Culinary School Chronicles: Mastering Classic French Dishes, Duck Braising, and Expert Pork Butchery

With a crucial culinary exam looming this Thursday, a mix of excitement and apprehension fills the kitchen. Today’s session was a fantastic blend of reviewing essential techniques and diving headfirst into an array of captivating new dishes. Each creation served not only as a learning experience but also as a building block for the upcoming practical assessment, pushing us to refine our skills and embrace the intricacies of French cuisine.

The first dish on our intense culinary agenda was the elegant **Vichyssoise**. While its name suggests a certain complexity, it is, at its heart, a sophisticated cold potato and leek soup. We’ve previously tackled its warm counterpart, the classic potato and leek soup, back in Week 2. Both versions, hot and cold, are fundamental preparations and will feature prominently on our impending exam, alongside other challenging dishes.

Creating a perfect Vichyssoise is deceptively simple, yet demands precision. The delicate balance between potatoes and leeks is paramount; an incorrect ratio or overworking the potato starch during preparation can result in an undesirable, pasty texture—far from the creamy elegance one expects. When executed flawlessly, the soup achieves a velvety smoothness and a rich, subtle interplay of potato and leek flavors. The process involves gently sweating leeks, adding potatoes and stock, cooking until tender, then pureeing until impeccably smooth. Crucially, the mixture is then finely strained to achieve its signature silky consistency, followed by stirring in fresh cream. As cooling tends to mute flavors, a final adjustment of cream and salt is often necessary to ensure the chilled soup retains its vibrant taste and luxurious mouthfeel. This particular batch was exceptionally good, albeit quite rich, a testament to the quality ingredients and careful technique.

Continuing our exciting **duck week** theme, we moved on to a succulent braised duck leg served with a vibrant cabbage mixture. Accompanying these rich duck legs were **pommes darphin**, another dish designated for our upcoming practical exam. Pommes Darphin are essentially elegant potato pancakes, characterized by their exquisite crispy texture achieved through finely julienned potatoes, pan-fried to a golden perfection, forming a delicate lacy crust with a tender interior. This technique showcases fundamental knife skills and temperature control, making it a perfect exam component.

Our braised duck leg preparation mirrored many of the stewing techniques we’ve mastered in Phase I. The process began with meticulously searing the duck legs to achieve a deep, flavorful crust, rendering some of the fat. The pan was then deglazed with a classic mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery) and white wine, building a complex flavor base. Various aromatic herbs and spices were introduced before finally adding rich veal stock, ensuring the duck would braise in a luscious, savory liquid. The seared duck legs were returned to this flavorful sauce and transferred to the oven, where they slow-cooked for approximately two hours. This prolonged, gentle heat allowed the meat to break down beautifully, resulting in exceptionally tender, fall-off-the-bone duck. The accompanying cabbage mixture was a delightful counterpoint, crafted from crispy bacon, sweet onions, shredded cabbage, carrots, and tart apples. A splash of apple cider vinegar was added at the end, providing a bright, acidic tang that cut through the richness of the duck and harmonized all the flavors. I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed this unexpected pairing; it was a perfect complement to the savory duck.

For our grand finale, dessert, we embarked on the notoriously challenging yet immensely rewarding journey of making **Grand Marnier Soufflé**. This marked our very first foray into the world of soufflés, a dish renowned for its delicate technique and precise timing, demanding to be baked and served immediately. The fundamental steps involve creating a rich béchamel sauce as the base, into which sugar and egg yolks are carefully whisked. The true magic, however, happens just before baking, when meticulously whipped egg whites are gently folded into the base. This aeration is what gives the soufflé its characteristic light, airy texture and impressive rise. While the soufflé pictured above, masterfully crafted by Chef Somchet, undoubtedly surpassed our first attempts, it was an invaluable learning experience. Soufflés, in their various savory and sweet forms (spinach, cheese, chocolate, etc.), will be a recurring theme in our future lessons, providing ample opportunities to perfect this sophisticated technique and achieve that quintessential gravity-defying rise.

We served our delicate soufflés alongside a gourmet assortment of almond, pistachio, and cranberry **biscotti**. As someone who generally doesn’t gravitate towards excessively crispy cookies, I approached them with cautious optimism. However, these particular biscotti proved to be an exception. Their robust crunch, combined with the delightful nutty notes of almond and pistachio, and the tart burst of cranberries, created a surprisingly enjoyable texture and flavor profile. They were, without a doubt, some of the finest biscotti I’ve ever tasted, offering a welcome contrast to the ethereal soufflé.

As is customary for our Tuesdays, the day concluded with another insightful meat lecture, this time focusing intensely on **PORK**. Chef Francois, the esteemed director of our culinary program, consistently leads these captivating demonstrations. Today, he meticulously broke down an entire side of pork, transforming a large primal cut into various familiar and precise retail cuts. Butchery, as he illustrates, is truly an art form—a fascinating blend of anatomical knowledge, precise knife skills, and an understanding of how each cut will be best utilized in cooking. For someone like myself, who entered the program with limited prior knowledge of extensive meat fabrication, these lectures are particularly enlightening and inspiring.

During the lecture, Chef Francois expertly separated and trimmed several pieces into classic cuts. We observed the precise steps for obtaining a boneless pork loin, various styles of pork chops (including Frenched, where the bone is meticulously cleaned for an elegant presentation, and non-Frenched for a simpler preparation), a hearty pork roast, the prized tenderloin, and other specialized cuts. He even demonstrated how to achieve cuts resembling T-Bone or Porterhouse from specific sections, although my mind is drawing a blank on the exact nomenclature at this very moment due to the sheer volume of information absorbed throughout the day. The clarity and precision of his instruction made a complex process seem accessible, highlighting the importance of understanding the animal from nose to tail.

Overall, it was an exceptionally productive and rewarding day in the kitchen, with remarkably few setbacks. I even managed to squeeze in a workout by tackling the monumental task of cleaning out the stock pot once again! It had been a while since my last encounter with that particular chore, but the familiar routine quickly returned. Now, with the day’s culinary explorations complete and the kitchen tidied, I am off to immerse myself in more studying before finally calling it a night.

Stay tuned in a few days for exciting updates on tomorrow’s class, reflections on my second practical exam, and much more from my ongoing culinary journey!