Chef’s Diary

Une proposition pour le Zéphyr, un dessert.

Proposition 2 - Dessert :

Risotto à la Vanille avec Pruneau Poché dans son Jus

Un risotto “riz au lait”, accompagné par 2 quartiers de pruneau pochés dans son jus d’orange et cannelle.

pour 8 personnes

* 0,325 kg riz arborio (risotto)
* 0,085 kg beurre
* 1 litre lait entier
* 0,150 litre vin blanc (bourgogne chardonnay)
* 2 gousses de vanille
* 0,010 kg vièrgeoise (1 cuillière à soupe)

* 8 pruneaux
* 0,040 kg sucre (4 cuillières à soupe)
* 1 branche de cannelle
* 1 orange (pour le jus et le zeste)

28th April 2008…my son’s 5th birthday, and of course, an opportunity to do some more cooking, though this time more like good ole’ home baking. So, the birthday cake this year was a chocolate version of the classic “fraisier”.

All the usual stuff - sponge cake (square), crème patissière with butter added, butter softened (en pommade), strawberries, syrup (for soaking into the sponge cake - I did orange flower syrup, but whatever you like I guess…couldn’t really taste it anyway !!!).

The different stuff - raspberries (for in between the 2 sponge layers), dark chocolate (70% - grated into chips and sprinkled liberally on top of the raspberries), cocoa powder (for putting in the crème patissière and for mixing with icing sugar and then dusting on top of the finished fraisier).

So…..the end product ??!?

…..any problems ?? Well, since I dusted the cake with so much cocoa powder and icing sugar, the writing (it’s meant to say “Noé, Happy Birthday 5″) simply didn’t stay put, and thus had a tendancy to “slip”……but what the hell, I think that the end result is almost “arty”….anyway, my client was happy, which the important thing (and there’s none left as I write - 1 day later !!).

Enfin je commence à “jouer” avec les produits de la cuisine moléculaire, commençant avec le phénomène le mieux connu - celui de la sphérification. Je voulais allier mon essai (merci à “G Detout” à Paris pour les produits dont je rève depuis un bon moment - Algin et chlorure de calcium) à un plat très traditionnel, sans oublier un petit clin d’oeil à l’Angleterre.

Donc, ci-dessous qqs images de ma tarte tatin à la rhubarbe et aux pommes, avec une salade de caviar de thé à la rose, menthe, mangue et coriandre.

Une réussite pour l’ensemble - surtout le mélange de coriandre (les branches, et donc bien croquantes, coupées en brunoise), menthe, mangue et les sphères de thé à la rose. Pas mal ! La tarte (et sa pâte) était sublime….vraiement ! Je ne suis pas sur que la combinaison de tarte et salade de caviar était une véritable réussite, mais, enfin,…..c’était “fun”.

J’écrirai plus sur la partie cuisine moléculaire dès que je commence à mieux maîtriser les techniques, par contre, la création de caviar est très, très facile.

Après nos activités culinaires de ce w/end, il nous restait 6 blancs d’oeuf dans un verre au frigo. Souvent ces verres restent pendant 1 semaine avant de partir à la poubelle….quelle horreur, je sais, mais c’est vrai.

Alors, afin de ne pas gacher des bons oeufs BIO, et pour continuer le “travail” (parce que, quand même, qqchose qui fait autant de plaisir n’est pas vraiment du boulot !!) de créativité, je me suis lancé dans une tarte méringuée….un rappel des méringues que je mangeais quand j’étais môme…..c’est à dire, une méringue croustillante à l’extérieur, et moelleuse et légère au coeur….bloody marvellous !!

Et ci-dessous le résultat,

Méringue - 5 blancs d’oeuf, 100g sucre, zeste d’un citron (rapé), zeste de citron (cannelé - à cuire dans un sirop et puis caraméliser au four pendant qqs minutes - pour dresser le dessus de la méringue)

Le Fruit - 8 prunes rouges, coupées en 2 et cuites dans du jus d’orange, cannelle et vin rouge (ce jus de cuisson est à réduire avant d’ajouter du safran au dernier moment)

La Base - pâte sablée (pâte brisée avec plein de sucre !!!). Je n’avais jamais travaillé la pâte sablée avant, et donc je l’ai trouvée bcp moins sablonneuse que je n’attendais.

