Wednesday, 2/3/10 – Fish Day #2

It was terrible, the most pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was what I imagine childbirth to be, only with more fire and less liquid. Definitely the same amount of screaming, though. Must have been my fault for trying to clean our stove top at the end of class, after 5 hours of heavy use and cooking…gee I’m sorry stove. I understand that you’re the boss and I promise not to touch you ever again. The gruesome image you see below is the aftermath of the worst burn in kitchen history. WARNING: this imagine is not suitable for children.

Loosely based on a true story

Before the disaster, Chad and I were doing really well! We butchered our flatfish, which are literally flat and produce four fillets: two from the top and two from the bottom. We made quite possibly the best breaded fried fish I have ever tasted, goujonettes, with a remoulade sauce (tartar sauce with herbs and capers) and a red pepper cream sauce. We presented them in a potato chip basket (little chippies fried using a mold to make them a basket) with a hollowed zucchini bowl for the remoulade and the sweet pepper sauce spread out in front. Absolutely amazing, it will be my go-to recipe this Lenten season. We then poached the other fillets in a mushroom/fish stock/white wine mix, and then reduced that into a cream sauce, poured it over the fish and baked it all in the broiler. Beautiful. I’m thrilled to be learning some great ways to cook fish, the one protein I was never entirely creative and confident with. I’ve learned that it’s not hard and it’s actually a very versatile meal centerpiece.

Class is getting so much more exciting, because we’re focusing on a few strong recipes each week and completing full dishes, as opposed to just practicing methods or small pieces of a meal. While every recipe we create is new to us, they are classic French dishes which we will be making over and over again in school.

P.S. I got a 98% on our second test! Points were taken away because I forgot to mention that you have to dry off potatoes before frying them in oil. Woops, that’s kind of a big deal. Luckily I will never ever forget that fact ever again.