All jokes aside. The goal of today’s dish was colorless. Probably the most unappetizing attribute to a dish. White. White. White.White sauce. Served on white meat. Accompanied with white rice. Morsels of white mushrooms. And white onions. White. White. White.
Blanquette de veau à l’anciennce, traditional veal stew, is served with a roux-based sauce. Roux is a compound of melted butter and flour. The function is to thicken sauces. Sauces, essentially, are melted butter and flour (roux) and some sort of a liquid (i.e. veal stock, water, and/or cream).
You need to cook off the flour prior to adding liquid. Otherwise the sauce will taste of flour. At a certain point the roux will turn a hazelnut color. This is used only for brown sauces. Today’s instruction was to take the roux long enough to cook off the flour, but not too far to darken the sauce. Again, today’s goal was white.I went a bit too far and my sauce was barely darker than it should have been. I didn’t make it to the hazelnut stage. Some where in between. Nonetheless, dark enough for Chef Philippe to comment on.
The rest of today’s practical was balanced. Nicely cooked veal, but some darker rice mixed in with the white rice. The sauce had a nice consistency, but the maximum level of salt. (I took that to mean that the seasoning was good, but just one more granular of salt would have pushed it over the edge.) Overall, a good day.The dish tastes better than it looks (I am eating it for lunch), but too bland to serve to others.
During Instruction #19 Chef Poupard also pulled salmon marinated with dill and a sugar tart out of his hat.
The salmon – raw – served with a citrus marinade is similar to ceviche. This is called a direct marinade.
From what the other students were telling me, the tart was delicious. How could butter-puff-pastry and caramelized sugar not be good?Instruction #19 – Balanced Menu
- Salmon marinated with dill
- Traditional veal stew
- Pilaf rice
- Sweet yeast dough: sugar tart
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