Cuisson - la pâte est foncée et mise en cuisson à 180°C pendant 15mins, puis le fruit y est ajouté (avec un peu de la réduction du jus de cuisson….sans safran) et le tout complèté par les oeufs montés en neige (avec le zeste de citron rapé).

They say that a picture is worth a 1000 words….well, the picture below should tell you one thing - whatever it was, it certainly seems to have been enjoyed given that less than one quarter remains.

Anyway, the above picture is infact the remains of a steamed sticky treacle pudding (albeit a slightly “brutalised” one !), and it was lovely…no, gorgeous.

My wife made it today, taking a recipie from the book “The Great British Menu”. We had never made one before, and so we didn’t have a clue if it was going to work…..especially with all of the chat about greaseproof paper, silver paper, putting a fold into both sheets of paper, tying with a string…..deary me, what a “perlarva”, as one could say !!

As it turned out, my French wife managed to produce a marvellous example of traditional British cuisine, and our French guests even seemed to like it.

The trick was…..well, there is no mystery…..it’s dead simple. Just prepare the mix (ingrediants listed below, as per recipie in our book), prepare the orange juice and rind, pour this orange mix into the pyrex / glass dish (pre-buttered), add in the cake mix, place a circle of greaseproof paper on top of the pudding (touching and covering the cake mix), wrap the whole of the bowl / mix / everything in the silver foil and then place this into a steamer (we used our pressure cooker, without using the pressure cook options), and steam for 2 hours.

When ready, take it out of the silver foil, get it onto a plate and onto the table….and into your mouth….hmmmmm

Ingredients

for the mascarpone and vanilla cream….

As a part of my CAP Cuisine training course here in Paris, I decided to organise the Christmas meal for my fellow students and some of the teaching staff - an opportunity to plan a menu and to manage a budget.

The only constraint was to stick within a 20€ (£13) budget for the food (drinks not included), whilst providing something a bit more interesting than salad and pizza, followed by apple pie ! After all, we could have all gone to one of the numerous kebab or couscous restaurants and eaten happily for 20€.

Anyway, to enable us to have a say in the menu proposed, I suggested that we go to the restaurant where I work each Saturday (and where a fellow student, Rosa, is spending her work placement) - Le Zephyr in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that the team at the Zephyr are very open and that the chef is always looking to use good, honest products presented in the most inventive way possible. So, I figured that it would be a great exercise for me to propose several dishes and see what the Zephyr team do with the suggestions.

I’ve already explained the process that I went through to select the dishes and calculate the cost (for the chef) and the price (for us - taking into account the mark-up and taxes)…..actually, just checking my posts for the reference shows me that maybe I haven’t actually told you what “strategy” I used….for another time.

The dishes selected is as follows,

The aim of this post is to let you know what recipies have been chosen, their cost and the others that were considered. The process of calculating costs was based on the inventory listings and supplier prices quoted in the chef’s Hermes computer system. Anyway, find attached a copy of the PowerPoint Presentation that I prepared to explain the process. I’d be delighted to have any comments (by the way, I’ve not listed the different steps for preparing the different dishes - simply the ingredients and their cost).

CAP Cuisine Paris at Le Zephyr Menu Presentation

First of all, 1 week without a single post….I can only apologise to my faithful following in France, Switzerland, the UK, the US all the way thru to China ! It’s not that I’ve been particularly busy - simply no juice for writing. Don’t know why.

Having said that, I have been pretty busy during the spare time that I get - mainly trying to organise a trip to some top kitchens and markets in London for me and some fellow students (and teachers !). As well as that, I’ve also spent a fair bit of time trying to organise the Christmas dinner for the people from our training course - students, teachers and admin staff included.

