The Ubiquitous Class Photo…

 

So every term we have a class photo. A professional photographer comes in and we sit (or stand in some cases) and pose with our chef. The reason this picture is not great is because I handed my camera to someone behind the photographer, and they snapped it way before  the cue was given. Hence me being the only one smiling hahah.

That butto... No! focu.... ahh nevermind.

Anyways, I thought I would give a little breakdown of the group I have spent the last nine months of my life enjoying (and often loathing) food with. Starting at top left…

Ae: A very softspoken Thai dude with perfect English, and amazing plating abilities. Also working to become fluent in French.

Puu: The fastest cook in school, and one of the few with years of restaraunt experience. Watching him with a knife makes me instinctually protect my fingers.

Nup: The funny guy. Always on time, always cracking jokes.

Rahul: From India. One of 2 people in school doing the Grande Diplome (Pastry and Cuisine both in 9 months). Always helping others in the kitchen, always finding something to be insightful about. 

Charles: From UK. My bud. We sit and crack jokes about the French accent of our chef, while comparing notes, and generally being obsessed with food. Also my right-hand man in the kitchen (literally, as he works directly to the right of me).

Me: *Insert comment here*

Nin: Keeps to herself, but cooks well, extremely focused.

Marc: From the Phillipines. Got cut off in the photo. always the joker, always smiling. Will go far.

2nd Row

Fawzia: Very cool girl from India. Always plates beautifully.

Poy: The politest person I have ever met.

Paroma: From India. Always helpful, has saved more than a few of my sauces from burning (thanks! And if you’re reading this, stop using your office knife for chopping!)

Chef Rudolphe: This man cooks better than I, or 98% of humankind ever will. He is a robot, with an extremely entertaining accent. to “ate” is now a new part of speech, as in to “pepperate”, “butterate”, and generally elevate our cooking skills.

Lee: The star of of our kitchen. Always the highest grades, always plating under time. This girl has a serious future as a chef.

Fai: An amazing artist. Her notes for recipes are accompanied by DaVinciesque diagrams of each process. This also comes out in her plating.

Pear: The shy one. But always laughing. Have heard her say maybe 10 words in 9 months, but her smile compensates for it.

I hope I did you all justice, and feel free to contact me if you feel differently. I wish us all luck on the final, and I know we will never see chocolate the same way again!

Bonus Beef Wellington (With a Foie Gras Center) .

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allez post cut

 

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Exam Ideas

So the final exam is inching closer and closer. The Chocolate is still downright perplexing, but I am slowly building up a menu. I plan to start light and go with bolder flavors as the menu progresses.

So far I have an idea to do a yellow zuchini “pie” (more of a miniature  ring mould affair) with radishes as decoration around the edges. These will be precooked and assembled, so that I can bake them towards the end of the 5 hours. Along this will be a lemongrass beurre blanc (I have to try this first to make sure it is edible! haha)

Secondly I am going to do a pigeon ravioli, with a madeira (or port wine) and cherry sauce. I need a  vegetable to accompany the pigeon in the stuffing, not sure on that one yet.

Third…. No idea yet

Main will be Roulades of chicken stuffed with a pigeon and cream mixture. I am thinking of using a melted chocolate concoction of some sort to brush the chicken before I roll it. This seems like a logical way to go about the stupid chocolate.

So those are my ideas for now.

Moving on here is what I cooked today.

Pan Fried Seabass, with a Langoustine Risotto Stuffed Squid.

The Brown sauce is a fennel and soy fish fumet, the yellow is langoustine and veggy stock with saffron, and the clear dollops are Langoustine oil. Whew, I plated first today too!

And as usual I have been taking photos when I have time. Here’s a couple. Be sure to click on the Macro shots, believe it or not that size when you click is only 50% of the original!

A bee in the park.

 

Cool Flower

 

More pigeons...

That’s all for now. I need to track down some edible pigeons so I can practice my dishes for the final! Haha.

Posted in Cordon Bleu, Photography

Photo Fun

Hey guys. Well I have been becoming more and more interested in photography as the days go by. Food is obviously at the forefront, but the two are quite a nice marriage. I decided to invest in a proper lens for close up shots, namely the Nikkor 40mm F 2.8. It is an absolute blast to shoot with as it can do everything from Macro, to Landscapes. Here are a few examples of the pics I have been taking lately.

A Lionfish. Such an amazing animal!

A jellyfish with LED lighting.

The new lens in action. (Click this for full detail!)

