I managed an early night last night and slept well, though had extremely vivid dreams, most of which concerned food. Again. I was trying to keep all this out of my subconscious and left my order of work until breakfast. I write my order backwards since everything comes together at the end today (Pan grilled Duck Breasts with spiced lentils and caramelised apples, and sautéed potatoes). Working back from midday, I have nothing to do until 11am. I decide to spend my first hour making some chocolates and praline. Between 10am and 11am I can practice some techniques, like making béarnaise or beurre blanc.
Well, that didn’t happen. The praline took five minutes. Next I heated the cream for my ganache, and tried to find some chocolate case to fill with it. There were six, meaning I had to make some. This is a complete pain in the arse, the kind of thing no one of sound mind would ever attempt. It involves melting chocolate (we use the finest quality Valrhona) and then painting it on the inside of petit four cases which you then later peel off. Except you don’t, since they melt the minute they come in to contact with you. I press on regardless.
Back in my old job, we used to send clients specially commissioned chocolates for Christmas. They were made by a dude called Marc Demarquette, a brilliant chocolatier. One of my favourites was a salt flavoured ganache, which I decided to replicate today. I mean, how hard can it be? I also decide it would be cool to have a pepper one to go with it, so split my ganache in to two bowls to whisk up. I overdo the salt and it is disgusting. I try and bring it back by adding more raw chocolate, but I think it is beyond redemption. It dawns on me later that they were salt caramels, and that without the rich sweetness of caramel, you are basically creating a kind of chocolate saline tablet. (If anyone needs the recipe for chocolate saline tablets, you are welcome to it).
Luckily the pepper ones are a bit better. Not a lot better, but a bit. They have some promise at least. Maybe one rainy day I will embark on a chocolate and ganache experiment (with shop bought chocolate cases). Though to be honest, for all the pissing about it entails, I think I might just leave it to the experts. I chill the pepper ganache and take it away with me, cutting off little pieces to roll in crushed praline, that are fairly well received by anyone who tries them. But then everyone loves chocolate.
Nestled (or should that be nestléd) in amongst all this chocolate nonsense, I have a duck to joint. Luckily the person having the legs of my duck isn’t interested in jointing it, so I get to do the whole thing. You can literally use every single scrap of a duck. Legs off first, same way as a chicken but you leave them whole. Next the breasts, they are much bigger and the breastbone much flatter than a chicken. I take the wings off. Excess fat is trimmed off each part, and then from the carcass as a whole. This is rendered down, the skin crisps up into duck scratchings, and the fat oozes out for the most wonderful cooking liquid. I trim the carcass of any usable meat, hack at it with a cleaver and it goes in to the stockpot.
Naturally this whole sorry little enterprise has taken far longer than anyone would think possible. Suddenly it is 11am and I haven’t even started either of my dishes for the day. I have a hob issue, in that I need more of them than I have. I manage to persuade the lovely Annette that I should oven sauté my potatoes to save hob space. I forget how long it takes to peel potatoes, and so spend the first ten minutes of my hour attending to this. I blanch them on the hob before transferring them to a hot oven and a tray of fresh duck fat.
I cook my duck breasts on another hob outside the kitchen. Although I am not getting to watch them through their cooking, I spare myself being splattered with fat and having my eyes smoked out of their sockets. The lentils get going in one pan and the apples in another. Bringing the dish together is a bit of a last minute juggling act. It goes pretty well, though the apples end up being on a low heat for too long rather than a quick blast on a high one (they burnt them in demo yesterday so I’ll let myself off the hook for that one).
I am on duty serving main courses at lunch. For some reason there is hardly any food. Not only that, but there is nothing but duck on offer. Standing over the spartan plates and asking "Duck?" of everyone who approaches, I couldn't help but think of Basil Fawlty, grinning maniacally and confessing "Well if you don't like duck, you're rather stuck".
It has been an exhausting week’s cooking. I’ve kept up keeping myself busy. I need to think carefully about the extra stuff I do in the next couple of weeks and lay off the stupid pissy stuff like making chocolates. I will be in a different kitchen next week, which is always a good excuse for a change of tactic. For now, I will ponder these changes over a night in l’oiseau noir. I have absolutely nothing to do for the next two days, and I plan to do it well.
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