After Monday's bread day, Tuesday dawned bright and early for Veggie day - "Whoopee!", I hear you all cheer. Now I'd be the first to admit that I have never seen the point in being vegetarian - how can anyone resist the smell of bacon sizzling in a pan? Once again my eyes have been opened by these brilliant chef tutors! Darrin, who is not a veggie, had devised a great day which included preparing a lunch of lentil soup within half an hour of us being told that that was what was required - a bit of improvisation was needed - never one of my fortes! Give me a recipe and I can follow it to the nth degree and I'm OK, ask me to improvise and I'll more often than not, struggle. But not this time - in went the olive oil, to fry the onions,garlic, soy sauce, chilli and then the lentils were put on to boil in chicken stock - after 15 minutes the whole thing was slopped into the blender, blasted and poured out in to a soup bowl for the most exquisite lentil soup! Even Chef commented, "Good use of the soy sauce"!!
One of the morning jobs was to poach Quails egg - unfortuneately it was too cold so the Quails wern't laying! So we made shortcrust pastry ready for our tarts!
Mine was not the perefect casing that I'd expected - so I used poly filler to fill in the cracks!
Dinner was to consist of a starter of pink grapefruit segements with braised letuce, walnuts and gorgonzola followed by baked stuffed aubergine with roasted vegetables, griddled halloumi, pumpkin and coriander seeds and sweet chilli sauce topped with a Greek yoghurt - nice! It looked great and tasted even better
Pudding was a Rhubarb and ginger souffle! Now those cooks out there, you will know that soufflees are dificult to get right - they either rise to quickly, or don't rise at all (rather like most of Llantwit Major FC on a Saturday night) - so it was with some pride and chest thrusting that my soufflee rose to the correct height and did not collapse -another success!
So with dinner over and a converted vegetarian in the making, Charlie kindly gave me a lift to Mac's flat in Dartmouth.
Mac and I haven't seen each other for probably, 10 years so we had a lot of catching up to do! After the aperetif of G & T's we headed for he Dartmouth Arms, just 100m from Mac's front door for Tuesday night Quiz night! Tonights quiz, was special as all proceeds were gong to the RNLI and we won! Me, Mac an two of his mates actually won! A good night was had by all! Bed by 0330 am meant that Wedenesday was going to be a long day! The view from my bedroom window was spectacular! And so on Fem's 37th birthday and day 13 of our 20 day course, it was back with Rob and Luke for a lunch of warm smoked haddock, leek and cheddar tart and then a 3 course dinner to prepare. Rob was keen to get us multi tasking today and as most people know, multi tasking is not a thing that men find easy - well we can talk about football and drink beer at the same time! So the morning was spent chopping fruit for our Elderflower and champagne fruit jelly, poaching quails eggs (they were laying this morning!) and preparing the rabbit consomme. Also our lunch of smoked haddock, leek and cheddar tart had to be prepared, so it was a busy kitchen. Today we had another partner change and birthday girl Fem had the challenge of working with me. It was Fem's 30 something birthday - an occasion that was marked with her boyfriend sending her flowers from Italy and a cake baked by Laura and finished by Rob's cream piping - all of this left her in tears! Too much emotion at lunch time!
Dinner consisted of Pink partridge breasts served with a port and wild mushroom jus, brocoli with hazelnuts, roasted shallots and game chips followed by the Elderflowerand champagne jelly with a coconut, lemon grass and chilli sorbet. Butchering the partridges, which included plucking them, was easy and as you can see their heads make nice puppets - the Vegetarian course in the kitchen next door didn't really see the humour when I walked in and asked whether anyone had seen the bodies attached to these two heads!
The magic of consomme was revealed to us. Consomme is a clear, thin soup made from cloudy stock but as it boils with an egg mixture in it, all the impurities rise to the top and get caught in the "omlette" on the top" - you have to see it to believe it!
So as the afternoon wore on and my energy levels declined and the banter level increased, dinner beckoned. The last rush of bringing everything together meant that we were kept busy and still multi tasking! Luke managed to slice his thumb making the game chips, taking one for the team - what a man!
So with dinner over and a converted vegetarian in the making, Charlie kindly gave me a lift to Mac's flat in Dartmouth.
Dinner consisted of Pink partridge breasts served with a port and wild mushroom jus, brocoli with hazelnuts, roasted shallots and game chips followed by the Elderflowerand champagne jelly with a coconut, lemon grass and chilli sorbet. Butchering the partridges, which included plucking them, was easy and as you can see their heads make nice puppets - the Vegetarian course in the kitchen next door didn't really see the humour when I walked in and asked whether anyone had seen the bodies attached to these two heads!The magic of consomme was revealed to us. Consomme is a clear, thin soup made from cloudy stock but as it boils with an egg mixture in it, all the impurities rise to the top and get caught in the "omlette" on the top" - you have to see it to believe it!
So as the afternoon wore on and my energy levels declined and the banter level increased, dinner beckoned. The last rush of bringing everything together meant that we were kept busy and still multi tasking! Luke managed to slice his thumb making the game chips, taking one for the team - what a man!
The Main Course
Look at that pineapple slice!
I wonder what tomorrow will bring?
If it was veggie, how did you use chicken stock for the soup??
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