Culinary School: Quiches, Rabbit, Macarons and No-Knead Bread
This week in culinary school I cooked rabbit leg, baked quiches, made no-knead bread and assembled macarons. Busy week considering we also had our first iron-chef style practical exam.
This week we broke down a rabbit and cooked a rabbit leg with pan sauce, spring peas, baby carrots and purple fingerling potatoes.
Rabbit Hindquarters: rabbit leg seared and then simmered for 45m with wine and chicken stock until tender. Reducing the pan sauce and later enriching with cream & mustard.
Potatoes: The fingerling potatoes were simmered in water until just tender and then we peeled off the top layer of potato skin.
Carrots: cleaned out dirt with a pairing knife, cut in half and butter poached.
Everyone at class made a few quiches so we ended up with an abundance of quiches. We made the traditional quiche lorraine (bacon, caramelized onions and gruyere cheese) but also went off and made a bunch of other great flavour combinations like pesto quiche, cherry quiche and others.
Quiche Zen: Make pie shell from pâte brisée and prebake at 375°f. Line shell with any “toppings” and pour over a mixture of eggs, milk and cream. Bake at 450°f for 10m and then 375°f for 15m. A quiche is pretty much anything baked with that mixture until firm.
This zucchini salad was so good it deserves an honorable mention so I never forget it. It’s mostly julienned zucchini, mixed in with toasted almonds, peperino cheese, chiffonaded mint and chilli flakes.
I made two loafs of Jim Lahey’s No-Knead bread following Stephanie’s instructions.
To make this bread I just combined AP flour, water, active dry yeast & salt and let it ferment for 18–24 hours. One loaf was fermented for 18 hours and the other for 24 hours. Both loafs had great complex flavours akin to sourdough.
This week I also took a Macarons recreational class at our school.
How to make macarons:
1. In sauce pan add 1:4 ratio of water:sugar until 118°C.
2. Drizzle pot #1 into aged egg whites and beat to soft peaks.
3. Vitamix almond flour and powdered sugar. Combine (but don’t mix) with egg whites and food coloring.
4. Fold bowl #2 into bowl #3 until deflated. Transfer back to kitchenaid and beat for 2m (until stiff peaks?).
5. Pipe into parchment paper that’s illustrated with circles to contain macarons.
6. Bake for 12m interrupting bake at 4m and 8m to open the oven door and close.
7. Make filling and assemble.
This week in Culinary School we also had our first practical and written exam. The practical test is pretty much Iron Chef but much easier and more enjoyable. By the end of it I went “That was fun! let’s do it again!”.
As part of the practical test we’re speed tested on cutting onions, celery and carrots.
Read more about my experiences in culinary school by reading about last week’s classes:
