It was all a bit fishy

Grilled Pork with Pommes Purée

Escalope de Veau à la Crème

This week's blog is not for vegetarians; it's been a fish and meat week at school. As we are increasing our skill level, the dishes we are preparing are becoming more complete (starch, vegetable, protein) and the recipes become more sophisticated. On Monday we started with grilled pork and veal escalope and finished on Friday with first filleting and then cooking fish. In the days in-between we trimmed chicken, trussed chicken, de-boned chicken, roasted a chicken and stuffed the de-boned chicken legs and breasts.

So, if you, like me, want to know all about fish and meat preparation it's been a really good week. If not, it was a hard week to get through.

Flounder, partially filleted with roe sack

Salmon skeleton

Sole Meunière

Poached Salmon with Beurre Blanc

Although to be perfectly honest, I would have to admit that preparing the chickens has been an easier task for me than filleting the fish and cleaning the fish bones. Although I have no rational explanation to why I feel this way. Perhaps we are generally less familiar with preparing whole fish; fish fillets are readily available in every supermarket whether it is pre-packed or from the fish counter. And even at a fish mongers, one would seldom buy whole fish these days.

Chicken, set up for preparation

In contrast, as a society we seem to love our chickens; whole or in pieces. Rotisserie chickens are sold in every supermarket and very popular judging by the speed with which they disappear from the warming-shelves. Pieces of chicken meat seem to be on special offer on a weekly basis. Whether the low prices, the abundance and quality of chicken available is ethically correct is a different discussion and perhaps not one for this blog (at least not for today).

The chicken is ready for roasting

Roasted chicken, breast and leg pieces

I have included a lot of pictures this week of dishes we prepared. The veal, pork and fish dishes I will need to re-create for our final Culinary Foundations II exams tomorrow (Monday) and Tuesday.
Yes, that's right. Another 6 weeks have gone by and I will be finishing my second module this week. I've been working all weekend on my book report (I've reviewed a book about the history of peanut butter, for which I have a great affinity) and on preparing ingredient lists and prep sheets for the dishes I have to cook. Which, unfortunately, has left me less time this week to dedicate to this blog. I hope you enjoy the pictures, get an appetite and I will come back to you with more elaborate stories next week. I promise.


Have a great week and happy eating.