Salads and Dressings

The next topic we moved on to is salads and salad dressings.  We were shown how to make vinaigrettes, which we learned is an unstable emulsion (I know some people who are like that!), and there would be more opportunity to practise the knife skills we had learned.  We were also shown how to plate and present our salads, and told to present like so at the practical session.

During the practical, our class got Chef G.  Chef G is quite a character.  He is very French and tells us we are his favourite group, followed by “I tell everyone that!” with grin and a flourish of his hand (this was something we would get every subsequent lesson, but mostly without the hand flourish).

Even though the lesson was extremely easy and I’ve done vinaigrettes hundreds of times, I was obsessed with following the recipe and measuring out all my ingredients just so, and the end result was not great.  I focused a lot on ensuring that my julienne was finely cut and took too long (how was I able to cut before culinary school?).  I was really worried about over-salting my food and completely under-seasoned.

When I presented my food, Chef G declared, “The plate is dirty!”  I’m like, “It is?” and had to peer hard at an angle to see the tiniest smudge on the side.  And because I didn’t add enough salt, my dressing was too sour, so when Chef tasted my food, he pursed his lips with a very French moue and proclaimed it too sour (how come I cannot pout like the French?).

I felt somewhat defeated.  I mean, salads should be the easiest thing to do.  I’ve served up salads hundreds of times.  How hard could it be?  The dressing was so tart, I just tossed the whole lot away.

We had a debrief after the lesson and turns out, almost everyone had “dirty” plates.  The trick is to use dip some kitchen paper in a mixture of white wine vinegar diluted with some warm water and polish the plate, after which, only handle the bottom of the plate with your hands, so you don’t smudge the top surface.

The next lesson was more salads and dressings.  This time, it was on cooked salads and stable emulsions.  We made mayonnaise, which is a cold emulsion, and although I’ve made mayonnaise before, it’s still really fascinating to see it turn from a thin solution of vinegar, egg yolks and some mustard into a thick creamy mixture with the addition of oil (and a whole lotta elbow grease).

Mayonnaise is an extremely important sauce because it is the base for many other sauces, of which we were shown 2: Sauce tartare and Sauce Marie-Rose.  I’ve never actually heard of this Marie Rose Sauce before.  It looked and tasted kind of like Thousand Island sauce.  It’s pink and has ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, tabasco and brandy added.  It’s also used like Thousand Island sauce, apparently often served with prawn cocktail for a posh 70s starter.

So with the mayonnaise that we made, we did a potato salad and were also taught how to make the perfect hard-boiled egg.  Apparently, you need to start cooking from cold water so the inside of the egg is thoroughly cooked through.  Bring the water to a boil and lower to a small boil, and boil the egg for another 8-10 minutes.  Which actually seemed a little long for me.  But I like the middle of my yolk just a little runny, so 7 minutes was about right for me.  Also, obviously if you have a small egg, then you adjust the time accordingly.

This time, I remembered to season and tried not to obsess too much about how I was cutting the vegetables and everything went fairly smoothly.  I was pretty pleased, and more importantly, churned out food that can actually be eaten.

Salade Italienne: carrots, turnips, green peas, French beans tossed with mayonnaise, served wth plum tomato petals, anchovy fillets, salami florette and hard-boiled eggs.

Salade de Pommes de Terre aux Oeufs Dur: Potato and hard-boiled egg salad

Back to Basics

Our very first proper cooking lesson, and we aren’t actually cooking, but learning how to use a knife and all the basic cuts that are used in classical French cooking.

The lessons are basically conducted thus: a 3-hour demonstration by our chef teacher, and a related 3-hour practical session to actually execute what we saw during the demo.

Demo #1:  All about knife cuts.  We were shown the various types of cuts typically used in classical French cooking.  Terms like macedoine, julienne, batonnet, brunoise, ciseler, were thrown at us, along with instructions on how to achieve these cuts, and what the end results should look like.

Various types of vegetable cuts (and a stray iPhone)

We were also introduced to the holy trinity of flavouring agents, the mirepoix, which comprises onions, celery and carrots.  And also a very useful tip that we learned is in the mirepoix, the onions always make up 50% of the mix, with carrots and celery making up 25% each, except when you are making a white mirepooix (when you don’t want colour in the stock), in which the carrot is replaced with leeks, which is also from the onion family, in which case, the celery makes up 50% of the the mirepoix and onions and leeks make up 25% each.

The mirepoix

We were also taught how to make a bouquet garni, which I absolutely love to make, because it just looks so cute.  Cut a nice big outer leaf from a leek, place inside the leaf a celery leaf, a couple of parsley stalks (save the leaves for something else like garnish), a  bay leaf, and a sprig of thyme (crush these 2 to release their flavours) and tie it up with a string, and trim off the ends.  I love how these little sticks of bouquet garni look.

Bouquet Garni. Little cigarette sticks of fragrant herbs.

It might sound amazing, but yes, an entire 3-hour session was devoted to cutting vegetables.

The demo was immediately followed by our first practical session, during which we put into practice what we were shown.  Finally, a chance to use the knives!

The knives! From left: turning knife, paring knife, boning knife, carving knife, chef’s knife, cleaver, bread knife, fork, sharpening steel.

The carrier case. Also contains whisk, pastry brush, palette knives, and a whole bunch of other useful stuff.

Our first chef tutor was Chef D.  He reviewed again the types of cuts he demonstrated during the lesson and we then had to execute and show him what we’d done.  I didn’t do too shabbily.  Oddly enough, I’m quite good with the fine cuts like a fine julienne and chiffonade, but not so great with the bigger cuts.  I need to learn how to cut straight.  I have to completely unlearn how I’ve been using my knife all this time.  And I was cutting extremely slowly. These knives were amazing.  Amazingly sharp.  Such a joy to use.

And the best thing about the day, Chef said my cuts were good, and that I was pretty precise, and asked what I did in life.  Told him I sold books.  And he said, “Good job.”

Yay!