Last Week of School

Can you believe it? It was 6 months ago that I started my blog….SIX MONTHS!!!! Where on earth did the time go?! I am currently sitting at the airport having a coffee and delicious bacon and banana toasted sandwich, on my way to Johburg after which I will be heading home for my holidays!  I’ve had 23 weeks of chef training – watching, tasting and cooking – and am now apparently ready for the industry. My word…that is terrifying. Although while I am terrified, I am even more excited.

For those of you who don’t know where I will be working starting August 13th, I was placed at the beautiful Cellars-Hohenort Hotel in Constantia. Within the hotel is two restaurants, The Greenhouse (rated top restaurant in the country) and The Conservatory. Needless to say, I’m chuffed…..like crazy crazy crazy happy about this placement! For those of you who haven’t made the connection, I wrote about a lunch I had with my parents at The Conservatory a few weeks ago.

Janus and I went to go meet our chef yesterday afternoon and have a look around the kitchen. Chef Ryan was very nice and the place is awesome. We also found out that one of us will be working at the Conservatory first while the other will be starting in the Greenhouse. Half way through, we’ll switch.

So, now its time to talk about food, as well, that is what I talk about 98% of the time. So our last week at TCA, we had a fun, chilled out week where each day we had a different theme and each row cooked a different thing. We then got to sit down and enjoy a delicious, and rather indulgent lunch.

So Day 1: Health Day

Lentil Bobotie

Low-Fat Lasagne

Low GI Bread Rolls

Gluten Free Banana Muffins

Gluten Free Orange and Polenta Cake

I got to make the polenta cake which was awesome because Sonja has her special Zulu Cake at The Larder and I’ve always wondered how you make it! I’ll post the recipe when I’m back in Switzerland because it is DELICIOUS!

Healthy lunch!

Gluten Free Orange and Polenta Cake

Day 2: South African Day

Oof, this was a good day! And it was awesome eating some traditional South African things that I had never even heard of before!

Denningvleis

Tomato Bredie

Cape-Dutch Chicken Pie

Samp and Beans

Chakalaka

Cape Brandy Pudding

Milk Tart

and I managed to convince the chef to do Koeksisters!

South African Food!

Koeksister and Milk Tart

Day 3: Indian Day

Curry curry curry curry!!!! Oh my goodness….how I love curry!!! And roti!! and oh yum…I was SO full after this lunch! But DAYM it was good!

Tandoori Chicken

Butter Chicken

Lamb Rogan Josh

Tarka Dahl

Aloo Brinjal

Balti Prawns

Potatoes and Greens

Shermeel Bread

Roti

Basmati Rice

What a feast!

YUM

Day 4: French/British Day

This was originally meant to be a French day, but then Chef decided to make us Beef Wellington which is obviously an English dish…my my it was very tastey – although quite an assy thing to make I think….So, on the menu that day:

Beef Wellington

Chicken Fricasée

Quiche Lorraine

Salad Niçoise

and for dessert:

Tarte Tatin

Cinnamon Ice-Cream (courtesy of Talita and myself 😉 )

French and British!

Tarte Tatin!

It is safe to say that I DEFINITELY did not go hungry that week at school! (Although to be fair, I never went hungry…..) Anyway, it was a wonderful and very fun week to finish our time cooking in the TCA kitchen!!!

x

ps. so I realise I started writing this post last Thursday when I was on my way to Johburg….I’ve been at home 4 days now and have finally managed to finish it!

Les Croissants and Date Balls!

Croissants…….oh man. If there was one food item I seriously missed from switzerland, it would be the delicious, fresh, fluffy croissants that I would buy from the Coop at Renens train station on my way to work at EPFL. I would leg it from the train to the shop to beat the queue, pack it in one of the little brown baggies, get to the till as fast as possible, give the guy the 0.90CHF and then run out the shop to catch the metro. 8 times out of 10 I made it….the other 2 times I would have to wait the extra 5 minutes for the next one….what a drag.

Then I’d get to the office. Turn on my computer, turn on all my programs which would take a good 10 minutes and then mosey on over to the coffee machine where I would make a rather delicious latte. I would then spend the next 5 minutes (if that) devouring my coffee and croissant, dunking the bits of croissant with every bite. The dough would absorb the coffee so as you bit into it you would also get a delicious flavour of warm milky coffee gushing into your mouth….heavenly.

Now I had to make croissants this week at school. It was part a practical exam so we were shown how to do it at the beginning of the week and then at the end of the week we would have to make them, in silence, no questions asked. This is actually a challenge as while we have made puff pastry, which is very similar, there are still some pretty huge differences. The first and main difference being that croissant dough has yeast in it. Yeast makes things an entirely different ball game where you are actually racing against the heat in the kitchen which is helping the yeast to grow. If you don’t roll and fold quick enough, all your yeast will die before you are even finished. And that means, you get flat, ugly, rocky croissants….not so nice.

Well, after about 4 hours of preparing the dough, we had it rolled out and put in the freezer (to put the yeast to sleep) for it to then be taken out the next morning, defrosted, proved and baked.

Well…they came out pretty damn well.

My Croissants

Look how delicious and light and fluffy they are…perfect for sucking up coffee!

Delicious fluffiness!

So going back to my obsession with dipping my croissant in my coffee….whenever I told any of the people/chefs/lecturers at my school that this is how I like to eat my croissant, they all actually looked at me like I was a wee bit crazy (weird swiss chick right?). Well, let me remind you that these weird looks are coming from the people of the nation who invented The Rusk. Yeah, that thing that you dip in your coffee?? Or even your tea?? Yeah……just as weird as a croissant….well…almost.

So the other thing I wanted to write to you about on my blog was Date Balls. These are a mildy healthy, delicious treat which we made along with our tagine. No…not to eat with the tagine but as a kind of moroccany dessert. Oh, and when I say mildly healthy I mean that the obviously contain dates………..I suppose I should mention they also contain a shit load of sugar and butter. BUT they are delicious and you can actually eat a few of them without feeling too bad about yourself!

