You’ve Got to Be Kidding Me

Phase 2, Week 1, Day 4

We opened up today with a lecture on time management. Apparently everyone was not able to complete all 5 sauces from the day before. Therefore Adolph stressed the importance of mulit-tasking, preparation, planning a head, and Mise En Place. We then discussed secondary sauces made from a Demi-Glace or Demi. Demi is classically derived from Espagnole (a mother sauce) and brown stock reduced by half. Modernly, it is just brown stock reduced by half. The sauces we will make with Demi in class will be Sauce Robert, Merchand de Vin, and Sauce Chesseur.  Similarly to yesterday we will be responsible for making the Demi and the three sauces derived from it.

The twist? Our half of the class was assigned to make Classical Demi. Which meant we had to make Espagnole first, then add the Brown Stock, and then reduce by half. Espagnole sauce requires a two hour simmering point. Let’s do the math…. We have 2.5 hours of class left. It takes two hours for the Espagnole. That leaves us with 30 minutes to reduce the Espagnole and Brown Stock and make three secondary sauces. Huh, what was he saying about time management?

We pointed out this little issue to both Chef Instructors privately. Ava referred to Adolph, and he said we’d have time. So….we continued to prep for our sauces we’d never make (see picture below).  The amount of waste made me a bit sad to be honest.

With one hour left in class Adolph told us to move a long with our Espagnole and add our Brown Stock. We let it reduce for 30 minutes. The other side of the room had reduced theirs for one hour. With about 35 minutes left in class to cook and clean!!! We rushed through our three sauces. In some cases cooking them all at the same time. I just got to two of them, Sauce Robert and Merchand de Vin. Cleaning as you go definitely helps but you can only do so much in a certain time frame. Needless to say my half of the room was P.O.ed by the end of the day. I haven’t been so mad/frustrated in a long time. Today was definitely an exercise in POOR time management , and not on our part.

Ingredients waiting to be used