Cookin No. 23 - First cuts and more dicing

Today in class we did more prep work for tomorrow’s event. My station was in charge of dicing cucumbers and tomatoes for gazpacho. I am really getting the knack for dicing. And I am getting very comfortable with my knife; I even have a blister on my index finger, which will hopefully turn into a callous soon. After dicing tons of cucumbers and tomatoes, we moved onto roasted peppers. We cut them in half to let the steam out, and then shaving off the charred skin. It was a messy job, but a nice change from dicing.

Other stations were filling mushrooms with a stuffing made of carrots, onions and bacon. Oh it smelled so good in the kitchen. My stomach was rumbling the whole time.

After 4 hours of hard work, we cleaned up and the chef dismissed us. However some of us over zealous students stayed behind to see if we could do anything else, and that is when the chef came out with two whole salmons. He had steamed the salmons whole, with skin and everything, so the meat was cooked, but the fish was intact. He had us cut the skin away, and leave the meat in shape, so that later he will mold gelatin around the fish, and lay cucumbers on the meat so that they look like scales. I will have to take pictures of this tomorrow to show you the finished product.


That is the one hard thing about this; we don’t see the finished product right away. Cooking at home, you have to wait a little, but it’s always there. Here, we only see the raw beginning, and hope that someone took care of our hard work.

After we put the salmon away, we passed the baking section, and smelled the fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies. Our mouths were watering, but for fear of some chef’s wrath, we steered clear away. Apparently Chef Duncan was watching us, and was so impressed that we didn’t steal any cookies, he gave us some. Oh they were so good, I can’t wait until a few weeks from now, and I will learn how to make such great things. The only thing that was missing was a glass of milk.

Tomorrow, we don’t have class because of the banquet, however I will be heading into the kitchen to help finish everything up, and then I will be stationed some where in the banquet serving people. I hope I get the grill station, they roasted pork belly.

Now, I head off to study.

Bon Appetite