Date Balls

Ingredients

125g butter

1/2 cup sugar

250g pitted dates

1 egg

1 packet marie biscuits (crushed into tiny pieces)….you can use normal petit prince or any butter biscuits here

tiny bit of vanilla essence

desacated coconut

Method

1) Melt the butter and the sugar together.

2) Turn down heat and add the dates and vanilla. Continue stirring until dates are soft and mushy.

3) Remove from head and add the biscuits and the egg. Combine.

4) Roll into little balls and cover in coconut.

5) Store in the fridge and enjoy 8 in a row….they are so addictive!

Date Balls!

x

Tarte au Citron and Lamb Racks

So this week is Lamb week! But before we started cooking our little meaty friend we had a Monday where we prepared Lemon Tart! We actually had to make it about 2 months ago but almost everyone in the class managed to mess it up somehow. In mine, the eggs scrambled and the butter separated out. It wasn’t pretty.

We used the exact same recipe although changed the method slightly….the changes definitely made more sense. And guess what? It came out beautifully!

Lemon Tart

Ingredients

1 shortcrust pastry base (pâte sucrée)

5 eggs

1 cup sugar

180ml butter, melted and cooled slightly

100ml lemon juice

80 ml orange juice

Method

1) Heat up oven to 120°C.

2) Blind bake your shortcrust pastry (in a 180°C oven) and allow it to cool slightly.

3) Melt the butter.

4) Once the pastry case and the butter are cool enough and the oven has gone down to 120°C (if using the same oven as before) begin by combining the eggs and sugar. Do not over-mix this, you just want to combine the two ingredients.

5) Add the melted butter in a steady stream while constantly whisking.

6) Add the two juices in a steady stream while constantly whisking…you should feel the mixture start to thicken. NOTE: DO NOT LEAVE THE MIXTURE AT THIS POINT!

7) Immediately pour it into the cooled pastry case.

8) Carefully transport it to the cool oven and put it in the middle or at the bottom of the oven.

9) Bake for 45 mins to an hour, keeping a close eye on it. Do not want to overcook this or else the eggs will scramble.

10) Once set or with a slight wobble in the centre, remove from oven to cool.

11) ENJOY 😀

Tarte au Citron!

Yeah you see how bad boy that is? And how perfect that pastry came out? It is SO beautiful that it was actually worthy of 80%. Something that is not given so often (although I think 4 of us got 80% that day….)!  Nevertheless, I was quite proud.

And it was so delicious that I just ate three slices….luckily they were fairly small slices each time so I haven’t COMPLETELY over eaten….

Yummy yummy yummy!

For cakes and biscuits, I also had to make a Chocolate Tart which also came out very well you’ll be pleased to know :D. Note how the pastry isn’t quite so perfect….yeah that will be because I didn’t make it ;). Joke…I definitely just got lucky with the lemon tart!

Chocolate Tart

So then today we started with lamb. Chef got a whole half of lamb to portion and prepare for us. After tomorrow’s practical (when we are tunnel boning a leg of lamb) I will put up the pic of the lamb. It was pretty awesome. But today we cooked Lamb Racks. We had to cut them, clean them and cook them to perfect!

Lamb Racks with Boulanger Potatoes and Sautéed Green Beans

Mmmmm Medium-Rare Lamb Racks!

I definitely did not mind stuffing my face on these for lunch today!

Anyhoo, bed time for me! Slowly trying to catch up on sleep! xx

A South African Favourite: Malva Pudding!

It is Wednesday! Weeks just go by so quick here its mad. Tomorrow we are going to the Hostex conference in Cape Town. It is a catering and hospitality conference which should be very interesting.

Anyway, so Monday was “Winter Pudding” day seeing as the winter is definitely upon us! The days are still pretty warm here but then it gets freaking cold at night, it’s awful! You would expect I would be used to these cold conditions, being from Switzerland and all, but you see, when I moved here I didn’t quite think the seasons through so am not actually equipped to deal with this weather! Luckily I’m going home in less than 2 months so will miss the worst of the winter!

SO! As well as Rice Pudding (really really not my favourite at all) and a Steamed Caramel Pudding (which was actually very yummy) we made Malva Pudding which is a traditional South African pudding. It is absolutely delicious and completely fat FULL! I don’t really know how to explain it so I decided to wikipedia it.

Malva Pudding: “a sweet pudding of Afrikaner origin. It is made with apricot jam and has a caramelised spongey texture. It is normally served hot with custard or ice cream.”

I brought all my extras to Jean’s supper club and it went down very well. For this reason I would like to share the recipe and I recommend all my homies at home to give it a go and taste it! (or I suppose you can wait till I am back and make it for you….)

Malve Pudding

Ingredients

200g castor sugar

2 eggs

15 ml apricot jam

150g flour

1 tsp bicard of soda

15 g butter

1 tsp vinegar

100ml milk

(Sauce Ingredients)

200ml cream

100g butter

150g brown sugar

100 ml water

5 ml vanilla

Method

1) Whisk the eggs and sugar to the ribbon.

2) Add the apricot jam to the mixture.

3) Heat the milk and butter until the butter is completely melted.

4) Add half the milk/butter mixture and combine.

5) Sift in half the flour and mix well.

6) Add the rest of the milk/butter, trying not to bash the mixture around too much.

7) Add the rest of the flour, and again don’t knock out too much of the air in the mix.

8) Fold in the vinegar.

9) Fold in the bicarb.

10) Butter about 7 dariol moulds or butter a large dish.

11) Fill to about 2/3rds full and stick into an 180°C oven for 20-25 minutes. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN TOO EARLY!!! THEY WILL SINK!!!

12) While they are cooking, melt all the sauce ingredients together in a pot.

13) When the malva puddings come out of the oven, stab them a few times with a fork or cake testing skewer and pour over the sauce. Let it absorb it and add a bit more.

