Consomme

Consomme... A rich favorable stock or broth that has been clarified to make it perfectly clear and transparent. In French the term literally means "completed" or "concentrated".

Basically, you take your stock (chicken, beef, fish) and you clarify it by adding a clearmeat to it. The clearmeat consists of lean ground meat (for flavor), egg whites (as binder & to clarify), an acid (to help coagulate the proteins) & mirepoix (for structure & flavor). You mix all that together and basically have meat-loaf! This whole process sounds totally counter intuitive to clarification but hang in there, it works! After you mix up the clearmeat you add it to your stock and toss in some peppercorns, a bayleaf & thyme. Stir it all together over low to med-heat. Once the clearmeat begins to coagulate and form a "raft" on top of the stock STOP stirring. The raft will act as a sort of "meat" lid to the stock. Once this meat lid or raft is formed a slight hole will need to be made in it to allow steam to escape from the cooking stock. This should all remain at a low temperature (160-180 degrees) generating little if any bubbles. After 45 min or so you have a beautiful clear Consomme! Ladle it out and strain it through a Chinois & serve. Our chicken Consomme was full of wonderful chicken flavor and delicious!!

This technique was just one of many learned this week in class. We are winding up the Foundations I class, finals are this coming week. It is UNBELIEVABLE to realize that the first round of classes is nearly over! By this time next week I will be 1/6th of the way through my program!! Now, the really scary thing is that 55% of my grade depends on my in class performance next week. Wednesday we have our Product ID test. This is a combination of 50 herbs, spices, oils & vinegars we must identify. We can use our eyes, nose & taste buds to determine the answers. We must also identify 50 kitchen tools & equipment properly. On Thursday we have our knife skills test. We'll be given a series of cuts to perform in a certain amount of time. Then Friday, the written final. While I am VERY pleased with my score going into next week ... everything could change!!

Had we taken our knife test this past Wednesday I would have failed!! Here was the assignment...

10 Batonnet Carrots

10 Julienne Carrots

10 Fine Julienne Carrots

2 oz. Brunoise Carrots

4 oz. Small Dice Carrots

8 Tournes

We were given 2 carrots and 1 potato & 45 minutes to complete this challenge.

People would have starved if they were waiting for me to cut their carrots!!! It takes a lot of carrots to make up 6 oz all cut up in 1/4" and 1/8" cubes!! For crying out loud!!! I didn't even have enough carrot to make up those cuts had I wanted to because I somehow create a lot of carrot WASTE!! Oh, and we are judged on that too!!!

So, I have stayed after class everyday to practice and on my way home yesterday I stopped and picked up carrots, potatoes, tomatoes & onions. I have set up a few challenges of my own for the weekend and am working toward time improvements. I have a blister on my right index finger from gripping the knife that needs to be a callous by Thursday!

The pressure has intensified this past week as well. My Chefs are low on tolerance for those with poor & lackadaisical attitudes. On Monday we began lining up for inspection INSIDE the class room rather than the hall. Now, for those who can't seem to be on time this posed a very difficult challenge. The doors of our kitchens lock. You can get out you just can't get back in unless the Chef opens the door. If you are late, too bad! Now, these stragglers were eventually allowed into the class after a "discussion" in the hall. Eek!

The knucklehead brigade continued even after 4 weeks of the same routine for knife cutting practice... there were still some who could not get it. A few folks can't remember from day to day to "stack the chairs on the side of the room, get cutting boards & tools out". It seems that since we were given only 4 minutes to do this task the brains left the bodies of some of my class-mates! Well, this set Chef M off! It was likely the closest we will see to his "Chef Ramsay ~ Hell's Kitchen" impersonation! (Maybe not quite that bad, but he was NOT happy!) He made it quite clear that it was unfortunate there were some who brought the rest of the class down because they can't participate positively and as a team. And apologized to those of us who do show up daily with a good attitude for the stress that creates. Personally I am surprised it took him til week 5 to get this riled up! I have been irked since week 2!

This class continues to bit of a Sociology class for me. I find it most interesting how people interact with each other. My sister reminded me of a nursery rhyme recently that works pretty well ....

Poor Tired Tim! It's sad for him.

He lags the long bright morning through,

Ever so tired of nothing to do;

He moons and mopes the live long day,

Nothing to think about, nothing to say;

Up to bed with candle to creep,

Too tired to yawn; too tired to sleep;

Poor tired Tim! It's sad for him. (Walter De la Mare)

This young lady in my class moves slower than nearly anyone I have encountered. She never takes a note, she seems so bored, she rarely smiles and when ever you greet her with a "how are you?" ~ "tired" is the immediate response. It's become a bit of a game for me. I ask her every day to just see if I get a different answer. Hummm, interesting?

Along with my Foundations I class I have also been in Food Safety. Here is were we learn about all the groovy pathogens (Biological hazards) that improper food handling can create. Like Staphylococcal Gastroenteritis, Hepatitis A, Norovirus Gastroenteritis, Cryptosporidiosis & Shigellosis. All of these fine illnesses are Oral-Fecal transmitted. YES! You read that right! PEOPLE PLEASE WASH YOUR HANDS!!! Using soap & lathering, 100 degree water & vigorous scrubbing for 15 seconds will keep everyone a little healthier!!

Physical hazards are also a challenge. Foreign objects like hair, metal staples, rubber-bands (for those of you who were at dinner with me this summer... you remember!), bandages & such. So here's one for you... while discussing the fact that jewelry can not be worn unless it is a simple wedding band, a class mate shared his confusion over an employer telling him he could not have a gold tooth. Gold teeth are not on the list as physical hazards so why would that be an issue? The Chefs response was something like "it must be that company's policy" or some such thing. Much restraint was needed on my part to not BUST out in laughter!

The rigors of Le Cordon Bleu are not for everyone. I am told that we can anticipate about 15% - 20% of our class to be gone as we move into Foundations II. While I will enjoy having a better student to Chef ratio & hopefully less horse-play, I am sad to think that there will be those who will not get to complete this wonderful program. I am drawn to wonder were they forced to choose this profession? Did they think it would be easy to learn culinary science & classic French technique? And bigger still, what will become of them? These young souls searching for their passion in life..... perhaps they will get a second chance to do this and approach it with a different and more focused frame of mind.