Chicken and fish

I think I have explained how Le Cordon Bleu classes work but just to recap, before I cook anything I will have a 3 hour demonstration class and following that I will have a practical class where I will cook what was shown to me in the demo. Practicals are graded from 1 to 5 but we are not told our scores until half way through term we will receive our average, but before that no real feed back on how we are doing.

So with that information in mind let me tell you about my Friday. My first class was at 830, meaning cooking starts at 830 so I'm in the practical kitchen by 815 at the latest. And I happen to have to make lemon sole with a Bercy sauce. So yes at 830 on Friday morning I was cutting fins off a lemon sole and trying my best to fillet, and not massacre the poor fish like a hungry ally cat. All I can say is thank god we had 2 fish to fillet because I only got 2 fillets that anybody with eyes would but on a plate and serve. The other ones were so small that you could eat them in 2 bites all due to my poor knife skills, it's not the fishes fault. But all in all chef liked my dish, well minus the "you Americans always use too much pepper" comment.

So after the fishy Friday morning I had a little break and then another demo, this time a whole poached chicken with a supreme sauce and a risotto-style rice. Don't want to bore you with all the details but the highlight would be that I now know how to truss a chicken, for those of you who don't know in simple terms trussing is how to sew-up a chicken and make it look pretty.

In short, my Friday began with cutting fins off a fish and ended with me stitching up a chicken, who knew I would be such a domestic....

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