Le Cordon Bleu - Instruction #22; Practical #22

Instruction #22

• Warm oysters with Muscadet wine
• Roast duckling with turnips
• Warm orange and Cointreau soufflé

Raw oysters are delicious. Warm oysters gratifying. Cooked oysters horrendous. Disgusting. Disagreeable. Rubber. Tire. Crap.

Lesson? Don’t overcook oysters. Trick? Place the oysters in a small sauce pan with poaching liquid. Put on high heat with your finger in the pan. When the temperature is just about too much for your finger to handle, take the oysters off the heat. Out of the poaching liquid. And they’ll be perfectly cooked.

Chef Lesourd led Saturday’s instruction. He’s great in the practical kitchen. Not so much for demonstration. Giving little time for the translator to do her job, portions of the lesson are lost. He’s slow – dragging the day out to the bitter end. And he’s a bit erratic. We were all getting restless by the end. Saturday mid-day probably didn’t help our patience either.

After the oysters we were exposed to some more turned vegetables. This time, turnips. Still unclear as to why France does this, we all sort of grumbled under our breath.

Roasted duck – possibly my favorite protein – accompanied the turnips. In the exact manner we roasted chicken, the duck was prepared.


Finally, a sweet soufflé for dessert. In honor of Le Cordon Bleu’s president and CEO, André J. Cointreau, the soufflé was flavored with the liquor of his namesake. An orange-y essence filled the room as the soufflé rose in the oven.

This practical was all too familiar. Basically the same recipe as Lesson #9, poulet rôti. Substituting duck for chicken. For the first time, the recipe was routine. Something that I knew by heart. Barely needing the recipe. It went smooth and without issues. Chef Stril suggested a little less reduction on the jus next time. Otherwise, très bonne.