Chef CP (from Production Kitchen) always likes to ask students to tell him three things they learnt in Production Kitchen after their Production Assistant shift. And I like using that as a way to reflect on what I'd learnt after a particular experience. It helps me to remember the more important things I'd learnt. Anyway, that was to explain the title of this blog post.
Today I volunteered for Bistro Bleu (short for Bistro Cordon Bleu), and was fortunate to have Chef N there to supervise the pastry section. I say that because he would patiently coach students through the steps as they do something, and that takes a great deal of pressure off the students. It works for me -- the few times he has coached me through a process, I learnt really well. I guess that's my learning style.
I truly enjoy being involved in Bistro Bleu, simply because I learn so much every time I am there. Often, I am dragged out of my comfort zone, and even though I resist at first, I am always grateful the chefs insist that I do something that I might be reluctant to do initially.
Chef N taught me an important lesson today (I know Chef CP tries to get me to do this as well, especially with bread dough): Always taste your product before you put it in the oven, even if it is raw. That way you can tell if something is not quite right before you bake it. Once you bake it, and find that something was wrong with it, it would usually be too late to fix it. And you would have wasted all that effort and time (not to mention ingredients) for nothing. Excellent point, Chef!
But here's the thing: I was asked to taste a raw egg mixture today (before it was poured over a tart and baked in the oven), and I was quite reluctant, because the thought of tasting raw eggs just did not sit well with me. Eventually, I gave in and tasted it. It (the experience) wasn't so bad. I think I'd always been afraid to taste raw eggs because I heard you could get sick from it. It was a psychological barrier, I guess.
Anyway, I'm OK with the idea of tasting raw eggs now. My comfort zone just got extended by a little bit, which is good.
That's the first important thing I learnt today. The second thing was, customers usually have certain expectations for what a product should look like (especially in terms of the colour of the product), and it is important to meet those expectations if you want them to try your product. That, for me, was rather thought-provoking. I'd been mulling over this all evening.
The third lesson was from Chef G (cuisine chef). He made me describe to the servers (my fellow students, in this case) the dessert I was serving, and questioned me on the ingredients that went into the dessert, for example, whether there were any kind of nuts in the desserts (in case some customers have nut allergies), what was Calvados made of (Chef N had asked me to add Calvados to the raw egg mixture, but I did not know what it was made of and did not think to ask)... All of Chef G's questions made me realise how much more prepared I need to be.
It isn't enough just to follow a recipe and produce a dessert according to specifications. I really have to think about the ingredients that went into the dessert, what exactly are the ingredients made of, where they come from, and what role they play in the product I make.
The more I learn about the culinary arts, the more I realise how little I know about it. A truly humbling thought indeed.
