Rattle Those Pots

July 4, 2005

We’re now immersed in Week 3 of Intermediate Cuisine, and by now I think we all understand why the chefs seemed to be amused during the times their pupils thought Beginning Cuisine was challenging. We thought they might just all be telling us Intermediate was the most difficult of the three either to scare us, or to make sure we didn’t get lazy.

Now, however, we’re set straight. And our startled realization only seems to encourage the chefs’ torment.

Each day when we get home now, we look about as awful as we feel. We smell like smoke and onions and strange meats. The combination of this, and Ottawa’s HEAT and humidity (who knew?), make two or three showers per day necessary.

At school, formerly peppy, friendly voices in the kitchen and locker rooms have been replaced by, at best, droning, and – on bad days in the kitchen – pretty cranky grunts and growls. And the more tired and overwhelmed we all get, the more genuinely entertained all of the chefs seem to be.

We had our favorite, Chef Filliodeau, as our instructor for the first two weeks of Intermediate, but Chef Frederic Fauth, our prime instructor for this term, arrived back from France today, just in time to run through what we’re told will be one of the most headache-inducing dishes we’ll have to do at Cordon Bleu (partly due to so many things going on simultaneously, and partly due to absolutely absurd time constraints). For additional context: this is the dish one of the people in our Intermediate class, who is having to repeat Intermediate all over again, failed for the final exam.

“TODAY,” Chef Fauth bellowed, “WE WILL MAKE THE STUFFED FAISAN.” After looking at my syllabus to see which dish “faisan” was in, and what it even meant (it’s pheasant), we all started to sink a bit in our seats as he continued:

“It is important to know the faisan is one of the most difficult dishes you will need to do at Cordon Bleu.” Chef Fauth paused for effect, and continued, “Yes, I like to give the stress.” He laughed merrily at his own little joke.

During our bicycle ride home today, we both agreed that today would serve as a fairly accurate description of how we are now spending our days. We thought folks might get a kick out of this “A Day in the Life” update, or maybe we just thought that by finding the humor in it, we wouldn’t go outside after dinner and jump off of the canal bridge.

Bear in mind that each day in demonstration class, we do several dishes. In our Practical class following, though, where we reproduce dishes for a grade each day, we do one or two of the bigger ones. The point of Intermediate, we’re told, is to necessitate multi-tasking under time constraints while including as many different techniques as possible in one dish.

For context, the recipe for our Practical today, which several of us have dubbed “The Unpleasant Pheasant,” is below. We were given a whopping 2 1/2 hours to prep, cook, and present everything. Just skim so you get an idea of what was involved, but the entertaining stuff follows the recipe.

Ballottine de faisan gourmande
(Stuffed pheasant with vegetables)

1 (800 g) whole pheasant
5 ml cognac

Farce (stuffing)
120 g veal
1 egg white
200 ml cream

Complément de la farce (addition to farce)
50 g pearl barley, cooked
30 g pickled ox tongue
150 g chicken liver
25 g butter
50 g pistachio nuts

Cuisson
300 g mirepoix
100 ml white wine
1 liter veal stock
100 ml Xérès
1 bouquet garni

Garniture
4 pieces artichoke
1 liter blanc de cuisson
1 lemon
12 pearl onions
20 g sugar
50 g butter
30 g carrot (brunoise)
20 g morels
30 g shallots
50 ml cream

Finition de la sauce (to finish sauce)
50 g foie gras

Cook pearl barley in salted water, uncovered, 15-20 mins until tender. Drain, rinse, cool.

(For this next step, deboning, what the chef wanted here was basically a whole bird split open but still joined together everywhere but the one split - and completely without bones or cartilage (in other words, we couldn’t cut the bird into pieces). Just picture a pheasant that has been run over perfectly flat. What makes it tricky is that we’re doing so many cuts around the bones and cartilage, but if we cut any of the meat, we’ll leave a hole in what will eventually be rolled, stuffed, boneless pheasant (causing the stuffing to fall out). And if we cut any skin, we can’t brown it before cooking and will lose points for presentation, and since the ripped skin also can’t protect the meat, we’d also lose points for flavor.)

