Leiths cooking school

[origamicrane]

actually they demo'd the brioche as well. I'm doing brioche for tomorrows practical, quite amazing how they knead a brioche dough looks like someone having an arm spasm or something, its like they grab and pull the dough up and down from the table looks very strange.

anyway let me carry on

Day 3 evening practical session

so this afternoon i attempt making puff pastry

and a pan fried scallops, lemon cous cous fennel and turmeric.

So first puff pastry making the detrempe.

To non patisserie folks ( like me ) that means

225 g of plain flour and 30g of lard into a blender for about 1 minutes until the lard incorporates. Then flour mix into a bowl with 6-7 T of water and with a knife quickly and rapidly mix up everything until you get a soft plasticine type dough.

Well that should be what happens, but in my case it become a load of dry blobs of crumble had to add another 1T of water and after about 1 minute of kneading its formed the detrempe. ( they say that you should only knead it enough to bring all the dough together and not to develop the gluten, whatever that means).

We then shape it into a rectangle, wrap in cling film and stick in in a fridge for 30 minute (or longer if you got the time).

Ok after the detrempe has chilled we bring it out and flour the work surface.

Using a rolling pin we bang down the entire length of the dough

this is called 'ridging'

and then using short shape forward rolls we flatten the dough out to a dimension of 30 cm by 10 cm.

We then get 140g of butter and between two sheets of cling film we smack it until it becomes as pillable as the dough and shape it into a rectangle block by 8cm by 9cm.

The butter block is then placed at the bottom end of the detrempe and the butter is wrapped by folding the top layer of dough over and the sides are folded up to envelope the butter.

The edges are squared off ( bang them down and in with a pallet knife) and then we ridge and roll out until its is 3 times longer then it is wide.

The bottom third is then folded up and the top third is folded on top of that.

We turn the dough through 90 degrees and repeat. (this procedure is referred to as a fold and turn) after this we stick it in the fridge to chill again.

Well my puff pastry wasn't square and by the third fold and turn my pastry was streaky and the butter spliting out floured the holes and chucked it back into the fridge , will go back to it tomorrow morning to see if i can rescue it. Making puff pastry is harder then i thought.

No photos of the dough as its not that interesting, my dough was crap and also my hands where coverd in flour and dough, doubt my digicam would be too happy if i covered it in dough.

so on to the scallops.

We were given 3 fresh scallops in shell and 3 frozen to cook with.

We skinned yellow and red peppers and finely diced it.

We fried some olive oil, shallots and garlic and then dropped in the diced pepper to saute for a few minutes.

we made an infusion of fish stock,lemon juice, lemon zest, lemongrass, chilli , 2 T of white wine and a few lemon verbena tea leaves and simmered for 10 mins before pouring through a muslin cloth pour the liquid into the peppers and dispose of the leftovers.

Bring the peppers and infusion to the boil and then season as required and pour enough liquid to cover 125g of cous cous. Cover in cling film and leave for 7 minutes. Fluff up the cous cous with a fork and then mix in the remaining peppers.

I'm not going to go into detail about the fennel and turmeric sauce as i really didn't like it.

But it was illuminous yellow and was made from blending up a fennel bulb, star anise dill , pernod straing out the liquid. Then frying up some garlic and shallots in butter add 1t of turmeric, add the strained out liquid boil and add cream.

The scallops were simply seasoned and pan fried in butter and olive oil.

anyway photos

here's my workmate Rita's effort pretty isn't it?

here's mine, not as pretty but my excuse is i'm Chinese HAHAHAHA!!!

and this was my homework tonight

didn't want too cook all the scallops at the school so took everything home with me to cook.

that concludes day 3

ciao

Edited July 28, 2004 by origamicrane (log)

[origamicrane]

tarka mobyp

i'm glad you enjoying the posts

i'm sure that there will be more people interested in going to the leith cooking courses after this thread ends.

Yeah che is right think we chould have a thread for cooking course reviews.

well think i'm one step closer to one day opening my own restaurant/cafe

[offcentre]

I've just drooled on my keyboard. :)

Great reports origami.

[MobyP]

Origami - is that a pithivier up top in puff pastry? (I think it miight also be called a "gallette du Rois"). Could you describe the filling?

[origamicrane]

correctomondo that be gateau pithivier. I didn't write much about it before as it was part of today's practical session and i will write about it now :)

May i first apologies that there are no photos today. I screwed up and left my digicam at home but luckily for you we didn't have anything too interesting or spectacular today so you won't be missing out on much.

