Class was a bit painful today. It involved a ton of knife work and tournage--cutting vegetables into certain football-ish shapes. My hand was seriously cramping after turning carrots, turnips, an artichoke and potatoes.
Voila! The fruits (or should I say vegetables?) of my labor. haha. Starting from the top: potatoes rissolet, carrots cocotte, turnips cocotte, pearl onions glace a brun, green beans a l'anglaise and artichoke dans un blanc with peas a l'anglaise in the center.
The best part of my day was sitting in on a demo with Jacques Torres, after class. I absolutely LOVE desserts so Jacques is one of my favorite chefs to watch. He is a wonderful teacher and has a great sense of humor. You can really tell he loves what he does. Although he is famous for great chocolates, he focused on viennoiserie, which is pastry, during the demo.
Jacques demonstrated how to make croissants so I got to taste these light, airy, flaky mounds of goodness (plain and chocolate.) Interesting fact: the lighter and airer a pastry is, the more fat it contains! Apparently fatty butter helps "lighten" it!
He also made brioche dough...then fried it, rolled in sugar and filled with vanilla creme!!!
It really did taste as good as it looks! I could have even a whole dozen of these. They were surprisingly light too.
Unfortunately, I didn't get Jacques' autograph because I didn't have his book...but I did get a picture!
did you also tell him that his hot chocolate is a little too much... haha
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