Lesson 4 is Préparation Classique de Légumes, which was translated to Classic Vegetable Preparation. Back in Secondary school Home Economics class, I remember legumes to be beans and pulses, but apparently in French, “légumes” is a general term for vegetables. Now I know!
We made légumes glacés (glazed vegetables), concassé de tomatoes (cooked diced tomatoes) and duxelle sèche classique (finely chopped mushrooms and shallots sautéed in butter). Not very exciting, as it’s nothing you would actually eat on it’s on, but as a garnish, or side dish. But all very important, as these are all things we would make a lot subsequently. We were also introduced to vegetable turning.
What, pray tell, is a turned vegetable? A very good question indeed. Almost everyone asks that question when I tell them. Basically, if you go to a posh (and dated) French restaurant, and all the vegetables look like little rugby balls, particularly potatoes are quite common, that’s a turned vegetable. And if you’ve never turned a vegetable before in your life, you just might cut yourself.
There are various ways of turning vegetables, depending on the vegetable in question. We were shown how to do courgettes, which look like a boat, and carrots, radishes and potatoes which look like rugby balls. The classic turned vegetable shape for the rugby ball is called a “cocotte” and it should have exactly 7 sides. There are also various terms to describe these cocottes, so you know what size they are (in height and width). So much to learn. The most important thing is that all the vegetables served on the same dish must be regular in shape and size, for even cooking, as well as aesthetics. Personally, I don’t care for a turned vegetable. I’m all about rustic chunky cuts. But I am learning classical French cuisine.
There is also a special knife one uses to turn vegetables, called …… a turning knife. It’s the one that looks like a curved paring knife, that you never know what to do with if you buy as part of a knife set. Now you do.
During the practical, all that vegetable turning took forever, mainly because it’s a muscle in my hands I’ve never exercised before, and also because I have very small hands. Very difficult to get a decent grip and also not cut myself (thankfully, I didn’t). After turning the vegetables, we had to glaze them. This involved boiling the vegetables in some water (covering about halfway up the vegetable) with sugar, salt and butter. This is then covered with a cartouche, or a silicone paper lid, and the vegetable is cooked in the water and steam (because of the cartouche), but there is also some evaporation, and once the vegetables have been cooked to the right degree of doneness, you remove the cartouche and allow the remaining water to evaporate. What you get left is a syrupy glaze from the sugar and butter. Mmmm butter. You can glaze almost any non-leafy vegetable. Like root vegetables, courgettes and onions.
We also made the tomato concassé, which was a little boring, but again, something we would see pop-up in various recipes time and again. Not much to say, really, except that tomatoes should be cooked with skins off and seeds removed, because apparently these bits are hard to digest. But I’m thinking, isn’t that good? Fibre and all? Keeps you regular!
Finally, the duxelle, I’ve made duxelle before when I made Beef Wellington. So I’m thinking, how hard can it be? It really wasn’t, except I was obsessing over the size of my brunoise of mushrooms. So what new thing did I learn? Apparently, I should use lemon juice so that the cut mushrooms don’t oxidise, and preserve their pristine white colour. So I did, although, seriously, once it’s cooked, the colour turns a little brown anyways. Big mistake with the stupid lemon juice. I overdid, eventhough I didn’t use much, and the mushrooms came out sour.
Of course I got Chef G again, and when he tasted my duxelle, again, with his French moue, declared my duxelle “too sour”.
And still, how come I cannot pout like the French?
elceebee 