Day 4 morning practical session

today's session was making the following.

1.chicken liver and foie gras parfait.

2.plum apple chutney

3.gateau pithivier

4.making a brioche

Todays session was a mild disaster.

The chicken liver and foie gras parfait. We got a load of chicken livers , foie gras, eggs , butter and a shallot , thyme and brandy reduction. First we had to get all the ingredients to room temp but slicing up the foie gras and chicken livers thinly and place on a tray. The butter was melted and allowed to stand, and the eggs were dropped in luke warm water.

The reason we had to keep everything at room temperature was that if one ingredient was too cold the mixture would split.

So we sprinkle 1 T sea salt and 1T rose salt on the chicken livers and foie gras.

ARRGGHHHH!!!!!!EMERGENCY STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BRAKES ON!!!!!!!!!!

At this point things went a little peared shape for me i didn't realise that we were doing just half sized recipes and i hadn't halved the salt!!!!!!!

luckily we hadn't started blending up the livers and foie gras, but i spent about 10 minute pick out the granules of sea salt from the foie gras. The chicken livers i washed and patted down with paper towel.

I will find out tomorrow morning if the foie gras is edible

fingers crossed everyone !!!!

Well after i had picked off as much salt as i could we blended up the foie gras and liver in a magimix until it was smooth, then added the brandy, shallot reduction and then slowly poured in the 4 eggs like we were blending a mayonnaise and then trickled in the melted butter.

The mixture was then passed through a drum sieve and poured into a cling film lined terrine mould and covered with a piece of silicone paper and put in a bain marie and cooked for just under an hour.

I just hope it wasn't over salted

2. apple and plum chutney

I hate chutney !!! luckily my cooking partner rita also hates chutney. Rita is Italian and i'm Chinese we don't have chutneys in our respective cuisines!!!

As such i can't be bothered to write much about this recipe but save to say its a load of diced plums and apples fruit cooked until death with sugar, cinammon, star anise, onions and a load of wine and vinegar.

The end result is a pulp that taste sour although i'm sure there are people that like it

3. The pithivier. First we got our puff pastry out of the fridge and finished the last two turn and folds and then stuck it in the fridge to chill for 30 mins. While that was chilling we made the filling.

The filling is frangipane and is made from creaming butter with sugar and then mixing in ground blanched almonds and a shot of rum( or in our case we decided to use vanilla extract instead) this is mixed together and put in the fridge to chill.

We then take half of our puff pastry and roll it flat and cut a rough circle out of it using a saucepan lid as a rough guide.

We then pile the frangipane into the middle of the puff pastry circle and mould it into a flat circle mound leaving about 1 inch from the edges and egg wash around the filling and edge.

We roll out the remaining puff pastry and lay it on top of the frangipane filling.

Making sure to remove trapped air bubble we seal down the edges and trim the excess pastry off.

We decoirate the by scoring a pretty flower pattern on the top using a sharp knife and we also knock up the side of the puff pastry with a knife and the final touch is just to scallop the edge.

we then stick it in the fridge to chill and we shall be baking this tomorrow.

4. Brioche was a write off as we were running out of time and i got hit by the half sized recipe curse again!!! i used the full 6 eggs instead of the half sized portion of 3 !!! oh well!! live and learn

just hope the foie gras is ok!!

anyway going to tka ea break and write about the demo session later :)

ciao for now stay tuned

[origamicrane]

Day 4 evening session demo

1. clearings and consumme

2. Pasta

See told you we didn't have anything spectacular today. ;)

Anyway i have to admit the clearing was quite amazing although very hard to describe.

I think the best way to describe it is imagine filtering out impurites from a liquid, in a clearing you are using egg whites and crushed egg shells to bind the impurities before filtering. Imagine tomato juice and filtering so that the liquid was completely free of pulp and a clear transparent liquid.

Before the lecturer even started doing anything she steriled all her equipment in boiling water and i mean all her equipment including the egg shells!!!

The lecturer had made a tomato and red pepper soup and allowed it too cool.

She also had a bowl of egg whites, eggs shells and chopped basil and parsley.

So she combined the egg whites, shells and herbs into the soup.

Turned the heat on and started to whisk like a mad woman!! She kept doing this until she saw the first puff of steam from the bowl.