Please excuse the lack of food related material, I’m still fretting over the Final exam. Anyways, hope you enjoy the pictures! and please follow my photo page @

http://500px.com/jesserockwell26

Also, much love to all my new viewers in India! Namaste

Thanks!

Posted in Photography

Photos About Town

Aside from being busy in the kitchen I have been spending nearly all my free time becoming more comforatable with my new Nikon D3100 camera. I have been doing a lot of reading about photography in general, and am having a blast just experimenting, taking LONG walks around town.

I’ll share some of the highlights with you guys.

I was in Lumphini Park (Bangkok’s answer to Central Park) and found myself approaching birds and trying to catch them at a high shutter speed as they flew away from me. This happened to work out really well, and I got some really cool shots. Namely these 2 pigeons flying in exact tandem over the water.

I’m gonna chalk this up to beginner’s luck, because I know I won’t be getting shots like that often hehe.

A few more birds.

Over the weekend I decided to take what became an extended walk starting in the slums of Bangkok, and ended up in some of the, shall we say “seedier” parts of town. My goal was to get as many portraits of people as I could. It’s a little nerve wracking approaching people on the street, but I also found it’s a great way to meet new people.

All these photos were originally in color, I used Photoshop to crop them and convert to Balck and White, as well as adjust shadows and contrast.

I hope you guys enjoy the pictures, and any commentary and critique is very welcome.

 

Posted in Photography Tagged ,

The Final Exam Approaches

Everyone has been abuzz with how exactly the final exam is structured, all we knew was that we have 5 hours to create a personal recipe using a list of compulsory ingredients, as well as a full pantry of “support” ingredients such as flour, herbs, aromatics, eggs, butter, wine etc.

Well we received the exam outline yesterday, and it is more than a bit intimidating. Firstly we got handed about the most dreadful main ingredient imaginable…. WHOLE PIGEON! Ahhhhhh, the two terms before us had fish and rack of lamb! How is that even fair!?? Here is the list of ingredients we will be provided for the final. (Ingredients with an asterisk MUST be used)

I’m not sure how many of you have seen the American television show “Chopped”, but basically chefs are handed a mystery basket full of seemingly incompatible ingredients and asked to create dishes. This feels pretty damn similar. I mean chocolate? really????

The dish must have one main protein dish and 3 “garnishes”, or side dishes. One must be “composee”, or a mix of at least three ingredients. One must be a form of stuffed vegetable, and lastly one must be “simple” whatever the hell that means. 4 servings must be made, and plated. I am very happy that I have 3 weeks to formulate a menu. Chocolate!?!?!

Here is a picture of the kitchen in action today. This is actually the “bad” kitchen as we don’t have the 3′x3′ hotplates, and the burners are getting old, but I’m sure it still beats the hell out of any kitchen I will be working in in the near future hehe.

And lastly a picture of my friend Sebastian with the live lobster he absconded with named “Peter”. I don’t think Peter is a big fan of heights.

I’ll keep updating as my ideas come together for my final dish. So far I know I will be doing some form of pasta, and a stuffed pigeon breast with Madeira and cherry sauce. If anyone has ideas for the chocolate please leave a comment!!!!!

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I’m back

Well, after a long hiatus due to my camera being stolen (don’t ask), I have returned with (hopefully) even better photos. This first post won’t be a long one, but you can be expecting more in the near future Smilie: :)

My last post was “The Last Week of Intermediate Cuisine”, wow it really has been a long time. We are well into superior cuisine now and there is less than 2 months before the final graduation. Along with our knife skills, and sense of timing, the complexity and difficulty of the dishes has risen dramatically over the last 6 weeks. Here is what we prepared today.

The main dish was veal medallions in a citrus and ginger infused au jus, the side dish was a macaroni “cake” filled with ham, truffle, artichoke, red bell pepper, gruyere cheese, egg and cream.

The construction of the cake was sokmewhat ungodly, having made a wall by “painting” a sheet of aligned, cooked macaroni strands with veal “glue” (processed veal, cream, egg whites), to form a sheet which was then baked and became a sort of wall which was fit into ring moulds. It came out absolutely delicious.

Along with the main dish we cooked we observed Chef Rudolphe create one of my favorite looking plates of all time.

Pickled mackerel, with cucumber gelee and a cream and yogurt, umm thing. The brown on the plate is a reduction of the fish bones and a bit of soy sauce. The plate looked better before he put the vinegar “chips”, but still cool nonetheless.

Dessert was strawberry and spice infused red wine poached figs, with a cocoa “crisp” and yoghurt sorbet. Absolutely amazing, and for how it tasted, surprisingly healthy.

