First Friday Night Dinner Practice...
Monday, November 27
Well, back to the kitchens again and today was our first Friday Night Dinner practice. This meant we broke up into our Friday Night Dinner teams and started testing our entree dish. We started thinking about and planning a asian dinner theme, focusing on Indian and Japanese dishes, because of the expertise in our group with this. We have to prepare a four-course gourmet vegan meal for about 100 people on January 5.
During the first testing, we were provided with all the ingredients we asked for and then work together to try and create a dish that is balanced, colourful, varied, and delicious of course. We tried out a Japanese tempeh panko ball recipe that turned out well. We tried marinating the tempeh before in a curry bouillon but it didn't make too much difference in the end result and actually made it hard to form the balls for light flash frying then grilling. By the way, if you're going to use tempeh, we are always told to steam it or marinate it in a flavourful liquid on simmer before using to give it more flavour and depth. Then, our Indian expert came up with a beautiful curry sauce and chutney for the tempeh balls. Besides this, we tried out a stuffed okra that was too difficult to make (time and labour involved is one of the key considerations in coming up with dishes... can they be replicated easily by anyone? what's the time involved in prep? is it worth all the effort?). So, we opted for brussel sprouts with coconut sauce that was yummy. Then Yuki and I created a Japanese adapted speciality which was steamed brown sweet rice and millet with chesnut and burdock (or gobo in Japanese) that is wonderful. We roasted the chestnuts and burdock before and this gave the dish some smokiness and depth. We are going to try to add black rice at the end to this to give it more colour (another factor to consider during and after is the colour of things and how they will work alone and together, which you often can't truly imagine until you put things together), either by adding it to the mixture or layering it in round forms with the other rice, which is brown in colour. Then, some blanched broccoli rabe, which we will sautee in the next round. The final touches will be some colourful Indian and Japanese pickles, which we still have to make. So, after the dish was created, we had to plate it and could use a variety of tools such as forms and accessories such as sauces in squirt bottles, garnishes, etc. This was a challenge to do and we worked together to try and come up with something beautiful, but it was like a canvas and six people trying to paint together. However, if you can really listen to one another and keep an open mind, it's amazing what can happen and you can build upon. Also, the chef is available to guide us and provide us with tips along the way. The final dish was too green and missing a variety of colour. Also, we were lacking in the quantity of sauce and it looked too dry overall. It's interesting as everything has to be balanced on one plate and this is a good challenge. We will be critiqued, internally in particular, on how the dish balances nutritionally (Is there too much starch?... Enough protein? ... Is there variance in cooking techniques? What about principles of macrobiotic, ayurvedic and Chinese five phase theory? We don't need to touch on all but have to give this consideration so nothing is totally out of balance), in colour (Is the plate appealing in colour? More colours? Less colours? Limited colours?), texture (is there a variety of texture such as creamy, crunchy, etc?), form (What items will be vertical? What items will be in small cups? What will remain flat? How easy will it to plate and take to the table?), and of course in taste (Is there variance and a balance of flavours? Does one flavour dominate such as salty? Do the flavours bloom or pop or are they bland?). Many things to think about! So, the next step is we practice during class hours and outside of class hours to perfect our entree and then will quickly move on to finalizing and testing the other courses. So much more to come. Stay tuned!
Well, back to the kitchens again and today was our first Friday Night Dinner practice. This meant we broke up into our Friday Night Dinner teams and started testing our entree dish. We started thinking about and planning a asian dinner theme, focusing on Indian and Japanese dishes, because of the expertise in our group with this. We have to prepare a four-course gourmet vegan meal for about 100 people on January 5.
During the first testing, we were provided with all the ingredients we asked for and then work together to try and create a dish that is balanced, colourful, varied, and delicious of course. We tried out a Japanese tempeh panko ball recipe that turned out well. We tried marinating the tempeh before in a curry bouillon but it didn't make too much difference in the end result and actually made it hard to form the balls for light flash frying then grilling. By the way, if you're going to use tempeh, we are always told to steam it or marinate it in a flavourful liquid on simmer before using to give it more flavour and depth. Then, our Indian expert came up with a beautiful curry sauce and chutney for the tempeh balls. Besides this, we tried out a stuffed okra that was too difficult to make (time and labour involved is one of the key considerations in coming up with dishes... can they be replicated easily by anyone? what's the time involved in prep? is it worth all the effort?). So, we opted for brussel sprouts with coconut sauce that was yummy. Then Yuki and I created a Japanese adapted speciality which was steamed brown sweet rice and millet with chesnut and burdock (or gobo in Japanese) that is wonderful. We roasted the chestnuts and burdock before and this gave the dish some smokiness and depth. We are going to try to add black rice at the end to this to give it more colour (another factor to consider during and after is the colour of things and how they will work alone and together, which you often can't truly imagine until you put things together), either by adding it to the mixture or layering it in round forms with the other rice, which is brown in colour. Then, some blanched broccoli rabe, which we will sautee in the next round. The final touches will be some colourful Indian and Japanese pickles, which we still have to make. So, after the dish was created, we had to plate it and could use a variety of tools such as forms and accessories such as sauces in squirt bottles, garnishes, etc. This was a challenge to do and we worked together to try and come up with something beautiful, but it was like a canvas and six people trying to paint together. However, if you can really listen to one another and keep an open mind, it's amazing what can happen and you can build upon. Also, the chef is available to guide us and provide us with tips along the way. The final dish was too green and missing a variety of colour. Also, we were lacking in the quantity of sauce and it looked too dry overall. It's interesting as everything has to be balanced on one plate and this is a good challenge. We will be critiqued, internally in particular, on how the dish balances nutritionally (Is there too much starch?... Enough protein? ... Is there variance in cooking techniques? What about principles of macrobiotic, ayurvedic and Chinese five phase theory? We don't need to touch on all but have to give this consideration so nothing is totally out of balance), in colour (Is the plate appealing in colour? More colours? Less colours? Limited colours?), texture (is there a variety of texture such as creamy, crunchy, etc?), form (What items will be vertical? What items will be in small cups? What will remain flat? How easy will it to plate and take to the table?), and of course in taste (Is there variance and a balance of flavours? Does one flavour dominate such as salty? Do the flavours bloom or pop or are they bland?). Many things to think about! So, the next step is we practice during class hours and outside of class hours to perfect our entree and then will quickly move on to finalizing and testing the other courses. So much more to come. Stay tuned!
posted by Caroline at 5:09 AM
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