14) Turn out of the moulds…don’t wait too long before you do this or else it will stick and be hard to get out.

15) Serve hot with ice cream or custard!

Malva Pudding and Crème Anglaise

They are TO DIE FOR! And if you made them in a big dish you would obviously serve them in nice big squares or something…….YUM!

So then we had theory on tuesday which was same old same old really and then today was Spaghetti and Meatballs and Ciabatta. Throughout cheese week the chef had made Ciabatta every day trying different things so it was our turn to try. Normally they made it in a big mixer because the dough is so wet but the chefs wanted us to have a go at kneading it ourselves. When I say I don’t really mean knead…….when you make Ciabatta you actually have to “slap” the bread.  No no, this is not some special cuisine term…..you literally slap the shit out of your bread. This stuff sticks like glue to the work surface and you just have to keep bring your hands up and down slapping it around.

Slapping our Ciabatta

Once it is nice and shiney you throw it into a bowl to prove. Then after you struggle to get it out and placed on your baking tray without knocking out too much air you stick it in a hot hot oven to bake. This is what it looks like:

Ciabatta!

(It is covered in flour btw, thats why its kind of a weird colour!!

So then the Spaghetti and Meatballs. DELICIOUS! I did have a little mishap where I forgot to turn the heat down when I went to roll out my spaghetti and I nearly burned the shit out of my ragu and meatballs. Luckily I managed to catch it so it didn’t ruin the taste and while I had to serve a rather thick tomato sauce, it was very very tastey!

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Anyway, we have had a bit of a water situation this afternoon. It appears one of the pipes has burst or something so we are without water in the koshuis! Everyone wants to go out, because of course it is Wednesday, so our poor chef has been bombarded with students banging on her door begging if they can take a shower! Hopefully it will all be sorted by tomorrow so we can be all clean and pretty for Hostex!

Have a good evening all!!! xxx

The Cederberg, Brownies, Tortellini and a Golfing Cake!

So I thought I would begin with my Cederberg update!

Last Thursday evening I drove up to the Cederberg with the Alfelds for a lovely relaxing weekend far from any civilization and without any connection with the outside world. Thats right, as soon as you cross over a mountain pass, all reception stays behind and you are left with this electronic piece of useless equipment which sits at the bottom of your bag for the coming days.

We stayed in little bungalows facing up to a huge beautiful red rock face. Unfortunately the weather was rather freezing although that didn’t stop us spending each evening huddled around our Braai with a glass of wine (or 7) to keep us warm! Every day we tried to do a bit of exercise, although we only completed one rather immense walk throughout the whole 5 days! Day 1 consisted of a short 40 minute walk up to Lot Se Frou which we then completed the following day by doing the full loop. 5 minutes into the walk you meet a rock which oddly looks like a little woman either praying or just sitting on her knees looking at her hands/a book.

Lot Se Frou

Besides a few rather scary baboon moments the walk was very enjoyable. When we got back me and all the boys piled into the car to find the closest pub, approximately 20km away, to watch the Stormers rugby game.

Our big walk was up the Wolfberg Cracks which is a rather steep and rocky treck up into a mountain (around 1700m high…we were at around 1000m), then climbing through cracks in the mountain to reach the top. It was brilliant. Quite challenging at times, and rather hilarious when we finally reached the cracks, but really really enjoyable. And jees, could I feel my legs the next day! We had several moments in the cracks where we either had to seriously climb up walls (sort of spiderman action) to get over boulders, or shuffle underneath backwards to get under boulders. An example of the latter can be seen below:

Haiko in the cracks!

We went on our last day to a little town 40km drive from us called Wupperthal. While this place was 40km away, it took us about 2 hours to drive there due to the horrendous conditions of the roads. Seriously rocky and very thin some of the times with shear drops on the side…..rather terrifying I must say! We could see Wupperthal in the distance so stopped for lunch with a few overlooking the town/village/settlement (or whatever you want to call it).

Wupperthal!

Wupperthal has a population of 500 and I believe makes most of its income from the small Rooibos tea factory it runs. There is also a little run down building where a man makes leather shoes from scraps of leather he receives from factories. Other than that, Wupperthal doesn’t have much going on. The rugby field was pretty cool though, surrounded by palm trees and crawling with sheep!

So before we headed home yesterday we decided to stop at Stadsaal where there are some rock paintings and some funky caves to check out. It was a beautiful day!

Stadsaal

After such a relaxing and long weekend (5 days!!), you would expect that I would be completely rejuvenated and energentic. WRONG! I was SO tired today! Although i still managed to power through with only a few dodgy moment.

So today, we made BROWNIES! I wasn’t too impressed with these things as I was making them, but when I finally tasted them….OH MY GOLLY GOSH! They were DELICIOUS!

Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients

200g dark/milk chocolate (dark would be better but you can use milk if thats all you’ve got), finely chopped

100g white chocolate, chopped into chunks

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter

3 eggs

1/2 cup flour

1 1/2 cups mixed nuts, chopped

Method

1) Whisk the eggs and the sugar together until a figure 8 holds in the mixture. (It should be a pale colour)

2) Melt the butter over a bain-marie until completely melted.

3) Add the dark/milk chocolate and melt slowly.

4) Mix a small amount of the egg/sugar mix into the chocolate and then add everything back into the egg/sugar mix (this will temper the mixture).

5) Fold in the flour.

6) Fold in the nuts and the chunks of white chocolate.

7) Bake at 160°C for approximately 30 minutes.

8) Allow to cool and cover with chocolate ganache if required. (If you have made milk chocolate brownies, it is quite nice to use dark rich chocolate for a ganache to balance out the sweetness)

Chocolate Brownies!

