It really did feel like we were all settling down a little today - instead of a scared-looking mass of students desperately scanning recipes and looking for equipment and trying to work out how many ounces are in a pound, the kitchens seemed just a little calmer - it was almost as though we actually knew what we were doing! That's not to say there weren't any mishaps, one of the students in my kitchen managed to slice off the better part of the top of his finger this morning and my attempts at carving roast lamb at lunch were laughable, it wasn't so much carving as a rerun of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, if that's in our final exams I'm done for.
But I finished on time today at 12 for the first time ever, I was a normal colour instead of a deep shade of pink and between 9 and 12 I made red currant jelly, little vanilla sugar biscuits (heavenly), braised turnips with marjoram, mango in lime syrup and haricot beans with tomatoes, onion, garlic and rosemary. I loved the beans - not normally a fan at all, they always make me think of student days and baked beans on toast when you were saving your money for important things like wine but these were brilliant.
Afternoon demo was with Rory and the handout was enough to make you feel a bit ill, 35 pages of recipes to be learnt in all of 3 hours and reproduced tomorrow with at least some degree of accuracy - everything from chutneys to mayonnaise, prawns, shrimps, chocolate fudge pudding, hot lemon pudding, fluffy herbed potatoes, baked potatoes, the dreaded yeast bread (not too scary, still no kneading, apparently that's coming next week), Shepherd's Pie and Moussaka.
The moussaka and shepherd's pie were on the list for today because of the left over roast lamb which I learnt is the best thing with which to make these dishes. Rory begged us not to make moussaka like he had in Greece last year which he described as a "free standing impenetrable slab of disgustingness" and the key to avoiding such a culinary disaster is sauce and lots of it. And not just your bog standard béchamel white sauce but the zjoogied up version laced with eggs, cream and cheese and by God it was good, so in terms of fantastic-ness the moussaka will certainly be covered, we on the other hand may well end up being the "impenetrable slabs of disgustingness" instead with all the calories that must have been in that sauce, your weekly allowance I'd think at least.
The mashed potatoes for the Shepherd's Pie were equally deadly - sadly there's a direct correlation between the yumminess of your potatoes and the amount of butter that you fling into the bowl, isn't that always the way. I'm down to make this dish tomorrow and I'm afraid I'm going for ounces of butter and ambroisial potatoes, waist lines be damned, I need a decent score!
On to the prawns and the shrimps which made their way out from the larder to the demo kitchen and were very obviously still alive and kicking - I kept seeing little legs and tails sticking out the bowl, so not my favourite thing and because they're much more delicate than the crab we dealt with last week, there was none of that "heat them up slowly and they'll just slip away" business, for these little souls it was straight into a large pot of salted, boiling water, I couldn't watch. One of the students asked how we would know when they were dead but it was a fairly simplistic answer - as Rory said, immersion in boiling water will pretty much make sure of that for any of us - remind me in my next life not to come back as a prawn...................
Rory made real mayonnaise to go with the prawns, on a buttered slice of the freshly made brown bread it was all just fantastic - I'm going to have to invest in a bionic arm I think, the whisking that goes into mayonnaise is enough to leave you completely imbalanced - I think my arm might just fall off and I'll spot it lying around somewhere on the kitchen floor and of course, for the first few times at least, we're not allowed to sneak it into a food processor (which of course was my immediate thought) but have to make it in the classic way, pouring in the oil drop by drop whisking away all the while - thankfully it's not on my list for tomorrow so at least I've a day's reprieve for now, I might go home and do push ups tonight although the chances aren't high........................
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| Doesn't this prawn look like he's holding a yoga position...........? |
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