The rest of Basic Cuisine - A Photo Montage (Part II)

Onward and upward. Les poissons, les poissons, how I love les poissons! Fileting a fish is not so easy, although I've definitely gotten better at it over the weeks. My first filets (on day TWO!) were small ... but this is definitely a skill where practice makes, well, maybe not perfect. But better.

We learned how to poach fish in a court-bouillon, making troncons de colin poche, sauce hollandaise (poached hake steaks with hollandaise sauce). (But don't be fooled by how easy that sounds ... we turned THREE different vegetables that day!) We also learned how to braise fish, making filets de barbue duglere (brill filets in white wine sauce). Brill is a flat fish, and is a beast to filet -- there are two filets on each side, and finding precisely where to cut is challenging. Also a challenge for some of my classmates? The sauce! This was the first time we didn't pass our sauce through a chinois before serving (because the sauce is supposed to have the perfectly cut tomatoes, onions, and shallots that have been cooking in it), but a few of my classmates strained their sauces out of habit ... all that hard work in the trash!



Chef also made sole meuniere (pan-fried sole with nut-brown butter), goujonnettes de sole, sauce verte (breaded strips of sole, green sauce), and escalope de saumon a l'oseille (salmon escalope with sorrel). After a couple of weeks of meats, we were all happy to be eating a little lighter! (And yes, I realize that fried fish really can't be called light ... but in comparison to some of the other dishes we've been cooking and preparing, it's downright healthy eating!)



Next up? Soups. Day one was creme dubarry (cream of cauliflower soup), potage cressoniere (watercress soup), bisque d'etrilles (crab bisque). My least favorite of the three was the bisque (Anne and I decided it's because we're used to wonderful Maryland crabs, and this is one thing that the U.S. does better than France!), and unfortunately, that was the one we made in practical. This marked my first experience in cleavering live crabs, and it was actually pretty fun. Except, of course, the fact that when your knife lands in the middle of the still living crab, its claws reflexively move up to cling to the sides of the knife. A little disconcerting. (Sadly, when I excitedly related my crab-cleavering stories to a friend from home, he responded that he has crab-cleavering duties every summer when his family makes crab sauce. There goes my unique and entertaining story!)



The next day, we learned how to make soupe de poisson facon marseillaise (fish soup Marseillaise-style) and soupe a l'oignon gratinee (French onion soup). Fish soup just isn't my thing, but the onion soup was fantastic. (Are those three bowls all for me? Don't I wish!)


Next we learned how to clarify a consomme. I had no idea how fun and rewarding this would be! Maybe it's my science-y brain, but learning how and why egg whites work to clarify bouillon, and then actually making it happen was one of the most satisfying moments I've had here so far. (And it didn't hurt that my brunoise of carrots, daikon, haricots verts, and celery to garnish the finished product was lovely! Hooray for sharp knives and sharpening knife skills!)

More to come ...