Culinary School - Q7 Week 1 European

This is going to be an especially hard class.  Our Chef Instructor is new and has never taught before.

Menu: British Isles – Roast Beef with roasted potatoes, broccolini and glazed shallots, Yorkshire pudding, Langoustine soufflé, Fennel – Onion salad, Cheese Herb Bread, Strawberry shortcake

Summary: While I am not generally a fan of the food from Britain, there were things I liked about this menu and things I didn’t like. In my own experience, I find most foods that are truly British to be overwrought. I believe in letting the ingredients speak for themselves.
Food: Langoustine soufflé: I didn’t get to taste it because of my allergies, but Chef said that it was nice. It had a good creamy flavor. They were very pretty and well raised when we took them out of the oven but deflated while we were waiting for Chef to get to us.

Fennel and Onion salad with Tarragon Dressing: I really enjoyed this salad. The combination of the licorice-y fennel and the red onion was nice together. The tarragon dressing was a nice choice but I feel that tarragon has such a delicate flavor that it can get lost if the food it is used with is too strong. Chef said our salad had a nice well balanced flavor.

Roast Beef with roasted potatoes, broccolini and glazed shallots: Chef said our meat was a little over. I still thought it was good. The potatoes to me were a little undercooked. They could have used a tad more color. The broccolini was ok. I think we could have skipped the sauté part and it would have been perfect. The glazed shallots were my favorite part. They were so tasty that I could eat them for every meal! Chef said ours were nicely cooked but he thought they were a little too caramelized (is there any such thing?).

Yorkshire pudding: Chef said it had good flavor but it could have used a little more color. I thought it was one of the most disgusting things I have ever tasted and that is saying a lot because I have tasted some pretty disgusting things since starting culinary school. I mean, this is basically flour cooked in beef fat. ICK!

Sauces: Our mustard sauce was too thick. The flavor was ok but it was like gelatin. The horseradish sauce was delicious! I love horseradish! The gravy had too much pepper and not enough salt. I also thought it was too thin but chef said no, that was fine.

Cheese and Herb Bread: This was the very first time I have made bread using yeast. I have had a fear of yeast that I am working on conquering so I took on the bread this week. Ours had a great color on the outside and nice crust. The flavor was good, but the loaf was kind of dense. Chef said that was because it didn’t have the full time to rise properly. I will pay more attention to that next time, but for my very first loaf I thought it was good.

Strawberry shortcake: One of my favorite parts of this menu. The shortbread cookies were super yummy. And the flavor of the strawberry coulis was delicious. Even Chef agreed.