Apologies to my faithful readers for this late and overdue post. I've been working (more poo shoots yes but also a little bit of plating up and salad tossing), sick (sinus infection....been an attractive week for me) and the best excuse of all TAFE holidays!
SO since I've had a week off the last time I was at college was nearly two weeks ago now and we cooked foods that to me, did not go together well at all. Eggs florentine but instead of a hollandaise sauce over the top which I thought you are meant to have, we made béchamel sauce. This makes me think this is in our practical exam coming up because Chef made us practice it just like the sauce anglaise which she is drilling into us because most of us in class make scrambled eggs. We also did poached pears in (cheap and nasty) red wine. Thats the snob coming out in me but I remember this brand of goon back in the day when I made coke-a-goona (red cask wine mixed with coke) so poaching a pear in it brought back memories of being sweet sixteen again... not the sweetest memories coming to mind.
We also filleted fish then shallow poached it in homemade fish stock. I think I did quite well since I got four fillets out of my fish like we were meant to. The fish stock stunk... fishy. Last week was much more fun I am not going to deny that fact.
I bought cream, eggs and a vanilla pod the other day to practice making anglaise sauce at home for our practical exam which is after the holidays... fingers crossed I won't scramble it and can turn it into vanilla ice cream with our old ice cream maker! (any hints for making ice cream from scratch without a machine please spill!)
I'm back at college in another week and will be working my ever growing hynie off and also trying to try all the desserts at work. So far the Vanilla Panacotta is delicious :) I hope you all have a lovely Easter and the easter bunny visits! I made hot cross buns earlier this month - check them out!
Thanks for reading. Keep watching for more delicious and maybe not so delicious posts! Fingers crossed no more cheap and nasty wine poaching :)
Showing posts with label anglaise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anglaise. Show all posts
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Meaty, cheesey, creamy goodness...
I'd say this week has been my favourite so far. Can anyone disagree when our practical lesson is scheduled for lasagne and then anglaise sauce for dessert? I don't think so.
Most people have their mum's famous lasagne that is a family secret passed on from generation to generation. For some reason our house hold never had lasagne as a staple regular which I feel has scarred my youth. Lasagne is one my favourites! Layers of tomatoey, rich, meaty sauce in between layers of pasta and creamy, cheesey-ness. Your officially a nutter if you don't agree with me.
I was in charge of the béchamel sauce while my partner was in charge of the meat sauce. I was excited to do the béchamel sauce as I've never made one before and was a keen bean to learn.
It started with 500mL milk heated on the stove with a quarter of an onion studded with 2 cloves, a few white pepper corns and a bay leaf. Once the milk had come to a boil it was turned off to infuse with the flavours of the goodies which I put in it. Next I started the white roux (pronounced roo as in kanga-roo) which is a thickening agent consisting of a mixture of flour (40g) and fat, in this case (40g of) butter. You melt the butter over the stove being careful not to burn it then take the butter off the stove and add the flour. Mix until it looks like really wet sand and cook back on a low heat for 1-2 min. Strain your infused milk into a separate jug for easy pouring. Take the butter and flour mixture off the heat and add a little of the milk, which should now be warm not hot and mix with your savoury wooden spoon. Keep doing this little by little off the heat making sure there are no lumps until all milk has been incorporated. Once the milk has been incorporated stir over a low heat until sauce thickens to your preferred consistency. This takes about 20 min as you have to cook the flour taste out. I then added a small handful of tasty cheese- this thicken the sauce a little too much so I added some extra milk to thin it down.
My partner was making the bolognaise sauce at this point so both we were both ready at the same time. We layered a little bolognaise sauce on the bottom, then an instant lasagne sheet, then more bolognaise, a spoonful of béchamel, a sprinkle of parmesan then another layer of pasta and continued this until we reached the top of our tray. Chef had a brilliant tip which was not to use all the béchamel sauce in the lasagne and add one egg to the left over and then spoon that as your final layer then sprinkling with both parmesan and tasty cheese. We put it in an 180 degrees Celsius oven until cooked through and golden on top. yum, yuM & YUM!
After devouring our lasagne we started our anglaise sauce. Custard and me have never really gotten on like rice and me (until recently, Woop!). My custards alway end up either a watering undercooked mess or a scrambled egg slop. Both sound appealing... not.
A sauce anglaise is the basis of making custards and ice creams so it is pretty damn important to get this right if you want to work in the kitchen. You can't just go out and buy a carton of dairy farmer thick custard like normally would..
