Le Cordon Bleu - Instruction #2; Practical #2

Another complete meal. No specific origin this time.

Instruction #2

• Shellfish soup with garlic glaze
• Savoy cabbage filled with salmon, red wine sauce
• Wild strawberry gratin

Taking the recipes in consumption order. Fresh mussels, cockles, clams and scallops lined the bottom of a bowl. Topped with a cream-based soup that was made from the jus of the mollusks. Drizzled with a garlic glaze and briefly broiled. Fantastic. All around.

Saint-Jacques scallops are in season now. And the biggest scallops easily available. Inside the shell lies both the scallop, noix de Saint-Jacques, and the coral. An orange-colored piece of meat. Second only to the noix. As for the mussels, cockles, and clams they were some generic variety. Not worth mentioning by the chef.

Avec wind-storm - he's not the cleanest chef - Chef Tivet prepared the main course. The title, Savoy cabbage filled with salmon, sounds like a stuffing. It was more of a roll. First a piece of cabbage laid flat. Topped with a salmon fillet that enveloped the filling – vegetables and bacon. Covered with plastic and pulled into a ball. Secured with a tie at the top. Then poached – almost sous-vide – in boiling water.

The red wine sauce was great during instruction. Not so much in practical. Since mine was, très bonne, during practical, I was led to think that this morning’s starvation helped me look past the off-putting flavor.

Simply. Red wine, shallots, veal stock, and butter for the sauce. With a lot of salt and a lot of reduction.

Not feeling my A-game today, practical still went off without a hitch. Très bonne all around. Chef Cotte – an egocentric, loud-mouth, wild one – oversaw our group. While he’s made many students cry, most of us like him. His main focus is pastry. But, spills over to the cuisine side for some practicals. Oh. And he’s also a DJ on the side – weird, huh?!!?


Wrapping up instruction today Chef whisked, folded, mixed, and melted the dessert. Wild strawberry gratin. Funnily put by the Chef, wild strawberries that have been cultivated.

A custard-like mixture of lemon juice, heavy cream, eggs, and flour. Added a bit of gelatin to solidify the texture. Once assembled – custard on bottom, strawberries in the center, topped with more custard – the dessert went into the freezer.

The end result looked good, but all my surrounding students disliked the flavor. Perhaps with vanilla, or at least a little less lemon.

Tomorrow brings a shorter day with only instruction at 12:30 p.m. Perhaps I can finally catch up on my wash!