Le Deuxieme Atelier

So, I left you at "Finesse"

Let's pick up with this Atelier's guidelines:

The Must-Use Ingredients:

1 Sea Bass
1 Veal Tenderloin
250g Spinach
1/4 bunch Green Asparagus
4 Mini Turnips
4 Poivrade Artichokes


So, as you can see, much less than the amount of Musts for the first Atelier.

Other ingredients included: 4 slices of pancetta, 30g ginger, 2 lemons, 4 cherry tomatoes, 1 leek, 1 carrot, 1 onion, 2 shallots, 1/2 head of garlic, tarragon, basil, parsley, veal stock, chicken stock, white and red wines, Vermouth, Port, spices, rice, soy sauce, phyllo, gelatin, pistachios.

The guidelines:

1. A warm entree
2. There must be a julienne on the entree
3. The veal tenderloin must be stuffed
4. The main must have a sauce or jus
5. The garnishes: 1 dough based garnish for a vegetable, 1 good puree, 1 vegetable glazed brown

The same no-nos still applied that I listed for the first Atelier.

My menu:
Entree: Sea bass in two ways- poached and seared with a spinach puree and julienne pancetta.

First, I fileted the fish, using the bones to make a stock. I also confit garlic which I added to the finished and strained stock. I reduced that down together to make my poaching liquid, which I poached part of the fish in and then reduced down adding whipped cream at the last minute. I julienned the pancetta and dried it in the oven (looking back, it would have probably been nicer to just sweat it at the last minute on the stove top). I sauteed shallots, carrot, and pistachios- deglazed with vermouth and puree-d that with quickly sauteed spinach. At the last minute, I pan seared part of the fish.

(This is a terrible picture, but you get the idea)

The Chef's comments:

Well, this is kinda different. So, I planned my menu out with the idea in mind that we would have one of the three chef's in charge of the course at the atelier. Something must of happened because we got the young, Japanese chef, who only works at the school occasionally. While a nice guy, amazing chef, and great teacher, he is also young and super modern. Not what I was expecting.

I was hoping to show the chef that I could improve and really plate with "finesse." To do this, I kept it simple and focused on doing it well. Instead, I got told that everything was boring and too simple.

My fish was also like a minute over-cooked and he thought there was too much spinach puree on the plate. However, he did tell me a better way to pan-fry the fish, which ensures perfect cooking.

Now the Main:

Veal tenderloin stuffed with lemon/basil rice and green asparagus, turnip puree with candied lemon peel, artichokes glazed brown, and basil crepes stuffed with confit shallots and asparagus tips.

Chef's comments:

Well, first, the meat is over-cooked on one side and under-cooked on the other. Great. But, it's because I didn't rotate the meat every 5-6 minutes- something I will never forget to do again! The artichokes needed to be glazed more brown, and my puree came out too liquidy, so I had to dry it out which made it too salty and therefore really bizarre with sweet lemon peel. No problems at all with my crepes.

However, it was all BORING and too SIMPLE. 

Oh well.

In the end, I learned quite a bit and can only keep getting better from here. Hopefully for the next Atelier, aka THE FINAL, I will be able to intertwine finesse with NOT boring/simple and perfectly cooked meat.

Here's to hoping!