Kitchen Toro: YOU HAVE TO BREAK A FEW EGGS...

Tonight we have a knife skills test. We're meant to know the names of the different cuts for potatoes and vegetables and be able to do them, correctly and quickly. I'm not sure how the chef will both individually assess us and have us all do two dishes but that's the plan. Apropos to the knife skills test, our two Garde Manger dishes focus on taillage: Oeuf Poche Sur Macedoine De Legumes en Sauce Hollandaise, a Poached Egg on Macedoine-cut Vegetables under Hollandaise, and the Potage Cultivateur, a Farmer's Vegetable Soup.

We switched teams today within our group of four and my teammate and I began with the Potage Cultivateur.

DISH: Potage Cultivateur, a Farmer's Vegetable Soup

DUE: 8:00 p.m. SERVED: 8:00 p.m.

COOKING NOTES: Paysanne (thin square cuts) carrots and turnips were tossed with leeks and celery (¼'d) which had been emincee (very finely sliced), and added to sweated, julienned bacon. Ten minutes later we added a liter of water, then the chiffonade (thin cut, hairlike) cabbage and cooked 3-4 minutes at which point we added paysanne potatoes and seasoned the soup with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, we cooked peas and diced string beans a l'anglaise and set them aside. We cut the baguette on the bias and waited til directly before serving to grate the gruyere cheese and made sure before serving the soup in the bowls on doily-covered plates that both the bowls and the plates were very hot.

CHEF'S CRITIQUE: The cabbage should have been added immediately after the water and the potatoes 3-4 minutes after that. The bread should not be cut on the bias which makes the pieces too long and makes it difficult to place three pieces in the bowl at the same time without overlap. There was some lag-time between plating and when the chef actually tasted our food so the plates and bowls had cooled a little. We knew we'd hear about it and we did. I'm not sure what else we could have done to keep the plates hot beyond scalding the soup when we put it in the bowl. Perhaps we could have done that as this was a clear broth. The end result was that the chef went beyond tasting the soup to finishing the whole bowl!

DISH: Oeuf Poche Sur Macedoine De Legumes en Sauce Hollandaise, a Poached Egg on Macedoine-cut Vegetables under Hollandaise

DUE: 9:45 p.m. SERVED: 9:45 p.m.

COOKING NOTES: The eggs are poached in a large, shallow pot of water with a little vinegar heated just to a point before a boil. The water is swirled around and the eggs dropped into the middle of the gently whirlpool. Haricots verts (greenbeans), turnips, and carrots were all cut macedoine, and cooked a l'anglaise, as were some green peas. Tomatoes were emondee and sliced thinly for garnish. Before service, the macedoine vegetables were packed lighlty into a shallow pastry ring on which the poached egg was placed, napped completely with a hollandaise sauce atop which the sliced tomatoes were laid. I had opted to do the Hollandaise sauce but as the plate-time neared I had two failed hollandaise sauces, a half recipe and a full recipe and I asked my partner to take over the sauce, fearing I would strike out.

CHEF'S CRITIQUE: The hollandaise was seasoned well but needed more butter-- it was too frothy. Perhaps it could have used a bit more lemon juice. The green beans needed to be cooked longer, they were too al dente for the chef.

OVERALL: We finished early, my teammate and I worked well together and she totally came through in the clutch with the hollandaise after my two failed attempts. I think the problem was simply that I needed to continue to beat the yolks and the bit of water until they were a sabayon (fully frothed) before adding the clarified butter. I'll have to do battle with it at home. When the chef eats your whole bowl of soup and a few other students line up for a serving, you feel pretty good.

EVALUATION: At 9:15 p.m. the chef began calling us over individually to give us our evaluations.

Score: 89/100

When I asked what specifically I could do to improve, to focus on cooking skills and technique. Pretty vague. 'Practice makes perfect,' I suppose.

Potato cuts: Fondante, chateau, vapeur, cocotte and gousse d'ail.
Potato taillage: Cheveux, pailles, allumettes, mignonettes, frites, pont neuf.
Legume taillage: Jullienne and jardiniere (cut short to yield brunoise and macedoine)

The test started at about 10:15 p.m. We were told to take one potato and one carrot, to keep all trimmings and to get as many cocottes from the potatoes and as many julienne from the carrots as possible.

Everyone around me started with the carrots but I began with the potatoes. I was able to get seven cocottes. The first few cocottes were pretty perfect but I started to rush toward the end becuase everyone seemed to be finished with their carrots which I then had to rush through. Unfortunately, I was the last one to finish by a few minutes. The chef said I needed work on the julienne but that the yield was good on both and that the potatoes if a little more consistent in size would have been perfect.

Score:
Potatoes: 7/10 for style,7/10 for yield and 7/10 for xx.
Carrots: 7/10 for style, 7/10 for yield and 7/10 for xx.