As the vegetables turn

Sometimes, the devil is in the details.

Monday, in demonstration, Chef Bruno prepared aiguilette de boeuf mode, or braised beef with pearl onions and carrots. Since this is red meat week, we were all focused on the beef preparation -- and given that part of the preparation of this dish involved stitching strips of fat that had been soaked in cognac and rolled in a chiffonade of parsley into the cut of meat, there was a lot to focus on! So when Chef was preparing the garnish of pearl onions and carrots, it might have been easy to dismiss as an aside his comment that here we use "turned carrots", which we didn't need to worry about then, but would learn at a later date. But I remember raising my eyebrow, and thinking "hmmm, turned carrots ... what's that?"

Oh, Marn, you didn't want to know.

Fast forward to today, when we made boeuf bourgignon (after preparing the marinade yesterday and leaving our marinating beef overnight in the fridge) ... guess what goes with boeuf bourgignon? Yep, turned potatoes. And guess who learned how to turn potatoes today? Yep, me. And guess who despises turning potatoes? That's right.

Because I'm bad at it! B-A-D. It looks so simple, you hold the potato and carve it into an oval shape with your paring knife. Oh so pretty. But I can't do it. I can make octagons. I can make decagons. I can make any shape that doesn't involve a rounded edge. But ovals? Nope. Moi, je ne peux pas.

I hear it'll be on our final exam, so perhaps I should buy a few potatoes at the market and practice at home this weekend. Or perhaps I should start a revolution at LCB, introducing the dodecagoned potato to the world of French cooking. I'm sure it'll catch on...

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Also on the menu this week, cote du boeuf avec sauce bordelaise, avec tomatoes provencale. Chef Philippe made this for us in demonstration, but we didn't make it ourselves in practical. I'm actually somewhat thankful, as my fridge can hold no more meat products. But I'm definitely looking forward to trying my hand at the tomatoes -- topped with a mixture of bread crumbs, olive oil, garlic, and parsley, and browned in the oven -- they were delicious!

And my favorite by far, a dish I was excited to make in practical -- coeur de contrefilet roti au jus avec pommes mousseline. That's right, roasted sirloin filet and potato puree. Rock on. This was good, really good, and when served on a baguette has made for some amazing steak sandwiches this week. Je suis contente.