Sorry it’s been taking so long for me to post! The internet here is terrible and it takes forever to upload my photos. This is the post I wrote on Thursday…
I don’t have any recipes for you today, just stories and pictures. We’ve made tons of different amazing things (list to follow), but all of it required having fermented dough, which we made on Tuesday. I doubt any of you are going to make fermented dough just so you can make these pastries since it only keeps for two weeks. You will just have to come over for pastries when I get home. Or wait until Christmas. If you are wondering what you’re getting this year, family, stop guessing.
On Wednesday and Thursday, we made:
- Sausage balls – pork belly, pork shoulder, pork fat, pork liver, spinach all cased in pork caul
- Tomato bread with sautéed onions and anchovy
- Vegetable confit with pesto and poached egg
- Bacon and tomato fougasse (focaccia)
- Croissants
- Chocolate croissants
- Brioche sugar tart
- Brioche Nanterre
- Braided brioche
Baking has been so much fun – I feel more comfortable in the baking kitchen and I’ve started to get really good (in my opinion) at the kneading method that we learned. Everyday as we are baking I say “this is the best day ever. This is the best thing I’ve ever baked” but then the next day happens and it’s even better. I learned today that our chef competed in the MOF (translates as Best Worker in France) which basically means he is one of the best pastry chefs in the country.
In cooking, I have no idea what I’m doing. We peeled peppers today. Didn’t think you could peel a pepper? You can’t! Just kidding, you can, but it’s really hard. And we have the crappiest peelers. I spent at least 20 minutes struggling with a red pepper; the chef walked by and I asked for help – he took my pepper and gave me a few tips, then peeled a long beautiful peel like a pro in about 10 seconds. He makes it look so easy, but it is in fact incredibly hard. Sometimes he walks by and just giggles at me. Not in a mean way, just as if to say that we both know this is not my jam and I’m trying really hard and it’s okay that it isn’t perfect.
After we got done with our food today, chef told us to plate our meals. Umm, what? You mean so I can eat it? No, no, we were supposed to make it look beautiful. A lot of the girls (did I mention my cooking class is all women?) in my class have lots of restaurant experience and they got really excited to plate. I had no idea what to do! In the end I came up with something and then chef walked around and gave us feedback on our plating, and THEN we were allowed to eat. It was SO good. I actually made a really good/pretty poached egg. We learned that you need “extra fresh” eggs to make them well (this is apparently how they sell them in the French super market). Extra fresh eggs are between 1 and 9 days old. After that, they are called “fresh” until they are 21 days, and up until this point, they can be kept out on the counter. Once they hit 21 days, they have to go in the fridge until day 28 and then they are no longer good. Chef Samuel is full of interesting facts like this and answers to lots of questions that I’ve had (like.. why do the French not refrigerate their eggs?). Maybe you are thinking twice about the eggs you bought today!
Compared to my normal work of being hunched over the computer for most of the day, it feels so good to be standing and active for almost the entire day. We usually take the bus to work but then walk the 3ish miles home. I have taken a different route every time – if you know me well, you know that I often get “lost” while hiking/running, but I always find my way home eventually (if you don’t like getting lost, you probably shouldn’t do these activities with me). Current transit times vary between 40 minutes and an hour and 15 minutes. I need all of this activity to counteract all of the butter.
Each week we shift focuses. Next week, we are doing cakes (!!!!) in pastry and hot appetizers in cooking. Am I going to be coming home with a whole cake every day? I hope so.
More Croissants, Please! 