So, to give you an idea of what is being planned for the visit to London, first of all a copy of the email that I sent to Gordon Ramsay Holdings, followed by a forum post that I put on the Jamie Oliver web site.

I am writing to you following the advice of one of your colleagues, who I spoke to this lunchtime.

I am currently training to be a chef here in Paris (oct 07 - may 08). As a part of this training, I suggested to my fellow students (aged between 21 and 48) and teachers that it would be very interesting to visit some of the top kitchens in London. Being an Englishman in Paris for over 6 years, I am always trying to promote our chefs and cuisine wherever possible. My idea is to organise a couple of days to visit 2 or 3 top kitchens run by British chefs, as well as some markets (Borough, New Covent Garden, Smithfield, etc) and suppliers. My visit is fully supported by my catering school - Greta Métiers de l’Hôtellerie.

I am in the early days of planning the visit where I need to identify those restaurants which would be interested in allowing a group of 5-10 French cookery students/teachers to meet members of the staff in the kitchen of one of your restaurants (Royal Hospital Road, Petrus or Maze would be of particular interest) - the aim being 2-fold :

show the French students and teachers that good food and great ideas are alive and well and being pushed to their limits in the UK

to give us a good idea of what differences (if there are any) there are between French and British kitchens (we are all working in different Parisian restaurants). It would also be very constructive to be able to “feel” the passion that drives your staff, and also to see what kind of training your staff receive.

I am currently talking with a friend of mine who is a journalist for a major British national to see if our visit would be of interest. Given that Gordon Ramsay is planning a new restaurant in the west of Paris, maybe our visit could be a source of publicity for you ?

Anyway, this is an initial contact to see if the general principle would be possible. If this is OK, then we could talk about the details.

Working already in 2 restaurants, I know that time is difficult to find in kitchens. However, if I have choosen the Gordon Ramsay restaurants for our visit it is because, not only is he the best (and British), but you clearly have a serious respect for training, encouraging and developing new culinary talent.

Thanks in advance for your time, and hopefully we will speak soon

By the way, I have to say “hat’s off” to the backroom staff at Gordon Ramsay Holdings - they have been extremely polite, quick in their response, and willing to find a way of accomodating us. As it stands at the moment, we have at least got a visit to Gordon Ramsay at Claridges, with an interview with Mark Sergeant (Head Chef) and one of the trainees, and then a Head Office visit to meet the people who organise the training for all Gordon Ramsay staff. So, a big thank you.

The other restaurant that I am trying to organise a visit to is “15″ - the Jamie Oliver inspired restaurant which is a base for the “15 Foundation”. Why ? Well, because Jamie Oliver has been a great source of inspiration - not always for his cooking, but 110% always for his energy, his passion, his willingness to discover (and show that he is not the master of everything) - and also because I admire the principles upon which the “15 Foundation” bases itself….principles which seem to me to be lacking a little bit here in France. Before copying the message that I sent to one of the top men at the “15 Foundation”, a quick reminder of the principles of the foundation…..

I find this approach pretty damned refreshing, and very British (it’s my French wife who said that, in fact). I know that I’m just at the beginning of my cuisine career (so I have a lot of things to see here in France, and elsewhere - so this is simply a general impression about French attitude to diplomas, age, number of years experience, background), but I’m not sure that the above principles are omni-present in French society.

Anyway, the discussion about differences that I have noticed between British-French cultures is for another post. Onto the message that I sent (to which I am yet to have a reply !),

my name is Dom, I’m 38, English and currently 8 weeks into an 8 month French Cookery diploma (CAP Cuisine, it’s the main entry-level qualification here in France) here in Paris (I’ve been in Paris for 6 years as an IT consultant and am at the beginning of changing my career path - computers to cookers !).

I know that, being 38, I do not match the “15 Foundation” selection criteria, however, I do have 2 questions concerning the Foundation.

