Thomas Keller (Not My Grandma's Tater Pancakes)

Today's recipes were probably the most challenging of my entire time at c-school. My recipe was Blini with Roasted Sweet Peppers and Eggplant Caviar. There were the three elements in the name of the dish plus dried peppers as a garnish, and all four elements took time and a bit of effort in mising and in cooking.

Basically all four elements had to be in the process of being made at once. The first one to go was the eggplant, as it would take 2 full hours before it's final steps. First, the egg plants were halved and scored, well seasoned with salt, placed flesh-side down on a tray and a second tray placed on top and mounted with weights to press it. After an hour, the eggplant was greased up with olive oil and roasted for another hour. Once it came out, it had to be scooped out of the skin, the flesh placed in cheese clothe, and squeezed and squeezed some more to get out as much moisture as possible.

The pulp of the eggplant was placed into a robocoup, smoothed, then olive oil, a little dijon mustard and finely minced garlic was added. Salt to taste, then left to sit and let the flavors bind.

The second thing I started was the dried pepper garnish. A red, a green and a yellow pepper were cored, peeled of it's skin, then thinly julienned and placed on parchment. Into a 200 degree convection oven, it took about an hour to dry. Once out and cooled, minced into "pepper confetti".

Third thing was the roasted sweet peppers. A red and yellow pepper were placed on the open burners till it was nice and blistered, then placed in a bowl and covered to loosen the skins. Peeled and cored, thin minced and placed in a sauce pot with a bit of chicken stock. The stock was cooked down to dry, then mounted with a bit of butter, a bunch of minced chives and seasoned with salt.

The fourth thing couldn't hang around too long. A few pounds of potatoes were peeled and cooked to tender in salted water with a pat or two of butter. Once drained, they were pushed through a tammi (basically a fine metal mesh, like a screen door) to give the smoothest mash of potato possible. While still steaming hot, a little flour, creme fraiche, eggs and an extra yolk, and salt were all whisked in. The mix had to form a pourable batter than could hold it's own shape, and I ended up adding about 3 times more creme fraiche than the recipe called for to get it flowing.

Once the eggplant, roasted pepper relish and dried peppers were set up, I set up four non-stick pans and started cooking off the blinis, in about 2-3 inch widths. Once all the components were on hand, I got out some hot plates and started arranging a plop of eggplant caviar, a blini leaned up against it, a smalled plop of pepper relish, then sprinkled the dried peppers around the dish.

Every one had multipart recipes to deal with, and it was a chaotic rush to the end. While I was preparing the eggplant caviar, I had to season it. One moment, it was woefully bland, then with a short pinch of salt, it was woefully over salted. After conferring with the chef, the only real way to fix it was add more eggplant, but I didn't have 2 hours to burn, so the next best thing was to garnish with something that will cut down on the salt in the mouth. So I reached over to Roundhead's mise and grabbed some blanched and shocked baby red and yellow tomatoes, quartered them and plated -- there was no tomato in the recipe, but the colors made good sense.

Monday comes "Market Basket", where there are...no recipes. We're assigned ingredients then write our own recipes. I plan to keep mine simple, try to push and perfect my basic skills -- what's more lovely then a perfectly grilled piece of shrimp? A perfectly sauteed piece of pork? A perfectly braised beef cheek?

ADDENDA:
Really enjoyed dinner this evening. Went out to Apiary with D&E (B was feeling on the ill side), and ate a bunch of things I wouldn't of ordered or ate before c-school. After getting intimate dissembling squid, calamari tentacles went down deliciously, the match of sweet roasted pear and salty ham was very appreciated. The waiter asked if I wanted the pork medium or medium well, and I said, no, medium rare. He gave me a look like, "you sure?" and I insisted. It came out medium anyway, oh well, that's what Chefs at school said would happen. The only way to get it medium rare would be to send it back. Appreciated the juiciness of the meat, the depth of flavor of the pan sauce it rested on, the green crispness of the perfectly cooked green beans, the nice sweet/savory action of the cooked figs that I spread on every bite of pork. Even the crust of the chocolate tart was impressive -- my pate sucree on my apple pie was leaden and retarded compared to this professionally-caressed crust. And afterwards went to tapas bar for a drink, and I really enjoyed the sweet stickiness of a proper aperitif, something I would of found kinda nasty less than a month ago. As the sherry got warmer over the 30 minutes I was sipping it, I REALLY noticed the change in the flavor profile, going from raisiny and almost menthol, to a thinner cherry lollipop flavor, mmmm.

Got grades for last mod, I'm running a 3.78 GPA. Only if university graded so easily, back when I had to keep my parents happy!

Our team was responsible for a lobster in butter sauce recipe, which Dora the Explorer took on. About 5 different people during the beginning of class asked me to do that one, as they were looking forward to eating it, but as policy do not eat anything she produces. Thank goodness today was the last day of these groups.

BREAKFAST: 6:30am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, raw cashews, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM TASTINGS: 10:30-11am, a handful of blinis with the roasted pepper relish, cod fish, cod cakes, a bite of weird puff-pastry 'pizza', 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
The food today was oddly unappetizing. Perhaps the extreme use of so many ingredients matched with such twittering preparations which made 4 hours a little bit too little.

PM SNACK: 2pm, cream anglais ice cream, bitter sweet chocolate, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4pm, WF brand cheetos, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Junk food, yeah, but I was feeling indulgent.

DINNER: 7pm, roasted pear with prosciutto, rice flour coated calamari, roast pork with fig confit and hazelnut haricot verte, bite of lamb, bite of rabbit, chocolate tart with cashew ice cream, bite of peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNORT: 8:30pm, glass of Spanish sherry