January 25th, 2010 – Salads

We got our official test scores back. Chef rescinded his comment that “Real chefs get a B+,” but that’s ok because I GOT AN A+!! I’m still not sure how, but I studied pretty hard and am quite proud of myself. I don’t know how much it actually counts, because this is a curriculum where obviously cooking ability counts more than vocabulary, but nevertheless it’s still important to know the concepts and terms. Yahoo!

Steve and I don’t eat in a lot of fancy restaurants….ever. For obvious reasons: (1) it’s expensive and (2) we both love to cook. So my idea of a nice salad is a heap of romaine lettuce tossed with red onions, avocado, feta cheese and some oil and red wine vinegar (courtesy of my in-laws, the Blazeks). Before I started night classes, we ate that salad at least 5 nights a week. Apparently the French have a different definition of salad in mind.

We started with a Macedoine de Legumes, which is basically a handful of green beans, carrots and beets cut into macedoine, or small cubes, mixed with peas. All are cooked in boiling water and mixed with a nice, light handmade mayonnaise (see previous post). Then, using decoratively cut cucumbers, the mixture is formed on the plate with a sort of tall, round cookie cutter and topped with goat cheese. Finally, we removed the cookie cutter and topped the whole thing with a small piece of Gravlax, the salmon we cured last week. Beautiful and surprisingly delicious! I could charge $17 for that at the restaurant around the corner but, seeing as Steve is currently supporting our household I’ll just make it for him (but send him the bill later.)

We also made the classic Salade Nicoise, a ridiculous plate of strategically placed cut and cooked vegetables. If I paid close to $20 for a salad at a nice restaurant and that’s what they brought me…..problems. It’s so exciting, though, to be able to use our creativity to make a beautiful and delicious dish. While there are some specific ways and processes to do things in cooking, plating the food is a fun way the chef can use a personal touch. Finally, we seared our duck confit, which has been hanging out in its own fat for about a week now, and served it (to ourselves) with a bitter salad tossed with a Dijon mustard vinaigrette. I also snagged another duck leg, along with a nice vat of duck fat, to bring home and cook for Steve. I was lucky enough, too, to snatch up some leftover foie gras from the Level 2 students, but passed on the blood sausage. What a fascinating school I go to, where these international delicacies are just floating around for anyone to grab and cook how they please. I can only imagine what was going through the mind of the person sitting next to me on the subway! “Oh these? Just duck fat and liver, no big deal. Sorry about the smell, the next stop is mine.”