Happy Hanukkah!

Last year when we were lighting the Hanukkah candles my daughter asked: "Who has a birthday?". Now she grow up a little bit (she is almost 4 years old) and she already knows that it's for Hanukkah.

During our stay in UK, we want to keep our traditions more than ever. We light the candles, eat donuts and pancakes. By the way, the donuts on the picture are mine :-).

But now I want to share with you great recipe of sweet potato pancakes:

For the ingredients you need :

3 medium sweet potatoes

1 egg

1/2 - 2/3 glass of flour

salt to taste

vegetable oil or butter

The method:

1. Cook the sweet potatoes not peeled,

2. once they cooked, peel and dry off.

3. Finally mash potatoes.

4. Add the egg, flour and mix well. Season with salt to taste.

Make a little pancakes and fry on vegetable oil or on butter.

The result should look like this and may served with sour cream:

"Beteavon" (Bon Appetit in Hebrew)!

Seafood heaven

The long-waited demonstration had come! There were prawns, mussels, shellfish, oysters, langoustines and even winkles. Yes, they eat winkles. But I still can't. Everybody told me : "Taste, you have to! It's really delicious! Close your eyes, forget that it's winkle and eat". But I couldn't. May be it will take some time ...

Six years ago I was in Australia for 4 month on business trip from my work (thanks to Amdocs). It was wonderful period. It's a beautiful country. Even now, when I'm thinking about it I'm remembering all the smells, beauty, the peace of this place. May be one day I'll be there again. But it is another dream :-).

Until that time I never tasted oysters. We were travelling along the beaches and some guy bought oysters. The oysters in Australia as a Fish and Chips here in UK, it's just everywhere. So, he offered me to taste the oyster. I said: "No, I can't eat this raw thing!" And I thought - "It's should be disgusting, how he is eating it?"

But you know, when the woman says "No" ,even to food, it means "Yes, but later" :-).

A little bit later I tasted oysters and until now it's my favorite dish.

On that demo session the chef prepared Mussels Mariniere, Shellfish, Deep fried Prawns (I think it was unnecessary to fry them in deep oil, it's killing all the taste) and Seafood plate.

At the end of the demo we are testing the chef's dishes, I was twice in the queue for tasting :-).

For those who likes mussels, there is an annual street fair in Lille that in North of France , called "Braderie". It's on the first weekend each September. It's an unusual fair! There is a long line of pavements throughout old Lille, selling paintings, antiques, furniture and junk of every description.
Part of the celebrations is eating moules-frîtes - mussels and chips. Traditionally, after eating you leave your empty shells outside the stall of restaurant - they compete to see which amasses the biggest pile by the end of the fair. Interesting, isn't it ?!

"More butter please!"

What do you know about French cuisine?
Before I started my study at Le Cordon Bleu I didn't know much (I'm still learning :-) ). I knew something like - French cuisine is usually expensive one, delicious and it usually comes in small portions on big plates.
Do you know how much butter is in the dishes?!

"There are some kinds of French chefs: from North , South-East and South France - said our chef - Those from North regions use a lot of butter, from South-East use as butter so olive oil and those from South France regions mostly use olive oil so live longer :-) "

I am trying to conduct a healthy way of life - healthy food, be active and etc. That's what I'm trying to pass to my family members, but it not always works, but I keep trying :-).

My cooking are based on olive oil, there are some exceptions when I'm cooking for my daughter I put butter. Children have to get butter in their menu in order to growth and get all the vitamins.

And of course in pastry and cakes is always butter. It's cheaper to put margarine, but the taste is so different.

Actually my point of view on eating that we should eat everything we want, but only when we hungry and stop when we almost full. After long way of the war with weight and dieting I found this theory (with some help) to live without thinking about the food, e.g thinking about the food only when I hungry . But it's another story , may be I'll find the time to write about it later.

Back to French cuisine, all the recipes contain BUTTER. All souses are with at least 200gr of butter.

At one practical session when we cooked omelets a few students (I was one of them) put the olive oil into the pan and got the shout from the chef - "What are you doing??? The tradition of hundreds of years the omelets have been cooked in France on butter". So, we changed the pans.

But, I have to say, in spite the fact of my personal view on butter (I prefer an olive oil), the dishes are very tasty.