Deboning:
While pearl barley is cooking, debone chicken (remove heart and neck first; save neck for sauce). Remove spine, press meat carefully from ribs and wishbone; be careful not to tear any skin. Cut wings at first joint, then remove remaining bone from each side, being careful not to tear meat or skin. Move to legs; remove top bone from each side. Cut slit 1” from bottom of main bone; carefully slit meat to other end of bone and remove. Remove any cartilage by carefully brushing down with dull side of knife and twisting. Pull out any remaining cartilage throughout the meat. Save all bones and scraps. Flatten out bird further with a mallet.

Marinate flattened pheasant in 5 ml cognac.

Start sauce:
Heat medium pan, then heat thin layer of oil. Add pheasant bones and scraps; brown. While bones are browning, prep mirepoix and bouquet-garni.

Deglacer (deglaze) with 100 ml Xérès. Add 100 ml white wine and 1 liter veal stock. Boil quickly, then simmer and skim repeatedly.

Farce fine:
Cut up chicken liver into 1-bite-size pieces. Heat 25 g butter in small skillet; lightly brown outside of chicken liver. Drain; cool.

Remove skin from oxtail tongue, then julienne.

Cut 120 g flattened, raw veal into bite-sized pieces. Process until no large pieces remain. Add 1 egg white, process until blended.

Add 200 ml cream and process. While cream is blending, get bowl of ice water ready.

Pass the processed veal mix through a tamis with dough scraper. Reserve enough of tamised mix to make 4 cannels (later), and salt this set-aside veal mix (or cannels will fall apart when I go to simmer).

Move remaining tamised veal mix on top of bowl of ice water. Add cooked and cooled pearl barley, julienned ox tongue, pistachio, browned liver, and seasoning. Blend, keeping on ice water the whole time.

Roll/Brown the bird:
Pheasant goes skin side down on parchment. Cover any holes or tears with meat scraps. Add chilled farce mix 3” from ends (widthwise), so that each different part of the pheasant will be in every slice when I roll and cut to serve. Roll up carefully, tuck in/under any lose ends. String around top and bottom, string around sides, then 6 string loops end to end (not too tight). Make sure form/shape is even.

Heat cocotte and 50 ml oil. Don’t burn, but make hot enough that pheasant skin won’t stick to cocotte and come off. Pan-fry exterior of pheasant until outside is a golden brown. Flip, then brown remaining 2 sides. Golden brown on outside, but don’t overcook since bird is still going in oven.

Decanter (remove bird). Degraisser (get rid off extra fat). Cocotte back on stove, and pheasant back in. Add skimmed stock, as well as all bones, mirepoix, etc. Liquid should only go 2/3 up the side of pheasant roll. Season. Cover cocotte. Into oven at 400F for 45 minutes before testing.

Vegetables:
While pheasant is in oven, peel 4 artichokes and turn. Rub with lemon (to prevent blackening). Prep blanc de cuisson (cooking liquid; water, flour, lemon, salt). Artichokes into blanc de cuisson, cover with parchment, cover parchment with lid. 15 mins.

While artichokes cooking, peel pearl onions. Glacer a blond (water, sugar, butter, salt; careful, not blanc or brun). Cover with parchment, cover parchment with lid. 8 mins, then check. Not too brown.

While artichokes and pearl onions are cooking, slice morels. Rinse 2-3 times until dirt/grit is gone.

Brunoise (make tiny, uniform cubes) 30 g peeled carrots, and ciseler (tiny, even bits) shallot.

Melt 10 g butter in small pan, and suer shallot (cook for a couple of minutes so liquid comes out and shallot sweetens). Add brunoised carrot; cook for a couple of minutes, then add morel. Cook until carrots are done. Remove 2 Tbsp or so of cooked carrots and shallots, and ½ morel. Set aside. Add 50 ml cream to pan with remaining mix. Season. Reduce so liquid becomes quite thick.

Take reserved Tablespoons carrots and shallots and add to farce mix I salted and set aside earlier. Take ½ morel and brunoise. Add this to same mixture. Heat water to simmer. Make 4 cannels with this mix and simmer 3 mins. Flip; simmer 3 minutes on second side. Carefully remove and set in ice water. Save hot water in case I need to reheat before serving.

