Double Practical

I think I've turned a corner in my culinary career. We have so many practicals in International Cuisine that I don't even get nervous about them anymore. The class is split into two parts—the first week and a half was European food, and we're now into the second half, Asian cuisine. Each part has two days of practical exams, taken in groups. Chef K. is not as, shall we say, regimented as many of the other chefs at the school, so he basically gave us all an extensive mystery basket of ingredients from which to choose freely.

Last week, our first practical day required that our group of five produce a coherent four course menu: appetizer, soup, salad, and entree. On the second practical day, the chefs threw in a dessert course, bringing the total to five. Still manageable, though I was relieved when one of my group members volunteered to tackle the dessert. There were barely any parameters beyond those menu requirements, so we could be as creative as we wanted in coming up with our dishes.

I'll focus on the courses that I personally contributed to my group each day. We all pitched in with everything, helping each other to prep, taste and adjust each dish, but on both days we had each person take responsibility for one dish (two people on entree). Day one, I knew exactly what I wanted to make when I saw some mussels in the reck (kitchen speak for requisition—the food order that is delivered on a given day). I loved the mussels that I made back in Meat Fab, and although I haven't cooked mussels since, I knew I could create a good variation on that recipe.

With the ingredients provided, we decided to go with a French menu, so I cooked the mussels with shallots, garlic, white wine, parsley, and roasted tomatoes. The roasted tomatoes made the sauce really flavorful—the first thing I did when we got our products was to cut them in half, brush them with olive oil, and put them on a sheet pan to roast slowly in a low-heat oven. They stayed in there for close to an hour and came out bursting with juice and sweetness.

French-inspired moules with toasted baguette (the next best thing to frites)

The rest of our menu that day included a cream of carrot soup with dill cream, seared duck breast with cherry sauce, and a salad of roasted peppers garnished with a sauteed shrimp. We scored a 96. Chef K. claimed the mussels were so bad that he ate all of them :)

Day 2, we went with my go-to cuisine, Italian. I had an idea for the salad course and went with it—an elegant take on panzanella, a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and day-old bread that I've always loved. I saw lobster in the reck and thought that it would pair well with this refreshing, light salad.

Lobster Panzanella

In their critique, the chefs told me that this had great flavor, just too much lobster. I used the full tail for some reason and definitely agreed that this was pretty decadent for a salad in a five-course meal. Other dishes that day included a vegetable soup with lentils (awesome), ricotta-and-mushroom ravioli (not a huge success), chicken cacciatore, and zabaglione over fresh berries for dessert. Since my salad was not very time-consuming to make—mostly just knife cuts for the vegetables and whisking up a dressing—I also cooked the sides for the chicken: sauteed spinach with pine nuts and parmesan risotto.

I guess it's a good thing that I'm finally comfortable with these cooking challenges, because my biggest practical of all came last Friday when I went up to New York for an interview/test day at Food Network studios. Le Cordon Bleu requires that we complete a three-month externship in the culinary field after we finish our 12 months of classes, and while most students seek out top restaurants, I wanted to do something in the realm of food media.

The opportunity to "try out", so to speak, for an extern spot at Food Network was really cool to begin with, but later that same day I found out that I got the position! I won't go into the details of the extremely fun yet exhausting day that I spent at their studios in Chelsea—don't want to give away FN's test day secrets to my vast readership (ha, ha). I had a blast, though, and I'm pretty excited about this next step in my culinary adventure.

Next Rachael Ray? Not so much. I'll be behind the scenes, doing some editorial stuff and some hands-on prep for shows, which is exactly the happy medium I was looking for. But who knows...if you watch enough Food Network, maybe you'll catch a glimpse of me in the background sometime this fall!