The rule with an anglaise sauce is for every 100mL of milk (or cream or a combination of both) you need 1 egg yolk and 10g of sugar. I put my milk on the stove to bring to the boil with a vanilla bean scraped in it for flavour. While this was doing its job I separated my eggs and mixed my egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl using my sweet wooden spoon. Chef told us not to use a whisk because we don't want air in the egg yolk, just to combine them with the sugar. Next strain your milk into your egg and sugar mixture and stir to combine. Place it all back in the saucepan you used for the milk and back on a very very low heat. This is where you either get custard or scramble eggs. At this point in class I had everything possible crossed in hope that I ended up with custard not scrambled eggs. Anglaise sauce cannot come above 83 degrees Celsius so its easier to use a thermometer but today we used the back of a metal spoon technique. The sauce is ready when it coats the back of a metal spoon and when you run your fingers down the back the sauce does not run back and meet again.
SUCCESS! I ended up with a velvet vanilla custard.
All in all a delicious day.
(If any one has some suggestions of words other than delicious please let me know, I feel I am repeating my self... everything is DELICIOUS... delicious, delicious, delicious!)
* Thanks for reading & keep watching for more cooking adventures!
Most people have their mum's famous lasagne that is a family secret passed on from generation to generation. For some reason our house hold never had lasagne as a staple regular which I feel has scarred my youth. Lasagne is one my favourites! Layers of tomatoey, rich, meaty sauce in between layers of pasta and creamy, cheesey-ness. Your officially a nutter if you don't agree with me.
I was in charge of the béchamel sauce while my partner was in charge of the meat sauce. I was excited to do the béchamel sauce as I've never made one before and was a keen bean to learn.
It started with 500mL milk heated on the stove with a quarter of an onion studded with 2 cloves, a few white pepper corns and a bay leaf. Once the milk had come to a boil it was turned off to infuse with the flavours of the goodies which I put in it. Next I started the white roux (pronounced roo as in kanga-roo) which is a thickening agent consisting of a mixture of flour (40g) and fat, in this case (40g of) butter. You melt the butter over the stove being careful not to burn it then take the butter off the stove and add the flour. Mix until it looks like really wet sand and cook back on a low heat for 1-2 min. Strain your infused milk into a separate jug for easy pouring. Take the butter and flour mixture off the heat and add a little of the milk, which should now be warm not hot and mix with your savoury wooden spoon. Keep doing this little by little off the heat making sure there are no lumps until all milk has been incorporated. Once the milk has been incorporated stir over a low heat until sauce thickens to your preferred consistency. This takes about 20 min as you have to cook the flour taste out. I then added a small handful of tasty cheese- this thicken the sauce a little too much so I added some extra milk to thin it down.
My partner was making the bolognaise sauce at this point so both we were both ready at the same time. We layered a little bolognaise sauce on the bottom, then an instant lasagne sheet, then more bolognaise, a spoonful of béchamel, a sprinkle of parmesan then another layer of pasta and continued this until we reached the top of our tray. Chef had a brilliant tip which was not to use all the béchamel sauce in the lasagne and add one egg to the left over and then spoon that as your final layer then sprinkling with both parmesan and tasty cheese. We put it in an 180 degrees Celsius oven until cooked through and golden on top. yum, yuM & YUM!
After devouring our lasagne we started our anglaise sauce. Custard and me have never really gotten on like rice and me (until recently, Woop!). My custards alway end up either a watering undercooked mess or a scrambled egg slop. Both sound appealing... not.
A sauce anglaise is the basis of making custards and ice creams so it is pretty damn important to get this right if you want to work in the kitchen. You can't just go out and buy a carton of dairy farmer thick custard like normally would..
The rule with an anglaise sauce is for every 100mL of milk (or cream or a combination of both) you need 1 egg yolk and 10g of sugar. I put my milk on the stove to bring to the boil with a vanilla bean scraped in it for flavour. While this was doing its job I separated my eggs and mixed my egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl using my sweet wooden spoon. Chef told us not to use a whisk because we don't want air in the egg yolk, just to combine them with the sugar. Next strain your milk into your egg and sugar mixture and stir to combine. Place it all back in the saucepan you used for the milk and back on a very very low heat. This is where you either get custard or scramble eggs. At this point in class I had everything possible crossed in hope that I ended up with custard not scrambled eggs. Anglaise sauce cannot come above 83 degrees Celsius so its easier to use a thermometer but today we used the back of a metal spoon technique. The sauce is ready when it coats the back of a metal spoon and when you run your fingers down the back the sauce does not run back and meet again.
SUCCESS! I ended up with a velvet vanilla custard.
All in all a delicious day.
(If any one has some suggestions of words other than delicious please let me know, I feel I am repeating my self... everything is DELICIOUS... delicious, delicious, delicious!)
* Thanks for reading & keep watching for more cooking adventures!
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