Day 15 - Eggs and Consomme

Both of our chef instructors were out today with the cold thing that has been going around so substituting for them were Chef Melanie a PCA2 instructor and Chef True who teaches the late class in PCA1. During the demo for Consomme (which is a very pure and refined chicken broth) Chef True gave us a couple of helpful shortcuts that made making it a breeze. Unfortunately I let it cook a little too long which reduced my Consomme to almost nothing.

Chef True said it tasted great and my brunoise carrots were cut perfectly, he'd just like to see a little more liquid in the bowl. Frankly, I would have liked that too.

Next came Eggs Benedict and Eggs Florentine. I did so well with the Hollandaise Sauce on Day 6 (which seems like a year ago) that I started calling it "Hal-andaise." I made the joke in class so now everyone is calling it Hal-andaise. Of course this put undue pressure on me to make an exceptional Hollandaise Sauce for the two visiting chefs.

Both dishes came out great. Chef True thought the sauce was a little salty for his taste but knows that Chef Reyes (our regular instructor) would have thought it was perfect. This picture was taken after the chefs tasted it so it looks a little sloppier than how it was presented.

Our final task of the day was to present a soft-boiled, medium-boiled and hard-boiled egg. This is just simply a matter of making sure the water is at full boil and watching the clock. 3 minutes for soft-boiled, 5 minutes for medium-boiled and 12 minutes with an instant ice water shock bath for the hard-boiled. I nailed all three.

So this brings me to the end of week 3. This is the halfway point of PCA1 and 1/10 of the way through the 30 week course. I have learned so much in these last three weeks. I can't wait to see what's coming next.