Because they were so delicious and we had made loads, me and a few of the girls packaged them neatly and went and sold them on the road heading down to the motorway at rush hour. While it’s not loads, I have a spare R50 in Mr. Pocket which actually does go quite a long way! (Btw, don’t worry Jean and Haiko, I saved a few to bring to you guys this weekend :D)

Today we also made tortellini which was DIVINE! I read through the recipe and actually wasn’t too psyched about it but OMG it was delicious! It was called Pumpkin Tortellini with Brown Butter Balsamic Vinegar. The pumpkin was to be sweetened with cinnamon and sugar and the it would be tossed through this spinachy-butter-balsamic sauce. What I ended up doing was adding very little sugar, quite a lot of cinnamon and a heavy dose of pepper. Then the sauce was fried onions and garlic, then balsamic vinegar added and finally some chopped spinach and fresh sage. Really REALLY delicious! The sweetness of the pumpkin really contrasted the tanginess of the balsamic and it was TO DIE FOR!

Pumpking Tortellini with Balsamic Butter Sauce

Finally, I wanted to show you a picture of the beautiful and totally awesome cake that Chef Kirsty made for Mr Stevens!

Mr. Stevens’s Birthday cake made by Chef Kirsty!

Seriously cool! Anyway, off to work at a governmenty thing tomorrow so need to get some sleep as leaving here at 6am in the morning to head to CT!

Bonne nuit! x

No-Bake Cheesecake, this weeks food and a Fat Trap explanation

We had a long week this week and had to come in today (Saturday) for an exam. I shall first begin, however, with the food from earlier this week. So the day after tunnel boning Mr. Quail, we got to make Cheesecake! Chef was demming both Baked Cheesecakes and No-Bake Cheesecakes. Now, alongside sandwiches, most of you know that cheesecakes are my number two thing. I have been making them since I was about 12 years old and an absolutely HUGE fan! I would also like to take credit for making many of my friends and family mahoosive cheesecake-lovers. Who can blame them though, after they have tasted my cheesecake ;)?

My all time favourite to bake is a Banoffee Cheesecake; banana flavoured cheesecake with a delicious, rich caramel sauce. In the summer I also enjoy making a Lemon Cheesecake with berries on the base. I have also experimented with White Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake, Oreo Crusted Cheesecake and of course the standard New York Cheesecake. I am a die-hard baked cheesecake fan. If a no-bake cheesecake was put in front of me I would eat it although if I had to order it in a restaurant I would definitely stick to the baked cheesecakes. My reason are as follows:

1) Gelatine. Now do you even realise what gelatine is made out of??? No? Let me enlighten you. Wikipedia defines gelatine as

“a translucent, colourless, brittle (when dry), flavourless solid substance, derived from the collagen inside animals’ skin and bones”

One word. Ew. If you can’t tell me that that is seriously disgusting then there is obviously something wrong with you. Not judging of course….

2) It is EXTREMELY creamy. So creamy that you almost might as well just whip up some cream, add a squeeze of lemon juice and some sugar, dip in a tennis biscuit and VOILA, instant cheesecake!

3) Fridge set cheesecakes are much more temperamental and need to be handled with greater care than a baked-cheesecake. While the copious amounts of gelatine will have set the cheesecake, it will still be quite soft and anything leaning on it will definitely smoosh it up.

4) Going back to gelatine (yes I seriously have a thing against gelatine), have you ever tasted something with too much gelatine? It’s not like it tastes like gelatine but it doesn’t taste like it should taste…..its revolting. end of.

Chef asked us who preferred what cheesecake and it was more or less 50-50. In case you are interested the people who prefered no-bake cheesecake preferred the texture as it is much smoother and creamier (notice that was one of my reasons to dislike no-baked cheesecake).

ANYWAY! After this mini-debate which of course I was very involved in, especially with my gelatine-hating and all, Chef demmed the two cheesecakes and had them ready for us to test the next day. Her Baked Cheesecake was exquisite. Like out of this world delicious. I thought I could make amazing cheesecake? Damn. Now this was Effing amazing cheesecake! I can vow that from now on when I make a plain cheesecake I will go with this bad boy.

Now it comes to the No-Baked Cheesecake. Moment of truth. It was divine. The level of smoothness and creaminess was perfect. There wasn’t that horrible gelatine-ness to it and it had a good texture and firmness. As a matter of fact, I have just devoured 2 pieces right before writing this. The other beauty about a No-Baked Cheesecake is that you mix all the crap together in a bowl, throw it over the base and bob’s your uncle, you have a cheesecake that can be eaten in 12 hours. Here is the recipe for you:

Lemon No-Bake Cheesecake

Ingredients

180g Butter biscuits, crushed

60g melted butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tin condensed milk (100g)

10ml gelatine (or 2 sheets of gelatine)

250g cream cheese

zest of 1 lemon

125ml lemon juice

250ml cream

Method

1) Combine the crushed biscuits and the butter.

2) Press into your prepared spring form cake tin.

3) Stick it into the fridge to set.

4) Put  gelatine leaves into icey cold water to soften them.

5) Combine the condensed milk and the cream cheese. (Make sure you get a spoonful of that condensed milk……my goodness its disgustingly delicious!)

6) Add the lemon juice and zest.

7) Squeeze out all the water from the gelatine and melt it in a pan over very low heat.

8) Whip the cream to soft peak.

9) Add a small amount of the cheesey batter to the gelatine pan, mix together, then add everything back into the cheesey batter. Stir quickly and combine.

10) Fold in the cream.

11) Pour the mixture into your cake tin and leave to set in the fridge for about 12 hours. MAKE SURE YOU WRAP IT IN CLING WRAP otherwise your cheesecake will taste like fridge.

Lemon No-Bake Cheesecake

Slice O Cheesecake

So other than the cheesecake we had a duck day where the chefs showed us how to make Duck Confit and Roast Duck, and we got to make an Asian Style Duck Breast with Noodles and Bok Choi. Having cooked duck before I wasn’t took worried about overcooking the damn thing, but of course, I wasn’t really thinking and decided to follow exactly how the chef did it and within a matter of seconds it was overcooked. Dammit. Either way though, the dish was actually delicious!