So, there is the first day of Week 5 in Superior Cuisine. I’ll leave you with a few cool photos I made messing around with my new camera.

A shot from my balcony, learning how to adjust aperture and shutter speeds

Light Painting… I’ll definitely be experimenting with this more!

And an effect using photoshop to make real life objects look like toys or miniatures, click this one to get the full size. This is fun!

Hope you enjoyed, and look forward to more soon!

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Last Week of Intermediate Cuisine.

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, I’ve been pretty busy in the kitchen and enjoying the small amount of free time I get otherwise. We have been cooking up some really good dishes though, and it is quite amazing just how much more efficient we have become as a group. Things that used to take an hour now take 30 minutes… Things like vegetable prep have become less a chore, and more a robotic process. Nonetheless the daily 3 hour kitchen sessions seem shorter and shorter.

I’ll just post some photos and brief descriptions of the dishes we have been cooking, and I will post a bigger update when the term is over next Monday.

Firstly Frog’s Legs on potato pancakes.

Tastes like chicken.... and amphibian.

Continuing the frog theme. A new way to butcher chicken. I need to do this with a turkey one Thanksgiving.

Chef put the eyes.... Not me!

We had to make a really stuffy classic French platter decorated by applying a blank layer of milk gelatin, hand cut veggies for oh so purdy decoration, and a layer of stock gelatin made the day previous. This acted to seal in our decoration (all inedible by the way), on top of which we served slices of deboned whole chicken stuffed with a minced pork/cream mixture, and seared foie gras rolled in pistachio…… COLD (again inedible) haha. Leave it to the frogs I say.

My platter de'resistance

And others (far better than mine) from my classmates

While it was entertaining, I am really glad I will never be making this dish again (barring some unseen resurgence of retro French techniques.)

Well, that’s it for now. Superior Cuiisine is fast approaching with the promise of more “Interntational” dishes, meaning hopefully some Italian and Spanish influence. I will also most likely be doing an internship for the Prep. Kitchen at Cordon Bleu, which will provide me with both more experience, as well as further accreditation.

More updates to come soon. C’ya then.

 

Posted in Cordon Bleu

A Bangkok Sunset

Just wanted to share the amazing pics taken today from my friend’s new apartment.

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Restaurant Review: Gaggan

I’ve been meaning to get around to this for a while. my first restaurant review. I am no food critic, yet i thought it might be fun to criticize someone’s food besides my own for once, hehe.

A few months back, good ole’ Mom was in town, and as per tradition we set aside a night to sample some of the more gourmet (read pricey) food that Bangkok has to offer. Having recently acquired my copy of Modernist Cuisine, and becoming borderline fascinated with the world of molecular gastronomy, I suggested we go to Gaggan.

Gaggan is run by an Indian chef who staged in the laboratory (yes it is called a laboratory) of molecular gastronomy pioneer Ferran Adria, of El bulli fame. El Bulli was the epicentre of modern cooking, and received over 2 million reservation requests a year, of which they sat no more than 1,000. It recently closed, but the legacy it has had on cooking with so-called modernist techniques has changed the culinary world as we know it.

Gaggan is tucked away in a quiet sidestreet off of Langsuan road, an area filled with fancy eateries and high rise mega-condos. This makes the actual building housing the restaurant all the more impressive as it is a charming old wooden house.

Am I in Bangkok?

 

The courtyard

As you can see the atmosphere is quite nice, and you can already feel it tugging at your wallet before you even get in the door. Once in the door we were greeted by about 8 immaculate looking waiters all dressed in pure black. This was not like anything I had seen in Bangkok before, or really anywhere else for that matter. I must say the service was outstanding, if a bit forced.

Anyways onto the food, which I was extremely excited about. We chose to try the 12 course tasting menu (2,800 THB ++). The menu included a huge array of other dishes all seeming to have an Indian slant, but I had read that chef Gaggan used only the best available ingredients for the tasting menu, which changed weekly on the basis of ingredient availability.

First to arrive was the, I’m paraphrasing here, Yoghurt Orbs. These are spheres of yoghurt spiced with Indian spices, which are dropped into a solution which instantly encapsulates them in a spherical membrane of gel. Think egg yolks and you get the idea of the of how these looked, and reacted to touch.

When this thing entered my mouth, I was confused and then shocked as it literally exploded and coated my whole pallate with a cool and refreshing spice. At this point I was in full food nerd mode, and couldn’t wait for the next dish which promptly arrived.

This was WEIRD. Liguid nitrogen-frozen corn kernels, with citrus oil, in edible plastic….

yeh-huh

This was like something you would make as your last meal on a dying interstellar space ship when you ran out of all but corn, orange peels, and biodegradable toilet bags. It wasn’t necessarily pleasant, but definitely something that could spark good conversation at the dinner table.

