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Wow. We’re halfway through the course already. I can’t say that it’s gone surprisingly quickly, because I always knew it would fly by. So it’s not a surprise. But 3 months has gone fast.

The fact we’ve done so much already is a good sign – because I know that in the second half we’re going to be cramming even more in. So that’s great. But it’s also a bit of a shame because I know the next three months will go quickly too. Sadly, this means that from now on it’s count down time till the end of the course and the reality of having to work for a living again!

The first few weeks were largely skills and techniques based, with each couple of days focused on different basics of cooking: learning a few new techniques, ironing out some bad habits and perfecting new ones. Then we moved on to ingredients led days and weeks: you may have read the posts that mentioned the three weeks spent gutting, filleting and preparing tens of different kinds of fish. And I’ve mentioned that since then there have been about four weeks learning to break down, prepare and cook meat (poultry, game, a week on lamb, beef and that gruesome/beautiful picture of a pig’s head in the last post).

We get feedback continually as we work and also as we present the 3-6 dishes we cook everyday. This is always the best way to learn, I think. But we’ve also had a couple of formal assessment days. The first was at the six week mark and we have just had the second assessment.

Whilst the first assessment was theoretically easy (it was mostly covering the basic skills we had done over those early weeks with relatively simple things like omelettes, duchesse and croquette potatoes, various vegetable cuts, some soups with particular garnishes etc) it was actually a little hectic trying to make sure everything was done perfectly and to the right timings. A *perfect* classical French omelette is quite different to your average brunch version …

I much preferred the second assessment. This covered off some of the fish and meat preparation that we have been doing over the past few weeks (filleting and skinning Dover sole; cutting up a chicken for sauté; French trimming a rack of lamb) and required us to then use what we had prepared in three relatively classical dishes. The enjoyable bit, though, was that as well as cooking those dishes correctly, we’re also encouraged to present our food with a bit of flair. So, for example, I tried to make the sole paupiettes (sole fillets stuffed with salmon mousse) look as modern as possible, which is quite difficult with stuffed fish (see first picture). Similarly, the French trimmed lamb cutlets were to be used in a mixed grill dish along with some bacon, liver and sausage. That could be quite a boring dish, so I tried to jazz it up with some straw chips, onion 'petals', a salsa verde and some pumpkin and candied beetroot crisps (see second picture).

Happily I got a distinction in both of the assessments Which makes me confident for the second half of the course, however short it will feel.

Happy Easter everyone.

Till next time



Ed



http://www.rocketandsquash.com


Speak with me on Twitter! @rocketandsquash

Our chef tutor is very keen on us learning about the provenance of food, visiting farms, markets, and other professional environments, whether it's butchers, fishmongers, vegetable growers and suppliers, or simply getting experience in kitchens.

What this means is school trips. Woohoo!. Haven't been on one of those for a long time!

In the last few weeks we've got up early to go to New Covent Garden vegetable market (have I mentioned that already?) which was excellent. Despite getting there unreasonably early in the morning, most of the traders were winding down, though we saw plenty of produce and learnt how the market operates (it's complicated). We also visited one of our regular suppliers of foraged foods, Wild Harvest, who are based there.

During fish weeks (3 of them, now finished), we got up even earlier and went to Billingsgate fish market in the Docklands. We arrived about 5:00am and they were also about to start winding down. But we still got to spend a couple of hours being showed round by the guy who supplies most of the fish to the college. He (like pretty much everyone that worked at the market) was quite a character. It's a real 'East Laahndon' place. Huge numbers of lovely fresh looking fish, too (obviously).

We also visited a salmon smokers just next to the Olympic park. Really excellent to see how top quality smoked salmon and gravadlax is produced - particularly as we were making our own at the time (all of which turned out well!).

And in the last week or so, we attended a 'nose to tail' workshop, during which we listened to a couple of people tell us why we should use all of the animals that we kill. The best bit, for me, was watching a chef (Alan Stewart of Manson in Fulham) and a butcher Nathan of The Butchery, Tower Bridge, show us how to take down half a pig. The point in doing this was for Alan to show us and others in the room how we should look to use everything, not just 'best end' stuff. I liked his overall message - if we're going to kill an animal for food, then we should respect it, and not waste any of it.

Makes sense to me.

[The head in the picture is from that pig workshop! It's unshaven and maybe not obviously appetising, but people used it in the afternoon when we had time to practice our butchery and cook stuff too.]

Till next time

Ed

http://www.rocketandsquash.com
Speak with me on Twitter! @rocketandsquash

One of the main reasons I wanted to do a chef's course was (fairly obviously) to learn new techniques and practice them without worrying that I was (a) doing it wrong; (b) going to make a mistake and therefore waste my money (at home); or (c) going to make a mistake and therefore waste someone else's (at work). In particular, I wanted to learn how to prepare meat and fish from scratch - so not just cooking things that come packed in cellophane from a supermarket shelf.

The last week or so has been perfect because I've been learning and practising to prepare fish. Flat fish, round fish, oily fish, big fish, small fish, miscellaneous fish. Fish, fish, fish and more fish!