Remove pheasant and check doneness (back in oven if juice still pink). When done, remove bird from cocotte; move to cutting board.

For sauce, run stock in cocotte through a chinois (fine strainer) and into medium pan. Simmer and reduce, skimming fat. Cut foie gras a little larger than brunoise, and add to reduced sauce.

While sauce is reducing, cut strings on bird, and check all veggies. Heat serving tray and saucier. Cut bird at an angle into 8 even slices. Overlap slightly on ½ of tray. Space artichokes opposite on tray; cover each artichoke with glacered pearl onions, then cover onions with cream/carrot/shallot/morel mix. Carefully move heated cannels in between artichokes. Garnish with parsley.

Skim reduced sauce with foie gras once more with paper towel; move to saucier, and serve with tray.

* * * * * * * * * *

Monday morning

The alarm goes off at 6:20. Since I’ve woken up for the past two days thinking I have class but haven’t, I do the opposite today. I’m none too thrilled when I get The Nudge from Thom and realize it’s Monday, not Sunday, and we do have an 8:15 class across town.

Twenty minutes later, I wonder for the umpteenth time why I’m blow-drying my hair, since A) it’s going to be all helmet-head and sweaty by the time I’ve biked across town in an hour, and B) it’s going to be kitchen hat-head and sweaty ALL DAY after that, trapped in a hairnet and chef’s hat (we all have to wear hair nets – even the bald guys). A few of the girls in the locker room and I even tried to figure out a way to arrange our hair under our tight hairnets and hats that might make it a wee bit more “presentable” once we leave school each day (especially for days when we have to run errands and can’t go home to shower – for the second or third time – beforehand). No dice. One of us looked a little like Eddie Munster, and my hair wound up looking disturbingly like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

Thom and I both run around the apartment, finding aprons, dishtowels, knives we brought home and the like, bumping into each other and hollering questions, as Charlie just sits quietly, his head moving back and forth like he’s watching a tennis match. By the time we’ve wheeled our loaded-down bikes out to the back porch, Charlie knows “his time has come.” He plants his hind quarters on the floor, and absolutely WILL NOT MOVE.

This is when our daily ritual game of “Charlie Soccer” starts. One of us, usually holding bike helmet, bag and keys, nudges him gently forward with a foot, and the entire time Charlie just slides (since he refuses to move at all and is still planted on the wood floor). He had figured out earlier that if he leaned a little to the right, we’d push him far enough right that he could quickly bolt into the bedroom if he timed things right, but now we’ve got his number; we close the bedroom door before we begin playing Charlie Soccer each morning. Charlie just shoots us a scornful glance as we head out. The treats we sometimes bring him home don’t make up for having to wait around for us to make them, apparently.

We hop on our bikes (which we are constantly teased about; they stupidly match, since we were each too stubborn to give in and make the other get a bike we liked less). [Actually, Jen couldn’t see the merit of allowing me to plunk down more $$$ on a titanium-framed, gold plated Tour special. Bah! - Thom] We pedal along toward the canal, glad it isn’t quite as humid as it’s been; the heat index broke 100 several times last week, with humidity every bit as bad as DC at its worst. (Ottawa, we learned, has one of the widest winter-summer temperature differentials in the world.)

Once we arrive, we fight for space on the bike rack to lock up, and drag our sweaty selves down to the locker rooms so we can dress in heavy chef gear, socks and 10-pound shoes. Why is this funny? Because there are 15 people in our class this session (the cut-off point for separating into 2 sections is 16), and that means that every day in the summer during our Practical classes, there are 30 flattops and a bunch of ovens cranked on.

We’ve all just started laughing because we’re DRENCHED by one hour into the class every day now. Some folks, like Thom, get sweaty and sort of pale, but then there are the Red People. I’ve earned the less-than-flattering nickname “Tomato Chick,” while a classmate, Michael, has been dubbed “Lobster Face.”

Following our three-hour demonstration with Chef Fauth, we have to head for the third-floor kitchen. The kitchen, while well-equipped (and with fantastic marble counters which are great for pastry), has come to be known as “The Death Room” because it’s so much hotter than the second-floor kitchens. It’s especially noticeable on the 90+ days in Ottawa. (Today, when Thom checked the reading half an hour after the ovens had been turned off, the kitchen temperature was still hovering close to 100F.)

