Day 19

So today was Fish plate day. This is where our day revolves around making two fish centered plates. First up was John Dory over rice pilaf with a saffron mussel cream sauce. The mussels we got were great. Not the biggest or plumpest (sp?) but very clean and few duds. We washed them and steamed them to make the sauce.
After that the meat gets separated from the shells and the shells discarded (save 3 or so for garnish). The cooking liquid (shallot and white wine) gets simmered with cream and saffron and whole mussels for about 10 minutes. The whole deal goes into the blender and we then added roux to thicken and held the sauce while finishing the dish. We had a rice pilaf that we started on the stove and finished in the oven. I have made this recipe before from a french cookbook and its basically the same. You sweat an onion in butter, add rice, add stock, simmer, cover and bake for about 20 minutes. The rice:stock ratio is 1:2. Its pretty easy. Any long grain white rice seems to work. Today we used converted which I cannot stand so I will be trying my luck with every other long grain varietal out there just to be smug. We then sauteed the john dory quickly over high heat and plated over a circle of rice.

You cannot see the rice in my picture because its under the fish that took up a lot of space. Those are shelled mussels around in the sauce. It was really pretty in person, but a little jaundiced for my taste. We devoured it for lunch. Next dish was roasted monkfish over duxelles with clam, bacon, and thyme sauce. Duxelles is just shallots sweated in butter and then a bunch of chopped mushrooms added and sauteed and finished with a shot of cream. Its real easy. And maybe my new favorite plate accessory. It was delicious. That just hung out while we made sauce. We started by frying a chopped up piece of bacon then adding onion and thyme. After that we added clam juice and fish stock (fumet) and simmered for like 5 minutes. Cream is of course necessary and then roux is added to thicken. And then the whole thing gets strained (chinoised) and checked for salt and pepper. It does not need much salt since the clam juice is all salt. So sauce is done and mushrooms is done and was my fish roasting in the oven yet? No. Chef made sure that I realized that. I should have let my sauce wait to be strained and gotten my fish in the oven. So then I began my crust of pepper, thyme, parsley, and salt. I rolled the monkfish loin in there and sent it into a super hot small frypan to sear.
Oh. I guess you get to turn your head for this one too. So after flipping it onto its 2nd side I put it in the oven for abut 10-12 min before checking it with a toothpick to feel its resistance. I can't lie. It was done perfectly.
Why do some turn and some don't? If anyone could tell me that would be AMAZING. So the mushrooms get shaped with a ring mold and then sauced around the edge and then meat stacked and flashed in the oven. Add garnish at the end and done.
Chef said that mine was a perfect plate (for him, obviously). The sauce consistency was right, everything was hot (this is not as easy as it might sound), and the protein was cooked correctly. A successful school day, indeed.

Tomorrow: we are prepping for a catering that our class is doing on Saturday. Its a beerfest/charity event and I guess we will cook and then get to drink beer. Cheers, yo!