Asian Style Duck with Noodles and Bok Choi

Then, as I mentioned, we came into for an exam where we made a Croque en Bouche. I explained to you guys a couple weeks ago what this was in my Bonjour la France post. Basically, it is a french wedding cake made of profiteroles.

So we had to make a bunch of these things and stack them up, sticking them together with chocolate ganache. Fairly difficult but at the end of the day this is what I was able to present:

My Croque en Bouche

I ate at least 10 of these things today…so delicious!

So last on my list of things for todays post is……THE FAT TRAP. Now most of you can guess what this is but I figured a little explanation needed to be done on my blog at some point! And what perfect time to do it than during the week that I am actually on fat trap duty. We get rotated on our chores every week/fortnight and while I actually tend to do whatever needs to be done, instead of what I am actually assigned (which has sometimes included fat traps in the past), I tend to stick to the cleaner and more lengthy chores such as dem prep. Because I am actually on fat traps though, I must actually do it as, lets face it, no one else wants to.

So. Think about it this way, all day the sinks at the back of the kitchen are being used to wash about 200 bowls/pots/pans etc. And of course, greasy stuff, food, bits of just about anything goes down the drain. With the rate that this stuff is going into the sink, the chance of a blockage in the pipes is kind of inevitable. Enter, the fat trap. This metal contraption under the sink catches all the nasty bits nobody wants which can then be removed, washed, the fat trap basin emptied, cleaned and VOILA, it is ready for the next day without any blockages in the pipes. Emptying fat traps is a bit of an ordeal with one person outside washing the fat traps, one person emptying the basin (probably the most disgusting as you have to get your hands in there which has been my job this week…yay), one standing with the mop to clean up all the splashing and then two carriers to carry the buckets filled with fat trap water outside to be emptied.

Don't be deceived by the smile. A few of us were pretty hungover which made the situation funny!

Just to give you a bit of an idea…..this job SUCKS. The smell can be unbearable, the water extremely fatty and greasy, it makes you feel dirty as your pour the water into the bucket and it splashes out onto your legs and apron, and just generally it is very unpleasant. Today, having made pastry cream and chocolate ganache, the fat trap was bound to be disgusting. And…..guess what. It was. WARNING: do not look at the next photo if you have a weak stomach!

Crème Pat and Chocolate Ganache filled Fat Trap!

Oh yeah, and you see that thing sticking out in the middle? Yeah you have to reach in, grab that, and pull it out while emptying out the water. Yum!

After a busy day in the kitchen, and after clearing almost 3 fat traps, your arm gets tired and you get a bit bored. Talita couldn’t resist the photo op this afternoon while I was clearing out the last fat trap.

Bored of Fat Trap Cleaning

She also couldn’t resist giving me a rather painful smack on the bum. I was bending over with my ass right in the air wiping out the fat trap. This way I could keep my face as far away from the smell as possible. Of course, she then walked in from cleaning the trap itself, saw my butt waving around by the sinks and gave me a nice hard smack. Not so friendly this girl 😛

Luckily, it’s a new week next week and HOPEFULLY duties will be changed so I can get back to doing other stuff!!!!!!!!!

I hope you have enjoyed this education about Fat Traps. I’m sure it will come in use one day in your lives. And when that day comes, you will be thanking me!

Bonne nuit!! xxxx

Bonjour la France: Profiteroles and Coq au Vin

Bonjour!

Its fairly cold and extremely rainy here in Paarl today! The heavy weather is making everyone really sleepy so we are all either chilling in front of tv or cuddled up in bed!

So time to recap the week! Tuesday was choux pastry day! We had to prepare the pastry from scratch, make some crème patissière for the filling and then melt some chocolate to top it off. We were allowed to make chocolate eclairs and profiterole looking things! Have you ever wondered how an eclair gets its filling? You actually make a tiny hole in the bottom of the pastry after you’ve cooked it, then dry it out in the oven again and crisp up the inside, and finally when they are cool you can pipe in the crème patissière. We also made an absolutely amazing chocolate sauce to eat with! Behold my delicious profiteroles:

Profiteroles

These choux pastry balls are normally used to create a Croque en Bouche which is a typical french wedding cake! Here is a picture of Chef Ronan’s Croque en Bouche which he put together (thanks Stephanie for the photo) :

Chef's Croque en Bouche

These profiteroles are pretty big. I went to a wedding last September in Bordeaux (Sean and Margot’s lovely wedding) and they had a Croque en Bouche. There are chefs in the world who are trained specifically to prepare only the choux pastry balls for a Croque en Bouche. Its pretty ridiculous. Thought I would share a photo of what one from France looks like:

Thomas Wedding Cake

Finally it appears that pastry is done! After a large number of pies, quiches and other pastry dishes we have done (for about 3 weeks now) we are headed back to cooking!! Chicken dishes! On Wednesday we each were given a chicken to portion and then used the two legs to make Coq au Vin and had to save the breasts for our exam on friday, where we are making Chicken Kiev.

Coq au Vin is basically a chicken stew where the chicken is cooked in red wine. It also has bacon, mushrooms and is traditionally served with a heart shaped croûton. We were also told that you can make a Chasseur by replacing the red wine with white wine and leaving out the bacon and the croûton. I always thought that Coq au Vin was a difficult thing to make but it is actually ridiculously easy! So, time to share a recipe :).

Coq au Vin

Ingredients

2 Chicken legs, separated into thigh and drumstick

100ml-ish red wine

1tbsp-ish tomato paste

40g-ish back bacon

8 button mushrooms

1-2 small onions

1-3 cloves garlic

500ml-1l chicken stock

seasoned flour

thyme and rosemary

parsley, for garnish

bread to make a croûton for garnish

Method

1) Prepare your chicken by removing the skin (if you don’t want the sauce to be really fatty) and dipping in seasoned flour.

