French-Week 9: Seafood pie!

This week we made Fruits de Mer en Croûte Nantua, which is one of my favourite dishes that we have covered in class so far. I have always been a big fan of seafood, and I find that seafood is probably the easiest thing to cook because of its inherently good taste. As long as you remember not to overcook it, you will probably get a nice dish even with little practice. Here's a great recipe for a gourmet dish that can be easily made on a busy weekday night!

Ingredients

5 oz scallop

5 oz lobster

5 oz salad shrimps (the tiny cooked ones)

1 shallot, chopped

some stems of parsley

2 oz or 60 mL Brandy

4 oz Béchamel (roughly 2 spoons)

1 sheet of Puff pastry

1 egg

salt/pepper, butter, olive oil

Method

1. heat up a pan, melt some butter to sweat the shallot, then put the shallot aside

2. add olive oil in the pan, sear the scallops quickly using high heat

3. if you have an open flame, add a splash of Brandy and flambé it. If not, just add the Brandy and let it reduce a bit

4. separate the cooked scallops and the juice by straining them, set the scallops and juice separately aside

5. repeat Step 2-4 twice for lobster meat and shrimps, separately

6. combine all the seafood, stir in some chopped parsley and Béchamel, toss them around

7. whisk the egg to make an eggwash

8. take a sheet of Puff pastry, cut it into half, place the seafood on one

9. brush the edge of the pastry with eggwash, cover it up with another half of the pastry, brush the pie surface with eggwash

10. bake at 400F until golden brown (takes about 20-25min)  

                               

                                   

*side dish: Ratatouille "Provençale", a French vegetable stew

I had some pastry leftover. So I decided to use it up by turning them into some ham/cheese pastry rolls. Use a strip of Puff pastry, lay a layer of ham, then a layer of Jarlsberg cheese, and roll it up. (Make sure that you use a type of soft cheese so that they will melt when heated) Brush the surface with eggwash, bake at 375F for 20min. 

French - Week 1: steamed mussels!

After taking Culinary Art I last semester, I signed up for 2 more classes this term, French Bistro Cooking and Italian cooking. The French class is a 10-week long course. Our teacher, Chef Klaus Mueller, is surprising not French, but German-born. He is a well travelled chef who has worked in many many countries. Unlike Culinary Art I, this course seems a lot more intimidating to me. Most students taking this class are either pursing a culinary degree or a career in the field. And then there is me, whose original intention of taking this class was that I will be guaranteed to have food to pack for lunch the next day.

Week 1.
The first class was demonstration-only. Five dishes were made by Chef Klaus: chilled Vichyssoise (cold potato/leek creamy soup), Salad Niçoise (a traditional French salad with red wine/mustard dressing), Soufflé Au Fromage, Bouillabaise avec Rouille (fish/shellfish stew), and Moulles Marinière (steamed mussels in white wine sauce). A few key points shared by the chef: salad Niçoise should be served at room temperature which makes it tastes better; soufflé needs to be served as soon as it's prepared, or the soufflé surface will collapse; don't use salmon for fish stock/stew, it's too fatty. 

My favourite dish of the night was the steamed mussels. Since I didn't get a chance to make it during class, I tried it at home the following day. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 tbs butter
1 package (usually 2 lb) PEI mussels
half onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 springs of parsley
1.5 cups of dry white wine

Methods
1. De-beard, wash and drain the mussels. Don't soak the mussels in water.
2. In a pot, melt the butter
3. Sweat the onion, add garlic, parsley, salt/pepper to taste
4. Add white wine, simmer, reduce the volume to 2/3
5. Add mussels to the pot, and cover it up to steam. The mussels are ready as soon as their shells start to open up. It takes roughly 5-8min, depending on the heat.

It was served with sour dough bread and balsamic vinegar/olive oil.