Salle Cointreau dining room
Table setting for four (Everything was prepared on the day by the students who were working as servers)
The menu for 16 & 17 April was as follows:
Bressan Menu
Appetiser: Chicken Liver Salad with Sherry Vinegar
Main Course: Roasted Chicken Supreme, with the Leg prepared Parmentier style
Dessert: Galette Bressane (Regional Buttery Pastry) served with a Dark Chocolate Cream
[It costs $25 per person for just the 3-course meal; but $32 per person for the meal with a glass of wine. The boutique bread/baguette served at the start of a meal is made in-house and is complimentary.]
Students were given an opportunity to learn how to prepare, cook and plate the food. It was exactly the same menu for both days, but the plating designs varied slightly (because the cuisiniers had two different supervising chefs on Thursday and Friday, and they had the chance to see and learn how each chef would plate the food).
Here's what the 3-courses looked like, for Day 1/Thursday and Day 2/Friday (click on photo for a larger image):
Day 1 plating of the appetiser: Chicken Liver Salad
Day 2 plating of the appetiser: Chicken Liver Salad (The garnish on top of the salad was made with pâte à choux -- I made the pâte à choux, the cuisiniers piped it in a crosshatch pattern onto a silicon mat and baked in the oven until golden brown, and it came out crispy like a pretzel)
Day 1 plating of the main course: Roasted Chicken Supreme, with the Chicken Leg prepared Parmentier style (Basically, it was a piece of beautifully-roasted chicken breast, served with vegetables and a delicious sauce. And the confit chicken leg was served with mashed potatoes in a glass, topped with a parmesan chip)
Day 2 plating of the main course: Roasted Chicken Supreme, with the Chicken Leg prepared Parmentier style (Here, the confit chicken leg was wrapped in crispy spring roll wrapper, and also served with mashed potatoes in a shot glass, topped with a parmesan chip)
Day 1 plating of the dessert: Galette Bressane with Dark Chocolate Cream (Note: the orange-coloured fruit is the physallis or ground cherry, aka cape gooseberry)
Day 2 plating of the dessert: Galette Bressane with Dark Chocolate Cream (Galette Bressane is a disc of brioche dough, topped with a sweet cream mixture, and baked until golden brown)
So, would you pay $25 for this 3-course meal?
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A classmate and I had the opportunity to work in the pastry kitchen under the supervision of Chef T, who is a really good mentor (even if he does not speak a great deal of English). Chef T was so patient with us, and he showed us a number of really good/smart techniques for doing things (those which make you think "why didn't I think of that?" when you see him doing it). He talked us through how to prepare the individual components for the dessert. We made brioche dough and a cream filling for the galette bressane, and we also made a smooth and silky dark chocolate cream to be served on the side. This dark chocolate cream was so good that even the cuisine chefs, who came over to have a look at what was going on in the pastry kitchen and were given a taste of the cream, thought it was amazing. And I have the recipe for it now. ;-)
On top of that, we had time to practise making chocolate decorations for the plated dessert. I finally got the hang of making chocolate fans using the cold marble board. Yesterday, I could not make any chocolate fans that were good enough to be served (so the failed chocolate fans were melted down and re-used), but today I was able to make quite a few nice ones. As I have always said, practice makes perfect.
I just love working with chocolate - I don't mind practising making chocolate decorations again and again because I find it quite meditative. Also, I was glad to learn how to make brioche using a large mixer -- it was so much easier than doing it by hand (which we had to do in Basic Pastry).
On Day 1 our plating design of the dessert was somewhat simple, and even then it took us quite a few minutes to present each plate; but on Day 2 we were more familiar with the routine, so we enhanced our plating design slightly and were still able to plate the dessert really quickly. Not only did we learn to plate desserts, we learnt how to work as a team in a kitchen as well.
Overall, it was a most satisfying learning experience. I felt I learnt a lot of practical skills that will help me greatly in my future career. I have to say the highlight was seeing the plated desserts go out to the patrons and then receiving compliments from them (one of the servers came back and told us some customers loved the dark chocolate cream and sent their compliments). It really felt good. This Bistro shift did my self-confidence a lot of good.
