For my second challenge, I decided to do a 4 course meal. My guests this week were Priska and Natalie.

It was a lot of work for me, but I managed to pull it off. I had to cut some corners (I left a component of the dessert out), but I planned this a lot better this time around. I started prepping throughout the week and it worked out well because I only got one day off this week (which happened to be Thursday).

Here’s the menu this week:

Puree of English Pea Soup with White Truffle Oil and Parmesan Crisps

Poached Moulard Duck Foie Gras au Torchon with Pickled Cherries

Lamb Chops with Cassoulet of Summer Beans and Rosemary

“Coffe & Doughnuts” Cappuccino Semifreddo with Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

The first course, the soup, was kind of mediocre for me. I guess it’s because I’m not a big fan of peas. It was just kinda… meh. The parmesan crisp was delicious though.

Pardon me for the ugly presentation of the soup. I wish I had a smaller bowl and the parmesan crisp could have stayed dry and crispy instead of soaking up all the soup and getting chewy and soggy.

The second course was the foie gras au torchon. Foie gras au torchon is a really personal dish for me. It’s the very first type of preparation of foie gras I’ve ever tasted and worked with. When I was working at The Chefs’ House (a school restaurant designed to prepare students for industry at George Brown College), it was the very first dish I got to work with. I remember the first week I was there and I was chosen to work with foie gras. I had no idea what it was or how precious the material was; I didn’t even find it that appealing. But since then, I have learned to appreciate the beauty of this delicacy. I even got the nickname “Foie Girl” because I got to work with it so often. And now every time I see foie gras on a menu I get giddy. It’s just so darn yummy!!

I enjoy foie gras seared, but I love it when it’s poached. To me, this is the truest, and I guess, rawest form of foie gras preparation. The one I made for my second challenge had a really simple marinate- salt, white pepper and sugar. I had doubts about this marinate since I always did some fancy marinate with Madeira and pink salt at The Chefs’ House. This one turned out really good though.

The pickled cherries were also amazing. I believe I tweeted three or four times about the pickled cherries. Within the first hour of pickling it, I already snacked off half of it. And here’s the best part about it- it was the easiest thing to make. All you need is water, red wine vinegar and sugar. It went really well with the foie as well. Balanced out all the richness with its tart sweet-ness.

The third course, or main, was the lamb chops. It’s pretty straight forward. It was a really hearty course. Meat, beans and sauce. It was good, but it wasn’t like, OMIGODTHATWASAMAZING.

The final course, the dessert was really delicious. Unfortunately, because I had to take my food handler’s test during the day, I did not have enough time to prepare and make the doughnuts. The semifreddo was really good though.

What I loved about this was the texture. The entire thing was just… fluffy. Cappuccino semifreddo on the bottom and frothy milk on top. It was absolutely delightful. The milk was warm and the semifreddo was cold so there was that temperature difference that made it a really interesting dish. Since this was supposed to go with the doughnut, it was a little sweeter. But because I skipped the doughnut altogether, it was just… sweet. Priska and Natalie liked it a lot though, so it’s all good. I will do the doughnut again next time when I have time to make up for this!

I wont be posting much the next week because my day off is on the day of my convocation. So I’ll probably be too busy celebrating and have no time to prep. I’m going to start planning the next one though, so stay tuned :)

As for the mistakes I made this time, I could have planned a bit better. Planning is key when you’re doing stuff like this I guess. Also, the photos would have looked nicer if there was more colours in the components of the dishes. Everything just looked really washed out this time, which makes it look less appealing. Definitely keeping that in mind for next time.

Three days til the next project! Lots of prepping to do still! I’ll post up a picture of my prep list later. It’s pretty OCD-looking. 

Here’s what I did today:

Pickled cherries. So delicious! I know they look like they haven’t been pickled, but it’s only because they’re freshly pickled. I’m only planning on keeping it in the pickling liquid for a day though.

And parmesan crisps! So easy to make and really delicious.

I also poached something, but I’m not giving that away. I’ll give you all a little hint though. It is one of my favourite culinary indulgences. 

Stay tuned to see what those items are going to be paired with! :)

That there is my prep and shop list for next week’s post. Lots of stuff to do!! 

After two weeks of extensive planning, an entire night of prepping and quite some money from my own pocket, I’m finally starting this blog. My very first guest is my super awesome friend Felicia. The French Laundry Cookbook was a gift from her for my birthday last year, so naturally, she should be my very first guest (and I’m sure she’ll be a recurring one too since she appreciates good food).

So for my first time, I’m starting off simple. I tried to find the most basic recipes in the book that required really simple ingredients. Well, you know, as simple as the French Laundry can get. I must say, it does help if you cook for a living to cook from this book. For this, I cut down all the recipes to either half or 1/4. That made things slightly more difficult, but we’ll get to that later.

