Last of the dishes

Here are some of photos from class that didn't make the last post. Feel free to ask about any of the dishes I will be happy to share with you the recipes.

 Eggs Benedict

 BBQ Chicken with Rissolee Potatoes

 Coq au Vin

So Fried Chicken with Cream Corn, mash and Creamy Pepper gravy.

poached Salmon

Happy Eating

Last of the quarter

Sorry everyone,
Its been a busy couple of weeks trying to finish everything out in school. The last full week of school we made a couple favorites of mine. Coq au Vin, Southern Fried Chicken and Cream Corn.  I also got to filet a fish and learn to poach some Salmon. Still not a fish fan but it was fun cooking it.
I love Coq au Vin. Its a very rich dish. I will be happy to share the recipe if you would like it. Just ask me and I can post it or email it to you. I have to say I liked the broiled tomatoes too. Fish can be very delicate when cooking you know its cooked when its opaque and flaking. Most fish takes about 30 minutes or less to cook depending on how you are cooking it. Here is an easy way to cook fish. It takes about  15 minutes in the oven. This is for fresh fish. Not frozen. I would suggest thawing the fish out before doing this and if its frozen cook it less time.

Trout in Papillote ( parchment paper)

1 tsp thyme
1 tsp lemon grass ( just for flavor don't eat it)
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
1/2 tablespoon White wine
Lemon cut into rounds
3 ea cherry tomatoes
4ea olives in half (we used little olives)
1 fillet of trout or fish
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Start with an ample amount of parchment paper. Fold in half and then you want to cut a heart shape out of it. When you open the heart you want to place the fish and ingredients on one side of the heart. Start by laying down the lemon rounds. Use about 3-4 of them, then your lemon grass and seasonings. Place your fillet on top then salt and pepper it. I put my tomatoes and olives on top of the fish. Then drizzle olive oil and wine on top. Fold over the parchment paper starting at the top and working down. Make sure you crimp the edges. Kind of like your rolling it up but you want to make sure it wont open while its cooking. Bake for 12-15 min. Serve with packet closed. When you get to the table then you open the packet.

I served mine with sauteed Zucchini and Broiled Tomato

Broiled Tomatoes

 2 oz ( 2 tablespoons)of Clarified butter

1/2 onion diced- fine

1 garlic clove

2 tablespoons panko or breadcrumbs

2 ea Roma Tomatoes or you can use Beefsteak

1 tsp parsley

2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese- grated

In a pan with butter add onions and garlic and sweat until translucent. Remove from heat. Add Parmesan cheese,and panko. Season with Salt and pepper.  What we did because we did not have the large tomatoes was we took Roma tomatoes cut the tops and a little of the bottom off so it would stand up. Squeezed the seeds out and stuffed the mixture into the tomato. You bake these in a 350 oven until they looked cooked.  We used a Salamander so they got a little toasty. You want them to be browned on the top. 

Happy Eating.

Ice Cream

I found a ice cream machine in the items we had packed. I figured it would be a good way to save money and keep  a little treat in the house for the kids. Our first batch of ice cream came out great. Pictures to follow soon.

Its old fashion vanilla with jelly that I was trying to get rid of. Cherry Raspberry. So we just dropped some of that in there. Gave it a nice flavor.  Worth freezing and putting snow in the bucket to keep it cold.

Happy Eating.

Culinary School Week 8

Now that we are getting into meals, its a lot more fun and we usually have a full dinner by the end of the night. I was sad to learn this week that our Academic director is leaving our school.  Anyways, we did chicken, pork and filet minion this week. All turned out good. The only thing that went wrong was I burned the rice pilaf. Oh well . Listed below is the pictures and a Dijon Sauce we made to accompany the pork. Any other recipes you want just ask me and I will be more than happy to give them to you.
We did a Chicken Chardonnay. Its not hard to do. The sauce came out great and not over powering.  Beef Tenderloin we cooked rare and added the compound butter we made over it. Pork Scaloppini two ways thats where the Dijon sauce comes in to play. Even though the meat came out moist. You still need to have some kind of sauce with it.

Dijon Sauce
2 tbsp Clarified butter                              3/4 c heavy cream
1/4 cup chopped Shallots                         2tspn Dijon mustard
1 Clove garlic                                           Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c dry white wine                                 1 tbsp parsley
1 c chicken stock

Saute  the shallots in the clarified butter until soft and just begining to caramelize. Add garlic, cook until fragrant. (about 1 min) Add white wine and cook until reduced by half. Add the chicken stock and reduce by half. Stir in Dijon mustard and cream. Bring to a boil, turn down heat and reduce until mixture coats the back of a spoon. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in parsley.

Chocolate Cake

This was a recipe I found in Food Network Mag. I wanted to see if I could duplicate it. Ron Israel. The directions he wrote or who ever copied his recipe into the mag were wrong. As it was the batter was suppose to fit 2- 10 in cake rounds. It wound up fitting 4 - 9" cake rounds. I made it work . I took it in for my husbands pot luck. They had a response of they needed red wine to go with it.

The cake is chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and the bark is milk, white and semi sweet chocolate.