Le Cordon Bleu - Lesson 12

Today was probably one of the more challenging days at Le Cordon Bleu, as the course slowly starts to introduce the creation of several components to a meal to be plated at once. The menu was Foie de veau saute au Lard - (Calf Liver with Bacon), served with epinard sautes a l'ail clouttered (spinach with garlic) and oignons fit ala francaise (french style fried onions).  The complication came in with the different methods of cooking needed simultaneaously, including shallow frying for the calf liver, sauting for the spinach, deep frying for the fried onions and reduction for our jus.



Peeling the liver was not only time consuming, but pretty bloody and gross, there is a thin skin, which needs to be carefully removed by pinching it between your fingers, getting your thumbs under the skin and slowly ripping it off.  In this process you board gets very bloody.  Also, of course, liver is not a favourite for everybody, in fact many of the students in the class wouldn't even taste it during the demonstation, and their loss really because it was quite good.  Later that evening, once home and serving two portions out of my days cooking for Ryan and myself, Ryan tried very hard to eat his portion but only made it about half way before he gave up.  I quite happy finished it up.  Liver is a great source of protein and in fact very good for you.





The French Style onion rings are delicious!  They are just like Spur onion rings (for you saffers) and they crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.  The spinach was great too, you just need to watch out for the water that runs out of the spinach, as the green liquid doesn't look so great on a plate.






For desert we made Bavarois ala vanille (vanilla bavarois - said "bav-wah"), which is an Anglaise (see lesson 9) set with gelantine, or aka a cold milk and cream based set desert, served with a sauce au cafe (coffee anglaise sauce) and in case you haven't had today's heart attack, we'll throw in some creme chantilly (sweet vanilla whipped cream).  Perhaps a little to creamy for my taste and for weight watchers, but Ryan had no problem gobbling that up.


Sadly, I had another injury today, (ARG stupid grater) while grating the nutmeg into the spinach, i accidently got my finger involved in the grater process (oooowwww :(  )  unyay me!