We had a feeling when Adolf said, "You'll have to wait and see." in response to my question, "What are we doing tomorrow, Chef?". We figured it had to be a practical. It was.
Today we were to make Green Beans w/ Roasted Red Peppers on Rice Pilaf and Eggs Benedict sub english muffin for Roesti Potato. Those two dishes covered everything we'd learned thus far, but pasta. He was kind to us and gave us two hours. That was a huge relief, that would enable us to basically work on one dish at a time. The only thing I was worried about was the Pilaf. In our practice session my Pilaf was horrible and I didn't turn it in for a critique. It was the first time I didn't turn something in. So I wasn't sure what it was really supposed to be like. No use worrying about it. Here we go....
No real issues during the preparation process. I was a bit jittery and kept forgetting simple little things. I guess it was test anxiety kicking in. Additionally, with everyone doing everything on their own our table was very crowded and there were a TON of dishes piling up. That was a source of a bit of frustration. My new, and now permanent, table-mates didn't want to take the time to do dishes or clean during the test so things just piled up and there was very little work space. Yuck!!!
I started with the green beans and rice. I had done the green beans first in the Monday night class, there were some differences between the procedure instructions between the two classes. I did my best to get on board with this class as these were the instructors that were grading me. On the rice, I miss read the white board. I thought Adolf had written 1/2 of the entire recipe, when he actually meant 1/2 cup of rice (I didn't see the c. after the 1/2), but I caught it in time and added enough liquid before placing it in the oven.
Eggs Benedict procedure was great, my Hollendaise got a bit cool so I changed out my water in the double boiler to warm it back up. Otherwise smooth sailing.
Result:
1) Overall, good presentation.Very nice green beans, bacon not crispy enough (Chef Kim had told me it was too crispy the first time). More seasoning in general. 4/5
Rice, was not done. Good flavor, but some grains were tough. 2.5/5 (ouch!)
2) Eggs Benedict, nice presentation. Roesti could have been a bit larger in diameter in order to be seen a bit better. Nice flavor, perfectly poached egg. 4.5/5
84%, not bad, and on par with my other peeps in the class. So I'm happy with the result. We'll see how the written test goes on Friday.
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| Green Beans w/ Rice Pilaf |
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| Eggs Benedict w/ Roesti Potatoes |
way to go!
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