Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Monday, 10/4/10 – Level 6 Day 11 (Canapé)

Chef finally took a vacation. He's been known to spend all day and night, 7 days a week, at school, so when he announced that he'd be out for a few days, we were all very, very, horridly and inexplicably sad…yes, very upset…indeed…sad…

Our fill-in chef was a great guy we had on-and-off in Levels 1 and 2, but he was always kind of hard to read. Things were a little different having him in Level 6, and he thought we were doing great. "I've seen some amazing improvement since Level 2 guys." "Really??" I said. "Um, yeah. But I would hope you've all improved, so…" Oh, I get it. It was our last night in the Canapé station, and we weren't expecting a busy night so we were all kind of looking forward to "taking a break." It's amazing how valuable a few minutes of monotony can become when you're used to going full-speed at all times, those rare seconds of being able to stare off into space or daydream or check Words with Friends on your iPhone.

Our canapé was my idea, and I was really excited to taste the final product. I picked some ingredients that I thought would be nice together, which isn't saying much because no one had tested it and therefore we didn't really know how it'd work until we were completely done. I decided we would be making roasted butternut squash wrapped in prosciutto and dipped in an herb coulis. I started by breaking down the squash, removing the thick rind and cutting it into bite-size cubes. I tossed them with salt, pepper, olive oil, sage and thyme and baked them until they were just tender. We then wrapped them with thin strips of prosciutto and baked them again until the prosciutto bonded and the squash was fully tender. We played around with the presentation, deciding on trimming the prosciutto scraps so that the squash was a perfect little present, then serving it with a dollop of the herb mix. It was yummy…but was missing something. The squash flavor was being overpowered by the salty prosciutto, and we needed something to balance it all out. Chef had an idea, and ran off to disappear into the store room for a few minutes, emerging with a small black bottle. He had found a rare and extremely expensive balsamic vinegar, so we finished off our cute little squash packages with a small black dot. Perfecto! It still boggles my mind that we'd spend so much time and effort making a little bite-size piece for people to absentmindedly swallow down while they're waiting for their food. It is good practice, though, and I'm glad we resisted the urge to just slap something easy on a plate. It was painful, though, to spend two hours on these miniature delicacies while I could have been relaxing on the couch watching "Teen Mom" for goodness's sake.

Canapé has been pretty boring, so I'm looking forward to moving on to Garde Manger, our second to last station in culinary school…EVER. Weird…

2 comments:

  1. Amazing, isn't it, that one little bitty, teeny tiny thing can make a HUGE difference. Counting down the days, hug? So proud of you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I meant, huh? Although, I'm also sending a virtual hug. :-)

    ReplyDelete