LEVEL III: PASTRY

New groups, new books, new station assignments. All we knew coming into today's class was that we were in pastry, that we'd be working with Level 4, that a dish we were making would be served in the restaurant, and that we would be making the Lemon and Passion Fruit Tart, called Tarte Au Citron, Fruit De La Passion.

The first service is at 8 p.m. so our desserts need to be well on their way by then and ready by the dessert rush beginning around 9:30p.m. We started preparing dessert on arrival at 5:15 p.m. after attendance in the main kitchen. Chef A., who seemed gruff every time we interacted with him in Level 2 had no qualms calling us out on things like dirty uniforms and speed or letting us know his expectations of us. He also explained that as Level 3 students we would always only be making 1 dish a night and that "if you want to stand around all night and twiddle your thumbs that's fine with me but if I were paying the amount of money to be here that you are I would make something more of it." He suggested that if we wanted to try cooking the Tuesday and Thursday dessert recipes (which as the Monday, Wednesday, Friday class we would never make) or wanted to work on dessert recipes for our final project he'd be happy to help us. Then he sent us, buoyed, on our way.

DISH: Lemon and Passion Fruit Tart, Tarte Au Citron, Fruit De La Passion

RECIPE: Begin with a tart sucree pastry, blind baked for 10-15 minutes at 325 F in the convection oven then baked 5 more minutes without the beans. Over a double-boiler (bain-marie) whisk 4 eggs, 150g sugar, 2 lemons, juiced and zested, 100 ml of passion fruit juice, and 55g of diced butter, until the butter melts and the texture is smooth. The filling is poured in the shells which are then baked for an additional 15 minutes at 300 F. They're topped with two pinches of almonds first coated with a 1/3 of an egg white, then tossed with sugar and toasted until golden brown. Along the rim we also placed a thin slice of strawberry, kiwi and a blueberry. For service, before placing the tart on the plate we garnished it with berry coulis and a little lemon syrup.

BREAKDOWN: It was our first night working with the Level 4 students and for the first time since coming downstairs from Level 1 I think we all felt more comfortable interacting with students from the higher class. We were all on equal ground, we'd all taken the midterm and we were now working together with the same goal, sending food out into the restaurant. The pastry kitchen was by no means a horrible place to begin in the kitchen. As we deal with delicate things that can easily melt the room is air-conditioned or refrigerated-- it's the most comfortable place in the restaurant kitchen beyond the walk-in.

We were joined by a new student from the higher level who had to drop out for personal reasons and returned to the school to redo Level 3 with us. Instead of breaking our group of 5 students into smaller teams that worked on recipes the way we did in Level 2 our entire group was to work on the one recipe. We broke down duties at the beginning, each of us weighing out ingredients and getting the necessary pots and pans. We traded off on some tasks so we could all get chances doing things we wanted to and made 28 tarts over the course of the evening. I'm pretty sure 24 of them were used in the Friday rush along with Level 4's dessert.

A machine that spit out yellow and white copies of paper that look like a dinner check with the orders printed on them. A member of our group was what's called the 'expediter,' the person who calls out orders. The dishes are plated, set on service trays and carried to the front of the restaurant by the expediter and as many students needed. I plated a few dishes tonight but spent much of the rush watching Chef A. manipulate pink-dyed sugar which had been cooked on the stove to 140F.

Once the sugar was maleable Chef A. set it on a Silpat (cookie-sheet) and showed us how to make thin sugar coils to use as garnish on the tarts. He also demonstrated, while wearing gloves (he suggested using vinyl) how to thin the sugar, pinch it off with his thumb and make rose petals, another garnish. I certainly didn't master the technique but this is the kind of thing I was interested in going to school for and now I've got a good idea of the process. I made a few of the sugar coils which were used as garnish but was only able to make one rose (left) in the time we had so it wasn't used.

Overall, it was a fun night.