). According to chef, all the good tielles in Sète are produced by two long established clans with stores decked in either red or green. He didn’t give us names but has spent years trying to reproduce the taste of the one he likes. And I, of course, am now sworn to secrecy!

What I can reveal is that I prepared a dough with tomato puree, paprika and chili whilst C. put defrosted giant squid tentacles on to boil. We then made a tomato sauce, added the sliced squid tentacles and then baked this in a pie crust rolled out from the dough. Et voilà!

Before moving on to the sauce workshop, some more realities of restaurant (school) life. Both classrooms have drains down each side which are covered with (supposedly) interlocking grates. These need to be cleaned thoroughly each week (each grate piece picked up and scrubbed; the drain underneath brushed thoroughly and left spotless). Unfortunately, we are not experts and if a grate segment is put back slightly incorrectly the various locking pins will break on one element and this leads to more failures as everything moves around. In the last week or so people have been tripping over badly set grate pieces so I was tasked with checking all of these in all four drains and replacing the broken ones. Kitchen life is not all cake decoration!

Which actually leads to another interlude. Our pastry chef pointed out that the ingredients for our entremet and cheesecake decorations didn’t cost much in themselves but turning these into the decorations took time and in a shop staff time equates to money. So the trend these days is for simple decorations but with the trade off that the basics must be absolutely perfect: there can be no imperfections in the glazing of your entremet or cheesecake if these can’t be hidden by the judicious placement of a macaroon or two, He also talked about high-pressure water jet cutters that can cut shapes from chocolate sheets or mini opera cakes, say, from a larger one prepared in a big rectangular mould.

Anyway, on to the second sauce workshop where we prepared four sauces—bordelaise, charcutière, Choron and pepper—using our veal demi-glace as a base and also a sauce gribiche. This was a long session although people could sustain their energy with roast chicken leg with sauce charcutière mid-way through. We finished by all eating beef fillet with pepper sauce around chef’s bench.

J. meanwhile was waiting at the residence sustained by cheesecake and macaroons after dealing with an ant infestation but, after a longer than expected wait, enjoyed a meal of chicken with sauce charcutière followed by tielle sètoise with entremet rhubarbe & litchi to finish.