1) are there any plans to set up something in France - possibly one of the regions where there is a particularly high % of Brits ? Given that Ramsay is heading over here soon, and also taking into account Jamie’s growing profile over here (good exposure on “Cuisine TV” on cable telly), surely the time is right to take on the “French Challenge” head-on ? The Foundation’s ethos of investing in youth / not letting the past dictate the future / paper qualifications not being as important as real life experience / having fun are things that are often lacking in the traditional French system. What you have all done over the last 5 years would really be a breath of fresh air to a trade which is in difficulty (not enough people attracted to fill the many vacancies, more restaurants closing than opening….).

2) As I said at the start, I am currently 8 weeks into an 8 month traditional French cookery training course (at the Greta des Métiers de l’Hôtellerie, in Paris). I have proposed to my student colleagues, and equally to the teachers, to organise a 2 day trip to London to visit the kitchens of some of London’s top “British” (that is, set up and inspired by home-grown chefs) restaurants. My aim is to show the French people that I study with that good food and great ideas are alive and well and being pushed to their limits in the UK. I am currently in discussion with Gordon Ramsay Holdings, and would like to know if you think that “15″ w

So finally the moment arrives where I’m silently cutting vegetables (in this case, it was my 6th case of camus artichokes…that’s the big, bulbous ones rather than the small poivrades) in the kitchen and I’m quietly thinking to myself that I’d much rather be working with the 20 fresh whiting (merlan) that the guy next to me is preparing !! I knew that I’d quickly have to face up to the frustration of being the most junior, inexperienced person in the kitchen, and there it is after only 3 days.

I’m really pleased, as it happens, with today.

People didn’t quite know what to do with me - there was an extra guy in the team who returned from sick leave (for which the kitchen staff are not paid - welcome to the “real world” outside of the protected office jobs), and basically I was surplus to requirements. However, I was determined to always be busy - find things to do, and never stop….which I pretty much managed to do for the 10 hours from 8am ’til 6pm.

I made 10 litres of mayonnaise, took out the meat from umpteen crab (”tourteau” - the most common crab this side of the Atlantic) legs, chopped up the first 3 of 6 crates of Artichokes, peeled a pile of potatoes (with the dishwashers), peeled esparagus tips / cooked new potatoes, cut discs of celeriac & potato, “turned” (cut a vegetable in regular elipitical shapes) white radish, cut up chervil root (I didn’t even know that this existed - very good, actually…a bit like parsnip in texture and flavour, but with an edge of roasted chesnut), peeled a pile of carrots, prepared 30 fois gras ravioli, and helpedget together some starters during the “rush”.

But most of all, I was able to chat to the fish cook and what’s called the “garde manger” (the guy who looks after all cold starters and, officially, receives and deals with all deliveries) - 2 guys who have 13 and 10 years of experience respectively (and they are both under 30 yrs old !!!). The fish cook in particular gave me a fair bit of advice, but at the same time I was able to explain what I am about, what I want to do in the restaurant trade and where I come from / how I got here.

On returning this evening, I got stuck into my recipie books to find something for Rice Pudding / Riz au Lait…..Jamie Oliver to the rescue, and a few hours later I was taking photos of my efforts….great fun, but at the end, when there’s no one there to taste the offerings….well, food is all about sharing and giving pleasure, and so without the kids and my wife (they’re all up visiting Grandma / Mamilie in Lille) it’s all a bit hollow. Still, I’ve learnt quite a few things along the way. For the fruits of my labours have a look on the page “Idées…” within this blog.

Anyway, as I type, my hands are reminding me that they have been working damned hard these last 5 days or so (since last Saturday)….they are knackered, as the rest of my body is. My right hand is particularly knackered - 3 days of artichokes having taken its toll, I think. I have a huge blister at the base of my right index finger and in general the palm of my hand is tingling….it needs a rest, and I’ve never been so happy to see a Bank Holiday arrive (All Saints Day - Toussaint).

Good night, and here’s to a beautiful lie in tomorrow morning…la grasse matinée !!