French Onion Soup

Chicken with mushroom cream sauce

Risotto Milanaise (with saffron and Parnesan cheese)

Calves Liver withh Onions, Sauteed potatoes

Supreme of Guinea Fowl stuffed with Provence Herbs, Tomato butter, courgette spaghetti

Meringue with creme Anglaise and carameliswd hazelnuts

Basic cuisine

Basic cuisine is the first course of cuisine trilogy. The course has started from a basic food preparation techniques - for a example cutting the veges, poaching chicken, basic souses and etc. Even these basics are very interesting because you start doing things professionally - e.g the carrot from now will be cut into "julienne" and not sticks :-). They (teaching chefs) do not assume that we (students) know something about cooking, so they start teaching from the basics. And there are some people in the group that didn't cook more then omelet in their lives. So all the things are new.
The students in my group are from all over the world. The majority of them are from USA, then from Asian countries and from east Europe. Almost all of them are very young (10 years younger then me :-( ). When they saw that I'm "Mrs" they didn't believe. "You look so young! What? You have a child? NO! You don't look like a Mom!" - It was nice to hear, but how are Moms look like? (probably not like me :-) ).

I almost forgot about uniform! It's really funny - blue trousers in squares, the jacket and the hat. There is a children TV show "Big cook and small cook". When my daughter saw me in this uniform at the first time, she said: "My Mom is a Big cook and I'm a small".

And most surprising that there are a lot of girls, I think more then a half. How come?! The most famous chefs are men! Where are them?
Almost all the chefs (teachers) are french and they are speaking with very nice French accent. They are from different regions of France and therefore have a different styles of cooking. At the demo session we have three hours of live cooking show, where the several delicious dishes are being prepared, and all of these are accompanied with a lot of humor, stories about France and chef's lives. It's really fun to be there. As one of the chefs says - "Now you are smiling, we will see you after the school, It will not gonna be a Club Med!" :-)

To be continued...


These are the pictures of a few first dishes that I prepared.
Enjoy.
















Quiche Lorraine

Pasta Alfredo

Roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding


Puff Pastry with Leeks


Fruit tart


Roast Rack of Lamb with Parsley crust

Le Cordon Bleu, here I come

Couple of years ago I was saying:

"If I would start my career from the beginning, I probably would not studying the computer technologies, I would like to become a chef" or "If I would have enough money I will study in Le Cordon Bleu" or "If I was younger, I would change my career".

Now all of those "IFs" are behind me and here I am. At the heart of London City, studying at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary arts institute - one of the best in the culinary world.

I'm going for the full study - Grande Diplome, that includes both Cuisine and Patisserie. I'm on my way to become a chef. According to the administration and the chefs - not everyone graduates, in the previous courses were some people that was not succeeded. I'm not going to be one of them.

The studies are very HARD - I remember what my friends were saying to me - "It's a very hard job - to be chef". Well, I agree with them. The first days of my studies were not easy. The typical studying day is one demo and one practical session, sometimes it's demo and two practices, it can be from 9:00AM till 19:00PM. It's 10 students in one kitchen where there are five large stoves and ovens and it's HOT (I mean really high temperature).

At the beginning I was asking myself: "Am I really want to do it? May be it was better if I was continue working at Amdocs, sitting near my computer in clean environment and doing what I was doing" - NO WAY. It's much more fun for me here.

Fun to create something beautiful and tasty!

Fun to see other people enjoy my food, and Fun to get a lot of compliments!

The school situates at the heart of the City of London. When I have a time between the sessions I'm using the opportunity to walk around and it's really very nice surrounding, although very expensive, but who cares! :-)

Here are some pictures from London City, enjoy!

Rich chocolate cake with raspberries

I feel that I have to share the recipe of this cake,
because it's always have unbelievable success.
Ingredients:
400 g chocolate (70% cocoa)
250 g unsalted butter
7 eggs, separated
2/3 cup sugar (125 g)
1/2 cup flour (85 g)
2 tablespoon baker powder
150 g raspberries

Frosting:
200 g double cream (36 - 40% fat)
cacao powder

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2. Grease the 26 - 28 cm cake tin or line it with a non-stick paper.
3. Melt the butter with a chocolate in microwave or use one pot that holds the chocolate that fits over another which contains about 200 ml of simmering water.
4. Beat the eggs yolks and add them slowly to the chocolate and butter mix.
5. Add the flour and baking powder, whisking.
6. Whisk the eggs whites until stiff, gradually adding the sugar.
7. Slowly fold the eggs whites in the chocolate mix.
8. Put the half of the cake mixture into the tin, then add the raspberries, add the rest of the mixture.
9. Bake at 180 deg C 40 - 50 min until a wooden pick inserted into the center of the cake comes out with moist crumbs.
10. Cool the cake, whip the cream, frost the cake, spread unsweetened cacao powder on top.
11. Put the cake into the fridge for 5 - 6 hours or overnight.

