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