Hell week

Chef Gilles started off Hell Week by running a Taste seminar.  There are four major taste senses in the mouth, sweet, salty, acidic and bitter.  Sweet taste buds are found at the tip of your tongue, salt and acid are found at the sides of your mouth, and bitter is found near the back of your throat as a last "defense" in case you don't want to eat something.  The reason why salt brings out flavour is that it makes your taste buds more receptive to flavours. You burn your tongue easily with liquids because they get down to your nerve endings below your taste buds more readily.  Babies tend to consume sugar/sweet easily based on instinct.  It's important to serve great wines in large glasses so that you can smell them as well.  It makes a huge difference.  We then smelt some things like violet, honey, hazelnut, apricot, vanilla and garlic extracts trying to figure out what they were.

Overall, this was pretty much a waste of time.  If you're really interested in how taste works, google it.

Today was supposed to be first feedback/evaluations.  It was annoying because they were so disorganized so I won't get my evaluation until tomorrow.  They only got through half of them.

Demonstration 013 was taught by Chef Benoit.  It was on Les Potages, which by official definition is "Both hot or cold liquid preparations, which can both clairs or lies (thickened)".  They are usually served at the beginning of a meal.

Terminology
Potager - vegetable garden

Classifcations of Potages
a) Potages Clairs -> consomme
b) Potages Passes -> reduced to a puree
* Fresh veg - Potage Parmentier, Julienne D'Arblay
* Dry veg - St. Germain, Conti
c) Potage Tailles -> Cultivateur (Paysanne cut, from the first lesson)
d) Cremes & Veloutes (not to be confused with sauces) - Dubarry, Chsisy, Agne's Sorrel
e) Soupes - regional specialty, served with bread on the plate (ex. French Onion soup)
f) Potages speciaux: Bisque (made with shellfish), Potage Germiny, Borscht

In a Veloute, egg yolks are added as thickening agent

Common types of potages

Parmentier - person who introduced potatoes to the new world.  Leeks / Potatoes
Crecy - carrots
St. Germain - Split pea
Clamart - Fresh peas
ourangelle - fresh beans
Argenteuil - Asparagus
Dubarry - Cauliflower
Essau - lentils
Choisy - lettuce
Conde - dry beans
Florentine - Spinach
St. Hubert - Wild game
Cardinale - Something that gives red colour

When we were going this, I made Chef Benoit snort when I said "CHICKEN!!!" when he asked what St. Hubert was.. LOL.  Another funny moment was when Chef Benoit was explaining that a lot of dishes are named after the mistresses of the French Kings, and when it was asked if that was socially acceptable he said "Obviously.  If you didn't agree with the king, your head would end up in the pot.  Not a big deal, we are French".

Some tips on serving potages.  Always serve the bowl 3/4 full.  Be careful when laddling the soup by having contact with the bottom of the laddle until you are ready to lift.  Hard to explain.

The potages that were presented were:

Veloute Agnes Sorrel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agn%C3%A8s_Sorel
(which is a chicken broth based potage with Beef Tongue!!)
Potage Conti (lentil and pork belly potage)
Creme de moules au Safran (Safron mussel potage)
Potage Julienne D'arbly (practical lab - Potato Leek potage)

Interesting about Safron is that it is extremely expensive.  Spanish Safron is the best, and is made by taking the pistol of the Crocus flower.  It can go up to $7000 /kg!  Be careful with American safron as it is sometimes sawdust infused with Safron flavour.  (Looked this up, not sure if he's on crack or not)

Practical #013 of Potage Julienne D'arbly went fairly smoothly, but the end result wasn't perfect.  My julienne cuts of carrot, turnip and leeks weren't quite small enough.. but the potato leek potage turned out ok consistency and seasoning wise.  My croutons wren't properly cooked crispy enough because I didn't add enough butter.. oopsies.

Oh and at 3PM we had the class photo.  Hopefully they don't charge us $50 for the picture..   Wow, 9:15pm and I wanna go to sleep...

New pictures up to lesson 013 are up...  two demos and 1 practical tomorrow.  Wednesday is gonna be stupid.. we don't start until noon, but have class until 10pm!  And it's the nasty lesson 016..