British curiouses

Living in England, I can't stop wondering about some strange things, that I face here.
I just want to share with you some of them.
One evening, we were going out with my husband.
Actually it was a first time that we left our daughter with babysitter here in England.
So we were on our way to a party, when we got closer to the restaurant my husband started to look after the parking place, and began to move slowly. After couple of cycles, and 10 minutes later, we still were without a parking… But no despair – we have continued to look. Couple of minutes later, we have noticed that there is a police car that is following us.
As we found a parking, the policeman got out of his car straight away to my husband and told him:"Why didn't you stop? Did you see I was following you, didn't you?" My husband answered, that he didn't know that he was supposed to stop if and only if the police car is going with sirens. In our home country, if the signal lights of the police car are on – it means that this police car is on duty and it doesn't mean that "the car in front of me, please stop!!!". "Why were you going so slowly - continues the policeman – Have you been drinking, haven't you? Let me check your breath!" - telling my husband to take the air off and smelling it :-). Realizing that my husband is not drunk he wished us pleasant evening and left.
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When I'm talking with Britons (sometimes it happens :-) ), they hear my foreign accent, ask what my name is and with no doubt ask me: "Are you Polish?" - With a bit of defiance.
There are a lot of Polish people came to UK, after Poland became the part of EU.
And, I suppose Briton's don't like that fact. Then I'm saying "NO, I'm from Israel" - and I see how the respect grows in his/her eyes :-).

A couple of weeks ago we were celebrating our daughter 5th birthday.
We invited a dozen of children and a Clown to our house. We and the children had a good time and when I was feeding them I have offered a food to the Clown as well. He said: "No, thanks, but I'll really appreciate if you'll organize me some "Doggy bag". My husband was near, and I see the confusion in his eyes, then he (my husband) said to the entertainer: "I don't think that this food is good for the dogs, it's quite spicy and contains salt, which is not good for the dogs". The Clown laughed and explained that the "Doggy bag" it's a take away lunch bag :-).
So that day, we have learnt some slang expression as well.
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Putting aside these curiouses, I'm started to think about my final exam.
We were given a list of 25 ingredients, from which we supposed to make a restaurant dessert. Everything is good, but one ingredient - rhubarb. I never cooked the rhubarb.
I only have a memory from childhood of some smooth rhubarb compote that I didn't really like. Rhubarb is very popular here in UK, and there are many British (means not tasty) desserts :-) contain it. But what this ingredient is doing in our French culinary school???
That's what I'm going to find out in a few next weeks, and make a Fantastic dessert for my final!!!

Towards the end...

There is only one month till the end of my studies :-(
At the beginning it seemed to be so long - one and a half year, and that's it - the end.
I almost did what I wanted (still no chef hat :-) ), and it's time to think what I really want to do.
Here in UK there are only few professions highly payable - IT, bankers and probably plastic surgeons :-).
Chefs get a ridiculous low salary, may be till they open their own place.
But I still have a choice - to be a chef or to go back to the boring but highly payable IT.
To be honest my dream is to open my own place, but very small and exclusive. It could be even in my house (eventually we'll have a big house :-) )
Recently I saw a nice German movie "Eden" - about a chef, whose life is all around food and the food was his only passion till he meets a woman ...
And he had the restaurant at his house, which has only three tables. I find it very nice, except of the fact that the chef himself was very fat, which I don't want to become :-). Besides, it's not in fashion now to be a fat chef. Since my other "small" dream is to study for personal trainer, I'll very sporting one :-)
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Another hard decision to make is to stay in UK or to go back to Israel.
A couple of weekends ago I was in Israel, only for three days and the circumstances were not so joyful. But it was very nice to be there, to go to the sea, meet the family. And the weather was so sunny and warm, I just want to go back! The problem is that my husband has another opinion then myself, and since we are a family we should find some compromise, hope it will be more on my side :-).
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Meanwhile, at the school it was a week of restaurant style desserts and the week when we were preparing a tea party for thirty guests. It was very nice experience. During the first demonstration of the restaurant desserts chef said "You should look for the artist inside yourself, and some of you should look very deep :-) !".
I was hardly looking for my artist and finally found one.
See the pictures:











Lemon mousse , Chocolate fondant, Lemon tart











Apple parfait, Ricotta cream , Lemon mousse










Passion fruit mousse

The Showpiece

As a part of chocolate work we were doing a chocolate showpiece.
Each term the patisserie chef thinks out of some theme for Superior students showpiece.

Before this term I was looking at showpieces that other students made and just wondering how beautiful they are, and I couldn't beleive that it has been made of chocolate!


