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June 14, 2005

2nd Quarter - Practical Exam - American Regional

Two down, still more to go. Below you will find the last pictures I will be
posting from my American Regional Cuisine class. We took our practical exam
tonight and tomorrow night will be our written exam and cleaning up the kitchen.
The chef staggered the 17 of us so that all of us wouldn't finish cooking at the
same time. Tonight was my first time to take a practical exam with a "mystery
basket" format. Mystery Basket basically means: no menus, no recipes, you are
all on your own. We could use recipes from this quarter, but we may not have all
the ingredients to follow it to a 'T'. They pulled out the cart full of
ingredients and told us, if it was on there we could use it. If we requested
anything else prior to the one-and-only store room run, if the chef could find
it we could use it. Our requirements were to make a salad, a soup, and an entree
plate that consisted of two pieces of chicken (white & dark), a starch and two
vegetables. I started out with Cream of Garlic Soup. This was by far my favorite
soup we made in this class this quarter. The guy at my table had an extra
crouton he had made for his salad and I stole it to garnish my soup. It came out
even better than the last time. If anyone wants this recipe let me know, it's
great! For my salad, I, of course, started out with spinach, since my body
decided long ago to be allergic to iceberg lettuce. I quickly crabbed the tub of
wild mushroom goat cheese and pine nuts off of the cart. I rolled the goat
cheese into a log, rolled the log into some chopped up toasted pine nuts, and
then froze the log (just long enough for it to get firm enough to slice into
rounds for the salad). I sliced up some roasted red bell pepper and I cooked
some bacon and crumbled it up over the top. The dressing was a Dijon mustard,
balsamic vinaigrette. And for the entree. I stuffed a chicken breast & a chicken
leg with a mixture of butter, salt, wild mushroom goat cheese & roasted red bell
peppers, put it through a standard breading procedure (seasoned flour, egg wash,
bread crumbs) and then set it aside to chill in the freezer. Next, I made mashed
potatoes with celeriac and garlic in it. Then, I sauted some mushrooms and
Brussels sprouts. As the mushrooms and sprouts were cooking I made a Beurre
Blanc (white butter sauce) to go over the chicken. And right before I was ready
to serve, I took the stuffed and breaded chicken out of the freezer and
pan-fried it. I felt sorry for Chef and his stomach. There were 17 students in
the class tonight who each had to make a soup, salad and entree, and he had to
try a bite of ALL of it. I was in the last group to start and was the next to
last student to finish and serve my stuff to the chef. He was so full and there
was still one more guy after me. I could tell he was starting to feel miserable.
I was pretty proud of my results tonight. The only criticism the chef had
tonight was that I could have put a little extra salt in the stuffing for the
chicken. The chicken was cooked good and the stuffing was still hot. My Brussels
sprouts were one of the few that were actually cooked good, not overcooked and
not undercooked. I remembered from when we made the Celeriac potatoes earlier in
the quarter that the Chef loved the flavor the celery root adds to potatoes, so
in a sense I guess you could say I used a little brown-nosing. My soup had good
flavor and great consistency. My salad dressing was good, and apparently I was
the only one out of the entire class who realized we had a 5 pound thing of
bacon sitting there at our disposal. As Emeril says... PORK FAT RULES! All in
all it was a good night. I'm sure hoping that my results tonight will help my
grade once I get my paper turned in next week. Check out the pictures below & I
will have more pictures on Thursday night after our practical exam in
Southwestern. After Thursday, y'all will have to wait until either I cook
something during my 3 week summer break, or you will have to wait until July
15th for more food pictures. Bon Appetit!

Posted by FutureFoodTVStar at June 14, 2005 11:39 PM

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Posted by: kimmyk at June 16, 2005 06:56 AM

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