Week 1 in a college kitchen (from butchery to an Irish classic)
As you guys may know by now, I am going back to college under the mentorship of Chef Noel. This week in college we were thrown in at the deep end and went straight to butchery, most people start with stocks, soups & sauces.
Us on the other hand were given a whole chicken and told to break it down (wings, chicken legs, & Supremes). We left one supreme out to use and put the rest away for a further date.
We also made a classic sauce BEURRE BLANC DE CHAMPIGNON (mushroom Beurre blanc). This sauce was made by sautéing diced onions and sliced mushrooms together on a medium heat. Once they were softened I de-glazed the pan with some white wine and slowly added cream, I continuously added butter and finished this dish with some fresh basil. The recipe for this sauce is as follows and very easy to make.
• 10g diced onion
• 2 medium mushrooms sliced
• 125ml white wine
• 125ml cream
• 100g butter
• 4-5 fresh basil leaves
From France to Ireland this week we also covered a classic dish know by everyone BACON & CABBAGE. This was not a typical bacon boiled bacon dish, quite the opposite really, we cooked a bacon steak (bout an inch thick) three different ways while combination cooking. We first seared it in a fry pan on a high heat to give it a nice colour, secondly, we slow baked it at bout 180 degrees for 15mins, and thirdly we added a few ladles of freshly made chicken stock (from the freshly broken-down carcasses) so the bacon steak was now being braised. This was a first for me to cook one item three different ways just for one dish. As for the cabbage we rolled it up and chiffonade it. We sautéed it with freshly cut lardons from left over bacon. The bacon and cabbage were served with a nice light parsley sauce. The recipe for the parsley sauce is as follows.
• 50g butter
• 50g flour
• 100ml milk
• 15g fresh parsley
That’s all for this week folks check back next week for more of my culinary college adventures
traleeculinarygangsters 