Since our Intermediate Practical class has 15 people (our Beginner only had 8 per Practical), folks are also pretty aggressive about getting the “best” ingredients first. Some of the younger fellows also bellow “BEHIND!!!!” at the top of their lungs every single time they take a step near anyone’s station. I’m all for the safety warning in case I turn around with a pan of hot water, but this seems like a comic bit of overkill a la Food TV.

I’m pretty sure everyone had a little trouble completely deboning the pheasant without tearing any of the meat. The fact that people kept holding up their flat “sheet of meat” and making Hannibal Lecter jokes didn’t particularly help; every time I was ready to cut again, I’d start laughing. After class, Thom informed me that his pheasant had torn and “more closely resembled a pile of re-formed vomit.” Couldn’t help laughing at that one…

While peeling the dreaded artichokes (we all hate recipes with artichokes because they’re so time-consuming and it’s so easy to cut yourself), I wind up ripping open a blister I had on my finger from a stove burn a few days earlier. When I have to rub a lemon half all over the prepped artichokes (to keep them from turning dark brown) — ouch! It stings.

No problem. I stick a Band-Aid on, and I’m off to make the cannels (in above recipe). One problem, though; I’ve forgotten to add salt to the mix. I don’t panic, thinking I can just season them after I’ve simmered them. At about that same moment, I stupidly look down into my pan and notice that my neat, tri-sided shapes have turned into floating sheets of dissolving goo; apparently, the salt was needed for more than seasoning. (Without salt, the ingredients, it turns out, morph into a substance resembling pond scum once they hit the simmering water.) By this point, I’m already short on time, so I can’t start over.

Meanwhile, Thom, across the kitchen, has dropped his wooden spoon in the middle of a gas burner (they’re deep, and covered by heavy grating), and is trying to fish it out, beneath the constricting, hot grate, before it bursts into flame. “All the while,” he told me afterward, “this thing is shooting out heat like a damn rocketship.”

He manages to avoid burns and fish out the offending spoon, at which point he hears me cuss because…MY OVEN PILOT LIGHT HAS SHUT OFF at some point between that moment and the 40 minutes beforehand when I’d lit it. Since I don’t think I can wing it and turn in a special “Sushi Bird,” I throw my cocotte into my countermate’s still-lit oven.

Thom recently confided that he battles a daily fear that he’s “gonna drop the cooked meat each day on the floor ten minutes before it’s time to serve.” I always saw him walking around with his tray, warily eyeing the tray and any suspicious-looking pupils hovering about, but never really knew what that was all about.

I did notice that today, when he cautiously ambled through my section to present his dish to Fauth up front, his eyes furtively darting from tray to floor to student and back to tray again, his tray was artichoke-free.

“Hey, how come you didn’t have to do the artichokes?”

“Screw the artichokes,” came the unceremonious response, as he continued shuffling steadily forward, with the darting eyes of a crazy man.

One thing that didn’t affect Thom today was the Voice of Ping. Ping is an incredibly nice student from Singapore. Thom has cooked next to him several times, and likes him very much. But poor Thom has…reactions…to the sound of Ping’s voice. Remember the “Seinfeld” where Kramer has attacks every time he hears the sound of Mary Hart on “Entertainment Tonight?” Thom seems to be having the same issue, but with poor Ping. What makes it so funny is that Ping is the last person in the world whose voice I’d think would cause that. It’s just sort of quiet and neutral.

Thom had finished filling a big pot with hot water last week from one of the faucets right near the stovetop (these particular ones come from pipes above the stove, and have no sink). Ping walked by Thom, said “Behind!”, and Thom proceeded to just let go of his pot full of water. He didn’t fumble with it or anything, and it didn’t slip; that’s partly why he thought it was so funny.

“It was like his voice just made me completely freeze up, and forget where I even was, and I just let go of the entire pot,” he said.

Apparently so, because the next day, Ping walked behind Thom again, piped up, “Behind” – and made Thom drop a second pot full of water. Now everyone’s trying to get Ping to make Thom drop things just by speaking, but there were no episodes today.