2) Heat some oil in a saucepan and brown all sides of the chicken. Remove and allow the oil to drain off (use a sieve or some paper towel).

3) Add the onions, bacon and mushrooms to the same pan and turn down the heat slightly. Once the pan is slightly cooler, add the finely chopped garlic.

4) Once everything is browned, add the wine to remove any sediment, then add the tomato paste.

5) Then put the chicken back in the pot, stir to cover in the sauce, then add the chicken stock until the chicken is covered in liquid. Stir all the ingredients again, bring up to the boil and then reduce to a simmer.

6) Leave the chicken to simmer for approximately 35 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked and tender.

7) Meanwhile, you can prepare your heart shaped croûton but cutting a heart shape out of a slice of bread and toasting in a lightly buttered pan.

8) Once the chicken is cooked, remove it from the pot and then turn up the heat to reduce the liquid to sauce consistency.

9) Once thick, put the chicken back in, stir all together and then plate with extra sauce poured on top and topped with the croûton and a dusting of parsley. We served this dish with turned potatoes and green beans.

Coq au Vin

This is a really nice stew to enjoy when its cold…great comfort food! It also freezes well so make a batch and freeze it for future eating enjoyment :).

Bonap!

Millionaire Shortbread, a Wedding and the Winelands

So the week has flown by once again! Craziness! This week we started wine tasting which is awesome because we are allowed to drink wine in class, obviously ;). No but seriously, we are learning exactly how to taste wine and will eventually be able to recognise what wine we are drinking without reading the label. We’ll see how that goes!

Tuesday was crème brulée and crème caramel day. I got stuck making crème caramel: the harder of the two! and also the one I like less! Luckily, at the end of the day, each of us had made enough to share, meaning I wasn’t going to be missing out on any crème brûlée! Although to be honest, seeing what it is made of it should really put anyone off eating it…………but it’s just so creamy and delicious!!! Just to give you an idea: cream, sugar and a shit load of egg yolks. Crème caramel on the other hand has milk, sugar and a shit load of eggs! Slightly less calorific I suppose but yet still extremely unhealthy!

Anyway, here is a shot of my crème caramel…obviously the splat of caramel sauce was a mistake but it looked pretty cool:

Crème Caramel

After we prepared our Crème Caramels we also had to make Tuiles which are basically little vanilla biscuits that are quickly baked and then shaped while still warm. As they cool they harden and stay in the shape you made them. Very cool idea, although when your batter starts going all stupid on you and doesn’t want to stick to the bloody silicon mat, you get a bit frustrated! These bloody biscuit things made my Tuesday end badly. Luckily, I was headed for Cape Town that evening to chill at the Alfelds and enjoy a day off the next day!

Behold the tuiles I managed to throw together. These biscuits actually taste DIVINE and are worth just make to eat like that….(normally they would be made for garnish). Also, who likes my bit of patriotism right there :P?

Tuiles

Anyway, after a lovely day off of chilling in CT and doing some work, thursday came around. We had a guest chef coming in, Chef Grant Kennedy, the executive chef from the Radisson Blu at the Waterfront. He worked as a chef lecturer at TCA for 5 years many years ago before he went back into the industry. He came in to teach us how to make Millionaire Shortbread. In case you don’t know what that is, it is a three layer biscuit with a layer of shortbread, a layer of caramel and a layer of chocolate. They are absolutely delicious! Definitely a guilty pleasure of mine!

Millionaire Shortbread

And, as these little things are SO delicious, I have decided to share the recipe with you guys! They are a bit of an effort to make, but totally worth it!

Millionaire Shortbread

Shortbread

Ingredients

340g self-raising flour

225g butter

110g castor sugar

Method

1) Mix the flour and the sugar.

2) Rub in the butter. Once fully rubbed in, start squeezing the mixture together to make a dough.

3) Put the mixture into a well greased tin (can also line with baking paper if desired).

4) Make imprints with a fork into the shortbread dough.

5) Bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden brown.

Caramel

Ingredients

225g castor sugar

225g butter

4 tbsp golden syrup

1 tin sweetened condensed milk (100g)

Method

1) Melt the butter over a low heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.

2) Add the sugar and dissolve.

3) Add the golden syrup and the condensed milk and continue to stir over low heat for approximately 20 minutes or until the mixture thickens. (NOTE: The caramel will burn very easily so keep the heat low and don’t stop stirring!)

4) Test if the toffee/caramel is done by dropping a blob into a bowl of cold water. The toffee should be firm but still soft.

5) Pour the caramel over your prepared shortbread and immediately spread evenly on top.

6) Allow to cool.

Chocolate

Ingredients

200g good quality chocolate

some white chocolate if desired

Method

1) Melt the chocolates (seperately) over a bain-marie until melted. (NOTE: Ensure no water gets into the chocolate or will cause it to sieze)

2) Spread evenly over the caramel topping.

3) Fill a small pastry bag with melted white chocolate and squeeze over dark chocolate in some pretty pattern if desired.

4) Allow chocolate to set at room temperature.

5) Once the chocolate is hard, cut into evenly sized squares and enjoy!

Millionaire Shortbread

We had to cut ours perfectly evenly (measuring it and everything) but you of course may cut them how the hell you want 🙂

Thursday was Lemon Tart day which turned out to be an epic fail. About 80% of the class either curdled their tarts and/or the butter separated out. Luckily none of us failed, we just have to do it again in the future. This is what mine looked like:

Epic Fail Lemon Tart

Delicious right?

