Meats and Eats

Today, I attended the 5th (?) session of my 5-month culinary classes at the Center for Asian Culinary Studies. I arrived 20 minutes late, but as I got out of the car, I saw that most of my classmates were still loitering outside having some smokes. I went in and sat down on my usual seat in the lecture/chocolate room (right at the front) and searched for my name in the pile of attendance sheets. I saw that we were going to have meat fabrication today so I got a bit excited, as I really love meat! (Ha! This from a person who was a vegetarian for four years.)

Anyway, I was about to write the date on my sheet when I noticed that all the other dates I've written were marked 2008! How lost in time was I? *sigh!*

The session started with a lecture on beef cuts and handling by Chef Joel. Then, we were given our assignments for the day and another hectic, but extremely fulfilling culinary class commenced. My group had to prepare carpaccio with roasted garlic mayonnaise, beef wellington, yorkshire pudding, beef stew, wild mushroom demi-glace, cognac demi-glace, chateau brion (i really don't know how that's spelled), rib-eye steaks and some potato dishes (i forgot what they were. I think one of them's mashed. Hahaha!)

I had so much fun preparing the meats, especially the beef wellington, which I had to wrap in puff pastry, chicken liver pate and wild mushrooms before chucking it into the oven. I was in a blissful reverie the whole day, surrounded by the sweet, succulent smell of spiced and grilled beef. Remember that drain I talked about last entry? I think I'm out. :)

But, you know, the best part of the day was still (and always will be!) the buffet at the end, where all of us will get to eat the dishes we prepared. For us, who cooked the whole day without a second's pause, that buffet just about sums up the breakfast, lunch and in-betweens we'd lost. *sigh...* Today was pure heaven! :)

Beef Wellington with (i don't what that's called) potatoes and cognac demi-glace. (This was so much fun to make!)


Beef Carpaccio with garnishes and roasted garlic mayonnaise. (I absolutely loooooove carpaccio! A lot of people in the class were apprehensive about eating this, since it's raw meat, but it's perfectly safe. Plus, it's divinely yummy!)


I think this is the Chateau Brion (again, I don't really know how that's spelled) with Wild Mushroom demi-glace, potatoes and veggies. The meat was pan-grilled to medium-rare.


This is rib-eye steak with bearnaise sauce, button mushrooms and yorkshire pudding. Like the dish above, this was also pan-grilled to medium-rare. (We wanted to cook it in the griller, so that we could get those crossing grill marks, but it was already full and we were pressed for time. We didn't achieve that smoky flavor, but it was goood nonetheless!)

I don't have pictures of all of the dishes we made. :( But that's ok. I have about 4 more months of this, so you can expect to find a lot of posts about the sessions.

Good night! Mwah! :)