The next “dish” was a winner though. Vodka and Cointreau foam, with freeze dried berries.

This was a new experience for me. I had read all about foams in Modernist Cuisine. The effect it had on the alcohol was that of removing all the harshness of hard liquor, while still giving that pleasant burn. A very cool and well executed drink.

Next was a standard Foie Gras on toast. I am worried that I am calling Foie Gras standard now. I have eaten it about 4 times in the past week haha.

The next dish was probably my favorite of the night. Too bad there was about three bites on the plate! Paneer Ravioli with truffled peas, and frozen white truffle oil.

Next, was some fancy Fish and Chips, which was a lowlight as they were poorly fried, and pretty greasy.

The really cool thing about this dish was that vegetable on the top left of the plate. It is some sort of succulent, and tasted exactly like fresh oysters! Obviously it is very expensive, considering the portion we received. Either that or the chef was smoking his own stash.

Next was a cocktail of passionfruit with a packet of citrus oil in that edible plastic again. I have to say though, this time the oil worked so as to coat your mouth and give a really cool dimension to the acidity of the passionfruit.

So we finally inched closer to the entree portion of the meal, and while we weren’t full, we were definitely mentally overstimulated by everything that had just been put in front of us. here is where things get a little closer to “normal”. We were brought what looked like a bowl of curry with an ominous white orb in the center. We were informed by our very knowledgable waitress that this was an Indian curry with an egg that had been cooked at 58 Celsius for 90 minutes. As you can see the consistency of the curry itself is quite akin to a perfectly cooked egg yolk, and the two matched absolutely amazingly. The yolk cut through the pungent curry to offer a richness and spice that only an Indian grandma could muster.

Next was tandoori chicken with a lemon foam. Again, a fancy technique used to heighten an already outstanding Indian dish.

The final entree was an absolutely top-of-the-line prawn curry, with naan right out of the tandoor. Learning as much as I have about the subtleties of French cooking, I don’t believe I will ever be able to cook Indian food to a passable standard. The amount of spices and timing and overall intuition that is involved in Indian cuisine is, sadly it seems, reserved for it’s owners only.

And finally came dessert. A very cool (pun intended) white chocolate cream that had been dripped into liquid nitrogen. it literally smoked like dry-ice when you blew on it. It was accompanied by an odd rosewater gumdrop thing that was not really necessary, but not unwelcome either.

We walked out of the restaurant full, but not the overwhelming, stomach trembling “Oh god what will tomorrow bring?” sort of full that usually accompanies an Indian food overload. While the portions were small for the most part, aside from the curries, they were numerous and greatly varied in flavor. This was definitely a meal to be remembered.

Overall i found Gaggan to be an amazing experience. One that you would pay a whole lot more for in any other bustling metropolis. The food was thought-provoking, conversation enhancing, and delicious (except that stupid corn). A definite must go if you are interested in the new world of molecular gastronomy, and are willing to dish out a few Sheckels (6000 THB for 2 including drinks ~$200.)

Gaggan’s website can be found here: http://www.eatatgaggan.com/

I hope you enjoyed my first restaurant review. Please comment and let me know. It will give me an excuse to go eat more fancy food!

 

 

 

Posted in Restaurant Reviews Tagged ,

Brittany Lobster, Bordeaux Rib Eye

As each practical goes by, we have been steadily moving through the 22 regions of France, using ingredients found locally in each region. For example, last week we had lobster, live imported from Brittany.

He had no idea what was coming for him

 

But he met a worthy end.

Today we had Ribeye “steaks”, I quote because they were more the size of cinder blocks, imported from Bordeaux. We cooked them with a red wine, and veal stock reduction, which was finished off with bone marrow to thicken. As sides there were candied baby shallots, wine braised shallots, spinach and these potato “Cannelonis”. Nobody got these right as we had to make the base (potato, egg yolk, cream, chopped herbs), roll it into a log with cling film, chill them to be solid, and cut cylinders and brown them in butter. They were very mushy and pretty much came out looking like slop all around. Oh well, can’t win em all’ right?

would have been a beautiful plate, if not for those stupid potatoes...

Tomorrow the recipe calls for HALF A KILO OF FOIE GRAS!!!!!! Will be interesting to see how it is prepared. It’s not really foie gras sort of weather as it has been over 40 C everyday, but life could be worse I guess hehehe. Here is a view from my 7th floor balcony.

I think that means it's dinner time.

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