TOURNAGE MEANS TO TURN.......

HERE I AM GUYS!!! THE NIGHT AFTER CLASS!!! I MADE IT…well I had an incentive…a picture lol.




My day did begin with two of my classmates, the head of student services and I meeting at Le Pain Quotidien for coffee. We volunteered to become student representatives for our class, so that was our first meeting just to get the order of things. The bakery was nice, I mean for what was expected at a food chain. I had a cheese almond danish and iced coffee…it held me until it was family dinner time in class. But the meeting was cool, and I love getting to know my classmates more!!



So today’s lesson ways pretty simple but yet so complex. We focused on the technique called tournage which means to turn, derives from the French verb tourner! Basically, it’s cutting a vegetable into a shape that has seven sides and blunt ends, the shape is similar to a football. This technique is a headache and a humbling experience. So I did this cutting technique on potatoes, carrots, and turnips. Guys, there is no explaining on how irritating this cut is, and it is sssoooo difficult, needless to say, I have a lot of practicing to do.



So the potatoes were used in a recipe called pommes rissolées. The potatoes are first blanched in water, than sautéed in oil, and finally roasted in the oven with butter and seasoning. So we did that today, minus the roasting part, we continued to cook the potatoes on the stove top. My partner cooked them and they were so crispy, I have to try making these again, there were delish.

The next recipe is called garniture bouquetière (a vegetable platter, usually served with meats). So we used the carrots and turnips and cooked them by using a glazing technique (water, butter, salt, sugar). They were cooked glacer à blanc, which simply means to cook to a colorless glaze. Also included in the dish were pearl onions, which were cooked glacer à brun, which means to cook the vegetable long enough so that the sugar will caramelize the vegetable and achieve a darker glaze. Also added to the dish were string beans and peas that were cooked à l’anglaise (cooked in boiling salty water, then shocked in ice water, later cooked in butter and seasoning at the time of service). Last but not least the artichoke, wonderful tasting vegetable, but the labor is ridiculous lol, especially when you just want the heart of the choke, forgetting all about the rest of the artichoke (thrown in the compost). The choke was boiled in a dans un blanc (a solution: flour, lemon, oil, water, and salt to prevent oxidation). All of this was placed wonderfully on a plate. (hope you like my plating lol)

SO GUYS ANOTHER DAY AT FCI!! I’m becoming more comfortable, and enjoying every day of it…just that my feet hurt lol!!!

*smooches and deuces*