She then allowed the mixture to heat slowly and the egg white slowly cooked forming a crust on top. This crust was binding all the impuritys together. As the crust rose she checked it and if it looked like the liquid underneath was about to boil over she removed it from the heat and allowed the crust to die down. She repeated this rise and fall 3 times.

Now she lined a sieve with kitchen paper and gently ladled the crust and liquid into it. The cleared transparent soup then trickled out.

Sorry if this doesn't sound particularly interesting but if you never seen this before you will be amazed. The end result was a clear pinkish clear liquid rather like a chicken stock that tasted very strongly of tomatos, peppers and basil and it was pretty amazing, although is it really worth that amount of work?

2. Pasta again not a particularly interesting topic but what was interesting was the fillings of the ravioli they made. There was one made from ricotta and spinach that had a raw egg yolk in the middle of it after cooking the yolk was still runny and it was like a rich sauce inside the ravioli, very nice.

well that was pretty much it for the demo session. It was no where near as exciting as the previous days but was a good insight into clearing definately and advance cooking technique and also showed me an interesting new thing i could do with pasta.

Anyway final chapter tomorrow

adieu

[origamicrane]

Day 5 Morning Session Demo

So final day today and the demo was on the following:)

1.Ballotine of salmon

2.Tournedo beef with madeira jus, sauteed veg and pommes Anna

3.Rhubarb and vanilla parfait with rhubarb sauce and champagne sabayon.

So first of was the ballotine of salmon. As salmon is a big fish and the demo was for a small audience the lecturer substituted the salmon for trout.

We got two patted down fillets of trout and placed them top to tail and trimmed off the fat and cut it so that they were both the same shape. We then saesoned it with salt , pepper and a little cayenne.

Lay out a 3-4 sheets of overlapping sheets of cling film long enough to place the fillet in the middle and wrap it up several times so that it is airtight.

Spread a layer of chopped herbs (chervil, parsley, dill, tarragon, etc) into the middle length of cling film and place the first fillet down. Then place a sheet of gelatin along the length of the fillet and then place the other fillet on top of this. Coat the whole of the salmon in herbs and then wrap in cling film and roll the fillets into a ballotine(sauasgae) making sure it is tightly wrapped and teh ends are tied and sealed.

Then weight the ballotine for poaching. The whole ballotine is poached in a water bath and the cooking time is 3 minutes for every 450g at 65 C.

This is a vey precise cooking time after the cooking time you can allow the ballotine to cool in the water bath for no more then 1 hour. that the ballotine out of the wter bath and chill in fridge overnight.

The ballotine is sliced up into pieces and served with a drizzle of lemon oil, creme fraiche, a pinch of sea salt and salmon roe.

quite pretty right?

it tasted quite delicate and subtle with an aromatic undertone

it was nice but not nice enough for me to consider making it.

Next was the beef.

They started by making the madeira jus.

This was made from whole chicken legs, shallots, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, mushrooms. Degalzing with sherry vinegar and cognac. Then add 425ml of madeira, chicken stock and water skimming off the scum when required. Simmer for 20 minutes then strain through muslin and then reduce.

We blanched an refreshed a load of baby veg and reheated them in a wok with a big knob of butter, alternatively could just blast it in a microwave.

Next we caremelised some shallots in butter and soft brown sugar.

The final vegetable was a variation of pommes anna. Using a cookie cutter we cut out a big circular piece of potato then thinly sliced it using a mandolin and arranged the circle piece in a pastry circle and brushed with melted butter. We repeated with a second layer. We then enveloped the potato arrangment in greae proof paper and bake them in a hot oven for 12 minutes. After doing this the pommes anna has cooked trough and all we have to do is just fry them off to give it some colour.

And then the beef was browned off and finsihed in an oven and served.

this was yummy, the jus was very good and very quick compared to the 4 hours it took to make the lamb one.

and finally the rhubarb and vanilla parfait

i don't like rhurbarb much so i will only write about the vanilla parfait which was deep sweet and very creamy.

The rhubarb part was actually a sorbet i would probably replace the rhubarb with strawberry or more likely raspberry sorbet.

Whisk up 2 egg yolks with 2T of caster sugar and the seeds from a quarter of a vanilla pod.

Then whisk up 2 egg whites into stiff peaks and slowly incorparte 1/4 cup of caster sugar

then whisk 1cup fo double cream until it holds it shape but not stiff.

Then add the egg yolks to the cream and whisk. Then fold in the egg whites.

stick into a container and freeze.

