I Stink Like Fish: First Published 1/28/08

Well, things started off pretty well today. I got my grades back from the previous term, or rather, I got to actually see my project and my practical examination. I scored a 95 on my practical because my knife cuts weren’t sharp on my Pommes Persillade (basically hash brown-style potatoes, cut into medium dice served with minced parsley and garlic). The flavor profile was spot on, but I’ll admit the cuts could’ve used some work. I don’t know if this is a problem or not, that I knew I could afford to have less than perfect cuts because everything else was going to come out great. Nonetheless, I’ll keep working on my knife skills and plan on scoring nothing less than 100 on my third practical less than four weeks away. My project was to write four chicken recipes: Braised Chicken Rioja; Chicken Roulade, with Baby Spinach & Duxelle of Chanterelle Mushrooms; Sautéed Chicken Breast, with a Shallot-Cream Sauce and Pan Fried Sage & Chili Chicken. I knocked them out of the park, although that’s not saying much because most people got an A or close to it; but suffice it to say, I don’t think our previous instructor would’ve cloned too many of his other students...or basically said as much himself.

Things took a turn when it came time to make fish fume (stock) and I had to gut a couple pre-fabricated fish, rinse their heads out and prep them for a pot of stock. Our stock came out super-tasty, and the resulting soup was great, but rubber gloves or no rubber gloves, when you’re pulling the guts out of anything your hands aren’t exactly going to smell like lilacs and sunshine. Not to mention, I got into a bit of a “discussion” with our new (who was incidentally our first) instructor about the consistency of my dough for a tart…that was fun. So to sum up, got good grades, happy about that. Smell like fish and got into it with my instructor, not so happy about that. What the hell, tomorrow is a new day!

More on my four chicken recipes tomorrow and I’ll also tell you about my first foray into the world of marmalade.