Week 2 pastry started with us looking at a lemon pound cake & genoise almond sponge cake(pain de genes). We baked the pain de genes during our practical session. The cake is niiiiiiice but very sweet. We also got to play with marzipan, we had to do a rose flower & some leaves. It was quite difficult, the marzipan can’t be too cool, too warm, too thick, too thin…. you have to find that right balance & then after that you have to make it look beatiful.

During the demonstrations, the chef works with lots of ease, giving you the impression the task looks easy. During the practical, reality of the tasks sets in, then you realise you still have alot to learn & practise……

Next demo, we looked at sweet short pastry(pate sucree) and then various apple tarts. During the practical we made pate sucree then used it to make a tarte aux pommes(classic french apple tart).

In class you can watch the chef from three perspectives, watch him directly, the large mirror above his work surface, or the video screens. The translator also doubles up as video operator. The video captures amazing close-up views from the three cameras(which can rotatate and zoom) installed around the class.

Cuisine week 2 we looked at stocks, chef demonstrated a white chicken stock, brown stock & a fish fumet(stock). We also looked at sauce thickening methods.

We got to cook a cheese souffle, whiting fillets with bercy sauce(pictured above). For the fish we had to prepare & fillet our own fish from scratch, it was not that hard. Having a super sharp filleting knife really helps.

Chef also demonstrated poached chicken with supreme sauce( french khao mun gai or hainan chicken rice), pasta dough preparation & spinach stuffed cannelloni with tomato sauce.

To end the cuisine week, we baked a pissalidiere, which is kinda like a pizza made from a rich yeast dough topped with onions sweated in olive oil, anchovies, tomatoes, capers & olives.

That was week 2, we started to get used to the school routine, 18 hours in class & 18 hours in the kitchen.

The next few posts are in retrospect, they are all about my journey through basic cuisine & basic pastry at Le Cordon Bleu Dusit from October 12 – December 24 2009.

Week 1 Basic Cuisine & Basic Pastry

We started of with orientation, it was a pretty short 2hr session with information about the school, rules etc. We were then given our uniforms, recipe folders, knife kit & a large food container. All this items were pretty bulky, carrying everything back on the BTS back to my place was pretty arduous.

The knife kit if I remember correctly has about 40 items in it. Most heavily used for cuisine are the chef knife, paring knife & spoon. For pastry the little plastic scraper is handy for doing a lot of things and also really essential is my thermometer.

The general format of the classes was that the chef demonstrated about 3 recipes in every demonstration session, then we would cooked one of the recipes in our practical kitchen session. The recipe folders we were given at orientation only contained the recipe ingredients, that meant during the demonstration session we had to take notes on the recipe methods. Initially I thought keeping up with the chef would be a problem, but since everything the chef said in english had to be translated into thai, this bought me time to write my notes.

On day one of cuisine the Chef demonstrated how to cook a rustic vegetable soup. The soup was almost bland vegetable soup, but it had some bacon when rescued it from blandness. Bacon makes anything taste good, I swear by that…

Also on day one, the chef talked to us about our knives, how to peel & wash vegetables, then how to cut them the French way. It amazing the French have a name for every possible style of cutting vegetables.

This was my effort for the rustic vegetable soup.

Next cuisine demonstration we looked at three more soups. Dubarry cream which is a cauliflower soup thickened with cream, watercress soup & a crab bisque. We cooked the crab bisque during the practical session, yummo. To make the bisque we had to cut the crab to little bits using a cleaver, then sweat it with aromatics, flambe with cognac, add more flavouring & seasoning, to finish we had to blend the whole thing together(yes, the crabs shells too) then sieve. It was worth the effort.

During the demonstration sessions we also learnt alot of cooking french, pretty handy I think. With just a few words you can describe a whole recipe.

To end the first week, we looked at the ubiquitous French onion soup, Marseille style fish soup & a consomme with vegetable brunoise. We cooked the consomme during the practical. Cutting the 2mm brunoise was fun(not), never cut vegetables that small. They all had to look uniform. I did mine slowly to ensure even sizing.

Day one of pastry we looked at and then baked sable biscuits. They tasted amazing. The trinity of butter, sugar & flour is good for you, yet bad for you. Figure that one out….

Second day for pastry we baked a fruit cake & madeleines. Madeleines, I am in love with them.

Last for pastry on week one, we looked at financiers & gateau basque(butter cake with pastry cream filling). We baked the gateau basque during the practical. Chef thought I put too much icing sugar on my cake….. oh well. Sugar is good for you sometimes.

That was my first week at Le Cordon Bleu Dusit…..