I am really really excited that my spring classes have begun. I loved having break and spending time with family over the Christmas season, but it is so nice getting back to a weekly schedule! This past week was my second week in my Garde Manger (Gar- Maje') class. Basically cold food prep. Salads, cold soups, sushi, and appetizers among other things. I am excited to learn new ways to make things and present the final dish each week. This truly feeds my artistic side as well as the cooking part!
This week I made some yummy strawberry soup with cinnamon croutons.
We also learned about the uses of Chaud-froid (sha-froy) which means “hot-cold”. This sauce is applied hot and served cold. It protects a buffet item from the air. It acts as a background on which to decorate. It can complement the favor of the coated item. It usually is white because gelatin is mixed with a white sauce.
Aspic is a gelatin coating that is usually made with a clear broth or consomme' soup to coat foods and protect displayed food from the air. Each of us in the class had to make a design on a plate practicing with Chaud-froid and Aspic. At first my teammate and I forgot we each needed to do a plate so we worked together on a piece of artwork since we were both pretty artistic....
All of it is made from food. :-) We had a lot of fun putting this together.
I found out before we had to present our plates that each of us had to make one, so I went ahead and made a simple one so we had two plates!
I cut wedges out of the red onion and then separated the layers and put it back together with the edges offset to give it the look of a flower. I cut the leaves and stems out of a leek leaf. I added a carrot flower for more color contrast. I had about 15 minutes to throw it together before we had to finish!
I was sad when we had to clean up and throw these in the trash... they weren't edible. Oh well. They were so much fun to make.
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