Without further ado, here is the very first menu:

White Truffle Oil-Infused Custards with Black Truffle Ragout (pg. 16)

Salad of Petite Summer Tomatoes with Vine-Ripe Tomato Sorbet (pg. 56)

“Fish and Chips” Red Mullet with a Palette d’Ail Doux and Garlic Chips (pg. 156)

White Truffle Oil-Infused Custards with Black Truffle Ragout

This is the second recipe from the book, so I assumed it’d be simple. Well, it was simple but very labour intensive. There were three components to the dish: chive chips, the custard and the truffle ragout.

The chive chips were fairly straight forward to make. Slice the potato really thin on a mandoline and then sandwich a chive tip in-between two slices of potatoes and then brush it with some clarified butter, season it, and bake it.

The custard was really easy to make as well. Instead of using an egg cutter, I used a pair of scissors to cut open a hole instead. I think it worked out and I didn’t have to buy a $5 egg cutter. The custard was a little on the heavy side for me, but for the portion it was great. I’m guessing that’s why it’s so tiny.

Now, to the most labour intensive part of this dish- the truffle ragout. I did not have any black truffles, so I just skipped that altogether. I know, I’m supposed to stick to the original recipe and stuff, but it’s just so damn expensive and I’ve already shelled out so much money for this. The reason why I called this labour intensive was because stock making takes forever. I started with roughly 1/3 cup of stock and ended up with 3 tablespoons of sauce. It was ridiculous. Turned out absolutely delicious though. Definitely worth the time to make your own stock and stuff.

Salad of Petite Summer Tomatoes with Vine-Ripe Tomato Sorbet

This dish required a lot of work. The coulis, the basil oil, the garlic tuiles and the sorbet. I think this dish consumed most of my prep time. It was all worth it though, because this salad was delicious (my favourite out of the three dishes!). All the flavours in the dish worked wonders together. When I first tasted the sorbet, I was afraid that the dish would taste funny. The sorbet, however, really complemented the rest of the dish. It worked as kind of a dressing for the salad. Also, another must-try if you happen to have The French Laundry Cookbook is the garlic tuiles. I thought it would be a little sweet for the dish, but it complemented the cherry tomatoes really really well. I absolutely loved this tomato salad.

“Fish and Chips” Red Mullet (I subbed Red Snapper) with a Palette d’Ail Doux and Garlic Chips

Fish. I love fish, which was why I had to have a fish dish on my first challenge. I have no idea why I chose to do this one, probably because of the garlic. We do something really similar to the garlic chips at work, but instead of frying it, we just let it dehydrate. I’m not sure which one I prefer more though. The components of the dish includes the palettes, parsley coulis, the fish, garlic chips and a parsley salad (which I totally forgot about so it didn’t end up on the dish). I’m not a big fan of parsley, but in this case, it was really a refreshing addition to the dish. Everything was so heavy but the parsley coulis added a bit of a freshness to the dish. The palette was really yummy and super easy to make. It added a bit of a crunch to the otherwise really soft dish which made it more interesting.

Problems I ran into while doing challenge #1:

1. Because I cut down the recipes, it was near impossible to puree anything in my vitamix. I ended up having to passe things through a tamis. 
2. The egg custard took a really long time to cook. Why? I’m not really too sure. But it took a hell of a long time. I guess the eggs I used were smaller than the ones Thomas Keller used.
3. My oven was acting up. I couldn’t use my big oven for a lot of the components of the dishes. The garlic tuiles and chive chips were baked in my dingy little toaster oven which explains why they’re a bit dark on the sides and not even in color.
4. I did not have an icecream maker, so for the sorbet, I had to take it out from the freezer once in a while and stir it around with a fork. Wasn’t that big of a problem though.
5. The fish skin stuck onto the pan. I seasoned the pan nicely and stuff, but I guess it’s just the kind of steel on the pan we use at home that makes it impossible to cook anything on it without having it stick. It REALLY pissed me off, but the food tasted good regardless. Just looked a bit uglier.

So for the next challenge, here are some things I would definitely do:

1. Plan ahead some more and make sure the recipes use similar ingredients so that I don’t end up buying a million things in smaller portions.
2. Prep more than a night ahead. I got a little flustered last night when I was prepping because I was running out of stove tops, counter spaces and containers. 

I tried to make this an awesome experience for Felicia, but I think I kind of failed. Having to run back into the kitchen to do dishes after every dish kind of made the experience a little less enjoyable. So for the next time, I will plan this part a little better as well. Also, I’m thinking about adding desserts and cocktails to future challenges. Sorry Fel, it’ll be better the next time you’re here! :)

Until next time,
Abby