Brown Sugar

Well, it was quite a smoky day - I started the morning by tackling the crème caramel and to begin with it went relatively well - I made the caramel for the bottom of the little ramekins and then managed the custard filling too, got those into the oven and felt fairly good, and then it was onto making more caramel to decorate the little puds once they were done and ready to be plated. It seemed fairly simple, plain sugar into a saucepan and over the flame until it reached a "chestnut" colour according to my notes - I can't begin to tell you what I'd have given to have a chestnut sitting next to me at that point because the indecision was a nightmare - take it off too early and the sugar won't set into shapes, take it off too late and well, that's what happened to me - I think the chestnut I had in my mind had been on the tree in direct sunlight for about a decade and then with the heavy-bottomed saucepan as well it just carried on cooking (and I use the term loosely) even after I took it off the gas until faint whispers of smoke were coming from the pot and it was a rock hard mass of what can only be described as burnt sugar, I think it was almost carcinogenic...................a barrage of filthy language ensued, if there'd been a sailor lurking in the corner of the kitchen he'd have blushed.

So, what to do - my teacher told me not to worry and just to decorate my pud with some mint leaves or something but that of course was like a red flag to a bull - beaten by a sorry pan of sugar, you've no chance!! Before I could start my second attempt though I had to have a clean saucepan in which to do so and that meant getting the sugar out of the pan and by God you'd have thought nuclear fusion had taken place - I tried boiling it off, and then scrubbing at it with steelwool and at one point I was ready to hurl the stupid pot into the bin and fork out the many Euros required to replace it but eventually separation took place some 20 minutes later with me huffing and puffing and cursing for the first team - I tell you what, no need to fork out for a gym subscription though, just burn some sugar each day and you'll have arms as toned as an Olympic gymnast!

Back to the cooker and on with the sugar and this time I had a microscope on it for the slightest hint of colour change - whipped it off before it became a fully grown up chestnut and it worked the bomb, I made lots of pretty shapes and stuck one into the finished product and if I say so myself, it looked pretty damn good........................



My first crème caramel

Then it was onto the aubergines - I'd put 3 aubergines into the oven first thing to make one of the dips and I imagined after messing about with the crème caramel for almost an hour that they'd be done but no, not a chance and they sulked in there for another hour before finally giving in, getting wrinkly and collapsing, ready for me to turn into dip - the rest was easy but because I was running so late, I had to peel the skins off whilst they were still hot - I'm working on having those asbestos fingers that all chefs seem to have - chuck in some garlic, onion, herbs, olive oil, salt, pepper, etc and voila, aubergine dip - made little pita crisps to go with it and it was done, plated and ready for inspection.

Having had an hour to waste whilst they battled against me in the oven, I made some white soda bread - I have to tell you these soda breads are just the business, they don't keep as well as yeast breads so you've to eat them on the day or toast them after that but they're just so fab and easy - the rumour mill has it that from next week we're moving onto yeast breads and I can see a few foot stomping sessions ahead of me with those.

Lunch was great - some of the students had been down to make chicken curry with rice and raitas so we had an assortment of aubergine dips to start with salad, and then the curried kuku, and then the crème caramels for dessert - I managed to stay away from those, tried mine during tasting with my teacher and it got full marks, YAY, so I couldn't really justify any more.

Afternoon demo was with Darina and we learnt primarily how to fillet round fish - looks relatively simple although I've no doubt that when I have to do it myself tomorrow, it'll became significantly more challenging - they always make it look so easy! We also leant to make a few dishes with the fish once it no longer looked like a fish, a salad of roasted red peppers with zucchini, parmesan, rocket and proscuitto (can't wait for that at lunch tomorrow, even we can't mess that up), brown soda bread, a few different veg and lemon meringue tart. So I'm down to do the tart tomorrow (more pastry, aarrgh) and a few veg, shouldn't be too bad.

Lemon meringue petit four

And that was it, another day over and it was a lovely evening so we went for a quick walk and then had some wine - almost the weekend, YAY, this whole weekend business is fast growing on me.