My fi
rst class back was Art of Cuisine. In it, we explored plating, pairing foods with ingredients, and lots of experimenting.
Our first experiment was to pick a genre and make a dish that represents that genre. My buddy Sam and I picked reggae. We made a Jamaican jerk chicken breast with peppernada, couscous. We were limited in time, so we were racing against the clock. We also had a limited selection of ingredients that the chef picked out.
Next we made a dish with a specific saucing method. I made some seared scallops with a “rocket” sauce I made. I pretty much made a red pepper coulis with a chipotle thrown in for spice. I was worried it was too spicy when I tasted it, but luckily it mellowed out after sitting for a little, and it went very nicely with the scallops.
We also had an assignment to make a “to go” dish that could be served in a restaurant or out of a truck. This dish made me pretty proud. I came up with poutine on a chip appetizer. For those who don’t know, poutine is gravy fries and cheese curds (Popular in Canada). Basically, it was a potato chip with fine julienned potato sticks, cheese curds and a demi-glace (I didn’t want to use gravy as that would be sloppy). Chef Michael was very impressed with this dish and said it could be viable in a gourmet truck.
We also worked with charcuterie a bit. Mostly it was with terrines, Pâté, and foie gras. We ended up having to make a bunch of terrines for the restaurant, and also made a platter with amuse-bouhe for the new student’s orientation.
Our final project in the class was a platter with 2 terrines and some amuse-bouche. Our group did an Oktoberfest theme and had a duck terrine and a country pork terrine. It all turned out really nicely, and we got in the high 80’s our for grade.
Check out one of our assignments, the media presentation on sribd.
Check out the pictures.
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