Myday: International cuisine3 – Classic French Cuisine

Finally, we came to classic French cuisine which I made one of the menu for my family and they love it hohoho…. :D ~ mom and dad praise me for the food and recommend it to put into my aunty (read:grandpa) restaurant’s menu hahaha…

Here we go…

1. Lobster bisque

Ok…one thing I want to share here, please try not to order lobster bisque if you have other options haha (well…no offense haha…gomene :D ), aniwei the reason is because of lobster bisque is the blended of lobster shells, heads, vegetables, herbs plus other ingredients. But still you make the final decisions.

You can make it from your left-over lobster, so next time don’t throw away your lobster shells  and heads since you can make a delicious soup from it :D (like the chef said utilize all the part of lobster since it is pricey hahaha…)

2. Slow braised duckling with sweet potato and cumin mash

Time consuming, easy, tasty, elegant and wat else…it was absolutely fantastic. Must try it at home and this is the one that I cooked for my family when I went back to my hometown.

Firstly, chef showed us how to prepare the duck such as remove its legs,neck and wings; and then ask us to do it haha..guess what…the chef ask me to do it because I showed a very ugly plus disgusting face when he did it and he knew that I didn’t dare to do it. ( I am a fillet people which means always cook with everything which is all ready and well pack such as fillet LOL). Well, luckily Charlotte help me to do it and we did it together haha….(and I did all myself at home means I graduate and dare to do it now :D ).

   

Secondly, prepare the filling for stuffing. For this delicious dish, you only need apples, onion and orange ( feel free to replace orange with star anise) and last but not least you need to have lots of time for this slow cooking dish which it takes like 2 hours but trust me….it worth.

 
3. Apple tarte tatin

Again, Francois make a lil bit twist on the way he cooked this dessert. Do you know that tarte tatin has its own cute history. It is accidentally created in Hotel Tatin,France in 1898. Stephanie Tatin,who is one of the owner and the cook, was overworked one day. Starting to make a traditional apple pie but left the apples cooking in butter and sugar for too long and it burned. She tried to rescue the dish by putting the pastry base on top of the pan of apples and quickly put the whole pan in the oven. Surprisingly the hotel guests appreciated and love the dessert and voila…classic was born :)

~ serve it best hot with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream
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Myday: International cuisine2 – Classic Italian cuisine

On this cuisine2, we have been taught of classic italian cuisine by Chef Francois, our menu will be Stuffed calamari , Veal , Gnocchi and mascarpone tart as our dessert :D

Well, as I said before I have been team up with Ling and Charlotte as my teammate. We were the only team that have three people, while others only two people. They have three teams so it means that there were seven people on this course. From my knowledge, three from Indonesia (incl me), one Philippines, one Thai-Taiwanese, two Singaporeans and only one guy in our course.

Ok, let’s jump to the cooking…

1. Stuffed calamari with prawn and pancetta

Instead of using pancetta (similar to bacon), we can use parma ham. The challenge for this menu is stuffing one, it’s quite hard to hold still the calamari and close it with toothpick…fiuhhh…anyway the combination of nuts,herbs and mushroom inside are just nice and go very well with the calamari. But ours’ calamari was quite chewy,seemed like we are undercooked them LOL :P

    

2. Veal osso buco with gremolata

Beef is a big NO NO for me so don’t ask me about its taste hehe, but my friend, who I gave this veal to, said that it was nice and perfect (come on…who’s the teacher lol…a French chef and he has this menu on his restaurant if I’m not wrong).

At the beginning of the class, we cooked this first as it took two hours . It is really a slow cooker recipe haiz…and the most exciting part was when Francois did the deglaze.

3. Gnocchi with butter and sage

I love gnocchi and it is healthy, easy to make and of course yummy :). Gnocchi is just like a smashed potato but coated with semolina and plain flour and just boil them on boiling water (sounds like noodle hehe..) After that stir them with butter (use salted one so that it has a salt taste) season and serve it with parmesan cheese..absolutely yummy…

I have tried a lil bit twist on this gnocchi which I used purple sweet potato haha..