So by the end of today’s class:

And the entire time, Fauth is striding through the steaming kitchen, positively screaming in his thick, French accent:

“YOU ARE BEHIND!! IF YOUR BIRD IS NOT IN ZE OVEN BY NOW YOU ARE LATE!!”

“TEN MINUTES!! YOU WANT ZE CUSTOMER TO STARVE?!”

“ONE MINUTE TO SERVE!!”

“SERVE!!”

It’s more stressful this time around. We’re graded every day, so that’s part of it, but now timing is so different, and there are so many pieces to each dish. Starting tomorrow, when Fauth yells “SERVE!!” we literally have to serve whatever we have at that moment. So if I have a dough as a side dish that I needed 12 minutes to bake and it’s still in a bowl in the fridge, I turn in the bowl of dough, and that’s what I’m graded on.

The funny thing is, we don’t really notice a lot of what’s going on because the kitchen’s big, it’s so busy and crowded, and we just can’t pay attention to much else. It’s always entertaining to get updates from everybody afterward, though.

You know what, though? When you read through these stories, it makes it sound like it’s awful – but that’s just the thing. It’s not at all. No matter how cranky or hot or cut up or impatient I get, I still love it. I feel lucky about that. It’s cool to learn something new and interesting every day. Will I always be able to do this? Doubtful; several chefs have told us you’re lucky to get to your 40s before you leave the restaurant scene and go to teach cooking, write or consult, and given my wobbly knees, I’d say that’s fair.

But you couldn’t trade me making somebody smile when they try something I’ve made for anything. And even dishes that don’t turn out well – I’ll lay odds that once you realize the mistake you made, you don’t make it again. It’s pretty damn cool knowing I’ll always be able to cook just for fun and enjoyment, too.

A drawback is the level of ego that’s involved. There seems to be an absurd “rock star” mentality about cooking now, particularly with the younger cooks, who seem to watch waaaay too much “Iron Chef.” I think that, partly due to the popularity of Food Network-type TV shows, people have some misconceptions about cooking. I’d argue that if folks are looking to cook for a living due to the lure of fame or fortune, or this bizarre notion of “glamour,” they’re completely removed from reality.

It has to be something you do because you love the actual cooking, in spite of being red-faced, sweaty, and just tired, in spite of cuts and burns and embarrassing errors. It’s things like the smell of basil on your fingertips after you’ve torn it just making you happy. Or if you go to a big outdoor market just to go – not because it’s a practical errand. If you get excited at the idea of a completely new sauce, or cooking for a table of hungry friends, or even getting a funky new kitchen gadget that you’ll wear out in a year – it’s those things that make the difference.

This growing fixation on the “celebrity” factors of chefing extends to other areas. One of our chefs at CB, Chef Ludovic, told us once that many of the top-selling cookbooks are fooling consumers. People will pick up copies of expensive cookbooks by celebrity chefs, and maybe get around to trying one or two of the recipes.

“Hmm,” they’ll think, when the recipe doesn’t turn out at all like the picture, “I wonder what I did wrong.”

Ludovic argues that in many cases, the person who bought the book likely did nothing wrong – according to the cookbook author’s instructions, at any rate. Because no chef in his right mind is ever going to list all of the ingredients needed for a recipe. “If he does that, then how can he charge $40 for that same dish in his restaurant, when now people can pay $25 for the book and make it at home all they want?” he asked.

Ludovic gave several examples: A recipe can leave out several spices that give the famous dish it’s particular taste, or it could be something as simple as leaving out baking soda or butter, or calling for milk when what you really need is cream or buttermilk. Or, a recipe may include all of the ingredients, but may not tell you that for this recipe to work, the dough must be extremely cold, or the butter has to be room temperature, or be sure to only use this particular kind of oil instead of butter, and don’t let it smoke, or the dish will be ruined and may not hold together, etc.

All of those things can make a huge difference, and then the home cook is left saying, “Why did my cake fall? I just can’t cook.” When he told us this a few months ago, about a dozen of us had a big lightbulb moment, because I’m sure the same thing had happened several times to us. Très sly!

Well, it’s 9:52, and I’m off to bed. Hope you enjoyed this update. We’ve bought two window A/C units, so we’re at least staying cool in the apartment (except for the kitchen).

Ciao amici,

Jen