Hitting the books and the stove...

Monday, October 30

Well my blog might be sparse over the next few days as I'm studying nights for a big mid-term exam at the end of week where I will have 2 hours to prepare a three course meal with no recipes and it will be based on taste, presentation and texture. Also, after that I will have a written exam for 2 hours on everything we've covered to date, which is a lot! So there is no rest for the weary.

Pates and Terrines...

Today was all about the creation of vegetarian and vegan healty pates and terrines. First we learned about the history of pates and terrines as peasant type food originally that the workers would bring to the fields with bread and it developed to be known as more of a sophisticated food. Also, we learned about the traditional compositions with assorted animal products and lots of fat usually, the different kinds such as pate maison and pate du chef, and the different ways they are prepared or cooked such as in a traditional pate dish/vessel and bain marie (water bath under the pate pan in the oven to help cook food gently and slowly). FYI, pate means paste and terrine is the dish in which the pate is cooked and the pate can also be served in this dish. When simply called pate, this indicates that it has been removed or turned out of the terrine.

As a collective team, we prepared a number of incredible dishes, including tapendades, galantines, and aspics, using creative and healthful ingredients, some cooked and some raw, including: red lentil pate; mushroom walnut pate; sundried tomato and sunflower seed pate; tapenade - traditional garlic olive caper anchovy spread (which I was responsible for and tried making vegan with roasted nori, which everyone found very similiar to the anchovy one and delicious); carrot and asparagus terrine; yellow and green split pea pate; polenta, goat cheese and black bean terrine; carrot and ginger pate (I made this one and it was very good I must say); sunset pate with bring red and orange colours from beets and carrots; and, rutabaga and potato terrine with scallion puree. The only problem is that we ran out of bread and crackers to try everything, and we were missing the wine of course.