Lately, the Ratatouille movie just came out to the screens, and we were lucky to be at Superior Patisserie course in this time. Ratatouille was chosen to be our showpiece.
There are very colourful characters - the chef, Linguini, food critic, Remy the rat and etc.
I'm not a big fan of chocolate, and in the beginning of working on it showpiece, I thought that it's going to be boring, but as a nice surprise it wasn't.

It was exciting, enjoying and again - nice to see as part by part it is growing to something beautiful.

And here are pictures.

Enjoy.

Superior Patisserie

This week I have started my last term in Le Cordon Bleu - Superior Patisserie.

My first day was a mess.

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I don't remember if I mentioned before - we had two cars (one for my husband, one for me), otherwise it's a subject of much controversies - who will get the car and who will go by bus.

Unfortunately, one car died just a week before, and on my first day I took the bus to the train station. And of course I missed my train, and then were "minor delays" on a tube. So on, I came to school 30 minutes later. But chef was kind and let me come in.

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The structure of the studies this term is completely different then previous. It's all about workshops. We no more sit and watch the demonstration, we just making things straight away (since we are smart know :-) ).

This term includes four modules: Chocolate, Sugar work, Plated restaurant desserts and boulangerie.

My favourite, boulangerie, is at the end. So no way to go, I'll wait to the end :-).

We have started from the Chocolate.

What can I say ?!

It's too much chocolate!!! It's three weeks of melting, smelling, building and decorating chocolate! At the end of the first day the chocolate was all over me - hands, face, clothes - sweet woman :-), and I deadly wanted to eat something salty like a gherkin :-).

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It should be a heaven for chocolate lovers!

But I'll wait for my heaven - boulangerie!

It's the result of two first days - chocolate truffles, caramel, nougat and etc.

Gordon Ramsey - the man of my professional dreams!

Gordon Ramsey is a nice Scottish guy!
After a short career of football-player, he became a chef.
And now Gordon Ramsey is a owner of seven restaurants in UK, four in US, another four in the rest of the world, several pubs. He is the author of many cooking books, and TV shows.
A lot of people don't like him too much, because of his strong language.
I think - it's a huge advantage "saying what you really think" directly and honestly, even if it's contain an F word :-).
And I think he is a Great Chef! He makes as simple dishes, so the fancy dishes. And the way he is doing it - very exciting. He is quick and professional!
I just love it!
So, lately we were invited to the our friend's Birthday party to Gordon Ramsey's restaurant in London - Maze .
What can I say!?
It was absolutely delicious. The dishes are small, but very tasty and original. At the end of the evening you don't feel that your stomach is going to blow up. Everything was very good, but one dish was absolutely fantastic - "Coconut panna cotta with black olive caramel, white chocolate granité ". It's a dessert, that we even hadn't ordered.
We got it just as excuse for waiting a long time for our dessert. It was like a play of different tastes in your mouth - cold, soft, sour, sweet - Amazing!
After that evening I admire the man even more!
The title of this post, being more specific - the "professional" world is for my husband :-)
Just kidding :-).
I think the chefs that had an opportunity to work with him are lucky, and I will be lucky too when I'll have a slightly chance to be with him in one kitchen!

Croquembouche or two days to suffer

A Croquembouche is a French dessert that often served at weddings. It is a high cone of profiteroles bound with caramel, and usually decorated with threads of caramel, sugared almonds, chocolate, flowers, or ribbons.

The name comes from the French words 'Croque en bouche' meaning 'crunch in the mouth'.


This week we were so lucky to make this "lovely" cake :-) !
We made it two days, I mean two practical sessions.
I have to say that this is very complicate composition, but for experienced chef it should take a hour to make such a cake.
As our chef says: "You just should find a monkey to buy it from you! :-) "



Now I'll explain how we made it!
That cone of profiteroles is placed on nougat base that made of almonds mixed with hot caramel and then rolled to desirable shape while it's still hot, because when it become cold it like a rock.

This is a base

A little triangles are made also of nougat and then rolled. Since we are not so experienced chefs, we had to warm this almond mix again and again in order to roll these shapes and cut.

This little thing will be placed on the top of the cake.

When I finished to pipe on it ( white glaze) It just slept out of my hands and cracked, since it's very fragile :-)
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Hundreds of profiteroles were baked , filled with pastry cream and glazed with caramel and some of them with nibbed sugar (kind of sugar used usually for decoration, it doesn't melt) and build around the cone as you can see below:

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And here the moment of ultimate truth came, I was supposed to take the profiteroles construction off from the cone mould, and all of them fall apart :-(. Chef said that it happens sometimes :-)

All those pictures are from the chef's demo, because my cake didn't survive!

This cake (when it peacefully delivered to the wedding :-) ) should be served by parts of profiteroles ( 5-6 per person) accompanied with ice cream or sauce.

