Crudites

If you read my last post, you know that I was absent Monday. They were preparing the galantines and ballontines to be cooked off on Tuesday. They made a turduckin- chicken, in duck, in turkey.



Yup. That's basically what galantines and ballontines are- meat within a meat within a meat. Galantines are served cold. Ballontines are served hot. The galantines are, once again, covered in aspic.

Since two of my tablemates and I missed Monday, we got to prepare the fruit platter and the crudites. Crudites are basically a platter of raw veggies with a dip. The other two that missed decided to do the fruit. That left me the veggies to work with.

I remembered that things are supposed to be delicate in high end food. I also knew that just cutting and stacking all the veggies wouldn't go over well. So I got all my veggies out and stood there staring at them all trying to get an inspiration. I got the aspic cutters out (like teeeny tiny cookie cutters) and began messing around with them. I created 4 little discs that looked like poker chips. I loved how they looked, but knew I didn't have time to make ALL of them exactly that way. So I decided to do simpler versions and top off each row with the complicated one. A tablemate made the carrot strands underneath everything for me, I made cups out of zucchini to hold dip, and tucked tiny sprigs of dill into the grape tomatoes. Not too crazy, but I like how it came out and I think it would be awesome at a girls poker night.





I love this table's bird:



This was our fruit tray- I suggested cutting off the bottoms of the strawberries and making them into cups. They are filled with cream cheese whipped with raspberry sauce.





This is the fruit tray table-



This is a fish covered in Chaud Froid (Sho fraw). Chaud Froid is aspic, mayonnaise, and sour cream all mixed together. Ugh. As if the chicken jello wasn't enough on it's own, let's add sour cream and mayo. Geez. I did like the little Swedish Fish this table put on theirs, though.





Ian made the Lemon Sole Paupiettes. Fish was pounded out to be thin, rolled and poached. A sauce was then piped on top.


Weird, weird week this week. Not just in school, but overall. I just haven't felt myself. Hopefully next week will be better. Next week is the last week of production in Garde Manger, then come finals and cleaning. Next quarter I am taking THREE lab classes. Yes. THREE. I will be taking Classical, Asian, and Advanced Patisserie and Display Cakes. I am actually VERY excited about all three of those classes, and you all will be getting three times the blog posts!