Bonus coverage - Titanium Chef Round II. On Saturday, I competed in a cooking competition at our school. Our team consisted of Lara, Jen, Eve, and myself. The mystery protein was buffalo. They provided us with a market basket of items: purple potatoes, salsify, baby leeks, baby red onions, pecans, walnuts, red lentils, couscous, golden raisins, dried forest mushrooms, and a purple artichoke. We had an hour and a half to create as many dishes featuring buffalo as we could from the ingredients we had. We also had access to staples in the kitchen such as oils, liquors, butter, cream, veal stock, chicken stock, spices, etc. This was the second of three rounds of competition. The top six point totals from the three rounds advance to the finals.We are judged on proper sanitation, presentation, and flavor by a panel of chef instructors. We made three dishes: roulade of buffalo stuffed with baby leeks, forest mushrooms, raisins, and walnuts served with raisin couscous and a natural jus. I made the sauce by browning scraps of buffalo and the scraps of the vegetables combined with veal stock. It turned out pretty well. We also made a buffalo stew with purple potatoes and baby vegetables with a pastry crust. The flavor was great but the presentation might have been lacking. Our thrid dish was a dessert. We made vanilla thyme ice cream topped with candided buffalo and pecans. It was inspired by a dessert made by Chef Exley using ostrich. It tasted quite good. We finished second on the day. I think we are fifth overall. We may choose to compete in the third round if there are any spots open. The only mishap was slicing my hand open on my mandoline, but the day was fun.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 5. Last day at the back of the house. We got a lot of help with our prep because other teams were done with their prep. Being on salad and dessert, our prep wasn't to hard. I got a little crazy and started making sugar cages for the desserts. It's simple to make and is a great crowd pleaser. Richie and Manny handled most of the salad orders because they made them the night before. Manny has a reverence for salads that is admirable. I wish I had his passion for the craft. Plating the desserts was pretty fun. We had a model to copy, but we did our own presentations. There was an Asian woman who had a birthday, so decorated the plate by writing happy birthday in Chinese with mango sauce and topping her dessert with a sugar cage. I'm happy to report that she was very impressed. A great last night for all.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 4. I took a break from the restaurant to volunteer for a function in the demo kitchen. There was a rehearsal dinner for a party of 47. The menu was:
Baby Blue salad - mixed baby greens, blue cheese, balsamic vinaigrette, and candied walnuts
Chicken Provencale - this is an item on the L'Academie menu, chicken brest with tomatoes, capers, garlic, and olives served with fingerling potatoes and broccoli rabe
Crepes Suzette - two thin crepes flavored with a sauce of melted butter, sugar, orange and lemon zest served with fresh berries
I helped with prepping the broccoli rabe, fingerling potatoes. I also help to plate all the dishes. Not a bad experience. Chef Elliot did the flaming liqueur with the Crepes Suzette demo. It's a nice visual in a darkened room.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 3. Second day at the soup and sandwiches. It tool me a soup or two to perfect the french onion soup. It's all a matter of figuring out the hot spots in the salamander(broiler). The soups are made during prep. Ours are taken care of by the AM class. For our prep, we heat up two gallons of it and hold it at 140 F. To plate up french onion, we fill a crock with french onion, top it with a crouton, sprinkle on some gruyere, layer two slices of provolone and place it under the salamander in a small saute pan. We need to turn it halfway to get even browning of the cheese. Minestrone is lot simpler. We spoon two ladles of soup into a bowl, add 2-3 tasting spoons of acini di pepe(peppercorn shaped pasta) and a heaping teaspoon of parmesan. We are also responsible for the roast turkey sandwich and the pan bagnat, but it's very rare that someone orders those.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 2. New day at the soup station. Manny manned the line. It's only a one person operation mostly making French onion soup. He also made some minestrone soup. The rare items are the roast turkey sandwich and the pan bagnat(tuna sandwich). Richie and I spent the entire prep time coming up with a special. Chef Elliot gave us some smoked salmon to work with. We came up with a smoked salmon salad: haricot verts, roasted bell peppers, butter lettuce, and cream cheese wrapped inside two slices of smoked salmon and a bed of mixed greens with a roasted bell pepper vinaigrette. Manny the master of the salad du jour made the vinaigrette and the mixed green salad. We actually sold some. It's a gratifying feeling to sell something that you helped to create.
L'Academie - Back of the House Week 3, Day 1. Another day at the pasta station. I stayed in the back in the kitchen while Richie and Manny were on the line. I don't recall the prep I did in the kitchen. It was one of those days.