If some of you will need a wedding cake, you know where to order it, but the price will be very high :-) !!!

Intermediate Patisserie

It's about a month since I have started the Intermediate Patisserie term.
And shame on me, I haven't published any sweet picture!

So, here it comes! (After a couple of words of course :-) )

This term is a little bit complicate then the previous one, we are already supposed to know some basics.

And so far I can say that I like Cuisine more!

I'm not a person who likes cakes a lot, specially not cream or mousse cakes.

If I make a dessert at home it's usually will be some fruit pie or tart, or it's also could be very rich chocolate cake.

But most of all I like the smell of baking dough - danish pastry, brioche and so.

I'm as my Dad, like all the bakery and good breads. I think that's the only thing that I can't resist to. When I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband was bringing boxes of danish pastries, and I was able to eat a lot! The final result is a very very sweet girl!

So, I'm an opposite to my mum and husband - they like all things about chocolate. And as higher the percent of chocolate - is better! May be it's the basis of their good relationship - the chocolate desire :-).

Another thing, I hate doing the cake decoration staff - writing on cakes, piping, all of these beauty things.

But I'm doing all my best as you'll see on the pictures, because I have one and a half term till the chef hat!!!

Chestnut mousse encased in sponge













Sticky toffee pudding













Apple strudel





























Danish pastries - my favourite!

Dobos chocolate sliceRoulade with raspberry cream













Pudding souffle













Crepe Soufflees Suzette

Fraisier













Opera

Dinner at rainy day

I would like to share with you a nice idea for the dinner.
But don't assume that we are eating like this every day :-).

For the starter:

Ratatouille

You will need:
1 large onion, peeled, shredded
1 red, 1 yellow and 1 green pepper cut into squares
2 medium courgettes, cut into squares
2 medium aubergine, halved lengthways and cut into squares (not too small)
2-3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
olive oil
2 ripe tomatoes (better if peeled and seeded), cut into petals

2 table spoons tomato paste
fresh basil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Preheat the oil in pan. Sweat the onions, with no color

2. Add green pepper, sweat, add yellow pepper, sweat and add the red one, sweat.

3. You can fry courgettes and the aubergine separately and then add them to the pan with pepper. Instead you can add them straight away to the pan, without precooking separately.

4. Add tomato paste.

5. Cook till the vegetable almost tender, add the garlic and tomatoes.

6. Season to taste and add the fresh basil at the end.

Ratatouille could be served warm with nice bread or also as a side dish with meat.

Main dish:

Roasted lamb with potatoes
Ingredients:

Lamb shoulder weighting about 1kg (for 3 -4 people, depends how hungry they are :-) )

3 big garlic cloves, peeled and sliced not too thin

2 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves removed from stalk, chopped

2 springs fresh thyme, chopped

3-4 medium potatoes cut into chunks of 3 cm

salt, pepper to taste olive oil

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. Make a little slits on all over the lamb and stuff with pieces of garlic. Rub olive oil, rosemary and thyme, salt and pepper over the surface of the lamb. Let the lamb sit for half an hour to absorb the flavours.

3. Spring potatoes with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, you can also add herbs.

4. Put the lamb on baking sheet, spread the potatoes around and cook for about 50 minutes for the medium condition, it should be a little bit tender on touch. From time to time sprinkle the meat and potatoes with juices.

For the dessert we had a Le Cordon Bleu chocolate mousse cake

The recipe of this cake will come later :)

Bon Appetit!

Children friendly Great Britain!

Did you ever see normal and healthy child that sit down all the time?
I think it must be abnormal when the child doesn't move.
You may come to the restaurant with your children and find out all of those sights or unhappy faces when your child makes noise or moves too much!
May be it's only me that feels weird with it, because Israel is very children friendly country. And children are welcome there. But not here.
Britain's, at most , have children at their late 30's, and not too much. Till then they probably have dog or two and live happily ever after :-).
I think that they should say "Thank you" for coming to their restaurants, also with children, and eat tasteless British cuisine!
And this is a very angry post because finally it's two weeks of good and sunny weather, today we even went to the sea (3 hours trip, due to bad traffic conditions) . And we ate in some sea side restaurant, and I'm just wondering how it can be so BAD, so tasteless!

Here are some French deserts, the last for this term. The exam is next week.
Wish me luck!


Fruit mousse encased in sponge

Cheesecake with Griotte cherries

Almond meringue sandwiched with praline butter cream


Yeast cake soaked in rum syrup

Mille-feuille

Puff pastry filled with almond cream

Mille-feuille with strawberries

Hot cross buns and Sultans Scones (British)

Strawberry cheesecake