Happy Friday! I was up with the dawn for herb duty, and down to the greenhouse with another sleepy student! After divvying up a tray of freshly cut herbs to each kitchen (we are so spoiled here!), I was off to make Consomme Royale, ciabatta, and Grand Marnier Souffle.
Consomme Royale is consomme (the really clear broth soup) with a garnish-esque sprinkle of tiny diced bits of custard (it sort of has a miso soup w/ tofu effect). If you're interested, Consomme Brunoise is a consomme with tiny diced vegetables, while Consomme Julienne is a consomme with really thin julienne strips of vegetables. A minor, insignificant morsel of knowledge, from me to you.
The consomme was fun, albeit time consuming, to make. You basically simmer beef broth in a saucepan with tiny diced vegetables and bits of beef (that have been painstakingly stripped of any fat). The point is eventually to extract the clear, flavor-enhanced broth from the pan. To do this, there's a trick: invite egg whites to the party! They act as a sort of filter, floating any impurities in the stock and all the diced ingredients to the top, forming an egg-whity-vegetably-and-meaty-crust. Then, you just gently ladle out what is underneath! All your laboriously diced vegetables and meat bits are left behind.
My souffle turned out just fine, thank you very much. And I did NOT have a copper bowl for my egg whites. So, it is definitely a luxury, not a necessity (don't tell Santa that).
I did not make it to the afternoon demonstration because I had to catch a plane to Paris! I was sad to miss the lecture, though, because A) Rory was teaching and B) we were making hamburgers (!). As it turns out, "catching a plane to Paris" is easier said than done. A few budget-airline-fine-print-Non-EU-passport-issues later, and let's just say, if you happened to be in the Cork Airport around 4:30 PM on Friday, you might have noticed a hysterical American shamelessly blubbering in the corner, (symbolically) playing solitaire on her iPod (and symbolically losing) while waiting for a bus back to school.
But, never fear! Life, surprise surprise, goes on! I rescheduled a flight for the next morning, and got to bed early. A demain!
Binny: Hope you will share with us your food observations collected during your weekend with the de Montebellos in the City of Lights, now that you finally managed to get there and back. What an ordeal! Do geese behave pretty much the same as duck in the kitchen, as I plan to shoot you a Christmas goose. Can't wait to see you in three weeks! Love, Dad
ReplyDelete