Le Cordon Bleu - Practical #7

Getting back to school. Practical #7 went much better than the previous. No, near emergencies, due to the stomach flu.

We had Chef Clergue, same Chef as practical #6. I wanted to redeem my work ethic. So I paid extra attention.

I started with preparing the fish. First fin, scale, gut, and fillet sea bream.

Squid. Pull off the head, cut and reserve the tentacles. Fish out the feather – long cartilage that helps it keep its shape. Gut. And remove outer skin.

Langoustines. Disengaged arms/claws reserved for sauce. Shelled tail meat cut into brunoise. Mixed with carrot, celery and stirred into cooked risotto.

A simple vegetable bouillon was prepared with thinly sliced onions, carrots, celery. Saffron and langoustines carcasses were added for flavor.

Final stage was stuffing squid with risotto. Quickly pan-frying just like the sea bream. And shallow frying tentacles for decoration.

Chef liked my presentation. Commented that the sea bream was cooked at the maximum. And the bouillon could have used a bit more seasoning. Squid, risotto were to his liking.

Another day in the kitchen.