Day 40: Cauliflower Soup, Grilled Salmon, & Madeleines

Since I’m heading to bed as I speak write, I’m going to keep Tuesday’s class recap short!  Unfortunately, I also didn’t take a lot of photos throughout the day—or good ones for that matter.  But I will try to make up for it with descriptions!

Yesterday’s appetizer was Cauliflower Soup, which was a simple soup made with leeks, cauliflower (surprise, surprise!), a small amount of potato scraps (to add some starch), a pinch of curry powder, chicken stock, and finished with a small dose of cream.  It was rich, but for being such a simple dish, very flavorful and good.  Although, I must say, the kitchen has been much hotter the last few days, so it wasn’t exactly what I felt like at the time!

Our main dish was grilled salmon served with a sauce choron, plain broccoli, and pommes rissolees.  Please excuse the incredibly blurry photo below, but I thought you might want a peek of our fancy grill marks! 

Sauce Choron is a classic sauce served with grilled salmon and is actually another derivative of Hollandaise.  So far, we have made one other derivative of Hollandaise, Bearnaise, which we served with roast beef. 

Similar to Bearnaise, Choron is hollandaise with the addition of a tarragon reduction (shallots, red wine vinegar, crushed black peppercorns, and dried/fresh tarragon).  However, it also has tomato concasse added to it as well.  We have also made concasse one other time (served with scrambled eggs) and it is simply a chunky tomato and onion sauce with no aromatics. 

Pommes Rissolees are simply tourneed potatos (which we bring just to a boil, drain, and dry thoroughly) that are sauteed in clarified butter until golden brown.

For dessert, we made simple madeleines coated in a lemon glaze.  As you can tell, this photo was taken after several had been grabbed from the plate!  Madeleines is a very simple process, but the dough needs to be chilled before they are baked to make sure the shape comes out properly in the end. 

And the recipe couldn’t be easier to remember!  4 ounces sugar, 4 ounces butter, 2 eggs, 4 ounces flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder.  To this, we added in a bit of lemon zest and vanilla. 

Once we served lunch, we headed back into the kitchen to not only trim chickens (for more stock!), but also start the process of making consomme, which we served today.  It is basically a highly fortified broth that involves a very specific, complex process.  I’ll share a lot more about it on tomorrow’s post! 

Tomorrow I have third paper due, as well as my first meeting to discuss my externship during Phase III!  Should be pretty interesting…

Until next time!