4. Lemon and mascarpone tart with blueberries

Just a usual tart and fill with lemon plus mascarpone. Mascarpone is a italian cheese and usually use it for tiramisu. Seems like I forgot to take the picture of this dish…poor me…so sorry guys…I only have the making picture and only one >.<  

My thought…

I don’t really get into calamari stuff especially not a deep-fry one hahaha…so maybe what I’m going to try is only the filling which I think it will goes well with rice or maybe as salad side dish.

Making a twist on what we have learnt is quite interesting…I always think of doing some twist on this and that but never do it hahaha…lazy and hate the Ntuc Tiong Bahru which it is too small, long queue, etc and etc… (am I complain too much hahaha…) well I know Ntuc is sometime more into Chinese supermarket…so if I need to go to Carrefour, Giant or maybe Cold Storage to get more westerns’ stuffs haiz….

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Myday : International cuisine1 ~ canapés

Please enjoy my cooking course in Palate Sensations which has been ended last month (a six weeks cooking course).  All the courses are taught by Chef Francois Mermilliod, an executive chef from Absinthe, Singapore (going there this end of month :). Francois is a very nice guy, not a chef that always swearing like what I saw on TV shows especially Chef Gordon Ramsay haha… Well, this course only took for three hours and for our first module, we make 8 hot and cold canapés. They all look gorgeous and yummy actually they are all quite simple and easy to make :D

Blinis with smoked salmon

Crab Spring Onion

 

Stuffed button mushroom

Prosciutto and parmeson stick

Salmon tartare on cucumber

Seared tuna tataki

Thai fish cake with prawn

Avocado, tofu and sundried tomatoes kebab

Well…they are all the finished food which are ready to be served…so  let’s have a look behind them :D

1. Use the mushroom itself as the “bowl” and top them with morazella cheese before warm them up in the oven

 

2. - Tuna was being marinated with wasabi paste

- Get ready to fry it on hot pan with olive oil (do not overcook as we only make a crisp on the sides so the central still raw) and rest it down before served it

 

- Slice and put them on the chinese spoon, garnish them with wakame and fish roe and don’t forget Goma soyu as its dressings :) – a twist of French and Japanese canapés

3. Crab spring roll ~Vietnamese cold canapés

~speechless as I don’t know how to explain it haha..ok just roll it like a sushi with a help of towel :D

 

4. – Removing the salmon with its skin…diced it into a very small dice and mix it well with chive, lemon juice,chopped red onion, wasabi (again) paste and japanese mayo ~ seems like our chef love Japanese food hahah…after that top it on the Japanese/ Lebanese cucumber….Salmon tartare on cucumber done!!! hahaa..

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A little “garden” collections from Francois hahaa…  

Sauces that we used at that time and a lil bit pictures of garnishing

       

  

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What did I get from this courses except for cooking skills, knowledge and foods :P

- Personalized Chef ‘s Jacket (with your name sew on it ~ awesome)

- Red Palate sensation’s apron

- A set of Zwilling Henckel knives (pairing and chef’s knife)

- A red (again ) chopping board

My cute experience… 

Ok let’s call me a freak who doesn’t like people double dipping on food (especially you cook it for other ppl and not for yourself) and that’s the first time I went to cooking class (previous one I went for baking class and guess what no one dare to taste an unbaked dough hahaha)…and happened to I was in a group of two other Philippines women and guess what..they almost double , triple or maybe more than that dipped their fingers or whatever on the food…I was just like “whattt” and it really make me sick and I just went to Chef Francois to tell them not to do that double dipped again…I dunno whether he told them or not…but I was just like pissed off and felt “I don’t want to do these courses anymore if I’m going to teammate with them for my whole entire 6 modules” Oh Gosh…

PS: It was a small cooking class which was only 10 peoples on the first module (4 teams) as some of them just did the single course and only 7 people including me who took the whole modules and Thank’s God, that two “dipped-woman” only took one course…fiuhhh…

For next course, Lynette paired me with two other woman to work with for my entire courses and I love my new teammate (Charlotte and Ling ~ a blessed to know and work with them, they are expert >.<

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