Plating (Homage to the 80s)

After bending Chef K's ear about the Explorer's tainted equipment, we rolled into the recipes. Dora, Natasha, 2nd Language Girl and Squarehead were absent today, but because each group is only doing one dish, didn't really effect things. Infact, today's class was unusually quiet and low energy.

Today's menu included a roasted vegetable timbales with goat cheese, micro-greens, Parmesan tuiles and beet vinaigrette (it's that pepto-bismal looking stuff) as an appetizer, sauteed Flat Iron steak with bodelaise, porcimi-salsify puree and caramelized endive as one entree and then our group's entree: roulade of magret with spinach and foie gras, braised chipollini onions and grilled polenta.

No lecture, just rollin'. Dirty Dave took care of the onions, I blanched and shocked five pounds of spinach, and Stalker Kowalksi poached a bag of foie gras. Like yesterday, I made another large batch of polenta, minus the garlic puree. The stuff cooked lightening fast and super thick pretty quick so I added a lot of milk and stock to keep it a little loose, to be different than yesterday. This was a mistake, as after refridgerating and setting, it cut fine but when we tried to pan fry it, it's high moisture content made it very difficult to work with, with the fried skin falling off the re-mushified polenta.

To make roulades, a piece of caul fat (pig stomach lining) was laid under a butterflied magret (breast of foie gras duck), covered in spinach, a baton of foie placed in the middle, then tied up, browned and finished in the oven.

The three of us finished our mise and cooking in plenty of time to spare. Plating the duck and steak was fine, but the beet vinaigrette, the little timbales cup of roasted veg, and the tuiles (shaped little cheesy/eggy/very rich cracker-like shapes) was so foofy-foofy. So I got lots of green chopped veg on the rim with pink dots, mounted the tuile on some goat cheese mush, and blam, a homage to the 80s. The 80s sucked.

ADDENDA:
Something in the class didn't click today, can't quite put my finger on it. Chef gave a demo on how to use the robocoup, which seemed a bit unnecessary and distracting. I don't know if she has the authoritarian weight to keep a school kitchen calm and collected. Time will tell how it shakes out.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, smoothie, 1.5 bowls, hunger 3/5
Blue berries, grapes, banana, ground flax seeds, good yogurt and milk, pinch of salt, ice.

AM TASTING: 11am, flat iron steak, fried onions, duck breast, .25 bowl, hunger 3/5
I really don't like the food we've been making.

PM SNACK: 1:30, mint chip ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 2:30, 2 gourmet donuts, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Off to ride the bike, stopped by my neighborhood donut shop, which happens to have the best donuts on the planet.

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, square slice of pizza, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 8:30pm, modified Chinese Brick, 2 bowls, hunger 4/5
Ordered a shrimp n' broccoli combo plate, instead of the usual lomein. It must be the economy, because the price was the same, but the egg roll was smaller, and the brick-like shape of the container was now round, and a good half pound lighter than the old container.