It's been great. The techniques for skinning, filleting etc are pretty universal. So once you've (kind of) mastered a flat fish, say a plaice, you know how to tackle others, like brill, halibut, lemon and Dover sole with confidence. Similarly if you can gut and fillet a cod, then hake, pollock, whiting, bream and so on can be done too. Things like skate and monkfish have been demystified, and we've done more things with salmon than you could imagine!

That's the other great thing - the focus of the week has been on practising the knife skills for this sort of thing. But that's basically meant there've been loads of great things to cook (and eat). Roasting, steaming, poaching, grilling, smoking, curing. With sauces, cooked very traditionally, or cooked in a more contemporary way, we've done things Asian style, soups and made lots and lots of stocks. Really good stuff.

The fish counter now seems like a great opportunity, rather than one where lots of the items look tempting, but feel like they might just be an expensive and disastrous experiment.

And we're not done yet! We've got shellfish and cephalopods next week, as well as some sushi techniques. Which I'm looking forward to.

But I'd be lying if I Didn't say that I could also do with a juicy and meaty rib-eye steak!

Till next time

Ed

http://www.rocketandsquash.com
Speak with me on Twitter! @rocketandsquash

P.S. If you'd like me to, I might put a recipe up of one of the many fishy things we've been cooking. Leave a comment if you'd prefer roast pollock with a mouclade sauce (curried muscles), Earl Gray hot smoked salmon on courgette and broad bean salad, or skate with a black butter and caper berry sauce.

Last week was half term. It felt a bit strange having the week off - partly because we've only been going for 5 weeks, but mostly because I haven't had a half term for 12 years or so! But you can rest assured that this school holiday was quite different from my ones as a teenager.

Rather than lie in bed until midday and then be generally unhelpful to my mother, I undertook work experience at a Michelin starred restaurant in London. The hours were long (8:00am to after midnight) and we had lots of work to do. Great to see the food coming out of this sort of kitchen though and what it takes to produce it. Quite an eye opener and definitely an experience.

Anyway, the occurrence of half term means that I can't report on a particular day, technique or recipe from the last week of chef's school. Instead, I thought I'd mention that one of the enjoyable parts of the course is that our chef often gets in some novel ingredients for us to see and use. These range from seasonal foraged items, like wild mushrooms or sea buckthorn, to exotic fruits, like the 'Buddha's hand' in the picture above.

A Buddha's hand originates from North Eastern India and China. It's a citrus fruit, but it doesn't have very much juicy flesh. The inner white pith is not as bitter as that in an orange or lemon, but it's peel is quite fragrant. It's often cut into lengths (along the fingers!) and candied. But we cut it up and stuffed it in a vodka bottle (with vodka, obvs). I look forward to seeing what the vodka tastes like soon!

Till next time

Ed

P.S. I also found the time last week to take part in the #BBShortrib competition that Danny the website editor was involved in. Have a look at his blog on this site and then, if you want, check out my blog to see what I made and how I did: http://www.rocketandsquash.com/sherry-b … b-pudding/

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http://www.rocketandsquash.com
Speak with me on Twitter! @rocketandsquash

We were lucky a couple of Friday's ago to have a lecture on game from one of the UK's game experts, Chef Jose Souto.

Chef Souto is a teacher at the college, but the lecture was actually put on for members of the food industry - the four of us on my course were joined in the audience by gamekeepers, catering college lecturers, food writers and chefs like Peter Gordon from the London restaurant Providores, and the chefs from the Salt House Group whose restaurants include Dehesa and Opera Tavern.

He spoke with obvious passion, enthusiasm and, most of all, knowledge about the harvest, preparation and cooking of game. Definitely no notes or powerpoint required! Best of all, he had an example of each type of game animal that we have in Britain: all feathered game (such as pheasant, grouse, partridge, teal, mallard etc) and furred (hare, rabbit (not technically game) and deer). He showed us how to pluck/skin and butcher each of them.

It was particularly interesting to spend the afternoon part of the demonstration hearing about the 6 types of deer (venison) found in the UK: Fallow, Roe, Red, Japanese Sika, Reeves Muntjac and Chinese Water deer. One of each of those species was hanging in front of us! Chef Souto showed us how to skin and butcher a deer (he used the Fallow deer). The animals had been shot around a week to ten days before and had been hanging since then to let the muscles relax.

Skinning all starts with the head being taken off and then he very quickly and skilfully skinned and butchered the deer into all of the cuts that we're used to. I suppose you might see this as a bit gruesome if you think too much about it. But I think it's really important to see and understand where your meat comes from.

The following Monday, the four of us in our class got the opportunity to skin and butcher the Japanese Sika that had been hanging in front of us during the demonstration. We were slower and less skilled, obviously, but it was a great experience and not that difficult. The picture above was taken just after we had skinned the animal and just before we started butchering it.

Taking down a whole animal - whether a deer, pig, lamb, maybe even part of a cow, is something that I would recommend to anyone interested in food. You need a sharp boning knife and occasionally a saw. Obviously it helps to be guided by a chef or butcher as we were, but much of it is intuitive. Maybe try and get along to a class or demonstration in your area if you can?

Till next time

Ed

Check out my blog for recipes and London based restaurant reviews http://www.rocketandsquash.com
Speak with me on Twitter! @rocketandsquash