A long break..

I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter holidays and got the most out of their days off. For us here in the UK and in particular at Le Cordon Bleu, the Easter break has really thrown a spanner at the smoking gear that was our momentum up until two weeks ago. In the last 14 days we've had a total of three working days that weren't affected by bank holidays and weddings. As a result we haven't been as productive in the classroom as I would have liked, so todays post will be a short one. On a side note what did everyone think of the wedding?

I can't remember the order of the things we've done since the last post, but heres a list of some of the things we've covered:

- Making/cooking fresh pasta, risotto

Heres an example of one of the dishes I cooked:

Fresh pasta with sauce alfredo

- Numerous new sauces, for pasta and red meat

- Butchery of a whole lamb: Chef broke down an entire lamb into its French cuts and proceeded to roast two legs and a rolled saddle so the entire class could have a pile of lamb for lunch.

And now a plate of lamb, it tasted so good it took me back to New Zealand:

Lamb rack with gratin bayaldi and jus

Feedback: Bones not trimmed enough, jus good, meat medium/rare instead of rare, not bad on the whole.

- Butchery of a whole side of sirloin: Chef broke down a huge side of sirloin which was about twice the size of the lamb and also contained the largest eye fillet any of the chefs at school had ever seen. It was about 2.5x the size of the fillets I'm used to, a monster. The Chef went on to cook a boeuf bourguignon and about 30 steaks, half sirloin and half fillet. That was a great lunch too.

As you can probably tell we're in the middle of a part of the course concerned with cooking various types and cuts of red meat, it really is relevant to my interests! This continues for the next few days and then we move onto veal, escalopes and veal stews. I've never worked with veal so I'm looking forward to it.

And now some odd photos just because I can:

Everyone needs a blowtorch

My street in South London on a good day

 London morning sky....

London sky, midday. Spot the difference....

Until next time and hopefully with some good photos of meat dishes..