The cake may be served with fresh raspberries or some ice cream.

Bone appetite!

No more secrets

The time to share our decision with others has come. (see the previous chapter for a details about the decision)
Honestly, there were a better periods in my life :-).
Basically, the people have been divided to the following categories:
Active negative (sort of - "Are you nuts?")
Indifferent ("well, good for you.")
Supporting ("Wow, amazing, great!!!")
I have to mention that the majority was in first one (active negative).
The reaction was: "Are you serious, you are probably kidding" - and the next sentence:
"That's what you really want to do, do you know how hard it to be a chef?"
I should have been taken pictures of those people, because their face expression were unforgettable.
After the moment of silence and the "interesting face" (opened mouth and a big question in eyes: "WHY?"), they have started to tell me "stories" about famous chefs, that at the beginning of their careers were washing the dishes and working up to 14 hours a day.

The second hit was when I said that my husband quit his job and start looking for a new one in UK. - "Do you know how hard to find a good job in UK, and how expensive the life there?"

In the second category (the apathetic one) were people that probably don't care about us and there was no some special response. - "good luck, you gonna need it."
And the very small group of surrounding us people was very supportive. "Wow, COOL, Great for you. You are going to have a great time in UK".

After several weeks we came to British embassy to fill a papers for a student visa. The council representative was very unpleasant with us. It seemed that she was angry on all of the world on that day. She read all of our papers and asked: "What are you going to learn? ", I'm answering: "The Culinary Arts". - And then she is almost shouting: "Cookery !??? WHY ??? I see that you are a Software Developer, why do you want to learn cookery???" . I don't like people are shouting on me, and I became quit. So, I'm answering "Because it's my dream - to be a chef". She said: "We have to interview you because it's a very unusual situation". And then were some bureaucratic issues and we cancelled our application for now. We returned to British embassy one month later. On that day there was very nice woman (she understands that people have a dreams and sometimes they are going after them), and we got the visa in a couple of hours. There is a theory (with a lot of books on it), that everything what happenes to you - doesn't happen by accident, there is a reason for everything. But this is another story...


We got a green light to enter UK.

To be continued...

A little bit of history

I always liked cooking! - (as long as I remember myself :-) )
I like the cooking shows on TV, I was buying a lot of cooking books. I enjoy the smell of cooking in my home, when the whole family is gathering for a dinner. It's always fun to meet with friends at home with good diner and wine. I used fantasying myself studying in Le Cordon Bleu and being chef.
After finishing my study (Computer Science) I worked 6.5 years as Software Developer in software development company. The last few years I was very unsatisfied at my work and every day I was coming from work complaining to my husband how unhappy am I with what I'm doing.
One day (I know that it is sounds strange) my husband asked me : "What is your dream? What do you really want to do most of all?" - and I am thinking to myself at that very moment - what did you smoked today? or Are you on drugs?
And I am answering - "Well, I don't know, I have almost everything...".
But he was (and still) very nagging person and kept asking me - "No, you don't understand me, what do you REALLY want to do with your life, and don't tell me that you want a nice house to buy, because if this is your dream, tomorrow we will buy one. What I want to know is what is your DREAM!!!"
And then, I looked deep into my self and then I answered -
"I want to learn to be a chef at Le Cordon Bleu Culinary school" (http://www.cordonbleu.net/).
After a long evening, I concluded that I have to do what I really want. We should go after our dreams and be 100% happy with what are we doing in this life.
The decision was made, and still, we kept it secret from all the people we know, because we realized - the responses will be very hard. For example: "What the hell are you doing, thinking and etc'. You both have a great jobs (two software developers with a good salaries) - why throw it away? You have a child (the punch under the belt) did you thought about her? and so on and so forth."
But more about it in the next chapter.

To be continued...