The champagne sabayon was 4 T champagne , 6 egg yols 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup double cream whisked up in a bowl set above simmering water.

and the final touch was a little sugar work by making a caramel and then using a fork make little strands of sugar that was then shapped into nests, curls and star shapes.

and that was the last demo as we left we collectd our attendance certificates

a break for now will write about the last practical session later

ciao.

[origamicrane]

Day 5 Evening session practical.

so for the final practical session did:

1. bakes our Gateau Pithivier

2. Goat choose ravioli with tomato and basil sauce.

3. check the foie gras

so we started the final session by taking our pithivier out of the fridge and then egg washed it on the top surface not the sides. Then put it on a thick baking tray and bake the pithivier for 35 minutes in a preheated oven at 220C.

35 minutes later the following came out of the oven

yah!! it looks good and tastes lovely, not too sweet and the pastry was lovley and puffy. In fact my one was pretty damn good as in it prebaked state it looked very amateurish as it wasn't completely round and a little lopsided. Also i had lost count of the roles and folds for the puff pastry and it wasn't squared off properly! Some of the others in the class had exploded pithivier due to air bubbles under thei puff pastry or had beaten too much air into the filling.

So i was pretty happy with my attempt think i will definitely be making puff pastry again.

2. Making the ravioli filling. Usng goats cheese, cheddar cheese, chives and chicken mousse.

The chicken mouse is made by blending up a thigh of chicken in a mixer and then forcing it through a drum sieve thats sitting on a cold bain marie!! this is not fun or quick.!! Once the chicken is sieved, we mix it with some double cream until it is just smooth like a paste and then mix it with the chesse.

Making the pasta, 200g OO flour, 1T olive oil, 2 eggs trickled in a blender until it starts to form pea size lumps. Then ball the dough, flour a surface and knead for 3 minutes and pass it through a pasta machine to form sheets. cut the sheets into squares, fill with the filling and seal by using a damp brush. Brush the lower sheets edges and place another sheet on top and squeeze edgees together, remember to avoid making air bubble in the ravioli. Finish off by trimming with a pastry cutter.

3. Finally the foie gras...............

YES ITS OK!!! it taste fine!!! not over salted at all!!! when cut it holds it shape and has a smooth texture and a strong taste.

So everything was fine!! the foie gras was ok, the puff pastry was fine! and the only write off was the brioche

So I have had a very entertaining, educational and tasty week ;)

I would hihgly recommend this cooking course for anyone that just wants to have some fun, take a short culinary break or just wants to learn a few spectacular techiniques to wow their mates.

Due to the short length of the course this is purely aimed at confident home cooks that want to move on into move complicated cuisine and just want a healthy boost of confidence. It not for serious cooks who want to bolster their CV.

I imagine everyone that finished this course will spend the whole of next week just repeating the dishes they done just to prove to themselves it wasn't a fluke. I know i will be.

So I would just like to thank the people at Leiths for runnig a very smooth opration

and my workmate Rita for being Italian hahah i mean being funny, interesting and very helpful.

So hope you have found this post interesting and entertaining

if you got any questions concerning this course or the recipes

drop me a line or post a message here.

thanks for listening

ciao

Edited July 30, 2004 by origamicrane (log)

[MobyP]

Origami - thanks. Sounds like you learnt a good deal. Do you have pics off the foie and ravioli?

[origamicrane]

yes it was quite educational

no afraid no photos of the foie gras as its been sliced up and half eaten now very yummy it is too.

The ravioli i made were just square so nothing particularly interesting there.

But i will post some photos next week of my attempts to recreate some of the recipes i made on the course.

[origamicrane]

Now going on a cooking course is all well and good but there is one very big disadvantage. it makes your own kitchen feel very inadequate!!!

Since finishing cooking in a proper kitchen the domestic kitchen seems greatly lacking.

I have a overwhelming urge to go on a spending spree and refit my kitchen with an industrial strength stove and oven, to have at complete set of copper pans, to have a kitchen aid with all the attachement including the pasta one, to dump my mechanical scale and get a electronic one,to get a complete set of baking trays and tins, to get a full size magimix, to get a baking stone, to get a full array of professional knives and chopping boards, to get a proper ice cream machine, to get muslin and J-cloth!!!

Its just taken me twice as long to bake a cake as it did last week because my oven doesn't seem to have the umpth!!!

sigh!! i need to remortgage!!

[origamicrane]

just a quick note

i moved all the photos to the imageGullet

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=mo...album&album=733