So Friday was officially my French cookery day and I was channeling Julia Child all morning - had one very quick non-French moment where I made an Irish soda bread to start with, ever since we moved onto yeast breads which are so much harder, the comparatively easy soda breads have taken a back seat and I've not made one since Week 3 but they're a possibility on the bread exam and so they're back on the agenda for these last few weeks - am so going to have to make bread every day now until the end, the thought of that particular exam makes me want to run away.
Once that was done and banged in the oven, it was Francaise all the way - I started with the consommé and OMG, it's torturous, every moment of it. You've to start by getting enough meat off a beef shin and making sure that every bit is free of fat, tendon, what have you - I can't begin to tell you how hard that it, as far as I could see the whole damn shin was pretty much made up of tendon, my cow had done far too much exercise that's for sure, bloody laps around the field every day evidently. Those of us on consommé duty kept abandoning our stations to visit each other and find out if everyone else was also losing the will to live - anything for a minute or two away from your shin. Straight from there it was onto the other ingredients, all to be finely diced, and then for a truly fun moment in my day, brunoise garnish - brunoise is French for "chop everything so small you need a microscope to find it again", see what I mean!
Thank God it all came out right in the end, sparklingly clear consommé, if it had done anything else after all that work there's a strong likelihood I'd have resorted to a tantrum of historic proportions.
After that I made a pastry type of thing, classically called a Jalousie although I changed the filling and put a cinnamon, apple and pecan mix into mine - mostly I wanted to see whether my puff pastry had actually worked and it was OK, there's definitely room for improvement which is a good excuse to make it again. I'm afraid to tell you that puff pastry is horribly easy to make which is not good because I adore it and battling the Ballymaloe Bulge is already a full time occupation for most of us, more Bellymaloe than Ballymaloe at this stage of the course to be honest.
And finally for the major test of the day, Soufflé Grand Marnier but you know what, it's really not that hard, I was stressing about it something special but in the end it came out "grand" as they would say here and got perfect marks! This piccie was taken a few minutes after it came out the oven so it had started to sink a bit but still, not too shabby huh, I'd make these again for sure, they're delish.
Afternoon demo was with Darina and for the most part, the focus was on hamburgers and about a million variations of what to do with them - mushroom and goats cheese, caramelised onions and pesto, blue cheese, guacamole and French fried onions, mushroom and bacon, the options are endless. The two American students, Madison and Christina, went up to make a classic American burger - lettuce, sliced tomato, mayo, ketchup, a touch of mustard, caramelised onions and bacon, bit of a super size me moment.
For one day and one day only, Heinz ketchup, squeezy yellow mustard and Hellmans mayo made an appearance at Ballymaloe - quite a moment because normally if we want mustard, mayo or tomato sauce, we've to make it from scratch. It was good to see my old friends especially Mr. Hellmans, life just ain't quite the same without him.
We obviously made the patties from scratch, you have to don't you, the ones you buy at the shop are so solid they could double as a frisbee and whilst we were busy with the mincer we also learnt to make homemade sausages and burger patties from around the world, Middle Eastern lamb burgers and Vietnamese pork and lemongrass patties, yum.
There were a few gorgeous soups too, curried parsnip with parsnip crisps and celeriac with hazelnut, so good - I've never really cooked with celeriac before coming to Ireland and I'm so going to when I get home, have some celeriac seeds which need to be planted, easy peesy to grow too I'm told which helps since my gardening skills remain fairly pathetic.
And of course a day at Bellymaloe wouldn't be complete without a couple of cakes - sticky toffee pud, caramelised banana tart and the clear winner of the day, spiced pan roasted pear cake, deadly!
Bit of a nuclear bomb drop just before we headed off for the weekend - the run down on our final practical exams which are on the 8th and 9th of December, time slots still to be drawn, three hours to cook a three course meal of your choice with the menu and list of required ingredients to be submitted next Thursday, November 25th with no changes permitted after that which is a good thing I suppose since I'll need to practice the damn dishes every day between then and D-Day. Speed is not my strong point, I'm more of a tortoise, always get there in the end but I like the slow lane so I'm going to have to practice a lot if I'm to get everything done within the three hours - I know it sounds like ages but trust me, it's not and the kitchen wall clock seems to be on speed or amphetamines or something..............lots of menu brain storming planned for the weekend, wish me luck!
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