This week was Saturday class week where we were making sandwiches for the open day (something you all know that I am already brilliant at :P). Luckily, I was given the opportunity to work at a small 50 person wedding with Sonja Edridge, who is the Chef at The Larder Café in Diep River. I went to her house on Saturday morning to finish off some prep, and then we drove with all the food to a beautiful house in Clairemont where the wedding was taking place. 5 hours later once the food had been prepared, cut, served, eaten and everything cleaned away I was driving back to Paarl having earned my first wage from cheffing. It was awesome and I loved it. Here are some pics of the food that was served:

Food served at the wedding

Sonja served Lentil Salad, Gravalax, Roast Beef with Salsa Verde, Smoked Mozzarella and Sun Tomato Tart and finally, a very delicious Potato Salad. The food was excellent and I definitely stuffed my face on the side lines. As well as some delicious brownies and very pretty cupcakes. Sonja also made Lindt Chocolate Chip Meringues. They. were. to die for! Absolutely delicious, I must have had 3 by the time I left the house….and I felt SO sick!

Lindt Chocolate Chip Meringues

My apologies for this being such a long post! Last thing now I promise!

Today, the girls and I had planned to go to the beach but our lovely Cape Town wind has been blowing hard these past few days, so instead of getting sand blasted for the day, we packed a picnic and headed up to the Afrikaans Taal up on the mountains. Now these obviously aren’t like mountains we have at home as it takes less than 5 minutes to drive up but it was a really odd sensation driving up a mountain once again! Anyway, we picked up some goodies, headed up the mountains and parked ourselves on the grass for 4.5 hours to just chill, nap and stuff our faces. Oh and the view was absolutely incredible. Like……wow.

The view from the Afrikaans Taal

I think the beautiful day also made it so incredible. Not that any of you would be able to tell, but you can see Backsberg in this pic which is pretty cool. And if you turn a bit to the right, you can see table mountain and a bit of lions head popping up!

Table Mountain and Lions Head

So tomorrow is a new week and this week is going to be quite hectic. We are finishing our pastry business by making choux pastry and then we are headed back to chicken and making coq au vin, chicken kiev and other delicious things! I’m quite excited to be actually cooking again as opposed to baking! Time for some tea and a rusk and then its bed time!

Bonap and also, I’d love to hear from any of you who try out any of my recipes :). Baaaaai!

Pastries: Tarte Normande and Quiche Lorraine

Hello all! I am at the airport waiting to catch my flight to johburg to see the parents and sister for the last time before they head back to cold cold geneva! I am also going to see my Uncle and Aunt, David and Sharon. And of course I am then going to see my wonderful nephew, Kian, and the nouveau parents, Paul and Sandrine. It is all very exciting! And I must say, the end to an absolutely awesome week!

Monday was pretty chilled, we just had some theory as usual but we finished pretty early. We learned about the best restaurants in the world and surprisingly enough the best restaurant in the world is Noma, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Following just behind is the The Fat Duck in London, a restaurant I would LOVE to eat at! It is Heston Bloumenthal’s restaurant where he believes the food is also about the experience. For example, one of his dishes called Sounds of the Sea which is a seafood dish. The diner will get a bed of sand to put their feet in and will listen to an iPod playing the sounds of the ocean. It sounds incredible but apparently its about £350 for one meal. OUCH. It was pretty surprising looking at the food of many of the best restaurants because a lot of it actually looks kind of disgusting, although I’m sure it tastes delicious…oh well. Fine dining for you I guess….

Anyway! Tuesday was apple tart day. We had Tart Tatin demed for us which is absolutely delicious and disgustingly sugary. And then of course the second thing demed, and what we would have to reproduce right after is a Tarte Normand. Probably one of the most ridiculous cakes or tarts I will ever make…you’ll see in a second.

Tarte Normande obviously originated in Normandie. It is a an apple tarte with a shortcrust pastry crust, frangipan centre and covered in sliced apples. Now one could keep this tart simple and pile on the fruit in a nice simple pattern. Of course, this is cheffing school after all, we have to do it the traditional and extremely complicated way. The apples must be thinly sliced, stacked upright tightly next to each other so there is not a single gap. We were given a few tips on how to do this but at the end of the day we had to figure out how to get these damn apples to pile up neatly. Below are the series of photos for the prep of this damn tart:

First:

Prepared Base and Sliced Apples

Starting to pile in the apples:

Stacking the Apples in Quarters

Once all 8.5 apples (thats how many I used) are stuck in, the tart should look something like this:

Filled Tart (Pre-Baked)

And finally, the baked Tarte Normade covered in jam glaze:

Tarte Normande

Theres is now doubt about the fact this tarte looks absolutely incredible baked. But to be honest, you could make a tarte which takes half the amount of time to fill with apples and tastes just as good. The combination of the frangipan and apples is absolutely divine. I have decided to give my readers who enjoy to bake the recipe for this tart because it is definitely worth making if you like apple tart. I leave you the choice on how you wish to stack the apples 😛

______________________________________________________

Tarte Normande

Ingredients

Shortcrust Pastry:

250g flour

100g icing sugar

100g butter

pinch of salt

1 egg

Frangipan Filling:

1 cup sugar

125g soft butter

1/2 cup flour

2 eggs

1 cup ground almonds

Topping:

6-9 granny smith apples, depending how many you can fit in the tart…

smooth apricot jam

Method

1) Prepare your pastry by combining the flour, icing sugar and salt. Then rub in the butter.

2) Make a well in the centre, crack in the egg, and then bring the mixture together to make a pastry ball.

3) Wrap in clingwrap and stick in the fridge to rest.

4) Prepare your frangipan by mixing together the sugar, soft butter (NOT MELTED), flour, eggs and almonds until it is smooth. Stick in the fridge to keep cool.

5) Peel the apples and rub with lemon juice.

6) When the pastry is cool, roll it out and fill pie tin. Ensure it is squished down properly and it isnt too think. Fill with cling film and baking beans. Allow to rest again until hard.

7) Blind bake the pastry for approximately 10 minutes, then remove the beans and cook again for another few minutes to crispy up the surface. The crust should be very slightly browned. (Remember it is going to bake again with the filling.)

8) Once the pastry is baked and cooled, fill with the frangipan filling. Spread it out evenly.

