Day 13 - Couscous, Baked Potato & Split Pea Soup

Our first dish today was Couscous with Brunoise Vegetables. Couscous is a very fine pasta and brunoise means that the vegetable are cut into tiny squares. Brunoise is a very precise and time consuming process that I have yet to master. Chef Reyes said the couscous was cooked perfectly and seasoned perfectly but he could see some rectangles in the vegetables that should have been squares. I really have to spend time outside of class to perfect my cuts.

Next came the simple Baked Potato with Compound Butter. Compound Butter sometimes called Hotel Butter is a butter mixture of Thyme, Parsley, Shallot, Garlic, Kosher Salt and Lemon. It is then chilled in a cylindrical shape and sliced. I really thought my butter tasted too lemony but Chef Perez said the potato was cooked perfectly and the Compound Butter tasted fine.

Last came Split Pea Soup. This is a pretty easy soup to make. It just takes about 2 hours to reduce down to it's final form. Chef Perez said it looked like it was supposed to but needed more salt. I added more salt and to me it tasted a bit too salty but I guess I'm still developing my palate.

All in all a pretty good day. I'm a bit under the weather at the moment so I'm happy that most things came out okay even though I was a bit out of it. Day 14 brings us to grilling and roasting vegetables.