If filling your tart the traditional way like mine above:

9) While your waiting for the pastry to cool, quarter the apples, cut out the core and slice to slightly thicker than match stick thickness. Try to keep the apples the same thickness.

10) Fill the tart like the pictures I posted above.

If filling your own way:

9) Chop your apples any way you wish.

10) Arrange them your own pretty way!

11) Melt some of the apricot jam with some water in a pot. Glaze your apples.

12) Stick it into the oven at 180°C for approximately 50 minutes.

13) Take your tart out and reglaze.

14) Put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

15) Remove from the oven and reglaze.

16) Enjoy with ice cream or cream, it’s delicious!!!!

It does take a fair amount of time to prepare this tart as you HAVE to let the pastry cool before you put the filling in otherwise you will curdle your eggs and get sweet scrambled eggs (gross.). But it is worth it. It is so so so so so delicious!

On wednesday we kept up with the pastry theme and made Quiche Lorraine! A french classic obviously. A quiche with bacon, onion and gruyère! (a little taste from home :P) It was also VERY delicious. I’m not planning on posting the recipe but let me know if you are keen for it. Here is a picture of my delicious quiche 🙂

Quiche Lorraine

Well thats all for this post! Hope you all have a go at that tart. It was so good that I couldn’t bare keep it to myself so I drove to Cape Town to give it to Jean and her visitors! (Of course I enjoyed it with them :P)

About to board my flight. I’ll write another post this weekend about the rest of my excellent week 🙂 xxx

Moelleux au Chocolat and PitZa

So I looked through this weeks schedule and Tuesday was CHOCOLATE DAY !!! (Written just like that!) On Mondays and Tuesdays we get split into each side of the kitchen and half of us do theory and half of us do cooking. Luckily we got the more boring stuff out the way and go to have our chocolate day today! Dem started with Chocolate Whiskey Gateau (which appears to be an absolute biznatch to make…and we will taste it tomorrow) and the followed by Chef Ronan’s own Chocolate Mousse (delicious). This was then followed by White Chocolate and Saffron Sauce….not my favourite..bit odd! And finally we watched Chef cook the Chocolate Fondant and the Raspberry Coolies to be served with it.

Now when I first looked at the recipe list I had no idea what Chocolate Fondant was. I assumed it was a kind of icing or something like that but when I asked Chef Kirsty she enlightened me with such brilliant news!! Chocolate Fondant in South Africa is what we call Moelleux au Chocolat in Switzerland. You know, that little mini chocolate cake that when you cut into it chocolate oozes out? Oh my goodness, I was so excited!

So these little delectable cakes are actually EXTREMELY easy to prepare, what’s difficult is the cooking time, as even just a minute too long could over-cook them and make them rather pointless and un-special. Alas, the recipe:

Moelleux au Chocolat (Chocolate Fondant)

Ingredients

150g good quality dark chocolate (at least 70%)

150g softened butter

60g castor sugar

3 whole eggs

3 egg yolks

1 tbsp espresso coffee

60g flour

Method

1) Spray/butter/grease your moulds very well and put in the fridge for 10-15 mins. Then go back, spray them again and put them back in the fridge until you are ready for them.

2) Whisk all the eggs, the sugar and the coffee together.

3) Chop up the chocolate and melt over a bain-marie. Once completely melted remove from heat and mix in the softened butter.

4) When butter is totally melted add to the egg/sugar mixture.

5) Fold in the sifted flour.

(Batter can now be stored in the fridge until needed or used immediately…if you are faffing around a bit before cooking, store it in the fridge to allow it to cool slightly)

6) Fill a mould up to 2/3rds of the way. Put it in the oven at 200°C….the time it takes varies. A normal size moulleaux in a metal mould will take around 6-7 mins. If you are using porcelain remakins it will probably take around 12 minutes. Keep an eye on them. The cake is done when the top just has a skin of cooked dough on top, but when pushed should still have give.

7) When you think they are done, turn the mould over onto a plate. Serve with ice-cream, raspberry coolies or whatever you want.

8) To check its done once its turned over, squeeze the top slightly, it should be wobbly but still hold…the best way to check its ready is obviously to cut into it but then you ruin your presentation!!

It should look something like this:

Perfectly Cooked Moelleux!

If its overcooked, cut the cooking time by 30secs-1min. Undercooked, well you shouldn’t have taken it out of the oven in the first place you wally.

One you cut into that bad boy it should look as delicious as this:

Look at it ooooooooze!

So go and make this for your loved one on valentines day! Or any day of the week really…they are sooooo good but very rich, so it might be a good idea to share one…..

Now the second part of this post is all my student food lovers/lazy cooks. I have become the LAZIEST cook when it comes to cooking for myself in our koshuis kitchen. I don’t know if its because it’s small, or its not my station which I’m used to…or what! But I have been living off of sandwiches, salads or going out for meals!! I have cooked a chicken breast or two in the grill pan or boiled or fried an egg, but that was just to be thrown into a salad/sandwich!! Sunday night I got uber temptation for pizza so we went quickly to Spar and instead of buying a pizza, I got the motivation to prepare my own! Well…sort of. No, I did not make the dough…or the tomato sauce……or anything else. I bought all the different ingredients and through it together. But it was DELICIOUS:

PitZa

It is simply, a pita bread cut in two (hence the name Pitza), drizzle over some olive oil and spread it, tomato purée next, covered in a few fresh herbs if you have. Then pile on the toppings….my toppings of choice on this pitza were slice mushrooms, pepadews, ham. You then cover everything in grated mozzarella and then top with plenty of Ina Paarman’s Garlic and Herb Seasoning and finally, throw on a few fresh sliced tomatoes. Throw this masterpiece into the oven and cook until the cheese is a bit bubbly and the bread is browning and VOILA! Home made DELICIOUS pizza 🙂 And it’s probably a wee bit healthier than most pre-made pizzas! Enjoy 🙂